There are two phrases I think people should stop using:

“Well, tell us how you really feel!”

and

“Sounds like a personal problem to me!”

These two phrases are not only not funny, but they’re also totally brainless.  They’re my version of “looks like someone’s got a case of the Mondays!”  Seriously.  Say these to me and you’ll get a verbal ass-kicking.

“Well, tell us how you really feel!” is stupid because I just fucking did, asshole.  You know I did and yet you’re implying that maybe I shouldn’t have, because, I don’t know, it’s bad?  To say what you really feel?  Would you rather me tell lies and mutter insignificant crap all day long because how I really feel is too much for your delicate ears?  Or are you trying to be funny and failing at it, because it’s not a joke, it’s weak, and there’s no clever or even at all meaningful response to it other than, “Uh, okay, I thought I did.”

“Sounds like a personal problem to me!”  Hey, you’re fucking hilarious!  By intimating that my probably legitimate displeasure in something is the result of some loose moral structure and/or unstabilized SSRI prescription, you’ve totally discounted everything I’ve just said!  What a good friend you are!  Again, you’re trying to be funny and failing at it.  This isn’t humorous.  If you can only think of shitty, unoriginal things to say, don’t say anything at all.

While I was typing angrily, I thought of two more phrases everyone should stop saying immediately and forever:

“To be perfectly honest…”  Wow, thank you for clearing that up for me.  Here I was expecting you to lie, or maybe to be imperfectly honest.  What kind of qualifier is this?  Why would anyone need to say this at any time, ever?  This is weak speech and bad writing.  If someone says this on a regular basis, they should go to prison.

“In all actuality…” or “In all reality…”  WHAT IN THE FUCK.  What does this even mean?!?! What sort of plane of existence are these people talking about?  How can anything be “in all actuality” at all? What the fuck is actuality?  And is it possible for something to be in all unreality?  What kind of idiots start sentences like this?

WHY do these phrases exist?  I’m not being impossible here; for example, I am fine with people saying “irregardless.”  Despite what some Word Nazis tell you, it is in the dictionary.  I’m also fine with some forms of redundancy.  Spoken, not written, because if you’re writing something, I assume you had the chance to edit and chose to just vomit all over the page, irregardless of what your reader(s) would think.  The point is that despite some appearances, I concede to a wide range of expressions.  I think a lot of points should be given to style, even when the style is technically incorrect.  But stupid is stupid, and I’d appreciate if everyone would just stop.

(Lastly, please stop writing “alot.”  It’s not a word.  Nope, never.  And it makes me think of this.)

(If you’re not reading Hyperbole and a Half, I’m not sure we should be speaking.  I like it a lot.)