"epic" - this. The use of the word epic makes me want to loose my mind. lol. "This burrito is so epic it should've been in Beowulf," said nobody ever. tl;dr stop using that word!

Besides—ahem—epic overuse of the word 'epic,' my most loathed turn of phrase is 'The X that is Y'. For example, "the failure that is Microsoft". Stop saying this, nerds! You're not being clever!

On a similar note:

http://www.pvponline.com/comic/2012/10/01/watered-down

I'm now required to respond by saying "I see what you did there."

Nicely done, sir.

The only thing that drives me irrationally bonkers is the increasing use of "loosing" instead of "losing", even here on HN (https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=loosing). Mostly because I cannot comprehend how anyone can not know how to spell "losing". However, this isn't slang.

You cannot comprehend? Goose. Rose. I can see how writing "loose" instead of "lose" happens, especially for non-native speakers.

Even if you are a native speaker, typos happen.

Overused words of 2012/2013:

Awesome - "We believe in building awesome products that make your life better."

Passionate - "We are passionate about bringing 3D advertising to the web."

Obsessed - "I am obsessed with brunch."

I'm not dissing excited people, just wishing more people would use more creative words.

everyone's favorite - synergy

Synergy of the Cloud, man.

Emphasize the positive. Upvote the comments that are thoughtful and based on reliable sources, and don't worry so much about habits of written expression (which, for many people here, include using English as a second language).

The slang (or is it a meme?) that I feel has totally run its course is "Said nobody, ever" and its many variants.

We get it, you are very clever for saying something positive and then inverting it into snark. Bravo.

"Said nobody, ever" is simply the new version of the mid-90s' use of "not."

On HN I try to avoid contractions[1] and initialisms. I know that many people reading do not have have English as a first language.

[1] Apart from the very common, such as "don't" or "can't" etc.

"Meta," as an adjective and not, say, a prefix.

Bad: "That show is so meta."

Good: "Let's look at the metadata to make sure our tables are really well-structured."

This. i am so glad it is winning. chances that this poll help its speedy demise? none. at least i finally get to use it without feeling slughtly ill

I know these are not not technically slang, but

"At the end of the day, . . ." and

"I see what you did there."

It's not slang, but I'm bothered when people use the words "setup" and "login" as verbs while using the phrases "setting up" and "logging in". If you're going to use "setup" and "login" as verbs, please use the words "setupping" and "loginning". I especially like "loginning".

The verbs are "set up" and "log in". "Setup" and "login" would be nouns, as in, "Can I see your setup?" and, "What is your login?"

Since you prefer "loginning" to "logging in", do you also prefer "beatupping him" to "beating him up" and "dropoutting" to "dropping out"?

"relevant xkcd" (link to xkcd comic we have all read before)

Oh how I loathe thee, "this.", let me count the ways...

"performant" Performs well how exactly? I've gotten over the fact that "it's not a word". This is how new (useless) words enter the lexicon.

When people refer to their email address as an "addy". Drives me crazy. Why do they do it ????

This.

$location: I am in you.

YOLO.

That's an easy one to fix as adults. We just start using it badly.

"Don't text and drive. YOLO."

YOLO is Carpe Diem for stupid people.

U mad, bro?

"broken"

Could be worse: "borken"

Hack

To be fair, I love and adore hacker culture. However "hack" and "hacker" have already become so inundated with misuse as to be nearly meaningless. "Growth hacker" "hack the <blank> industry" recruitment letters, etc.

Hack is often used in the sense: Well it wasn't intended to work that way, but it does, it's a workaround, or "hack".

Yes, but that's probably not what calciphus meant: the problem is that now apparently anyone doing a startup creating some random web application (using their tools pretty much exactly as intended) or whatever and making (or dreaming of making, anyway) lots of money qualifies as a "hacker". So sad that it's been commercialized like this.

Just look at "Hacker" News. Thats not hacker news, that's YC marketing.

MOOC

yolo