BS: Language Pet Peeves

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 23 May 20 - 03:41 AM

Worse than "oh my God" is "oh my gosh".

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 May 20 - 05:58 AM

"Well f***ing stroll on..." - one of my favourites!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 23 May 20 - 02:50 PM

Backwoodsman, I agree.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 23 May 20 - 03:05 PM

Always seems to me that the kind of people who habitually use, “Oh My God” as an expression of surprise are the least likely to have faith in any kind of Deity.

That's because they the most confident that they won't get struck by lightning for doing it.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 23 May 20 - 06:16 PM

Does anyone else get grief for writing moslem instead of muslim?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 26 May 20 - 11:52 AM

From a news story about a black man killed by a white cop:

Squads were called to the 3700 block of Chicago Avenue South shortly after 8 p.m. on reports of a forgery in progress.


What?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 26 May 20 - 01:50 PM

Yes, Mrrzy, it seems unlikely.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Senoufou
Date: 26 May 20 - 03:39 PM

I always say 'Muslim', but what is very annoying is the tendency for rather racist anti-Muslim people to call them 'Mozzies'. I use that word only for 'mosquitoes'.
I've heard younger people say " O-M-G!!" "ASAP!" and "LOL!" as if they're texting not speaking!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 27 May 20 - 08:46 AM

Aha forgery in progress meant guy trying to use fake id or counterfeit money or something.

Still sounds wrong but ok.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Charmion
Date: 27 May 20 - 10:11 AM

In Canada, a "forgery in progress" would mean the perp has been caught in the act of making the fake ID. Using the fake ID is "uttering a false document", "impersonation" or "misrepresentation", depending on the circumstances.

Senoufou, you have opened the door to the MOST IRRITATING SPEECH HABIT EVER, by which I mean the tic of using acronyms and initialisms instead of REAL WORDS (shouting intended). Having spent my entire sentient existence in or near the armed forces, I have a thick callus around that particular peeve, but it twinges worse with every passing year.

Now I am an Olde Pharte, I feel entitled to look busy young folks in the eye and say, "And what's that in real English?" or words to that effect. The bank is the Bank of Montreal, not Bee Mow. The noisy machine that makes the house tolerable in summer is the air-conditioner, not an Eh Cee. The car is a Volkswagen, not a Vee Double You.

I know where it comes from. When your working life is full of things like the mine-detection vehicles collectively known as an Expedient Route-Opening Capability (!), the only sane reaction is to call it Eee-Rock and consider yourself lucky that you don't have to talk like that at home. But alas, many people think it's cool to turn their conversation into a big, fat guessing game.

That's my spleen vented for today. Or for now, at least.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Charmion's brother Andrew
Date: 27 May 20 - 10:57 AM

And that, Ladies and Germs, is a sister well and truly language-peeved.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Senoufou
Date: 27 May 20 - 11:39 AM

Haha Charmion, I'm an Olde Pharte too, and my lovely neighbours' two 'children' (now twenty one and seventeen) are barely intelligible in full spate. I merely blink and smile benignly and look a bit senile/simple.
I've always said on here that language evolves and changes. After all (sadly) we no longer speak like characters in a Shakespeare play. But I find many of the changes intensely irritating. I must be a Grumpy Olde Pharte.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 May 20 - 11:53 AM

Whether you like it or not, it's VW here. You'd hear far more VW Golfs than Volkswagen Golfs this end. And that's the point really. Once an expression largely supersedes its older or "more acceptable" version, you might as well give up the fight. "VW Golf" is standard English, because it's what standard English speakers say. You might as well still be telling us to not split infinitives.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 27 May 20 - 01:09 PM

It is not CCR. Nor BTO. Creedence. Bachman Turner Overdrive. Crosby Stills Nash & Young, not CSNY.

But it *is* REM.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Senoufou
Date: 27 May 20 - 01:30 PM

I always say "Volkswagen" in my best German accent. But we both say 'Beamer' for BMW. I do find some of the youngsters' short texty-type speech amusing. My niece (not all that young, but very trendy) always types 'soz' for 'sorry', which makes me smile.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Donuel
Date: 27 May 20 - 01:31 PM

An early example of redundancy for me is "Forty Days AND Forty Nights". We have gone through 40 days and 40 nights of self isolation and piled another 40 days and 40 nights on top of it today.
Some of us will be doubling the 80 days and nights of more self isolation. Some of us won't.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jeri
Date: 27 May 20 - 01:49 PM

Don, ir makes snse to me. You can do 40 days and 39 nights, or 39 days and 40 nights.

Mistake seen somewhere else on Mudcat: "gain the system"
It's "GAME the system".

