Do you have a linguistic pet peeve?

[LeftyMom]

Mine is misuse of the word irony and it's derivations. It sets my teeth on edge whenever I see or hear it.

Irony is a literary device where the reader knows something the characters don't that changes the nature of their situation. For example, in Irving's short story Gift of the Magi, a woman sells her hair in order to buy her love a chain for his watch, while he sells his watch to buy her a hair comb. The reader sees the totality of the situation and the protagonists do not, which is where the irony comes in.

Irony is not schadenfreude, it's not oddly or darkly humorous situations, it's not anything depicted in the song "Ironic." It is a literary device. That's it.

[Iris]

1. Misuse of "myself"

For example - "The other members of the team and myself decided to have a bake sale."

or "If you have any questions, please email myself or Patty."

or a variation I saw in an online catalog:

Ship to: Yourself (How can I ship something to myself?)

[LeftyMom]

2. That's really common, too.

:(

[Left Is Write]

125. That would definitely rank in my top three peeves.

[Iris]

140. Yes. It's such a phony attempt at sounding important, don't you think?

Or, I guess realistically, it's just a bad attempt to act like you know how to use good grammar!

[eyesroll]

3. Misuse of the apostrophe and its derivations.

;-)

Sorry, couldn't resist.

My real linguistic pet peeve is "different than." It's "different from," unless what follows "than" is an independent clause (and even then, it bugs me, but that's style rather than pure grammar). Two different law professors used "different than" incorrectly in lectures, both after telling us about how precise we need to be (and yeah, precision of language does not necessarily require perfect grammar, but still).

[SeattleGirl]

4. "Flustrated"

A lot of people use it, but it drives me nuts. Can't they just pick either "flustered" or "frustrated". Frankly, I think using the word "flustrated" makes a person sound ignorant.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

9. I've never heard of "flustrated" before.

It's a good thing. That word makes me want to smack stupid people.

[SeattleGirl]

24. A number of client's I've had over the years use that word.

Really gets on my nerves! :banghead:

[Zomby Woof]

36. oops

You misused the apostrophe in 'clients'. :spank: :P

WWAD? (What Would Andy Do?)

[SeattleGirl]

38. Aaargh!!! That is my biggest peeve -- not catching my OWN

mistakes! Okay, Andy would make me sit through 12 straight hours of tapes of Harry's weather forcasts for rainy days!

[Blue-Jay]

14. I dated a girl in college who said that.

Drove me nuts listening to her. Plus, she didn't put out.

[SeattleGirl]

25. Using that word is bad enough, but

not putting out??? Boy! :evilgrin:

[Rabrrrrrr]

66. LOL! My partner often says and writes that. But she's Japanese.

Sometimes it's Flustlated.

She has a very hard time with "r" and "l" differentiation.

But apart from Asians, I've never heard anyone say flustrated.

[Left Is Write]

124. Is that like "congradulations" ?

"Congradulations" is a common hybrid of congratulations and graduation. It drives me buggy.

[ScreamingMeemie]

5. Only one thing really bothers me and I don't know why...

When people write,"Please foward all moneys to..." instead of monies. I don't know why it bugs me but it does. :hi:

[philosophie_en_rose]

6. Supposably and Sammitch.

:grr:

[Iris]

7. Ha! I had a friend who used to say "posed to" - she's a preschool teacher

now!

Also bad - "liberry" for library.

[ScreamingMeemie]

8. I have a friend who says "prolly" and "chimley"

Sigh...

[Iris]

13. Yeah. But I'm one to talk - I often suffer from malapropism

but usually for not very commonly used words.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

28. Actually half the time I say "probably" it will sound close to prolly

It's more due to me talking fast though than anything else. If I'm not talking fast, it will sound like "probably" should sound.

[ScreamingMeemie]

57. I say it too quick sometimes too.. This is a woman who writes it

in her letters to me. I go nutty. I can't seem to read anything without editing it in my mind. :D

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

84. Oh yeah, that would drive me nutty.

Honestly, I definitely judge people on their spelling and grammar. Whenever I'm engaging in a flame war in GD with an atrocious speller with a complete lack of grammar, it definitely affects my opinion of them. I mean, honestly, how am I supposed to take someone's argument seriously when they can't even be bothered to use the spell check or a modicum of punctuation.

[grasswire]

55. prolly is often used by old-time AOL-ers...

..and early netizens. It became part of the slang.

[ScreamingMeemie]

56. This has been since before AOL. I've known her for 20 years

and it drives me nuts. :hi:

[SoCalDem]

101. Everyone knows the word is

chimBley :)

[MrCoffee]

89. What's wrong with sammitch???

[Richardo]

95. "sammitch" = one of the funniest words ever.

