Phrases that annoy you the most

[lowdrag]

As someone who lives in France it is so embarrassing to be in a bar and a bunch of English are talking scathingly about the French, thinking all the time that no one understands what they are saying. And it is amazing how they zip it when I suddenly switch languages and criticize their attitude.

Last month I took two English friends to a local restaurant. The waitress did not speak English but immediately returned with the English menu, and the owner came over and chatted to them in English too. And the food there is extremely good and not expensive either.

[lowdrag]

Has anyone said "keep your pecker up" to an American to tryi and raise his morale?

[lowdrag]

snuffy said:

What is so special about purveyors of sausages ?

Have you tasted them? My local butcher (here in France) makes the best sausages and steak and kidney pies I have tasted for 30 years. Whereas Walls sausages are what they say - bricks. No, mine is definitely a purveyor.

[lowdrag]

LR90 said:

Yup, one of the many journalistic cliches that makes me irrationally angry.

See also:
“The interior is a nice place to be”
“Everything falls easily to hand”
“Drop a cog”
“Teutonic reliability”
“Pedalling”

I could go on, but I’m not sure anyone really wants that.

The trouble is that as a "muttering rotter" as was used to be said I have been present when many such comments were written in articles. The trouble is that none of it happened. This was written in a senior magazine.about his "driving" the prototype 1952 D-type.

"I'm jolted out of it as I traverse my only significant bump at speed. The torsion bars do The Twist, the dampers go soggy and the lumbering rear axle comes alive. The D-type darts left than right - or was it right and left? before realigning itself. Hmm, add another 50 mph and 23 hours and 40 minutes...But winning in it there was no gimme, as 1954 proved". And so it continues.


The only problem with this is that I was present, I drove the tow car for the photographer because the journalists had not the right to the keys so we had to attach a tow rope and we never exceeded 30 mph around the Bugatti circuit at Le Mans. The only time I can proudly say that over three laps a D-type did not manage to overtake in my Toyota Previa at Le Mans.They airbrushed out the tow rope of course.

I've other examples and they are all the same. I have stopped writing for magazines now because the pay - if any - is dreadful and my articles are not a work of fiction. They pay better. My last one was 10 pages long disclosing the loss of over £50 million at Jaguar Classic and all I got a nice pat on the back.

Edited by lowdrag on Saturday 17th February 04:37