"Ongoing accident", unless the vehicles are backing up and running into each other over and over again the accident has already happened.

Jimmy Fallon when he says "That's what I'm talkin' about."  Overused phrase and he says it a lot. 

I love the use of the word Tragic... as in this from a recent Toronto Sun headline...
Teen's body pulled from lake after tragic Ashbridges Bay drowning
My guess is it's to distinguish it from a comedic downing, or a happy drowning. Or maybe so that we're clear that they weren't just drowning their sorrows, but that somebody actually died.
Speaking of actually ... oh, don't get me started on that one...
 

"Rain failed to dampen the enthusiasm," dampens my enthusiasm for any story or reader who uses it.

Walter wrote:

"Police believe it was a targeted shooting."  No guff.  Somebody pulled a gun, aimed, and fired.  What shooting isn't 'targeted'?  Can't stand 'cop-speak'.

I gently disagree on this one. Calling it a targeted shooting makes it different from the person being an innocent bystander or the victim of mistaken identity.

I always laugh when baseball analysts talk about the batter "hitting it where it's pitched"!  Where else would they hit it. ?  Also.."he took something off that pitch "! Always wondered..."what was on it "?

dieter wrote:

Walter wrote:

"Police believe it was a targeted shooting."  No guff.  Somebody pulled a gun, aimed, and fired.  What shooting isn't 'targeted'?  Can't stand 'cop-speak'.

I gently disagree on this one. Calling it a targeted shooting makes it different from the person being an innocent bystander or the victim of mistaken identity.

I guess, but hitting an innocent bystander just means the perp was a lousy shot and missed the person he was targeting in the first place.  There is always a 'target'.
 

Saul wrote:

dieter wrote:

Walter wrote:

"Police believe it was a targeted shooting."  No guff.  Somebody pulled a gun, aimed, and fired.  What shooting isn't 'targeted'?  Can't stand 'cop-speak'.

I gently disagree on this one. Calling it a targeted shooting makes it different from the person being an innocent bystander or the victim of mistaken identity.

It was still targeted. Just that the target was mistaken. Sometimes police jargon seems awkward, but in some cases it's actually quite precise. I don't think it's unreasonable even for police communications personnel to stick to the police version. The journalist's skill is in translating the somewhat obscure into plain language while maintaining accuracy. Same with science-speak, or legal-speak, or technician-speak, etc...
 

Who could forget "known to police"? That's another meaning-free duckspeak trope that needs to die.
 

I find the constant use of the word problematic by certain radio hosts, problematic. 

My pet peeve - and you hear it a lot - is when they say so-and-so graduated such-and-such a university. No, it should be "graduated from." The person graduated, not the university.

Another one to add to the list...

Subject "weighed in" regarding a topic/controversy.....

Does anyone in the real world actually use this phrase in that context?

I know this is pedantic, but when reporting on an accident or other traffic infraction, the statement "Travelling at a high rate of speed" is meaningless and is very very grating.

Properly expressed, it's "rate of change of" something. 

Rate of change of position is speed and rate of change of speed is acceleration. 

Everytime I hear this on air, I hear a chorus of my university physics professors immediately correcting this.

mace wrote:

These two apply to talk radio. Please turn your radio down and Thank you for taking my call.

"Yeah, like I was sayin' to your screener, there.."
 

Capricasix wrote:

The overuse of “unprecedented”.

Followed very closely by 'epic" - heard in news stories and show promos a lot.