Summer Gripes: Adventures in Soapboxing

If you are reading this, you speak English.

The generally accepted view is that this language is arbitrary. Basically the words we write and the sounds we make have no meaning except what we've assigned to them. We don't call a cat a "cat" because of the way the word sounds or the meaning of the letters. It's just what our parents called a cat because it's what their parents called a cat and so on and so on.

Words mean what we say they mean and this is ALL WE HAVE. The thing is, some of our best words are having their meaning changed as we speak. Remember the erroneous mantra "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me"? Yeah who cares about that? Because we are hurting our words. Below are the words I implore you not to use unless you really, really mean them:

Epic
If you just used this word, there's a very good chance you might have actually meant "really fun" or possibly even "very special." This word is potentially too significant to be used more than once every five years. For most of us, it is too significant to be used more than once in our lifetime. If you just spent the night in Berlin where you happened to stumble into a free art gallery that housed the original painting that made you want to become a painter, then accidentally shared a taxi with your living literary hero, then unintentionally consumed the most delicious meal of your life with a hobo who once lived with your deceased literary hero who in turn gives you mind-bending advice that somehow leads to you holding hands with the future love of your life three hours later while watching an impromptu outdoor concert of your favorite band in the history of bands...how the heck are you supposed to decode your evening if that guy over there just described his grilled cheese sandwich as "epic"?

Literally
Most likely what you meant was, "I'm completely grossly exaggerating" and that's just not fair. Never before has the definition of a word's antonym become a word's widely-accepted definition. After someone uses this word, you should never ever have to say, "Wait... really?" When you use this word, what you're actually saying is, you're not even going to believe what I'm saying because it is a hyperbolic caricature of reality! Do you not recognize how confusing this is?

Basically
If you have used this, you most likely just wasted ten minutes of everyone's time giving a long-winded, over-detailed version of a story and then decided to wrap everything up. Some might choose to use the phrase "to make a long story short," which, if ever employed, guarantees a boring story has just been made or is about to be made long.

Ironic
The truth is, it's too late for this one; it's already ruined. To the point that its accepted definition has actually been altered to fit its mis/over-use. Isn't that ironic? No, actually; not really.

Ridiculous
This word has become a caricature of itself and has lost all its meaning. If you cannot insert the word "preposterous" or "absurd," you are wasting a perfectly good word. Is that 1/2 lb burger you just ate "ridiculous?" Probably not; that's a pretty standard burger in American restaurants regardless of how many toppings it had. Unless you are a tiger cub and you are suckling a yellow lab, nothing you've ever eaten has been ridiculous.

You get a free pass for calling this ridiculous.

What are your favorite words to mis and/or over-use? Which ones drive you crazy when you hear them?