People Share the Most Annoying Random Things Their Parents Say

I don't know what it is about parents, but they all seem to speak their own languages. Maybe having kids messes with their brains, or maybe they're just too old and tired to care about getting things right anymore. But it really is a thing that parents — especially older ones — have weird names for things or phrases they always say that are almost but not quite correct. 

This is a universal phenomenon, as recently proven by Twitter user @Sinclair1875. "Is there something trivial that your parents say that really f--king annoys you for no good reason? My mum accidentally calling 'Pets at Home' 'Pets City' for the past twelve years is right up there," they write. Judging from the thousands of likes, retweets, and responses, this is a feeling almost everyone understands.

In some cases, it seems like parents have either a complete inability or a complete unwillingness to learn "the lingo," as they say. They wave their hands when their kids tell them they're wrong because they don't want to deal. Maybe they can't learn anything new. 

As we know, millennials and younger generations who grew up with ever-changing technology adapt more easily than older generations. Maybe parents these days literally can't remember what "LOL" means. Maybe they just don't have the brain capacity. There were so many examples in this thread of pop culture references that are no-brainers for most under 50, yet parents can't seem to grasp them. 

It might be that parents simply don't care. I'm going to venture a guess and say most of the parents referenced in this thread are baby boomers. And a recent study found members of their generation are way more narcissistic and sensitive than younger generations. 

It makes sense that they wouldn't put effort into learning things like the Kardashians' name or the name of that show with the yellow cartoon family. They're too busy complaining about their computer not working when it's turned off and yelling about how millennials can't buy houses because they're eating too much avocado toast. 

Then again, some of the responses to this thread really seem to show parents doing their darnedest to embarrass their children and make themselves laugh. Making their children turn red with shame is one of the things parents do best.

Lettuce lotion. Lettuce lotion! That awful phrase is clearly the handiwork of someone trying to get a rise out of his children. Someone else wrote that their dad uses another cringe-worthy phrase. Instead of saying he has to go "wash his hands," he says he has to "wash his fingers," which is, for some reason, so much grosser.

The problem with parents saying whatever they want wherever they want to whomever they want is that words can have real-life consequences! One person's mom refuses to use the real names of their neighbors when talking about them. That's right — she just makes up names for them!

Someone else's mom went around town calling herself a "homophobe." When her kid sat her down to have a talk with her, she said, "Oh no. I thought it meant 'I like being at home.'" How do you not know what a homophobe is? 

Then there are the mispronunciations! I know some people have a harder time with this stuff than others, but I feel like older people get away with this stuff. There's the mom that calls "Ibuprofen" "Ibrufen," the dad who, instead of "pepperoni" says "peperami," even in Italian restaurants, and the mom who for some reason can't wrap her head around the word "panini." She always says "punani" instead, which means something... very different.

Look, if parents said things correctly all the time, they wouldn't be as entertaining as they are. Part of the reason we love our parents so much is that they say things like, "Don't Twitter that!" (my mom) or "Targayyyyy" with a soft "g" instead of "Target" (my grandma). Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go make myself a peperami punani for lunch.