Agreed. I often hear it being misused, where "excuse me?", " I beg your pardon" or ""I didn't hear you - would you please repeat what you just said."

It just seems to demonstrate mental laziness, more often than not.

Of course, every cultural group has their own such terms. I suspect that it's the low-IQ folks who use them the most, either due to said laziness or just an inability to formulate complete sentences.