Oxford compiles top 10 irritating phrases

Researchers have recently compiled a list of the most irritating phrases - Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported. Heading the list was the expression ‘at the end of the day’ which was followed by the phrase ‘fairly unique’. In third place was ‘I personally’. This expression BBC Radio 4 presenter John Humphries has described as “the linguistic equivalent of having chips with rice.” Also making the top ten is the grammatically incorrect ‘shouldn’t of’, instead of “shouldn’t have”. These phrases appear in a new book called Damp Squid, named after the mistake of confusing a squid with a squib, a type of firework. The phrases were compiled by researchers onto a database called the Oxford University Corpus, which comprises papers, magazines, books, broadcast material, the internet and other sources. The database alerts them to new words and phrases. It can also tell them which expressions are disappearing. In addition it shows how words are being misused.

Category: English language / English / Phrases

Download full lesson for FREE