# Words and Phrases that have lost all meaning due to constant misuse



## NARPASSWORD (Oct 17, 2018)

We've all seen this before. People start using words without even really knowing what the words even mean, eventually it gets misused by people that only heard the word in a way that it doesn't mean, and then the word itself becomes so overused that it now practically means nothing.

The most obvious ones I can think of right now are "irony", "epic", and the worst offender of all,  "literally", but there are others.

So, besides the three words that I just mentioned, what are some of the most misused words you can think of?


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## From The Uncanny Valley (Oct 17, 2018)

Supremacy


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## Rand /pol/ (Oct 17, 2018)

Liberal


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## RG 448 (Oct 17, 2018)

“Nazi”, “fascist”, “table”, and “consent” all come to mind as terms/ideas that no longer mean anything to me.


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## LordofTendons (Oct 17, 2018)

Rape


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## Box of Shame (Oct 17, 2018)

Amazing
Safe
Oppressed


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## QB 290 (Oct 17, 2018)

within internet circles; the nigger word


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## Purple Stuff (Oct 17, 2018)

tumblr idiots have called too many things they don't like pedophilia. and other words too but i can't remember them right now. stop abusing serious terms until they lose their meaning goddamit


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## ForgedBlades (Oct 17, 2018)




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## I Exist (Oct 17, 2018)

I'm hoping 'gay' counts as it once was a synonym for happy or gleeful awhile ago.
Now it's slang for homosexual obviously.


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## BILLY MAYS (Oct 17, 2018)

-fag words


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## Neet Tokusatsu (Oct 17, 2018)

There is a lot of words that don't hold any real meaning anymore, "racist", "sexist", "PTSD",  but if i have to choose, it would be "Harassment" you can tell when someone is new on the internet and/or never leaves their echo chambers on social media when they use that word when someone else doesn't agree with their opinion

> I have an opinion!
> I don't agree with your opinion
> Stop harassing me you Nazi!


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## Boxy Brown (Oct 17, 2018)

Degenerate, cuck, soy


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## GV 998 (Oct 17, 2018)

"problematic"

Honestly, upon seeing the word, I just roll my eyes. Even to the point when I see the word used in some text that was made BEFORE ultra PC crowd made it their buzz word for anything that made them uncomfortable


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## Eryngium (Oct 17, 2018)

Literal


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## DonaldChump (Oct 17, 2018)

Purple Stuff said:


> tumblr idiots have called too many things they don't like pedophilia.


I dunno dd/lg is pretty fucked up, any grown man who wants to "pretend" to dominate a "little girl"--I mean you may as well pull the lolicon defense.


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## Some JERK (Oct 17, 2018)

Brave.


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## Draza (Oct 17, 2018)

Educated.


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## PantsFreeZone (Oct 17, 2018)

Hero.
Treason.
Illegal.
Immigrant. Immigration.
Hitler.
Socialism. Fascism. Far-Right. Right. Centrist. Moderate.


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## Canned Bread (Oct 17, 2018)

Weeen and A-Log


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## Black Waltz (Oct 17, 2018)

Purple Stuff said:


> tumblr idiots have called too many things they don't like pedophilia. and other words too but i can't remember them right now. stop abusing serious terms until they lose their meaning goddamit


Which is weird, seeing how they endorse pedo rights.


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## BoingBoingBoi (Oct 17, 2018)

not a word but the phrase "begs the question" is almost always misused. usually people mean "raises the question." to "beg the question" means to offer a circular answer to an existing question, not to raise a new question.


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## Nazi vegeta (Oct 17, 2018)

nigga nigga yo.


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## Fascist Frederick (Oct 17, 2018)

-gate. Anytime something happens it's something-gate. A games journalist gets a blow job? Gamer-gate. Trump gives some ladies an alternative handshake? Pussy-gate. Comic book faggotry? Comics-gate. I drop my beer? Spill-gate. Someone rear ends me in traffic? Whiplash-gate. We just need someone to get stuck in a gate or something and we'll have Gate-gate.


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## oldTireWater (Oct 17, 2018)

Freedom


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## Ilackcreativity (Oct 17, 2018)

social justice warrior


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## Apteryx Owenii (Oct 17, 2018)

-We3n
-literally (I know it's in OP but it deserves another mention)
-"I could care less" and "irregardless" which doesn't even get tagged as a misspelling here 


Spoiler: Decimate: just a pet peeve, I'll admit



(but it's a good example of making language _less_ descriptive by using words to mean vague or synonymous things instead of their original, well-defined meaning. Now 'decimate' is often used to mean 'destroyed' which, okay, we already have a word for that: destroyed.)