Never fails to crack me up.

[philosophie_en_rose]

108. It's just too cute-sy to be used.

And I dislike the person I know IRL that uses it constantly. ("Would you make me a sammitch, pweeze?" is not endearing in a 39 year old).

[Rabrrrrrr]

117. It's fucking ignorant.

And detestable.

It's slightly, partly, almost cute if a 2-year old says it, or someone says it to a 2-year old. Beyond that, it's just goddamned ignorant.

[crim son]

10. "Hopefully" used as "Hopefully the damage will be repaired

by then," as opposed to "It is hoped that the damage will be repaired by then." Correctly used, a sad lover might stare "hopefully" at the telephone, but would not be thinking, "Hopefully, John will call."

[ForrestGump]

58. True, and that's one used by many who pride themselves on being good

grammardudes...I use it that way, too, even though I know it's not strictly correct (I mean in informal writing...spoken language can be entirely different).

I gotta point out, though, that the passive voice "it is hoped that" would have resulted in a bootiekicking if I used it in my dissertation work, though that may be partially a function of the norm in science now (a norm that's changed over the years). Whatever the case, I now tend to be allergic to passive voice. "I (or whoever) hope that" is more concise as well as being active voice. Sometimes it's hard to work around what you really want to say while keeping it stylistically correct, especially when trying to avoid somewhat nitpicky things like passive voice.

[Aristus]

11. People who use "literally" as an intensifier instead of a modifier.

Drives me crazy. :crazy:

[LeftyMom]

12. I love when they say that and it's something that isn't possible when

interpreted literally. "I was so embarassed I literally was melting into the floor." "Nobody paid attention to me, I was literally invisible!" :grr:

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

17. Once my mom said to me...

"It was so cold that my feet literally froze off" and I just replied, "oh really? because I still see them." She didn't get it. For someone who has grown up in urban NJ/NYC, she has no sense of sarcasm and is oddly naive.

[crim son]

18. Lord, you'd hate me then. Literally. (There, I used it correctly,

just for you!)

[crim son]

19. Lord, you'd hate me then. Literally. (There, I used it correctly,

just for you!)
Okay, this posted twice. Sorry about that!

[Odin2005]

122. Damn, you'd probably hate me then!

[AlCzervik]

15. when i hear someone say "Boughten" "It was boughten for $5"

i really hate the sound of that word.

[Skittles]

53. I can honestly say I have never heard that

is it a regional thing?

[Nicole]

16. Kindiegarden instead of kindergarten.

Makes me think of a garden growing kids somewhere, like Cabbage Patch Kids.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

20. When people say "theatre" as "thee-ATE-err"

It seems to be used by uncultured people making a feeble attempt to be cultured. This is commonly noticed on my mother's side of the family.

[Sparkly]

50. I used to think nobody actually said that....

When I met my first in-laws, I realized people said "TheATre" as well as "Ve-Hic-le" and "INsurance," etc... I thought those were just cartoon pronunciations -- things my sisters and I said to be funny.

I also grew up pronouncing "Almond" as "AHLmond," and discovered friends who said "AY-mond;" "Pecan," which I say as "peCAWN" and they as "pee-CAN," "Syrup" I said as "SIR-rup," they said "SEER-rup;" there was "roof" as an "r" in front of "oof," pronounced by friends as "ruff;" and the big one: "AUNT." I say that as "AWnt." Most say it as "ANT."

The only time I recall being "corrected" about how I spoke was in 6th grade, when my teacher didn't like how I said the word "catch." I guess I was saying, "ketch." "Say Aaa!" "Aaa!" "Now say "caaatch!" "Ketch!" Took awhile.

Fascinating subject!

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

61. I'm guilty of all of those things.

Except for AYmond and ruff.

However, I think it's just a regional thing, because most people in north NJ talk like me.

[spindrifter]

115. I've tried and tried to break a certain

family member from saying Eye-talian. He doesn't get it that there is no such country as Eye-taly.

[hatredisnotavalue]

21. over and under...it's more than and less than!

It is not "over 40 percent of the US population is stupid" - it is "more than..."

It is not "under 20 percent of toads hibernate in the winter" - it is "less than..."

[ForrestGump]

60. 'Fewer' isn't used as much as it should be

"There were less than ten of them" should be "there were fewer than ten of them."

They may weigh less than 200 pounds each, however, rather than fewer than 200 pounds each. Discrete units tend to warrant 'fewer.'

Or something like that -- it's late, I'm tired (having had less sleep and, indeed, fewer hours of sleep than I should have had) -- and I'm probably second-guessing myself.

