Muttering to myself 

Interestingly enough, I said that about myself a while back (likening myself to Deku from My Hero Academia)

Hym "And even MORE interestingly enough, all of the new powers that Deku has in the later seasons... Are powers that I said I use! Like multi-shadow tendrils (black whip), storing energy (Fajin), gear shift. And even the main character's mentor (Knuckleduster) from My Hero Vigilantes might also be based on me. His whole deal is... Well... How do I describe it... You know what it's like when you're a genius and something happens and now you have an increasing amount of executive disfunction? That's Knuckleduster. He has a perk called Overclock that allowed him to think and react super fast and then it gets stolen by a villain and now he just runs the fade on villains without his powers. But I think that's all because of the muttering to myself remark that I made! I'm a ton of characters now."

Muttering to myself by Hym Iam May 17, 2025

Basil Muttering 

When something frustrates/upsets someone and they can't fix it

My girlfriend has been having trouble with her herb garden, so she's been doing a lot of basil muttering.

Basil Muttering by CosmoTheFrog February 5, 2021

Micro-muttering 

Speaking in a very inaudible voice to oneself within earshot of others. People around you ask, "Are you talking to me?" a couple of times since you are having your own back-and-forth conversation; one voice out loud, but not loud and the other, in one's head.

Billy, are talking or listening to me? I asked you twice to speak up. Oh sorry dear, I was simply micro-muttering.

Micro-muttering by goodone! June 20, 2023

Buttering the cat 

This term began to appear after the December 2021 viral Reddit post "AITA for “perpetuating ethnic stereotypes” about Jorts?" on r/AmITheAsshole by u/ThrowawayOrangeCat about a conflict involving two cats at their workplace. The cats are named Jean and Jorts, and to cut a long story short, a human colleague named Pam had been spreading margarine on Jorts to encourage him to groom himself. (Presumably he would like the taste and spend more time licking it off.) It's unclear whether Jorts responded to this, because Jean began to lick his fur -- this upset her digestive system. Pam was asked to stop applying margarine to Jorts. Readers shared the post to social media, and people began posting memes and jokes about the situation.

Later that month, #DisabilityTwitter used the situation as an analogy, to address whether a particular accommodation is useful. (Implied: even if it's well-intentioned, if it's not helpful to the person with needs, it wastes time and may actually have negative impacts. Just like applying margarine to Jorts.)

"Are you helping, or are you just buttering the cat?" (from #DisabilityTwitter)

A person may want to help resolve a difficult situation, but realizes that they lack the necessary skills and would just make things worse: "I'd love to help, but at this point I suspect I'd just be buttering the cat ..."

Buttering the cat by TapirTrouble December 21, 2021

Mastering Physics

Literally cancer. Homework website used by colleges to make students google every question on chegg or yahoo answers because clicking anything will take of 50%. Giving college students cancer since 1998.

Person 1:Did you do Mastering Physics yet?

Person 2:Yeah it gave me cancer.

Mastering Physics by AweStrucK July 24, 2015

Mastering Chemistry 

A website created to make the lives of American college students a nightmare through the use of nazi-like grading on significant figures and rounding throughout 15+ pages of hell. Commonly referred to as a bitch for changing 1 number in each person's given values to piss people off.

"Hey have you done the Mastering Chemistry for this week yet?"

"No but I heard it's a real killer."

"Yeah I tried the hints and couldn't even work through those!"

Mastering Chemistry by CHE108 May 15, 2012

Mastering Engineering 

An online homework program designed to rob college students of their hard-earned money and serve as a crutch for professors too lazy to write their own homework assignments or to teach. Its purpose, beyond making millions for the publishing company, is apparently to reduce the number of engineering graduates in the United States by utterly demoralizing and destroying their confidence in an effort to force them to drop the program and/or kill themselves.

I used up all but one attempt on this stupid Mastering Engineering problem, before I realized it had switched everything to kiloOhms instead of Ohms! And then I still got it wrong! FML!

Mastering Engineering by kypok April 16, 2012