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## Rokko (Oct 17, 2018)

triggered, at least from a sjw´s perspective. i like to use still use it since it became funny again after the triggered meme.


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## HY 140 (Oct 17, 2018)

"Just ignore it" and "racist"


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## jewelry investor (Oct 17, 2018)

"tru"


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## UnKillShredDur (Oct 18, 2018)

"Credible"


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## MemeGray (Oct 18, 2018)

"Appreciate"

To recognize the full worth. Not "care about"  like "he doesn't appreciate me" or to replace "thanks" as in "I appreciate that"


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## bippu_as_fuck_ls400 (Oct 18, 2018)

he/she


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## UselessRubberKeyboard (Oct 18, 2018)

'feminist'
'lesbian'
'sex worker'

All three generally equal a middle-aged lantern-jawed men in lolita dressup and clownface, much to the ire of middle-aged lantern-jawed women in boilersuits.

'Reach out to'

The word you're looking for is 'contact'.  It's a lot more succinct, uses less letters, and doesn't make you sound like a mincing faggot.  Use it.


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## Teri-Teri (Oct 18, 2018)

Snowflake


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## Bread Fetishist (Oct 18, 2018)

Cultural appropriation


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## Benine Bovine (Oct 18, 2018)

The Russians


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## Preferred Penne (Oct 18, 2018)

Murmur said:


> -gate. Anytime something happens it's something-gate. A games journalist gets a blow job? Gamer-gate. Trump gives some ladies an alternative handshake? Pussy-gate. Comic book faggotry? Comics-gate. I drop my beer? Spill-gate. Someone rear ends me in traffic? Whiplash-gate. We just need someone to get stuck in a gate or something and we'll have Gate-gate.


I'm willing to bet that most people don't know why "-gate" is even used anymore.


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## Save the Loli (Oct 18, 2018)

Communist
Socialist
Authoritarian
Totalitarian
Far-right
Xenophobia
SJW
Hitler
Stalin
Mao
Hate [group/speech/crime]
Discrimination
Misogyny


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## NARPASSWORD (Oct 18, 2018)

There was a probably a time when "mean spirited" meant something beyond "WAH THIS CARTOON HURT MY FEE FEES!", but it seems to be lost due to Enter and his ilk.


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## Diesel Boogaloo (Oct 18, 2018)

PreferredPenne said:


> I'm willing to bet that most people don't know why "-gate" is even used anymore.


It's a suffix that means "scandal". For example, if there was a scandal involving the Watergate hotel, it would be called Watergategate.

Back to the subject:

meta
meme


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## thejackal (Oct 18, 2018)

"you are enough" (a meaningless tautology) 

"self care" (often self harming indulgence and sloth masquerading as care)


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## Next Task (Oct 18, 2018)

"gaslighting"
"unsafe"


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## thejackal (Oct 18, 2018)

Next Task said:


> "gaslighting"
> "unsafe"



Good call.   I'm really fucking sick of people thinking that perception of safety is more important than actual safety.   It's such a worthless virtue signal as well with the stupid "safe space" signs that have been slathered up all around.  Like it's a fucking restaurant.  Is the marginalized person going to get jumped waiting for their fries?


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## mein kacke (Oct 18, 2018)

Words like 'toxic', 'inclusive', and 'safe' are all red flags to me, no matter the context. Always see them in the context of business and education and they make my skin crawl.


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## BeanBidan (Oct 18, 2018)

Like the 4th of July.

"shooooweeee my bum hurts like the 4th of July"


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## OJ 473 (Oct 18, 2018)

"-phobia." I'm not afraid of trannies and homos, I just don't like them.


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## SparklyFetuses (Oct 18, 2018)

"Conservative", "diversity" and "progressive".


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## Red Hood (Oct 18, 2018)

Automatic.


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## Dolphin Lundgren (Oct 18, 2018)

Literally.
Racist.
Nazi.
Fascist.
Sexist.


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## Wallace (Oct 19, 2018)

thejackal said:


> Good call.   I'm really fucking sick of people thinking that perception of safety is more important than actual safety.   It's such a worthless virtue signal as well with the stupid "safe space" signs that have been slathered up all around.  Like it's a fucking restaurant.  Is the marginalized person going to get jumped waiting for their fries?



When you reward people for being injured, they self-modify to become injured much more easily.


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## Maxliam (Oct 20, 2018)

Hasn't lost its meaning bit black people seem to use "nationality" when they mean ethnicity. They also use "redundant" for dumb, not realizing it doesn't mean that.

