One that comes to mind for me: “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is not always true. Maybe even only half the time! Are there any phrases you tend to hear and shake your head at?
“which begs the question …”
I hate this phrase a lot. First, it comes from the term ‘begging the question’ which is a stupid name for a particular type of logical fallacy that doesn’t even make sense for its intended meaning. But no one uses in the intended way anyway. They use it to mean “raises the question” or “prompts the question”.
As in: John hasn’t been to work for a couple days, which begs the question ‘is he sick?’". No it doesn’t beg the question, it raises it. You beg for something, so you can beg a person for money or beg a dog to stop barking, etc. but you can’t beg a question for anything.
So it’s a doubly stupid phrase that makes me cringe every time I hear it whether it’s used “correctly” or not.
