This is for my mother. And children. And my skin.

My father at times would begin his response to something my mother said with Be that as it may..., and then completely refute whatever it was she said. Drove her nuts, it did. Which was his goal. She couldn't stand that phrase and had long ago expressed that one of his friends said it all the time and how much his doing so bothered her. He was a bit of a needler, my father was, and he'd serve me up a big grin and twinkling eye combo as Mom launched into a rant on how she did not know why my father would say that when he knew how she felt about it. I found high amusement in their exchange.

But lately I understand my mother's point. A few word strings are most definitely giving me a nervous, angry twitch these days because I hear them all the time and think that the only thing that would be more frustrating to me would be if I heard them spoken in baby talk.

My British boss and colleagues oftentimes say, Having said that, and they'll follow with a statement that is at the opposite position of what they just said, while pointing out that they said it in the first place. Case in point from yesterday: We need to be sure that each person in the company updates their own information on the site. Having said that, we really cannot force anyone to do it. Maybe it's a way to lessen the impact of the initial statement but still the phrase, having said that, is really just using three words to replace the conjunction, but. I don't mind hearing it from my boss because she's been saying it for the seven years we've worked together, but it seems to be coming at me from all over the place these days, from people who never used to say it. It's disruptive to my ears when spoken in American English. Each time I hear it, which honestly is about five times a day, I twitch uncontrollably and want to jump out of my skin.

Same story for At the end of the day. As in, We gave plenty of notice but, at the end of the day, only a few people signed up for the class. Sadly, also overheard yesterday. Using At the end of the day in your speaking is unnecessary filler which translates to unnecessary static in my head and unnecessary feelings on my part to depart from my own skin. It doesn't make you sound authoritative or worldly or anything at all beyond someone putting trendy filler in their speech. So just stop it, okay?

While I'm at it, another cringe-inducing pet peeve is very unique. That one is not only overused, it's just plain wrong. There is no such thing but still I hear it and read it on a daily basis and I worry about the children. The children who are unaware of how wrong this is, the children who will unwittingly go about their lives trying to qualify something that cannot be qualified. Yes, it's true. By its definitive nature, unique cannot be qualified. Something either is unique or not. Period.

I work with a guy who was born in Tennessee and is well-traveled globally. He signs his emails with Cheers. The problem is that no matter where he's been in the world, he was still born in Tennessee and lives in Texas and should only be using that word when making a toast or talking about what re-run he'd like to watch on TV. He also uses a' la regularly when he references something, and if you were standing beside me when he does that, you would see me flinch because he's not French and he's not ordering pie with ice cream but he is making me feel that I want to jump out of my skin.

Each of these is like that to me, unnecessary and flinch-inducing. Except very unique, of course, which instead of unnecessary is just flat wrong no matter where you're from, where you've been, where you are currently.

Seriously, can we ban these from usage right this minute? Can we? For the children, understand. And my skin. I need my skin.