Of course it's just dumb niggers trying to sound smart.


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## OG 666 (Oct 20, 2018)

“The male gaze.”

Although, to be fair, I don’t know if it ever had much meaning to begin with.


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## AA 102 (Oct 20, 2018)

"excuse" I often see people use the negative connotation of this word exclusively, which leads to valid excuses being conflated as negative. I've been in conversations where I'd say "person X had a valid excuse for doing Y thing because reasons" and the other person would say "well they're still just making excuses so they're still wrong."


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## Tragi-Chan (Oct 20, 2018)

Iconic. Toxic. Friendly reminder.


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## Positron (Oct 20, 2018)

Gengar said:


> “The male gaze.”
> 
> Although, to be fair, I don’t know if it ever had much meaning to begin with.



The term "gaze" has a psychoanalytic meaning of "the act of perceiving as identity formation".  In everyday's words, the way I choose to look at woman defines me as a man, and the very fact that women are being looked at by me in such manner defines them as woman.  Gaze _per se_ is not a bad thing, on the contrary, it is essential for social life.  But then feminists ran away with it and made it Exhibit A of the Original Sin of Being Male.



Maxliam said:


> They also use "redundant" for dumb, not realizing it doesn't mean that.


SJWs use a lot of unrelated words for dumb, stupid and retarded.  They are all three.


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## Black Waltz (Oct 20, 2018)

Ableism


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## The Cunting Death (Oct 20, 2018)

Problematic


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## Hellbound Hellhound (Oct 20, 2018)

Truth.


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## oldTireWater (Oct 20, 2018)

"Chilling" when used as part of a headline.


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## byuu (Oct 20, 2018)

Mary Sue.


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## Strasse (Oct 20, 2018)

Depressed - as someone with clinical, medicated depression it's becoming ever harder to have people distinguish those who say they are depressed and those who actually suffer from real depression. 

The "Right" - the right used to imply something specific, however thanks to the leftists everything from centralist, to conservatives, to race supremacists are now all labelled as the same. 

Forgiveness - Everyone is expected to act like a little bitch and forgive everything. No one is allowed to hold a grudge or get revenge any more. I hate what society has become.


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## ShittyRecolor (Oct 20, 2018)

Elitist\elitism - nowadays all this means is "people with different taste than mine which makes me unreasonably upset" or "people who have self-respect and don't let me get away with my bullshit\bad work ethics".

Empathy - most often used by internet Tartuffes and virtue signalers - has changed form meaning the ability to imagine yourself into someone else's shoes to unrelenting narcissism paired with the expectation that everyone and everything caters to you without question. Also a cheap tool to try and shame or guilt trip your opposition.

Death threat\harassment\trolling\bullying - the modern usage of these words can simply be paraphrased as "those things that are horrible when happening to me but totally awesome and justified when happening to people I disagree with".


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## Judge Holden (Oct 20, 2018)

Autistic and Lolcow

Not here so to say, but out in normieland you have all kinds of cringefactories now quipping about autism and lolcows


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## NARPASSWORD (Oct 20, 2018)

Anime. What was just the Japanese word for animation (even Looney Tunes and Disney) has now become bastardized by weebs wanting to feel special.
Same thing with "manga", "seiyou", "otaku", "kawaii", "baka", etc.


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## AA 102 (Oct 20, 2018)

"breaking news"


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## Meat Poultry Veg (Oct 20, 2018)

Subverted.

I blame TVTropes. They turned the internet into an horde of autistic Derridas.


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## Replicant Sasquatch (Oct 20, 2018)

dannyfrickenp said:


> "excuse" I often see people use the negative connotation of this word exclusively, which leads to valid excuses being conflated as negative. I've been in conversations where I'd say "person X had a valid excuse for doing Y thing because reasons" and the other person would say "well they're still just making excuses so they're still wrong."


To quote John C. McGinley: "Excuses are like assholes, everybody's got one"


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## Tragi-Chan (Oct 20, 2018)

“Trolls.” If you want to spin an asshole as the hero of the story, just describe all their critics as trolls.


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## Coldgrip (Oct 20, 2018)

"-gate"


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## BipolarPon (Oct 20, 2018)

Pedophile: Thanks Tumblr, Thanks Reddit for watering it down.

Enabler: It used to mean encouraging abusive behaviour, now it means not screaming and calling out people who might be terrible.

Autism: You guys throw that phrase a lot around. That everything can practically be described as autistic.

Constructive Criticism: Critique to point out flaws in media, now has been a guise use by people to harass creators, for having there ship not canon.


