How about a compromise? Deep-frozen bacon? Another saying I hate: may I ask you something? argh! You already did, so it'd be pointless for me to say "no, you may not" as it's too late now.
OH I HATE THAT. It is truly horrible because I always assume it's going to be an unwanted personal question. A friend of mine prefaces all kinds of shit with that though, literally yesterday she used it and it was about modems. But she also uses it to start very horrible conversations about herself, in which after you say "no, I haven't ever (dreadfully personal thing)" she launches into all the ways she has.
yes, occasionally, but I don't hear it often enough to get annoyed. It's similar to "and? What's new at school?" my mom used to ask every single day when I came back from school. For 13 years (14 actually - I repeated year #7)
You just reminded me of one that used to annoy the hell out of me. Every year at Christmas dinner, my cousin would ask me "So, what grade school you in now?". He's twelve years older and was in college back then. To be fair, this particular cousin was somebody I only saw at that dinner (we lived in different cities, now in different states), but it still used to annoy me for some odd reason.
My new one (thanks to the wife's coworker blabbing a lot of personal and embarrassing medical info that's in no way related to her job info to the DM): "Do you mind that I told him?" How about you ask first you stupid ****.
Or bacon-flavored ice cream? Ugggh. That sounds so touchy-feely 1970s. Another thing that's not really a saying but a reflexive habit: People accepting a compliment that's not really directed at them. "You have a lovely wife." "Thank you!" Oh, did you design her yourself?
You wife's coworker shared private information about your wife? The question/"saying" seems pretty straightforward here. You'd just say "Yes, I do mind," and then explain so it doesn't happen again.
Still, it's quite idiotic/rude to do it first and ask afterwards. I can understand how that'd be annoying and am grateful it hasn't happened to me (yet).
But, "You have a lovely wife." (and that sort of comment) is actually an insult! The one saying it to you is expressing their disbelief in the fact that such a "lovely" woman would ever have anything to do with you... The "Thank you"-response only shows that you also find it quite unbelievable that such a person would have anything to do with you -AND implies that you have (had?) some kind of special mojo that got her attention at the time...
And then you hope that explaining actually works. I had a close friend whom I specifically told not to tell anyone some very personal/traumatic stuff that I had shared with her, and she agreed not to, but then went and blurted out all the details to a couple people. When I confronted her, she gave me three different, contradictory excuses why she'd told them, and never apologized. Sounds like high school or something, doesn't it? We were both over 60 and had been friends for ten years.