[Haole Girl]

22. Anxious

Contrary to what a pop dictionary might say, the word "anxious," meaning full of anxiety, does not have the same meaning as eager.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

23. *Irregardless!* Bleh! Yuk!

There is no such word, dammit. It's "regardless."

And the other thing that drives me screaming nuts is the rampant misuse of the apostrophe when forming the possessive, the plural, or the contraction. For example: "Its" is possessive, refers to something belonging to "it," and there's no apostrophe. "It's" is the contraction of "it is," and you do use an apostrophe. Or -- "the dog's" can refer to something belonging to "the dog," or it can be a contraction for "the dog is." The dogs -- no apostrophe -- refers to the plural, more than one dog. Misplaced apostrophes make me crazy. </rant>

[SeattleGirl]

26. I was going to add "irregardless". Bleh is right! n/t

[Fuzz]

27. Prounouncing 'th' as 'f'

like birfday instead of birthday.

Axe instead of Ask.

And using the adjective form of the word when the adverb is appropriate, like "He ran quick" instead of "He ran quickly"

[OnionPatch]

29. It bugs me a little when

people say "I could care less."

I think the original saying was "I COULDN'T care less." Which means I really don't care at all. If I "could" care less, that means I care at least to some degree or I wouldn't be able to care less. :shrug:

[JI7]

49. how did it ever turn into "i could care less" which makes no sense

?

that one annoys me also. but for some reason it's been used for a long time and still is but just doesn't make any sense.

[swimboy]

120. My theory:

"I couldn't care less" sounds emphatic and at the extreme end of the caring spectrum.

"I could care less" conveys to me that they don't even care enough to be emphatic, which I think makes the point quite well.

[Zavulon]

109. This was the first one I thought of when opening this thread, but

I have some to add. Thanks for saving me the trouble of typing this one out, though.

[Zavulon]

110. 1.) Saying "utilize" when the word "use" would work. ...

... I sometimes take the D.C. Metro and it drives me fucking insane to hear the morons driving say "please utilize all doors." Much like overuse of "myself," this is one of those things that people do under the "the more syllables I use, the more likely people will be to think I managed to get my GED" principle.

[Zavulon]

111. 2.) Using the name of a sport as an adjective as often as possible, as

sports announcers often do: "He's a football player who helps his football team win football games." This one drives me absolutely batshit.

[swimboy]

119. I have a crazy theory about this one that makes me okay with it.

"I couldn't care less" sounds emphatic and at the extreme end of the caring spectrum.

"I could care less" conveys to me that they don't even care enough to be emphatic, which I think makes the point quite well.

[tjwmason]

141. You're absolutely right

It's crazy.

If one could care less then by definition one has a greater degree of caring than if one couldn't.

My theory - which originates in the same place as most of my other theories about linguistic mistakes - is that people are too damn lazy to pronounce the extra smidgen of sound in "n't", and thus through use it became "acceptable".

Thank goodness, it's not used over here - it would vex me most greatly to hear it...but we're importing all sorts of nonsense from the U.S., so give it some time. :P

[arwalden]

30. How Ironic... I Was Thinking The Same Thing!

Isn't that ironic?

[Blue-Jay]

31. Don't ya think?

[ashling]

32. Too many to list

I find I have to keep repeating to myself:

I am not the grammar police
I am not the grammar police....
one thing that helps me survive the regular onslaught of misuse, maloprops, and maimed English is the thought that English, after all is a living language I recently re-read a text on the English lanuage and its relatively short history. Perhaps we should celebrate the diversity of language and chalk it up to development of tommorrow's English.


This is one of my favorite verses from the language:

Whan that Aprille with its shours sote
The Drought of Marche hath perced to the rote
And baithed every veyne in souich licour
Of which vertu engendered is the flour



just a thought ... keep it in perspective


BTW, what the hell is with "enthused"? "Enthusiastic!
And "Read" is a verb, not a NOUN!!!!!!!

ahem, snap out of it! get control ... I am Not the grammar police .... I am NOT the grammar police... I am not ...

[wickerwoman]

Starting sentences with "Anymore"

as in "Anymore I haven't seen him."

Huh?

[Kickoutthejams23]

91. I say anywho myself....

don't know why but it probably irritates people

[treestar]

33. Skyrocketing and plummeting

Reflects the melodramatic nature of our society. Nothing, I mean nothing, ever happens to just increase or decrease.

It is mostly the media doing this. Also hate "unprecendented." Overused. Everything is apparently "unprecedented." When you get right down to it, everything that happens is unprecedented, but when the media uses it on everything, it looks like over-dramatizing.

[ButtScratchinMike]

34. Here's two

"Irregardless" and "close proximity" both annoy the hell out of me.