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Donuel
Date: 27 May 20 - 02:32 PM

Jeri you remind me of Data, the Star Trek character.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Senoufou
Date: 27 May 20 - 02:32 PM

I like 'Chester drawers' (chest of drawers hee hee). But the expression 'bored of...' enrages me. It's universal now. I'm used to saying 'bored with...'. Ah well.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jeri
Date: 27 May 20 - 02:40 PM

Not complicated enough for Data. It's the sort of thing most people would've thought of.

The isolation thing: it's just norma around here. The only difference is that there's no place to escape to. Which has nothing to do with language.

I kept thinking it would make a good TV car insurance commercial, if the spokesperson said "And there you have it, straight from the gecko ("get-go"). If they go for it, I want a percentage.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 27 May 20 - 02:40 PM

Tired of. Bored with. Yeah.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jeri
Date: 27 May 20 - 02:47 PM

Every time someone says "bored of", I realize some folks are just not that educated. (I say this, meaning ANY education. I don't have a pile of degrees.)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Charmion
Date: 27 May 20 - 04:26 PM

Tired of, bored with. How hard can this be?

"Chester drawers" is a new one to me -- possibly because the only Ontarians who say "chest of drawers" were carefully trained by their socially aspiring mothers to enunciate with exquisite care. I speak from personal experience here.

Everybody else says "dresser". Sixty years ago, you would hear "bureau" in the Ottawa Valley and around Montreal, but that now seems as antique -- and probably regional -- as "chesterfield".

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 May 20 - 05:39 PM

"Bored of" is fine. That's what lots of people say, so object if you like but it's a fight you'll lose. If you can be tired of you can be bored of. Come on, let's see you arguing that one. What I don't like is the degradation of language by the ditching of really useful distinctions. I can't accept "alternate" instead of "alternative" because these words have distinct meanings that are worth preserving. I feel the same about "uninterested" and "disinterested" and will continue to use them my way, but I know I've lost that fight. Shame really, but language is wot people speak, not wot academics decide we should speak.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Charmion's brother Andrew
Date: 28 May 20 - 09:17 AM

Donuel, "Forty Days and Forty Nights" is the first line of a Palm Sunday hymn in /The Book of Common Praise/. Anyone who has dealt with the "hospitality industry" knows that it was 39 nights and it wasn't on the European plan.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 28 May 20 - 05:14 PM

Also I am getting used to the more-British-than-American "different TO" where murricans say Different FROM.

I am *not* getting used to "on accident" instead of By accident, however.

Also some regions of the States equate the terms Anymore and Nowadays, while I use them differently:

I (verb noun) nowadays. Means I usen't* to but I do now.
I don't (verb noun) anymore. Means I used to but now no longer do.

I (verb noun) anymore just clashes.

*See, I remembered!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Senoufou
Date: 28 May 20 - 06:02 PM

I really like regional vocabulary and dialect differences around the world (and around the UK) They're not the same thing as grammatical errors and rather ignorant misuses.
Having been born in West London, lived in Edinburgh and Glasgow and now Norfolk, I've thoroughly enjoyed the variations in speech, accent and dialect.
I can't explain why some utterances irritate me nowadays.
I should try harder to accept them I suppose.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 May 20 - 06:18 PM

You can say different to or different from. Only nitpicking grammar police will pick you up for that. I do sort of object to "anymore" as, to me, it's two words, not one, but I won't lose sleep over it. What we should always remember is that, in everyday speech and when we're typing on Mudcat, we're allowed to be casual in order to avoid erecting barriers. In more formal writing you should ideally know the rules and try to stick to them. If you don't know the rules, you might get away with it if you know a good copy editor and/or proofreader. And even they should remember that we're in the 21st century and that a touch of indulgence could be in order.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Bill D
Date: 28 May 20 - 09:51 PM

I posted some 'concerns' way back in the thread... but when doing a search for an official answer on some, I stumbled on this:

....dumb-things-people-should-stop-saying-and-writing.

Have fun!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: JennieG
Date: 29 May 20 - 12:32 AM

These are written rather than spoken, but they still irritate:

Using 'draw' instead of drawer. Do not do it. The word is 'drawer'.

'Walla' instead of 'voila'.

This one has been seen on many a quilting page - sewing a 'boarder' instead of a 'border' around your quilt.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 29 May 20 - 12:47 AM

Oh, that *was* fun!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 29 May 20 - 01:26 AM

"Anymore" is an interesting word. Sometimes it needs to be two words:

    I don't want any more deviled eggs.

Or it can be an adverb meaning "at this time and into the future":

    I don't play the bagpipe anymore.

When I moved to Missouri, I learned a new sense, namely "nowadays."

