WHHSH Violations: Let's Circle Back

An astute reader and podcast listener, Brian in Ventura, Calif., caught a WHHSH Violation during this week's episode of NPR's "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me," a news-comedy quiz show that we love especially when Paula Poundstone is on.

One of the folks on the show, responding to a set up about why Mitt Romney wouldn't comment on what he did recently with Orrin Hatch, answered: "What Happens in Disneyland, Stays in Disneyland." What Brian didn't know was that someone on the show the week before also made a WHHSH punchline, but I can't remember anymore what it was.

Meanwhile, another listener/reader, Gregory Zephyr of San Francisco, deliberately tweaked me this week on his weekly podcast, "AnythingSF." He titled the show "What Happens in Frisco Stays in Frisco," gently mocked my "tear" against the use of this phrase, and then deliberately sprinkled bad usages of the WHHSH motif throughout his show, which centers on news and tourist activities in the Bay Area. If I didn't know better, I'd think he did this on purpose to get me to write the preceding paragraph.

On a different front, twice this morning I received email from PR people who suggested we "circle back" in a few days on something. Ick. I know what it means, but it's such a stupid phrase. Like "outside the box," which might have been, uh, outside the box of cliches once upon a time, but no longer.

Any others that stick in your craw? You know, like "stick in your craw"?