Insurance has a sh sound, not a ch sound. When you buy a policy, you inshure something, right? Then why do you call it an inchurance policy? Huh? Can’t tell me, can you? Thought not.
And I’ll personally mail you $25 if you can convince me why it should be fermiliar instead of familiar, or why particularly should have six syllables instead of five.
And then there are cockaroaches. (Or more accurately, there aren’t.)
Another redundancy that’s starting to get under my skin is “all new,” as in “an all new episode.” I guess this compares to, say, “a partly new episode.”
Yeah, NBC, I’m looking at you.
A detailed search may plausibly use a fine-toothed comb. It will never use a fine toothcomb.
Anyone can have his cake and eat it. The difficult bit is to eat your cake and have it.
I always say “Half of one, six dozen of the other.”
But I say it deliberately
Take this with the amount of salt you feel is appropriate, but I seem to recall reading that the phrase actually derives from a shortened translation of a Yiddish saying which roughly means: “As if I could care less.”
I think I got this from Leo Rosten, but my memory is hazy.
They’re the same people who say “Sat-er-ren” for “Saturn” and “patt-er-ren” for “pattern.”
I’m so glad I bought a new car - I won’t have to listen to my FIL mangle the name of my old one anymore.
Worse, “Havana, Cuber.”
For the love of God, what is wrong with Bostonians??? 
Sorry if I missed it but, do we know for sure that “Couldn’t care less” is not the original?
Thank goodness, no. It’s thankfully so far just a speech pattern that has been bothering me lately.
Well, there are those flashback shows that have a new frame setup but old replayed material.
Yeah, NBC, I’m looking at “Golden Girls”.
Here’s a link to a page which fails to settle the “could care less” issue. But it’s chock full of interesting stuff and links and such.
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001182.html
-FrL-
Check out the next entry at that site:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001183.html
-Frl-
Homonyms are my bugbear.
“The missile *honed in on * its target.” Hone means to sharpen by rubbing, home means to seek a target or destination. We ain’t got “honing pigeons”.
“I stood in a cue to get tickets.” One stands in a queue (line); and actor waits for his cue (line).
The inimitable Washington Post contained these gems recently:
“A hoard of termites.” Hoard is a hidden treasure, horde is a loosely organized army.
“He sustained a mile ankle injury.” Now he’ll have to stay off all 5,280 feet for a few days? :dubious:
Sailboat
We’re unique. “Very unique.” 
I’ve pretty much given up the fight on this one. It grates on me to hear “less” and “fewer” misused, but apparently precious few others feel that way. It looks like “less” and “fewer” are going the way of other grammatical dinosaurs, like “can” and “may.” A political cartoon in my local paper the other day had “less days” as part of its text.
sigh
I don’t mind so much the different pronunciations ( though comfterble is a pet peeve) as the words people use to mean something else that leave me wondering how they meant it. Nonplussed and bemused are two that are routinely used wrong. I find myself asking if by nonplussed they mean not bothered or perplexed. bemused confuses me the same way. So I can live with the ones that grate on the ear much more easily than the ones that are used wrong so often the intent of the speaker is in doubt.
I cringe when I hear “orientate” and I always thought it was incorrect. So what’s the deal with Merriam-Webster and Bartleby.com.
Oh, here’s why. It makes me want to cry…
The word that bothers me more than “orientate” is “certificated”. What in the world is wrong with “certified”?
We know nothing for sure. It seems less logical, to me, that “couldn’t care less” would morph into something that makes less sense, than that a phrase which already makes perfect context should shift context as it becomes an idiom. This happens pretty frequently; take the currently re-contextualizing, “stick a fork in it.” It makes no sense to stick a fork in something as a ceremonious acknowldedgement that it is “done,” which is what that metaphor means for most people who use it. It’s original context, rather, is that you stick a fork in something BEFORE you know it’s done, in order to determine if it’s done or not.
So, the phrase doesn’t change while the context does. This doesn’t PROVE of course that the original phrase was “could care less” and not “couldn’t care less,” but it’s just a partial explanation of why I, personally, think so.
Here’s how pissy I am: I hate “obligate,” which if you ask me is just as bad as “orientate.” What the hell’s wrong with “oblige”?
“You’re not obliged to bring a gift” is perfectly fine, and less clunky (if you ask me) than “you’re not obligated to bring a gift.”
The two of us both agree with each other that this is correct.