# Battles you know are lost but still won't stop fighting **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 15, 2006, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-you-know-are-lost-but-still-wont-stop-fighting/348404 "2006-03-15T02:13:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Lazlo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lazlo/32/9678_2.png) [@Lazlo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lazlo)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-you-know-are-lost-but-still-wont-stop-fighting/348404/21 "2006-03-15T05:47:07Z")
I can’t stand _myriad_ being used as a noun but according to dicionaries, it is acceptable. Que vs. queue is an interesting battle in an area where bilingual spanish/english speakers are the norm. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-you-know-are-lost-but-still-wont-stop-fighting/348404/22 "2006-03-15T05:52:05Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > **nukular** – according to the OED: “it is now commonly given as a variant in modern dictionaries.” That doesn’t make it right, just “common”. > [@](#): > > It is no more wrong than pronouncing “tomato” with a long a. Yes it is. ---
**Author:** ![fishbicycle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-you-know-are-lost-but-still-wont-stop-fighting/348404/23 "2006-03-15T06:36:56Z")
One of the things that drives me up the wall is people who don’t know the difference between _phenomenon_ (the singular) and _phenomena_ (the plural). They use the plural for the singular, and add an ‘s’ to the singular to make it plural. Where’s the flamethrower smilie when you need one? ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 9:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-you-know-are-lost-but-still-wont-stop-fighting/348404/24 "2006-03-15T09:37:28Z")
> [@MLS](#): > > Fewer vs. Less. The former refers to countable things; the latter to quantity. > > You have fewer cookies, but less oatmeal. In this case, it’s not a battle that’s been lost, as historically the distinction between the two is quite recent. I agree that the distinction matters, at least in formal usage. But it’s simply not the case that the two were once completely distinct and have become blurred over time. > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > The Romans had a policy of killing 1 in 10 men in a group of disloyal soldiers. Killing off 10% of a given group is a long shot from the common usage today to mean “obliterate”. We only have the word because of the “mistaken” usage - it’s a phenomenon that simply doesn’t exist anymore, so there’s no use for the original sense except maybe in describing Roman history, so if we kept the word it would be at most a very obscure bit of jargon among historians. The word only lives on because it’s found new lease under a more useful definition. > [@Civil Guy](#): > > I’m not a fighter, but if I were… hey, a subjunctive! right here!.. I’d get annoyed about the misuse of “unique”. Look, there is no such thing as “very unique”. A thing is one-of-a-kind, or it isn’t. Now this is a complaint that I’ve never really understood. It always struck me as silly, and the good ol’ AHD explains it pretty well. Let me do some quoting. > [@The American Heritage Dictionary](#): > > Over the course of the century _unique_ has become the paradigmatic example of the class of terms that do not allow comparison or modification by an adverb of degree . . . Thus, most grammarians believe that it is incorrect to say that something is _very unique_ or _more unique_ than something else, though phrases such as _nearly unique_ and _almost unique_ are acceptable. . . . The relative acceptability of these [denigrated] usages reflects the semantic subtlety of _unique_ itself. If we were to use _unique_ only according to the strictest criteria of logic, after all, we might freely apply the term to anything in the world since nothing is wholly equivalent to anything else. Clearly, then, when we say that a restaurant or painting is unique, we mean that it is worthy of inclusion in a class by itself according to certain implicit but generally accepted criteria. Thus a legitimately unique painting might be one that realizes an unparalleled aesthetic vision, but not one that is rendered only in pigments whose names begin with the letter _o_; and a legitimately unique restaurant might be one that serves 18th-century French cuisine according to the original recipes, not one that has been installed in a converted sardine cannery. Given this understanding, it is not inherently impossible to think of uniqueness as a matter of degree, in the sense that one painting or restaurant may be more or less worthy of inclusion in a class by itself than some other. What is troubling about the copywriters’ use