[Zomby Woof]

35. "Prolly" instead of "Probably"

Have we become so lazy that we have to shave off that extra syllable? Is it really that hard to say?

To make matters worse, even if you substitute "probably" for "prolly" when mentally correcting the sentence, it's still not quite proper. The sentence could have probably done just as well without it.

[trackfan]

39. How about "pry"

[Left Is Write]

129. In speaking or casual internet conversation, I've been known to use prolly

It isn't because I am stupid or lazy; maybe it's part of my Minnesota dialect.

In formal writing or not-so-casual internet conversation (such as during debate), I spell the whole word out.

[bridgit]

37. k...

[begin_within]

40. "did good" instead of "did well"

As in, "On American Idol last night, Taylor did good."

[mykpart]

41. Like to,as in

"I like to died when I heard that," or "I like to fell down just now. Watch your step." I think it's a southern thing.

[Oeditpus Rex]

42. Other than a literary device

irony is in outcomes that are the opposite of what would be expected under the circumstances. Simple examples are those in which an action comes back to bite the protagonist on the ass.

Ironically, the Wregime's attempts to convince Americans that the U.S. occupation of Iraq is just led to a decline in Bush's approval rating.

"Ironically" is often used to describe coincidence or surprise. I find this mildly irritating; I reserve Flaming Grammar Nazi Rage for greater offenses.

[RoyGBiv]

43. Prescriptive minimalists ...

My pet peeve involves those who take a word or concept that can be or is complex and take a minimalist approach to defining that word or concept, then insist this minimalist definition is the only correct one.

Secondary to this, but related, are those who insist upon trying to force others into following rules of English grammar despite the utility or even sensibility of those rules, e.g. the rule against using the split infinitive, which is derived from using Latin grammar to define the rules of English, the problem being that in Latin, infinitives take a different form than in English.

[struggle4progress]

44. Incoherent the people who is unable to be in complete sentences

or talking with good grammar and repeating as well as to be ramble or unpunctuated which is that it has no regards or again saying again it over. Blech!

[Sparkly]

45. More grammatical: "Try and..."

You said "linguistic," so what popped up for me is something about grammar.

"Try AND" do something, instead of "Try TO" do something.

Of all the stupid errors there are, I hate that one the most. It's like fingernails on my chalkboard. It makes me CRAZY!!!

[Cannikin]

46. Stupid pet peeve. I hate it when people call it Star TRAK

It's Trek for God's sake!

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

48. A significant portion of my family calls "Seinfeld" "Steinfield"

[asthmaticeog]

47. Misuse of "A Propos."

Drives me up a fucking wall. It is NOT a synonym for "appropriate." :grr:

[Spider Jerusalem]

51. Actually, that's not ALL that irony is.

There's dramatic irony, there's Socratic irony, there's VERBAL irony, there's situational irony...the term means more than ONE thing. 'Verbal irony' refers to figures of speech where the literal meaning of the words is other than what is intended to be said, and includes some sarcasm (when what is said is opposite to what is meant), and also hyperbole and understatement. So, it is not JUST a literary device.

[amitten]

52. HAPPY VALENTIME'S DAY!

Valentime's. x( :wtf:

Like, time for the Valens???

[Skittles]

54. when people say WHAT NOT

WTF IS that ???

[ScreamingMeemie]

59. You mean like," I've got to do the ironing, pick up the kids,

clean up the kitchen and what not." ?
...but I use "and what have you" more.
Color me guilty...but please don't kick my ass. :hi:

[ForrestGump]

62. Many, many things

I never really learned grammar as some kind of formal construct (to this day I do not know what half of the grammatical terms relate to nor, indeed -- if you prefer to say it this way, to what they relate) but just as an organic whole. Eventually, though, I had to learn the very rigorous rules of scientific communication for my PhD work. Even though I hate the life-sucked-out-of-it aspect of dry scientific writing, I do now appreciate the unique, Zen-like beauty in its starkness and I became skilled at its practice and in teaching others how to follow suit.

Some of the things that leap to mind, as far as peeves go (most of them courtesy of my more recent training in supremely uptight scientific writing), include:

* overuse of the word "which." I go on which-hunts when I revise others' writing -- most instances of the word can be more correctly replaced with "that." I don't think I can really provide rules for determining which is correct, but I just sorta feel it (and, most definitely, "which" is used way too much and "that" is not, in general, not used enough).

* "while" indicates a temporal component. Make hay while the sun shines, sure, but don't say "while I love the symphony..." unless you're doing something else while you make love with the entire symphony, simultaneously (by the way...if you're capable of doing that, please PM me). "Whereas," or similar, is often the right word to use where many use "while."

* "affect" and "effect." Different meanings, folks.

