Phrases That Make You Cringe

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SilverBear

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rico942

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"Long pole in the tent" ... :mad:

This was the favorite semantically null expression of a former engineering supervisor with a mail-order PhD and a neutronium skull ... :confused:

It was a way to acknowledge a problem without having any clue regarding a solution ... o_O

This guy would latch on to a new word with the tenacity of a pit bull. For weeks he would insert a word like "artifact" into every (incomplete) sentence, using it as a noun, a verb, an adjective, an adverb, and sometimes a pronoun ... :blink:

Although his most frequent articulation was "Uhhhhhhhhhhh", while waiting for the stray neurons to connect ... :rolleyes:
 

Racehorse

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Any cliches that people use on the internet (and which will EARN you a post deletion, or worse, laughed off, any *serious* science forum) would have to include this favorite: Correlation does not imply causation.

It's become so bad, (cliche-wise), being used by non-statisticians and non-scientists, that it is considered the domain of the "internet blowhard" who posts it simply to end all discussion..

It's considered the new and improved "invoking Godwin's Law" phrase. :lol:

(especially annoying to any ex smoker, as we all know Big tobacco relied on dismissing correlational evidence to reject all links between tobacco and lung problems and diseases).

The guys on science forums and blogs really are pretty funny about talking about it .... scathingly, actually.
 
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