of _unique_ [to describe products that are not particularly noteworthy] is not that the word has become a synonym for _unusual_. Rather, it is the copywriters who are using the word in conformity with strict logic. Uniqueness is claimed for a restaurant in virtue of some trivial properties of its decor or menu . . . . Though it may be true that such properties render these things _logically_ unique, they do not constitute legitimate grounds for putting the things into a class by themselves according to the criteria ordinarily invoked when things are sorted into classes . . . As they argue, the trouble is that “uniqueness” does not really mean “one-of-a-kind-ness”, since that’s not something that is actually - logically-speaking - useful as a description. “Uniqueness” really means that something is _particularly_ distinct, since everything is _literally_ distinct. And there are definitely circumstances in which it can be argued whether something is distinct enough from its brethren to merit being considered “unique”. > [@Lazlo](#): > > I can’t stand myriad being used as a noun but according to dicionaries, it is acceptable. 😕 But just about every specific term for a large number of things can be used that way. “Hundreds” and “thousands” are particularly common. In fact, you can’t use them as anything _but_ nouns - you can’t say, for instance “I have thousand dollars” - you _have_ to use the article, because “thousand” is _not_ an adjective, the way smaller numbers are. I simply don’t understand what you’re getting at at all. > [@Suburban Plankton](#): > > That doesn’t make it right, just “common”. Don’t make me do the whole nucular thing again. It’s tiring. Seriously, can you come up with a convincing argument for why “nucular” is wrong? > [@fishbicycle](#): > > One of the things that drives me up the wall is people who don’t know the difference between phenomenon (the singular) and phenomena (the plural). They use the plural for the singular, and add an ‘s’ to the singular to make it plural. > > Where’s the flamethrower smilie when you need one? It’s to be expected. Irregular plurals are tough for English speakers. It grates on my nerves, too - but in a hundred years, it’ll be the normal usage. That’s the way it works. We simply don’t retain the singular and plural forms of nouns we borrow from other languages - historically, it just doesn’t happen. They always get regularized to normal English usage. Of course, we’re not there yet with “phenomenon”, nor with “criterion”. Misusing the plurals is simply not acceptable in writing or formal speech. But we’re moving ever closer - it’s like getting pissed at rivers for forming canyons by erosion. Processes like this are slow and inexorable. I’ve decided I might as well not grind my teeth about it, as I don’t need the erosion to happen in my mouth as well. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-you-know-are-lost-but-still-wont-stop-fighting/348404/25 "2006-03-15T09:43:05Z")
> [@Mrs Johnson](#): > > Someone saying “ideal” when he/she means “idea”. > :rolleyes: You’d go potty in Bristol then. 😃 An unusual feature of the Bristol, England dialect is the habit of closing words with an “l” after a weak vowel. For instance the “Carl Rosa Opera Company” would be the “Carl Rosal Operal company”, “etc” is pronounced “etceteral”, and the equivalent of “Eureka!” is “I’ve got a good ideal!”. And so on. Even the city name itself is a corruption of “Bri’stow”, “bridge place”. “Refute”. We already have enough synonyms for “reject”, “dispute”, “deny” and “rebut”. Pinching another one from “disprove” doesn’t help. ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-you-know-are-lost-but-still-wont-stop-fighting/348404/26 "2006-03-15T09:49:01Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > “Refute”. We already have enough synonyms for “reject”, “dispute”, “deny” and “rebut”. Pinching another one from “disprove” doesn’t help. I don’t get the hate for “refute”, as it has a slightly different meaning from all the others, and it’s useful to have that. But the usage of “refute” to mean “rebut” (which basically means “attempt to refute”) is irritating. That may not be so much misuse of a word as a tendency on many people’s parts to overstate the skill with which they argued something . . . ---