* "e.g." and "i.e." are also not interchangeable...the first basically means "for example" and the second "in other words."

* this one's not the worst offence possible, but "between" should only be used for discussion of something between two entities whereas "among" is the right one to use in talking about three or more entities.

* "data" is a plural word...."the data is clear" is wrong; "the data are clear" is correct.

* "alot" is just not a word. Neither is "alright." Wouldn't be surprised if either is in some dictionary by now, though, because when words get misued enough that misuse becomes legitimate.

* "and/or" is naughty....I try to avoid it, in any writing (I sometimes let it go in informal writing, simply because getting around it can be a workout), and the same is true of most other such pairings ("his/her," etc). Of course, in some fields (law, for example), constructions like "and/or" may be the norm and acceptable.

* "due to" can refer to payment needing to be rendered but not as a replacement for "because of." And "due to the fact that" is an offense against Nature, being an exceedingly wasteful and convoluted way of saying "because."

On that latter subject, words that are wasted can be annoying, whether redundant or not. My aversion to such is 100% traceable to the scientific training, because my natural tendency was (and is) toward descriptive -- even 'flowery' -- prose in writing for popular audiences, although such wasted words also tend to detract from that kind of less conservative and concise writing. I'm talking about stuff like using "so as to" instead of 'to" and "at the present point in time" instead of "now." Actually, "to be" is a prime offender -- take a look at a block of text and you'll see that you can get rid of most of the "to be" instances without at all affecting the piece's meaning (e.g., "considered to be" should be "considered"). Spoken language may be one thing, but in anything but the least formal writing that kind of thing gets kind of unnecessarily bloating. And, of course, in scientific writing it's especially frowned upon because, perversely, many journals charge the authors for each article, usually by the word or page.


Using a dollar word where a ten-cent one will do is the same kind of crime. Of course, this again is more a concern in scientific and other specialized writing where precision and conciseness are valued over imagery, and sometimes those dollar words are more just image-invoking and therefore appropriate.

[idgiehkt]

105. two comments.

one, this post made me feel :puke: since I do *alot* of these all the time, *while* I wish I didn't.

two, it would be really great if whenever you write at length like this you click that little 'post to journal' button, *due to the fact* that hardly anyone around here goes on at length about anything other than politics, when in fact politics is (are?) the one thing that could use some shutting up about, lol. I'm not even gonna ask how you feel about 'lol'.
I really like reading through everybody's journals and most of them are links to articles...doesn't seem like alot (sorry) of editorializing going on which I really enjoy (thanks so much for making me question the grammatical correctness /in itself probably a grammatically incorrect phrase/ of every third word I am typing right now.) Other suggestions: your post on the legalization of prostitution and the one about cats from the other night. I don't understand why you don't post this stuff to your journal. Are they not supposed to be bloggy? Does anyone know? I am going to start one once I get a handle on what it is supposed to be like. It's a shame people are letting posts like these drift into the archives which I can't get into for some reason most of the time...so you should really post them. Alright? :evilgrin:

[ForrestGump]

133. Your a looser!

:P

Forgot to mention that now that I am a world-reknowned authority on how to write good, I pretty much throw away the rules when I write anything but scientific papers. :D

Like that I should really not have a paragraph that consists of one sentence.

That's something I strive to avoid, normally, and it can be difficult to do so.

Or that I should even start a sentence with something like 'forgot' or 'like,' though my ignorance of grammatical terminology makes me unsure of what a violation of this kind is even called. I think it's a sentence fragment, and the plain truth is that I use them a lot these days -- more than ever before -- because they flow naturally, mimic speech to an extent, and (to a degree) keep things a little punchier. I mean, I wouldn't use them in formal writing, but in anything else I think they can add a lot. And, on the bright side, this paragraph consists of more than one sentence.

This one doesn't, though.

So, yeah, I think it's good to know at least some of the 'rules' but it's fine to chuck 'em away at that point, depending on context.

Actually, that's not true -- some of these 'peeves' I mentioned really are peeves, and I avoid them consistently. Not that I get angry at others for using them, but I try to avoid it myself. Many of the booboos I mention above (and others) are only things I'd take special care to avoid (or suggest the same to others) when I'm writing for publication or doing something kinda vital like writing a job application letter, or whatever. I've helped a lot of people revise papers and other writing, but my hard-won appreciation of how to write formally (like I said, it hurt because so much of it -- especially the parts specific to scientific writing that suck the life out of any prose -- was anathema to my innate sensibilities and I just hated what I had to do to a block of what I thought was interesting writing) has probably come even more handy in helping people write cover letters or statements of interest and the like for job applications or academic fellowship and scholarship applications. On DU, for example, my writing's pretty informal...kinda...sorta. :P

I'm still learning, too. It was only recently that I learned once and for all that "moreso" should be "more so" and that "can not" can never be -- it's always "cannot." "Cannot" even looks wrong, if you ask me. Like someone with a funky accent trying to say "carrot." And I bet I'll still on occasion write something like "I can not believe it, but I'm even moreso..."

