15 People Share The Single Phrases That Annoy Them the Most

If you’ve spent any amount of time speaking the English language, you probably have a roster of annoying phrases that tend to drive you insane. These often irritating expressions are sprinkled throughout our daily vocabulary, and we usually say them without really thinking about it. For all the annoying phrases that we hear from others, we’re probably–maybe even unknowingly–uttering some ourselves.

People’s speech habits can say a lot about them. They might be repeating a phrase they think makes them look cool, calm, or collected. A certain phrase may be part of their internal narrative, appearing to show their altruistic or heroic side. Alternatively, they could just be imitating annoying phrases that the rest of society regularly uses–so why not say them, too?

Thanks to the Reddit community, people are sharing their mutual hatred of common English idioms and all they imply. You’re likely to find more than a few things on this list that make you cringe; you also might be guilty of saying them yourself. Here are 15 of the single most annoying phrases that people just can’t stand. (1)

1. “Positive vibes only.”

“Please give me your superhuman immunity to criticism.”

2. “Calm down.”

“As someone who struggles with anxiety, this is just as helpful as telling an asthmatic to ‘Just breathe!'”

3. “Just saying.”

“Usually following something rude and/or offensive.”

4. “It is what it is.”

“Mostly, people use it as a cop-out to refuse to address problems they absolutely could do something about. And that’s why it’s awful.”

5. “I know, right?!”

“Are you asking me if what you know is right, or am I right for knowing?”

6. “Literally.”

“I’m, like, literally freezing to death. Can we turn up the thermostat? Nope, because you’re figuratively freezing to death. Suffer until you learn!”

7. “Live. Laugh. Love.”

“I personally don’t really understand this anyway. It seems to be advice, like ‘go do this for success.’ ‘Laugh’ and ‘Love’ as verbs one should do make sense to me, I ought to do those to make my life better. But ‘Live’? Isn’t that one obvious? Why does that need to be included in the list of actionable things I should do? I don’t need to try to live, it’s my default state.”

8. “Not gonna lie.”

“It’s basically saying ‘I’m not honest 100% of the time, but I’m about to be honest here.'”

9. “I’m not like most girls.”

“More often it’s, ‘I want to stand out, but I’m not standing out so I need to tell people I stand out.’ It’s kinda like that saying, ‘if you need to tell people you’re cool, you’re not cool.'”

10. “Okay, Karen.”

“Yeah, basically code for ‘I don’t like middle-aged women.'”

11. “I could care less.”

“So you’re really passionate about this, then? Or do you mean that you couldn’t care less, but thought that getting the phrase 100% backward would be cooler or save you some time?”