**Author:** ![Roland\_Orzabal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c2a13f/32.png) [@Roland\_Orzabal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roland_Orzabal)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 9:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-you-know-are-lost-but-still-wont-stop-fighting/348404/27 "2006-03-15T09:52:15Z")
“Almost exactly”. Not for the reason you may think, though. For years now, I’ve been arguing with people – waaaay too many people – that there is nothing wrong with using the phrase “almost exactly”. I rarely use this phrase myself, having long been aware of the ruckus that inevitably arises upon its utterance; I don’t feel the need to deliberately start semantics debates in casual conversation. Nonetheless, it bugs the hell out of me that every time somebody says it, some self-declared Grammar Policeman will chime in by saying, “You know, it’s [grammatically/logically] incorrect to say that.” When asked why, the person almost always (ha!) replies, “Something is either exact, or it isn’t. Therefore, saying it is ‘almost exact’ has no meaning whatsoever.” My response is as follows. Ok, so a given comparison is either exact, or it isn’t. That is correct. The comparison I’m discussing is not exact. It is, however, quite close, by any mutually agreeable standards, to achieving a state of exactness, hence my use of the phrase, “almost exactly”. Those comparisons to which this phrase applies fall, without exception, squarely under the category of ‘not exact’, which is one of the two categories we agreed to be in existence, but adds much-needed clarification as to its proximity to said state. It is, if you will, a sub-category of exactitude. Your next claim was that “almost exact” is a logically meaningless statement. I assume this is because the term ‘almost’ is not an absolute, whereas ‘exact’ is. If we are allowed only to define things in terms of absolutes, then the only thing we can determine when comparing two objects is that they are either exactly alike, or that they are not. If the only result we are allowed to obtain from a comparison of two unlike objects is that they are Not Exactly Alike, the comparison is rather useless in the first place, since all we’ve accomplished is to eliminate one possibility from an infinite set. That sounds like a fairly meaningless statement to me. If, on the other hand, we allow ourselves the idea that they are Almost Exactly Alike, we can limit our range of options to whatever bounds we feel are appropriate under an agreed-upon definition of the word ‘almost’. In conclusion, the term “almost exactly” is therefore only meaningless if you contend that the word ‘almost’ has no definition or applicable connotation. Would you like to have a look in the OED, or should I? Long rant, yes, but hey, this seemed to the time and place. Next time, ask me about double negatives. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-you-know-are-lost-but-still-wont-stop-fighting/348404/28 "2006-03-15T10:03:34Z")
> [@Roland Orzabal](#): > > “Almost exactly”. . . . I gotta say - you need new grammar police in your life. Because complaining about that phrase on logical grounds is simply moronic (as you’ve pretty thoroughly argued.) Even the stylebooks that argue that “more unique” is wrong don’t argue that “almost unique” is also wrong. Sheesh, some people just need heavy things to fall on them from the sky. ---
**Author:** ![Nancarrow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c37758/32.png) [@Nancarrow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nancarrow)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-you-know-are-lost-but-still-wont-stop-fighting/348404/29 "2006-03-15T10:34:58Z")
Your/you’re. would of, should of, could of. That’s all I’ve got. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-you-know-are-lost-but-still-wont-stop-fighting/348404/30 "2006-03-15T11:00:42Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > I don’t get the hate for “refute”, as it has a slightly different meaning from all the others, and it’s useful to have that. > > But the usage of “refute” to mean “rebut” (which basically means “attempt to refute”) is irritating. That may not be so much misuse of a word as a tendency on many people’s parts to overstate the skill with which they argued something . . . Oh, I don’t hate the word. I like it a lot and would like to take it to dinner some time. What I hate is people who say “No, no, I utterly refute that allegation” before they’ve even advanced one word of evidence or argument. Overstating indeed. ---
**Author:** ![FatBaldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecd19e/32.png) [@FatBaldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FatBaldGuy)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-you-know-are-lost-but-still-wont-stop-fighting/348404/31 "2006-03-15T15:18:20Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > “Y’all” is a colloquial contraction of “you all” and is used exactly the same as “you all”. It is never used in the _singular_ sense (e.g. you would never say to a single person at a Waffle House “could y’all pass that syrup?”) **Sampiro** , I gotta say that this does not square with my experience in speaking with people from the south. I have many times been addressed as “y’all” when I was the only person around. The plural of “y’all” is “all y’all,” which really grates on my ears. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-you-know-are-lost-but-still-wont-stop-fighting/348404/32 "2006-03-15T15:33:29Z")
Effect (noooooooun) vs affect (veeeeeeerb). Yes, I do work with IT guys and programmers a lot. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-you-know-are-lost-but-still-wont-stop-fighting/348404/33 "2006-03-15T15:38:20Z")
