My thrupence worth
Disclaimer: I will hold my hands up and admit to fitting plenty of the descriptions of Common that have come up. I drink supermarket value-brand wine and spirits, own a (crap) DFS sofa, watch TV shows which rely on phone votes and end sentences with prepositions such as 'up'. With these in mind, here are some things which I consider common.

1) Using words like 'Posh', 'Snobby' or 'Snooty' to dismiss anything outside your own self-constructed world. "Oh I'm sorry, no I haven't read (insert title of freely-available bestseller), we're not all posh like you", for example. I'll never forget a screen-kickingly annoying moment in a recent series of Big Brother, in which one contestant bemoaned the state of television, complaining "Some people only watch snobby programmes, like the news". THE NEWS. The programme which, on almost every channel has, in the last few years, made itself as easy as possible for anyone to understand, with reporters standing in giant doll's houses to explain the property market before handing to a 'human interest' piece in which flood victims are asked "How did it feel to see your TV float into an open sewer?". The Arts are a frequent target for this nonsense. In a Monday-morning discussion about what we did at the weekend, I once told a co-worker I'd visited the Tate Modern, and was informed that this was 'Snobby'. Apparently walking around a free gallery looking at cool things alongside thousands of other members of the public put me in the social elite. For fuck's sake. Which leads me to:

2) Constant swearing. I love a good swear, and I will defend anyone's right to make a point with a well-placed Fuck. The key is in 'well-placed', however. Use it sparingly and it works a treat. Use the word 'Fucking' as your only adjective (or worse, as a replacement for 'Erm') and it loses all power, like Christmas decorations left up all year. To me, 'Common' is starting your sentence with the word 'Fucking' while your brain gets up to speed working out what you were actually going to say, e.g. "Fucking... He was swerving all over the fucking road".

3) Item 219/4749 in the Argos catalogue. Just because I wanted three things on the list.

Apologies if these have been covered already, but the chances of me reading *all* 950 pages before the question expires are slim. I will try though, promise.
(costas, Tue 21 Oct 2008, 10:27, 9 replies)

Ending sentences with prepositions is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I shall not put.

(oneinthepink is at your cervix m'lady, Tue 21 Oct 2008, 10:34, closed)

Nice!
Best line in Beavis and Butthead Do America: "That's the guy... Off... in whose camper... they were whacking"
(costas, Tue 21 Oct 2008, 11:51, closed)

oh, nice Argos find
Especially since they don't seem to do that lovely clown pendant anymore.

I think 216/2915 may take the biscuit though.
(Binary Solo loves a bit of algebra, Tue 21 Oct 2008, 11:09, closed)

Tate Modern!
I feckin love the place, always go whenever I'm in London, especially for the Dalis and the Jackson Pollock pics they have. People tell me it's "Snobby" as well! Mind, you should have heard the chuntering when I went to Rome for the weekend. These are the same people that moan that European, (ie white) culture is being "Swamped" I give in! there'll be no social cohesion whilst this persists dammit!
(Beer Elf Thought this was like a campfire, anyhow, on, Tue 21 Oct 2008, 11:13, closed)

Tate Modern
Great place to waste a couple of hours..and that Argos find.. definitely!
(scowners shagged his mum on, Tue 21 Oct 2008, 12:09, closed)

I say costas, old chap
You're a bit common aren't you? Watching the news on the telly!! I only listen to the BBC World Service News on short wave. Surely I'm not alone?

I have to say, I HATE the way they use graphics on the news: a chalk effect on a blank blackboard for an education story; 'Sale' notice- effect on a shop front for a retail story. FFS, all it does is distract me so much that I miss the damned story.
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Tue 21 Oct 2008, 12:22, closed)

Hell yes
My pet peeve is the bizarre notion that us thickies can't possibly hope to understand a story unless a reporter is standing outside, at a location somehow connected to it. New development on a stabbing that happened three weeks ago? Best send Huw Edwards to stand by the bus-shelter where it happened so he can read out the police statement, a copy of which was also sent to every newsroom in the country. Story about a BSE scare in France? Send Matthew Amroliwala to stand in a Butcher's in Pontefract to say "There's no doubt about the safety of the meat in this butcher's, but over in France it's a different story..." Regardless of the story, someone has to be sent halfway across the country to read out something they could just as easily have read whilst sitting next to George Alagiah.

...who will then say "Now back to our main story; British businesses aren't doing enough to reduce their carbon footprints"
(costas, Tue 21 Oct 2008, 12:43, closed)

Yes...
... and yes again! This boils my piss on a regular basis.
( ChiefWiggum typing random stuff, Tue 21 Oct 2008, 12:50, closed)

Using words like posh

I remember when my cousins came to visit. A friend mine used the word "profiteering". The responce from my cousins was "that's a well posh word!".

Then again they are from Great Yarmouth, so what else can you expect?
(fibonacci_cunt cunt, cunt, cuntcunt, cuntcuntcunt,..., Tue 21 Oct 2008, 12:37, closed)