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## JambledUpWords (Oct 20, 2018)

“Alt-right”- began to be used by the media after the 2016 election. Used to mean someone super far right/racial supremacist. Still means those things, but is now applied to anyone who is republican/conservative/likes Trump. It’s become such a broad term, it’s useless. 

“Literally”- now used before nouns/adjectives/verbs to add emphasis but is not actually used for what it really means 

“Transphobia”- used against anyone that questions trans people/trans movement 

“Homophobia”- used pretty much the same way transphobia is used. Not that there wouldn’t be genuine cases, but the usage has gotten out of hand 

“Rape”- modern feminism has made it so it’s not taken as seriously as it used to

“White supremacist”- this accusation has been thrown around so much, that it has little meaning 

“Queer”- means odd, became an insult later on for gay people, now has been reclaimed by said movement as an umbrella term for anyone that is not straight and cisgender


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## An Sionnach Seang (Oct 21, 2018)

Murmur said:


> -gate. Anytime something happens it's something-gate. A games journalist gets a blow job? Gamer-gate. Trump gives some ladies an alternative handshake? Pussy-gate. Comic book faggotry? Comics-gate. I drop my beer? Spill-gate. Someone rear ends me in traffic? Whiplash-gate. We just need someone to get stuck in a gate or something and we'll have Gate-gate.



and if the gate is made from cryptocrystalline silica, chiefly chalcedony, alternating with microgranular quartz, it'd be agate-gate-gate



Tragi-Chan said:


> “Trolls.” If you want to spin an asshole as the hero of the story, just describe all their critics as trolls.



+1 for this
trolling used to mean getting other people to make idiots of themselves, but now (especially in the media) it just means 'someone said something I don't like, ARREST THEM PLS'


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## NARPASSWORD (Oct 21, 2018)

"Nerd", "geek", and any variation of these two words, thanks to it now being "cool" to be a "total geek" (read: person that collects a shit ton of worthless plastic crap).
Thanks, Big Bang Theory.


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## Save the Loli (Oct 23, 2018)

Venezuela - Used to be a country in South America. Now the right-wing version of comparing your opponents to Nazi Germany.


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## Hail Nyarlathotep (Oct 23, 2018)

Toxic.  that word gets used for anything even slightly negative nowadays. Is calling someone rude or an asshole just forbidden, all of a sudden ?


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## Nekromantik (Oct 23, 2018)

"Valid"- as in "Your weird fake pronouns are valid. If you're asexual and go to orgies, you're valid." And to add on to that...

Asexual
Pronouns
triggered- means "I saw something I don't like" now.
Hate Speech
Problematic
Transsexual- you just have to say "I'm a woman now."
Nazi
Activist- keyboard warriors don't count.
Terf- You can support Tans people all day, but if you don't date them and suck their girl dick every night, you're a Terf.


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## Orkeosaurus (Oct 23, 2018)

Boomer
Fascist
altright
nationalism
Thot
All the Chris chan lingo.
Autistic
Roguelike
MMO.


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## PL 001 (May 11, 2019)

Boomer - used to be the generation born after WWII. Now used by zoomer faggots towards anyone that they see as old/tech-incompetent/not sucking liberal dick ect...I see millennials get called boomers constantly. It's another re.tarded meme used by re.tarded people.

Toxic masculinity - guys acting like guys and not pussified little femboys is not toxic masculinity. 

Libertarian - apparently libertarian means you suck Ayn Rand's rotting clit, you're just a closeted Republican who likes weed and you're so anti law and government you want anything and everything to be a right, including pedophilia. Get the fuck off of Reddit and actually make an attempt to learn.


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## RunRufusRun (May 12, 2019)

Cringe is so over used it has lost all meaning.


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## Marvin (May 15, 2019)

Female
Male


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## Guts Gets Some (May 15, 2019)

Stalker

Honestly, this word is tossed around so often, I feel people don't even know what it means at all. Now if you show any interest in someone and want to wait for them or get a chance to talk to them, that makes you a creepy stalker.

No wonder no one knows how to connect with anyone anymore.


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## From The Uncanny Valley (May 16, 2019)

"Underrated".


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## Bad Headspace (May 16, 2019)

Friend.

How many "friends" you add on social media, games etc.? The word lost its meaning because it was overused over the years.


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## Unog (May 16, 2019)

Gay ops


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## Bogs (May 16, 2019)

undisirregardless


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## NARPASSWORD (May 16, 2019)

Uncanny Valley said:


> "Underrated".


And on the same level, overrated.


