When I’m on my travels with my Golf Monthly colleague and good friend Rob Smith, conversation often turns to things or phrases that irritate or annoy us. It comes with the territory at our age, I’m afraid.
One that irritates him a little more than me is the use of “quite the” rather than “quite a” as in, “He’s become quite the player over the last couple of years.” Nick Dougherty, from the Sky Sports and PGA Tour commentary teams, is very much a fan of “quite the”.
While researching this article, I actually did a quick Google/AI search to see if “quite the” is merely annoying to Rob rather than grammatically incorrect and it seems that is probably the case, with AI telling me that “in most contexts, both phrases are understood to mean something similar, but using ‘quite the’ adds a specific stylistic nuance that relies heavily on context and delivery”.
So, there we are. Another colleague admits that he gets miffed by Nick Dougherty (again – sorry, Nick!) insisting on calling them loblolly pines rather than just pines every time Masters week rolls round.
I know where my colleague is coming from. Technically, Dougherty is, of course, correct, but “loblolly”, through no fault of its own, is a mildly irritating word that becomes all the more irritating the more often it is repeated.
Just ‘pines’ will do, thank you, Nick – we don’t need the ‘loblolly’ bit
(Image credit: Getty Images)
Anyway, I digress a little – here are a handful of phrases that grate on me to varying degrees in TV commentary and/or social media usage, which may, or may not, offend or irritate you to the same degree…
“Frozen rope”
Shot-tracking technology is largely to blame for the proliferation of this one, which is uttered far too often for listening comfort every time someone hits an arrow-straight, piercing drive that displays no hint of lateral deviation.
Is this shot tracer ball flight a frozen rope…?
(Image credit: Future)
Unbeknown to me, it appears it is a baseball term that has now progressed into golf, but I wish it would retreat just a little.
…or is this a frozen rope?.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
“Throws a dart”
This is now an all-too-frequent reaction to any approach shot that lands and stops extremely close to the…
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