There’s one instrument I work with that has a “decimation” feature, and I was pleasently surprised to find it’s close to the original meaning: it only saves every Nth data point and throws out the rest to conserve data storage. The one I can’t stand is “dampen”. You _damp_ an oscillation, and you _dampen_ something by spraying water on it. The only _dampener_ on your car is the windshield washer nozzle. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-you-know-are-lost-but-still-wont-stop-fighting/348404/34 "2006-03-15T15:38:31Z")
> [@aurelian](#): > > …And the strange need to put apostrophe’s before plural’s… 😃 {{{{{aurelian}}}}} ---
**Author:** ![yBeayf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e274bd/32.png) [@yBeayf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yBeayf)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-you-know-are-lost-but-still-wont-stop-fighting/348404/35 "2006-03-15T15:38:32Z")
> [@](#): > > Sampiro, I gotta say that this does not square with my experience in speaking with people from the south. I have many times been addressed as “y’all” when I was the only person around. The plural of “y’all” is “all y’all,” which really grates on my ears. Sorry. Proper usage in the south is that “y’all” is plural. I’ve never in my life heard “all y’all” used in actual conversation, and the only time “y’all” is ever used to address a single person is when that person is a stand-in for a group of people, e.g. asking a store clerk “Y’all got any more of these widgets in the back?”. ---
**Author:** ![fishbicycle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aeb1de/32.png) [@fishbicycle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fishbicycle)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-you-know-are-lost-but-still-wont-stop-fighting/348404/36 "2006-03-15T15:45:58Z")
I work with a young guy from out in the sticks, FL. I have heard him say “all y’all” to refer to more than one person, and for an item or situation regarding another person, “y’all’s.” In English, that would be “your.” It makes me want to beat him with the language stick. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-you-know-are-lost-but-still-wont-stop-fighting/348404/37 "2006-03-15T15:47:05Z")
> [@Fabulous Creature](#): > > But even as I typed that I knew it was pointless. There are untold examples of rotten usage that have been tolerated so long they’ve become acceptable. :shrug: This is the story of language. A great many of the words you use “correctly” today would strike Elixabethan listeners as “rotten usage”. An example: Have you ever complimented someone on a “nice” haircut or a “nice” dress? Well, that would have been an insult at one time – you’d have meant their haricut/dress/whatever was “silly” or “childish”. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-you-know-are-lost-but-still-wont-stop-fighting/348404/38 "2006-03-15T15:49:43Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > There is nothing folksy about saying _nukular_ unless the folks in question have a severe speech impediment or are retarded, and I simply don’t understand what’s difficult about saying it correctly. Oh boy … ---
**Author:** ![Rysto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-you-know-are-lost-but-still-wont-stop-fighting/348404/39 "2006-03-15T15:56:05Z")
We seem to be fighting a losing(or should I say, loosing?) battle on the whole lose/loose thing. I honestly can’t understand why so many people have this problem; loose and lose are clearly pronounced differently and the spellings following the difference in pronounciation. ---
**Author:** ![cactus\_waltz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@cactus\_waltz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cactus_waltz)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2006, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-you-know-are-lost-but-still-wont-stop-fighting/348404/40 "2006-03-15T16:02:28Z")
I correct friends who do not differ between \*much \*and _many_. It’s a big deal for me. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-you-know-are-lost-but-still-wont-stop-fighting/348404.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/battles-you-know-are-lost-but-still-wont-stop-fighting/348404.md?page=3)