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## JM 590 (May 16, 2019)

Gay


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## Preferred Penne (May 17, 2019)

Uncanny Valley said:


> "Underrated".


Absolutely this. It's been bastardized to mean "I like something and therefore it makes me special".

I once saw a YT comment calling "Frasier" underrated. Yeah, so underrated that it only won 37 Emmy awards.


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## Recoil (May 17, 2019)

"Abusive"

If it hasn't been said already, color me surprised.


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## From The Uncanny Valley (May 17, 2019)

Recon said:


> "Abusive"
> 
> If it hasn't been said already, color me surprised.



"Manipulative" also gets a lot of misuse too


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## PT 940 (May 17, 2019)

"Diverse"


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## PL 001 (May 17, 2019)

Got a few more...

Haters: according to the Gospel of Facebook, anyone that disagrees with you is a hater. Doesn't matter if they do so in a constructive and polite manner, and provide evidence supporting why they are correct/have that view. They're haters, and inevitably, the "oppressed" will turn into a shit flinging monkey screeching about how she (it's always a she) has so many haters and "dey juss jealous!" I promise you're nowhere near important enough or interesting enough to have haters...

Studies show... : This phraee is most often used by pseudo-intellectual jackasses, conspiracy tards and your average BuzzFeed column writer. They think it makes whatever they're pushing sound more legit if they vaguely say "studies prove this or that!" That don't mean dick. Anyone can study and spin whatever bullshit they want into a article or opinion. It doesn't make it any more credible unless it actually has some scientific merit behind the study, not noobfag420's blog "studies"

Pansexual: even alleged pansexuals never seem to know what the fuck this means. Can you find yourself becoming attracted to anything? Animals? Children? No? Then you're fucking bisexual and just trying to be a special snowflake.


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## Chewy Suarez (Aug 25, 2019)

Don’t mean to necro a dead thread, but for all the complaining about how people who are on the left are calling everyone a “Nazi” people on the right use “SJW” and “cuck” on _EVERYTHING_. Hell, I’ve seen people call fucking Oney a SJW just because he’s not “anti-PC” enough. The same guy who told some chick to fuck off when she tried to “cancel” him for saying the N-word. For fucks sake, people call games SJW if there’s a woman or someone who’s gay in it. It’s ridiculous.


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## PL 001 (Aug 25, 2019)

Chewy Suarez said:


> Don’t mean to necro a dead thread, but for all the complaining about how people who are on the left are calling everyone a “Nazi” people on the right use “SJW” and “cuck” on _EVERYTHING_. Hell, I’ve seen people call fucking Oney a SJW just because he’s not “anti-PC” enough. The same guy who told some chick to fuck off when she tried to “cancel” him for saying the N-word. For fucks sake, people call games SJW if there’s a woman or someone who’s gay in it. It’s ridiculous.



It's not the fact there's women or gay people in the games that makes them SJW. I'm sure there's some re.tards out there that _do_ screech about that, but it's not the case for most.

Games having a female character option or a major female NPC isn't SJW. Making them 6 gorillion times better and effective than the male options, giving them that Brie Larson kind of cunty "I can do anything and everything better than a lowly man!" attitude is pandering to the SJW crowd instead of just making the female character an interesting person you want to find out more about.

Same with gay characters. No one cares except fundie christfags if there's a gay romance option in the game since you have to go out of your way to enact it. It becomes obnoxious when the gay character has no personality besides "have I mentioned how much I like to suck dick? Look at what a flaming stereotype I am!" personality that's shoved in your face again at the expense of good character development. It's just pandering for the sake of appearing diverse, and that's pretty SJW.

I'll agree with you that cuck is overused so much I wonder at times if people even know the original meaning of cuckold.


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## lurk_moar (Aug 25, 2019)

I hate the word germ. Are we talking about viruses, bacteria, or prions? I prefer the term pathogen instead of germ.


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## Teri-Teri (Aug 26, 2019)

Nimrod.


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## Positron (Aug 26, 2019)

Rights as in "human rights".


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## JM 590 (Aug 26, 2019)

The stupidest one is probably "ratchet", as a ghetto bastardization of "wretched". 

It's just synonymous with "trashy".  It has nothing to do with socket wrenches.


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## Preferred Penne (Aug 26, 2019)

Piss said:


> The stupidest one is probably "ratchet", as a ghetto bastardization of "wretched".
> 
> It's just synonymous with "trashy".  It has nothing to do with socket wrenches.


What do you think of "boojie" or however the fuck it's spelled?


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## Rancid Flid (Aug 26, 2019)

People of colour. Like white isn't a fucking colour ?


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