Good point about the journal thing, though...I might have to dig up a few things I've written that I think actually might be useful. I really don't get into the whole journal thing and am not into the 'blog' idea, but it's a good point.

I forgive your 'alot' if you pardon me for making you vomit, alright?

[tjwmason]

63. My pet peeve

is not noticing my own mistakes - which are legion. It is worst of all when I post them (such as on here) and only notice when I don't have the chance to correct them. :cry:

[ScreamingMeemie]

64. tj!

:hug: It's good to see you!! ...and I never notice my own mistakes either. And then I think about posting under it to correct myself. But that would be silly of me. :hi:

[ForrestGump]

68. Sorry: "which are legion" should be

"wot are legion, guv'nor," in the British idiom.

Maybe throw in an "ey-up, Chuck" (not to be confused with the vastly different American "I upchuck") or perhaps "oo-er" or similar Whizzer and Chips or Beano expression, as well, in the second sentence. :P




Cor, blimey.

[IsIt1984Yet]

65. It's a mute point.

:banghead:

NOOOOOO - it's MOOT, MOOT!!

[Lance_Boyle]

107. No, no...

it's the MOOPS! :P

[NewWaveChick1981]

67. Bastardizations of "chest of drawers" and "out-of-body experience."

Around here, I hear "chester drawers" and "outer body experience" frequently, and it just makes me want to scream. :grr: Another is "might ought", as in "I might ought to go somewhere." :mad: NO!!! "I might go somewhere" or "I ought to go somewhere" are your choices. PICK ONE!!!Yeesh....:yoiks:

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

70. Geez...don't people know how to talk down there?

[NewWaveChick1981]

72. Nope. They're a bunch of Bush-votin' fundie idiots.

:P

[ScreamingMeemie]

71. My sister-in-law can never "phantom" why bad things seem to happen

to her. :eyes: :hi:

[NewWaveChick1981]

73. OMG!

Phantom? :rofl: OK, now I have a new one to add to my Most Hated list...

[ScreamingMeemie]

74. It drives me f*cking insane. Mostly because she will tell you ALL

about her degree, how she started law school. Can you imagine? "Your Honor... I cannot for the life of me phantom why these charges have been brought against my client." She's an ass. :hi:

[NewWaveChick1981]

75. No wonder it drives you crazy...

She'd lose her case if I were the judge listening to that.... :grr:

[ForrestGump]

76. "Chester drawers" seems common, and not just a US booboo. It reminds me

of another one I heard in the South: a bedroom or living room suit. Not a suite, but a suit.

Huh?

I usually heard "might could" rather than "might ought," but either is kind of funky. There's a point, though, where it all becomes local idiom and attains some legitimacy...I might could guess y'all were fixing to say that veruh same thaing."

"Tore up" is one of my favorite Southerisms that gets a lot of use...I found myself saying it, after being there a while. My car got tore up. This shoe's tearing up my foot. I love it, I surely do. :D

[NewWaveChick1981]

79. I hear "suit" all the time instead of "suite".

In fact, there is a local furniture store that has an annoying spokesman on its commercials, and on the commercial, they spell it "suite" but say "suit." :grr: That's pretty common here, unfortunately.

That same commercial advertises the styles and lines of furniture it sells, and they write and say "Louie Phillip" instead of "Louis Philippe" (pronounced the French way). :grr:

[ForrestGump]

81. Sweet!

C'mon. You know you want to change your name to GlamRockChick1975. :P

I wonder if Louie Phillip knows Jack Cousteau?




A Loo-ay Loo-ay
Oh, yeah
Well, me gotta go
Yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah
A Loo-ay Loo-ay
Yeah, baby
Well, me gotta go now...

[ForrestGump]

82. (Keep moving. Nothing to see here. Nothing to see here.)

See?

Toldja

[Left Is Write]

127. I hear people use "chester drawers" just to be cute...

not because they are ignorant.

"Might ought" is common in some dialects.

[Rabrrrrrr]

69. When people use "where" when they mean "through which", as in

Irony is a literary device where the reader knows something the characters don't

:hi: :spank: :rofl:

[ForrestGump]

78. Whereby?

"Where" is cool as a base for some compound words of the legalese type, for example. I like compound words, even if only of my imaginaion, and think English should be more like its part-ancestral German in this respect.