    It seems like anymore nobody knows how to make head cheese.
====
I'd find it hard to explain to anyone how we got the second two meanings from the two words any and more.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Senoufou
Date: 29 May 20 - 02:35 AM

Didn't Edgar Allan Poe write a poem in which one line says:-
Quoth the raven "Nevermore!" (all one word)
And I had to look up 'head cheese'leeneia!! It sounded like a rather nasty form of dandruff, but I see it's a sort of brawn!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 29 May 20 - 04:00 AM

From what I have tasted, head cheese isn't a sort of brawn. It is brawn.

I'm not much fussed if people say "different to" or "different from" but, personally, I always try to use "different from".

As an aside to people saying drawer when they mean draw: I always say draw but, when I was an apprentice, it was pointed out that there was no "r" in the middle of the word "drawing". Since then, I have made a conscious effort not to say "drawring" but, even after these many years, it doesn't come naturally.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 May 20 - 04:25 AM

No need to get peeved. Just be amused. I love it when supposedly well-educated folks, newsreaders or reporters for example, say things such as "seckertry", "priminister", "Febry"and "deteriate". But let's reign ourselves in from being too critical. Alright? ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 29 May 20 - 04:44 AM

An interesting list from Bill D's link but many of the explanations should have been prefixed with "In my opinion ..." . I had to check to check back to see who the author was. I thought that it might have been Steve. ;-)

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Thompson
Date: 29 May 20 - 07:51 AM

And 'criteria' used as a singular. Criterion, please! And 'may' used when 'might' would be clearer.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 29 May 20 - 09:37 AM

Yeah, bacterium, too. And datum.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 29 May 20 - 11:06 AM

Tentative conclusion based on posts to this point: if an 'incorrect' usage annoys you, those who perpetrate it are contemptible; if an 'incorrect' usage does not annoy you, or if you even perpetrate it yourself, then anyone who is annoyed by it is contemptible. Agreed?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 29 May 20 - 12:03 PM

Absolutely, meself! That goes without saying.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 May 20 - 12:28 PM

Not so. We should be relaxed about the ways in which we use English casually in everyday life. We should reserve our ire or scorn or derision for those who would be pompous or self-regarding, and, of course, for those who get it wrong in supposedly serious, formal written English. When it comes to Mudcat, nothing fills me with glee more than someone who criticises MY English. Their own efforts are invariably peppered with errors, and I love to point them out as scornfully as I can manage.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 29 May 20 - 12:32 PM

”As an aside to people saying drawer when they mean draw: I always say draw but, when I was an apprentice, it was pointed out that there was no "r" in the middle of the word "drawing". Since then, I have made a conscious effort not to say "drawring" but, even after these many years, it doesn't come naturally.“

And my hackles rise when people write ‘draw’ instead of ‘drawer’ - Aaaaaaarrrgghh!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 29 May 20 - 12:50 PM

I've just been wasting time on YouTube, and it has reminded me of something that always irritates me: when adults adopting a foreign child refer to it as Gotcha Day.

To me, there's something predatory about it. I picture a harrier's bloodthirsty swoop onto a hapless chipmunk. Will the child have any individuality left after this family engulfs it?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 29 May 20 - 01:01 PM

Also, remember the vulva. People frequently say vagina when they mean vulva. That bugs me. Many people don't even know the word vulva.

Vulva vulva vulva it is such a great word, too.

What's worse is vagina means "sheath" - androcentric, eh.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 29 May 20 - 01:06 PM

Here's one I'm trying not to let become a pet peeve: for the past six months or so, I see the - not sure what to call it - utterance? interjection? vocable? - "ugh" in posts all over the internet. I'm never sure what it's supposed to mean, at least, until I've read into the posts; even then, I'm not always certain. I realize that "ugh" is not new, but its widespread use is. Anyone know how this recent phenomenon got started? Who was the "influencer"?

Here's one I just read on thesession (yes, I do have too much time on my hands, as a matter of fact): "Ugh! The bent thumb!" (relating to holding the violin bow).

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Donuel
Date: 29 May 20 - 02:35 PM

I recall it took me 2 years to correct my collapsed thumb to the proper bent thumb. Old habits die hard.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 29 May 20 - 03:56 PM

I was reading the article/list that Bill D. linked to, and I got as far as: "Why are you guys so big on pronouncing aunt as ahnt, which sounds incongruously like aristocratic putting on airs to me." We're supposed to take linguistic advice from that illiterate buffoon? This, btw, is taken from a rant aimed at the way "blacks" pronounce certain words, apparently, and is followed by a gratuitous reference to Aunt Jemima. I invite John T. Reed to go away and have carnal relations with himself.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 29 May 20 - 07:39 PM

My whole family (sibs parents parents' sibs their kids) says ant. My kids both say awnt. Weirdoes.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: BobL
Date: 30 May 20 - 02:33 AM

In my part of the world "aunt" and "aren't" are homophones. Not everywhere. Problem?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 30 May 20 - 04:02 AM

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/people-have-been-saying-ax-instead-ask-1200-years-180949663/