I need your help.
Am I alone in shouting at the television or radio every time a sports pundit or reality TV "star" uses the phrase "roller coaster"? Or tells us they're on "a journey"?
Or when I read in a national newspaper that something is "iconic", when it is not. Or that a sportsman is "legendary", when they really do exist?
I tried applying these back-bench foibles in a drinking game over Christmas. You know the sort: every time certain words or expressions are heard, you take a swig. I was pished within an hour.
Now when I was in my first job in journalism, I was told that we "never report rumours", something which appears to be utterly disregarded in today's 24/7, rolling news era of online blogging about what some unverified Twitter account has said about the impending transfer of Lionel Messi to Tranmere Rovers.
And we were also had the paper's stylebook hard-wired into our heads, with half a dictionary's worth of words and phrases banned from our pages. There were chief subs and revise subs in those days, too, so woe betide you if you dared allow a "major" or "to launch" slip into your copy.
Some news organisations still have style books, apparently, and some even make use of them. Some are more rigid than others: reporters and subs at the American-owned Bloomberg agency are all equipped with straitjackets, just to make them feel more comfortable. Allegedly.
But what are you pet hates? What triggers your pedantry reflex?
And is sports reporting any more prone to resorting to hackneyed cliche than any other news form?
It'd be good to get your views - post your comments below...