"Irony is or is -- possibly -- not a literary device wherebyuntofore herein forthwithstanding the reader of the second part might could be fixin' to phantom something wherein untowhereforeartthou the characters of the first part surely don't, by golly"

[Courtesy Flush]

77. LeftyMom committed my peeve

Its not it's

[Richardo]

86. Plus, it's an O. Henry story.

[arwalden]

87. OMG... I Totally Overlooked That!!

:rofl:

[Left Is Write]

131. So did I , until I went back to read the OP after reading this post.

I don't think I got further than the subject line before I had to thrust my 2 cents into the thread!

[FILAM23]

80. My only pet peeve is

those that try to correct anothers speech.

[ForrestGump]

83. Pssstt....

Apostrophe.


Just saying.


Friendly advice.


For your own protection.

[Ariana Celeste]

135. Same here.

I really don't give a fuck, as long as I get what you're saying to me.

[calico1]

85. I don't know if this one is correct or not but

one that annoys me is "drug" as in "he drug the garbage can out to the curb" instead of "he dragged...." The way I the way I was taught it is drag and dragged, not drag and drug. So maybe it is correct, but it sounds wrong and stupid to me.

[Benfea]

88. People who say "differential" when "difference" would do.

Note: it doesn't make you sound smarter. After all, this particular linguistic fad started with sports announcers, who are not exactly rocket scientists (side note: rocket scientists use the word "differential" in a very different way).

[tigereye]

90. the use of impact as a verb in any form

(other than for dental problems);)

and people who say the word artists and swallow the s at the end.

sorry, I know it's petty, but....

[Kickoutthejams23]

92. Two in particular "below average" and axe instead of ask.

The latter drives me nuts. The former is kinda of fun. You realize half of America's children are below average. (Them fighting words) Also the rule i before e except after C has caused me to misspell words my entire adult life.

I blame thier grammer rules thease got now. :sarcasm:


edited for really sloppy grammar. And not in the sarcastic part either. :dunce:

[nickgutierrez]

93. Allow me to defend irony

What you've cited is the literary definition of irony - and yes, that's correct. That's the right usage for the literary device known as irony. There are, however, other ways of using the word "irony" - as the American Heritage Dictionary will tell us:

# a. Incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs: "Hyde noted the irony of Ireland's copying the nation she most hated" (Richard Kain). b. An occurrence, result, or circumstance notable for such incongruity. See Usage Note at ironic.

As for that usage note:

Usage Note: The words ironic, irony, and ironically are sometimes used of events and circumstances that might better be described as simply "coincidental" or "improbable," in that they suggest no particular lessons about human vanity or folly. Thus 78 percent of the Usage Panel rejects the use of ironically in the sentence In 1969 Susie moved from Ithaca to California where she met her husband-to-be, who, ironically, also came from upstate New York. Some Panelists noted that this particular usage might be acceptable if Susie had in fact moved to California in order to find a husband, in which case the story could be taken as exemplifying the folly of supposing that we can know what fate has in store for us. By contrast, 73 percent accepted the sentence Ironically, even as the government was fulminating against American policy, American jeans and videocassettes were the hottest items in the stalls of the market, where the incongruity can be seen as an example of human inconsistency.

So, it's a complicated argument. Basically, mere coincidence or improbability is not irony, but you could make a reasonably convincing case that, based on this definition in a well-known and frequently-cited dictionary of the American English language, that a sharp or dramatic difference between expectation and reality could be spoken of as irony in the non-literary sense.

[boise1]

94. "issue" doesn't mean problem, but is used irregardless

And "irregardless" is another word I find issuematic...

[LostinVA]

96. More a pronunciation thing

Saying "Michael-angelo" instead of "Mick-a-langelo." *shudder*

[LostinVA]

97. "Butt naked" instead of "buck naked"

[MrCoffee]

130. It's nekkid, not naked. sheesh.

[Left Is Write]

132. Yes, that one is irritating.

[datasuspect]

134. actually it is "butt ass nekkid"

i think it sounds better than "buck naked."

but you are technically correct.

[martymar64]

98. Know what I'm saying?

I HATE THAT PHRASE!!!
I really get irate when someone is relating a story, anecdote and something else, and keep inserting that odius phrase.
It makes want to slap them.

[Silver Swan]

99. Just a few

It always bothers me when anyone uses "snuck" as the past tense and past participle of sneak. Maybe I am an old curmudgeon, but my dictionary says "snuck" is nonstandard.

"Sneaked" is preferred, and sounds much better. "Snuck" sound like a slimy body fluid.

There are a few expressions that bother me. One is "preggers" for pregnant. I even saw one message board poster use it as a one word replacement for "pregnant woman."

I also notice a lot of people on message boards use "phase" when they mean "faze."

