Here’s a couple of turns of phrase that always bug me and I seem to
only run across online. First is “For some values of _____”. This
seems to be common in Usenet posts, exchanges like “Bob Writer is
really good” rebutted by “For some values of good”. What a load of
crap. Can there be a more annoying way of expressing the obvious
realization that many of us differ in opinions.
Another is the term “non-starter”. Maybe my aversion to this term came
from the fact that I had it used against me in many an argument over
the viability of e-books, which is the first time I can recall seeing
it in a way that jumped out at me. I remember a lot of assertions like
“If you lose a device you’ve lost your whole library and that is a
non-starter.” It’s a pretty bald and absolute term, and because of
that it is frequently wrong. This is just me, but both these terms
make my skin crawl.