Noisome - means offensive or disgusting, especially in smell, not loud and cacophonous.
You’d think that Superman would be a good person to invite to a barbecue but trust me, he’s not. I mean, sure he can cook the hot dogs fast with his heat vision, but they all taste of charred eye boogers.
A phrase that’s always used incorrectly is “Possession is nine-tenths of the law”. Taken literally, this means “Nine-tenths of the laws are in regards to property and criminal actions involving property”. That would make sense. But everytime I’ve ever heard or read the phrase, it’s used in the sense of “Since I’m the one in actual possession of the disputed property, it’s almost assuredly mine”.
Hoi polloi is often misused. It is a derogatory expression meaning the “common people” or “uncultured masses.” Many people seem to think that it means the snooty upper-crust people. Perhaps they have hoi polloi confused with hoity-toity.
Oh, and by the way, I had to laugh when I saw #1 on your list, Karl. Just an hour ago, my husband said that he was “disinterested” in something when he meant “uninterested,” and I explained the difference.
I get annoyed when people use “quote–unquote” for two reasons. One, they’re usually not quoting, but paraphrasing, and by saying “unquote” implying that it was not a quote, after they just said it was. Proper useage would be “quote–end quote”, always provided that what is said between the two is a quote.
OrganicMatter nailed my linguistic pet peeve. “I could care less” completely reverses the meaning intended.
Another: “I’m nauseous”. (And some are.) But there’s a difference from being nauseated, from something nauseating.
Ok, picky, picky. This is why English drives people nuts. (I’m still deeply suspicious that Coldfire uses the language, formal and trash, so much better most native speakers. Whassup w/ that superagent investigation thingy?)
That one’s tops on my list. My sister says that constantly, and will not accept my explanation. I think I’ll send her a link to this page (not that it’ll do any good).
Karen: I could care less!
Steve-o: So you do care?
Karen: No, I just said I didn’t.
Steve-o: You said quote you could care less unquote . For you to be able to care less, you must care some now… Right?
Karen: No, it’s just an expression. It means that I don’t care.
Steve-o: No if you….
Karen: Shut up!
And so it goes… just like that… every time.
Things are random only insofar as we don’t understand them.
From what I’ve seen, one of the most frequent offenders in this category (I’ve even seen it in professional writing) is “reason is … because.” For example : “The reason I’m going to the store is because I want to pick up the latest issue of Felchers Quarterly.” “Reason is” and “because” mean the same thing. Using both is redundant.
Many people (most especially Americans, but to some extent we Canadians) confuse the words “comprise” and “compose”.
For example, you’ll hear a news broadcaster say, “Their organization is comprised of 2500 volunteers”. The “of” is incorrect. He should either say “Their organization is composed of 2500 volunteers” (which is gramatical, even if it sounds a bit demeaning), or “Their organization comprises 2500 volunteers”.
Moving on to another matter…
I’ve always had a problem with “quote-unquote”, but not for the reason noted in a previous post. What bothers me is that it is like me doing ""this.
Personally, when I use that expression, I will say something like:
“It’s what they call a quote healthy unquote activity.” (And before you ask, no, I don’t make those “air quotes” with my fingers!)
Most people would say:
“It’s what they call a healthy (quote-unquote) activity.” This strikes me as mental laziness. In some sentences, it isn’t even clear which words are being, um, “quotified”. (Yes, I know there’s no such word – yet.)
I will admit, however, that the words being quotified are usually indicated as such by a slight change in inflection.
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10 items or less: Should be 10 items or fewer. If I didn’t forget my wallet at home, which means I don’t have money, which means I can’t buy coffee, I could tell you why.
I’ve noticed quite a few people incorrectly use ambivalent when what they actually mean is indifferent.
Not that many people ever use the word wherefore; but Juliet was not asking where Romeo was hiding ("…wherefore art thou, Romeo?").
I once saw a TV commercial that advertised a teddy bear that was “totally inflammable.” Of course, what they meant to say was non-flammable. Unless of course they truly meant their bears tended to burst into flames.