Nevertheless, I am really rather easygoing. For example, if someone wants to say, "I could care less," I couldn't care less.

[NoSheep]

100. You are my linguistic pet peeve!

:D

I've been misusing ironic, I suppose. My reasoning is because it describes situations that are like those that could be called irony in literature. That works for me.

What word should I use to substitute for it in order to be correct (and be allowed to live safely in your universe!)

[alcibiades_mystery]

102. Grown people who refer to their grandparents by pet names

when speaking to other adults other than their grandparents.

You want me to start ignoring you really quickly? Be an adult (or really, anyone over the age of ten) who says "My gran-gran owned a place in Myrtle Beach," or "I used to go to baseball games with my Pop-pop when I was a kid" or "My Nana has a boat just like that!"

Would you walk into your bosses office and say "I have to take off tomorrow to bring my Mommy to the hospital"? No, unless you were fucking deranged. So don't tell me about your "Grammie" or your "Grampie," your "Gramma" or your "Pop-pop." Use "grandmother" and "grandfather" like a normal fucking adult, for fuck's sake.

[alcibiades_mystery]

103. "On purpose"

Anyone over the age of 13 who uses the term "on purpose" to describe something that was intentional or deliberate. Fine, if you don't want me to take you seriously, please continue speaking like a five year-old.

[petronius]

104. My current source of irritation is "fascist"

It seems to be turning into just a multi-use insult for politics the speaker doesn't like, regardless of what those politics actually are...

[azmouse]

106. The overuse of 'basically' and 'in terms of'.

[khashka]

112. Mine are mostly grammatical

People who write "could of" instead of "could've". It's a freakin' contraction!


Or "She and me went to the store". Easy fix here: try both pronouns in the sentence alone. "She went to the store." Good. "Me went to the store." Not so good. So it should be "She and I". Sometimes it should be "me".... as in "they insulted her and I". "They insulted her." That works. "They insulted I." Don't do too well. So it should be "me". Drives me totally batfuck crazy!


Khash, the grammar Nazi.

[swimboy]

118. Hi their!

:hi:

[spindrifter]

113. Orientated is one.

A lot of people haven't oriented themselves to the proper term. Lay instead of lie is another. It is amazing how many Corporate News readers mix the two. He was "laying" down...

[SteppingRazor]

114. I've got a million of them...

the misuse of irony is certainly a great one.

But the non-word "irregardless" sets my teeth on edge.

As do people who insist on using the snooty, self-important "utilize" instead of "use"

I'm sure I could think of soooo many more if I tried.

[edwin]

116. There are at least 18 spelling errors

in today's circumcision thread. And English is my second language. :shrug:

[liontamer]

121. refusal to use the subjunctive in songs

as I wish I "was" instead of I wish I were

[Left Is Write]

123. I have so many, I couldn't possibly narrow it down to a pet.

[Left Is Write]

128. Actually, I thought of something.

"Office" and "gift" used as verbs.

Frankly, I'm not crazy about "party" and "parent" as verbs either.

[MrCoffee]

126. umm..people who, um, say, like, umm, like, alot when they, like, speak.

[GalleryGod]

138. Thank You, Mr. Coffee !!!! It's a disease on DU, too.

:puke: :argh: :puke: Here's my #1 D.U.J.H.S. special...
Post anything stupid, inane or fractured and add (wait for it)


:puke: "JUST SAYIN' ! ":puke:

[Odin2005]

136. Picky grammarians who don't understand that languages evolve.

Calling people who talk in non-standard dialects "uneducated" is snobish. I talk in a strong upper-midwestern accent (like in the movie Fargo because I grew up in a very rural part of Minnesota, and I'm more educated then most people who speak standard American English. A lot of the dialect bashing also seems to show a pathetic antipathy towards Sotherners and people from Apalachia that I find very condecending.

[Left Is Write]

137. One can understand that language evolves...

without having to like some of the evolutions.

(BTW, I speak Minnesotan too.)

[GalleryGod]

139. Thanks, JAFO

:rofl: :spray: :rofl:

I would avoid a debate with LIW..you'll get :blush: :blush: :rofl:

[tjwmason]

142. There's a difference between local dialects and bad English.

My ancestral homeland is Yorkshire, the location of one of the most charming English dialects - I've got no problem at all with a person who upon meeting me in the street would say:

"Ey-up, 'az tha bin?"

Rather than:

"Good morning, how are you doing today?"

Which is an entirely different concept to thinking that "could of" is correct usage, or that "I could care less" means that one is utterly uninterested in a subject.

[zanne]

143. "okay"?

I hate it when people do that, OK? When they try to make a point by adding this word to the end of a sentence, okay? This is annoying, OK?