The most annoying expressions...

An old lady at a church fête told me the other day, "you'll have to learn to say toMAHto now." Ha!

It must be exhuasting to be "annoyed" by such silly things as the pronunciation of a breakfast pastry and a cut of meat.   

Indeed, but this thread isn't "Expressions that elicit neither a positive or negative reaction."

An old lady at a church fête told me the other day, "you'll have to learn to say toMAHto now." Ha!

Well, we *know* how to say it that way, but it just *feels* wrong to say it that way!

An expression that annoys me is (I think it's Northern) 'an aww' or it could sound more like 'an awt', which I think translates to 'and everything'.  One of our young volunteers seems to tack that on to the end of almost every sentence.    I had no idea what she was saying at first.

Sort of the flip side of this topic, bbc website just published "Why do some Americanisms irritate people" just published yesterday (unsure if it's ok to put links in...search Americanism on the site). Interesting.

I'm looking forward to the follow up list they publish!

I think I'm more annoyed by 'Americanisms' than anything else! Try not to pick them up 

I have never heard any British person call email - epost?

No, that's the point. In the UK the word for mail is post, but when e-mail came along it stayed e-mail rather than e-post.

An expression that annoys me is (I think it's Northern) 'an aww' or it could sound more like 'an awt', which I think translates to 'and everything'.  One of our young volunteers seems to tack that on to the end of almost every sentence.    I had no idea what she was saying at first.

I've not heard that one but along the same lines I find "and such", "and the like", "and what not", "and some such", tacked onto the end of a phrase or sentence annoying.  I feel it's then left to me to work out what "such", " the like", "what not" or "some such" actually are.

An expression that annoys me is (I think it's Northern) 'an aww' or it could sound more like 'an awt', which I think translates to 'and everything'.  One of our young volunteers seems to tack that on to the end of almost every sentence.    I had no idea what she was saying at first.

I think that one's just a sort of vernacular automatic modifier. Kinda like the use of "like" here (e.g. "So I went like crazy over that")

I think that one's just a sort of vernacular automatic modifier. Kinda like the use of "like" here (e.g. "So I went like crazy over that")

Could be.  Still very annoying, especially the way it's pronounced. 

Could be.  Still very annoying, especially the way it's pronounced.  

That's Yorkshire for ya!  
Think my husband's family (Midlands) used that expression but not pronounced like that!

An expression that annoys me is (I think it's Northern) 'an aww' or it could sound more like 'an awt', which I think translates to 'and everything'.

Sounds like Yorkshire dialect "owt" which means "anything" or "everything" - its opposite is "nowt" which means "nothing". Another word "summat" (something) is still used in the US Appalachians.

In the UK the word for mail is post

In the UK, a word for mail is post. Another word for mail is mail, which is why we have Royal Mail.

bbc website just published "Why do some Americanisms irritate people" just published yesterday (unsure if it's ok to put links in...search Americanism on the site). Interesting.

I'm looking forward to the follow up list they publish!

I thinks links are encouraged...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/14130942

I think short quotes are OK too...

Ugly and pointless new usages appear in the media and drift into everyday conversation:

    Faze, as in "it doesn't faze me"
    Hospitalize, which really is a vile word
    Wrench for spanner
    Elevator for lift
    Rookies for newcomers, who seem to have flown here via the sports pages.
    Guy, less and less the centrepiece of the ancient British festival of 5 November - or, as it will soon be known, 11/5. Now someone of either gender.
    And, starting to creep in, such horrors as ouster, the process of firing someone, and outage, meaning a power cut. I always read that as outrage. And it is just that.

Sounds like Yorkshire dialect "owt" which means "anything" or "everything" - its opposite is "nowt" which means "nothing". Another word "summat" (something) is still used in the US Appalachians.

I thought it was spelt "aught"? As a noun it means "zero" and a pronoun it means "anything"