Personally, I don’t get too upset over neologisms or the “verbification” of nouns. I just get upset when people use a word or phrase that means the exact opposite of what they think it means (“I could care less” or “nonplussed”), or when they use the wrong word entirely due to sheer ignorance (“loose” instead of “lose”).
Heck – I’m all for English being a living, breathing entity. I’ve even coined a few words myself (I’m still waiting for “bumfuddled” to catch on…)
Barry
Well, I can mostly agree with those gripes. On the other hand, when have you ever heard someone use the phrase, “I could care less” to mean, “I care”?
Given that the phrase is always used to mean, “I don’t care,” I don’t think it’s legitimate to gripe about people using a phrase that means the exact opposite of what they think it means. They mean to say, “I don’t care,” everyone who hears them understands that that’s what they mean, and if a few people get annoyed by the phrase whose intended meaning they understand, too bad for them – I could care less about their gripe.
“Nonplussed,” on the other hand, has a great meaning, and it’s a shame if that meaning leaves the language due to a lack of comprehension. So I’m with you on that one.
Daniel
Ah, so what you’re saying is that you do care, at least to some degree! Well, I’m glad we agree about this.
Actually, I wonder whether people who say “I could care less” really mean “I could [conceivably] care less, but I don’t,” and “I could care less” is just an abbreviated form of the expression? Heck, if I consistently misused the phrase, that’s the excuse I would use…
Barry
How about this error?
“The sock’s are in the drawer.”
Drives me batty.
I’m sorry, I was maybe being too obscure, though I thought the last word would give you a hint. My real pet peeve is the misspelling athiest. It shows up often enough that you can’t brush it off as a typo.
Some people never seem to be able to get it right and yet they’d never misspell “communist” or “capitalist”.
That’s all.
Sorry.
misuse of the word vice. I know way too many people who use it to mean their pet peeves. I want to strangle them.
I hate when people misuse the word “murderballs”. It’s like, grow up, man.
I remember when my 4th grade teacher pronounced “intricate” “intriciat.”
I think more people write “peaked my interest” or even “peek my interest” than “piqued.”
Since I often use the caption function when watching TV, I’ve noticed that no one spells all right correctly anymore. It is commonnly misspelled alright. I guess they are confusing it with all ready and already. How can you get a job writing captions if you can’t spell?
Someone mentioned oxymorons earlier. Although I agree that “military intelligence” is not an oxymoron, it is the claiming that it is an oxymoron that creates the joke. Sort of like “living in Buffalo.” 
BTW, I once heard President Gerald Ford say, “…to coin a cliche.” The horror! The horror!
Business involving real estate is “realty.” Two syllables. Not “reality.” Three syllables. That word is "re-al-i-ty."Four syllables.
And “not un-” is meaningless. “I’m not unhappy.” Well, what are you?
Happy!
That was an easy one.
Actually, although I agree with you in principle, there’s this to consider. Sometimes using a “not un-” construction is meant to convey a meaning of “I’m not happy, exactly, but I’m not quite unhappy, either.” So it’s more of a qualifier.
Double negatives are generally frowned upon, of course, because the speaker often means the opposite of what he or she actually says. Unclear speaking and writing suck. But if the speaker actually did mean something like, e.g., “I am not unhappy,” then it’s okay.
Here’s an example where it might be okay to use:
“You look sad. Are you unhappy with our relationship?”
“No … No, I’m not unhappy.”
?dlrow-otnadep no pu nekow tsuj I evaH
Oh – and people who type entire phrases backwards, that REALLY bugs me!
.seY
Whatever floats your boat, man. The fact remains that if you use the phrase, “I could care less,” more people will understand what you’re saying than if you say, “I was nonplussed.” On an important level, the former phrase communicates more effectively than the latter phrase.
Furthermore, if you used the phrase, “I could care less” to convey the fact that you DO care, then very few people would understand what you’re saying. THAT would be the case in which you were misusing the phrase.
English isn’t C++. Trying to apply logic to idioms is like pissing in a violin.
Daniel
I’ve heard this three times in the past few months: agreeance. You can agree to do something or you can exhibit compliance, but there’s no such word as agreeance.
Also, orientate for the verb orient irks me no end.
booklover: Maybe “orientate” comes from the noun orientation. Not an excuse, just an observation.
I mentioned before on these boards that I had to break my boyfriend of saying “every since”, as in, “Every since we’ve known him…”. Apparently that’s common usage where he comes from.
[anecdote]
Several weeks ago, our campus was plastered with signs that proclaimed, “DON’T LOOSE YOUR SUMMER CLASSES! Pay fees by May 22nd.” I reeled from the fact that this error went through a lot of people, mostly higher-ups, before 500 copies were printed on neon paper and hung up all over campus.
About a week later, the signs read:
“Thank you. Now that we know you read our signs, DON’T LOSE YOUR SUMMER CLASSES!..”
It was nice to know the education level of this university is high enough that I wasn’t the only one to notice.
[/anecdote]
Two misspelling anecdotes:
I was baffled. “Defiantly” made no sense at all in any of the contexts where it was used. Finally, I realized they were trying to say “definitely,” but were misspelling it “definately.” Spellcheck would catch the misspelling, but would offer “defiantly” as the correct spelling. Many students would automatically accept any spelling or grammar “corrections” without questioning them.
(I just checked a newer edition of Word, and I’m glad to say that now when you spell it “definately,” they will offer “definitely” in addition to “defiantly” as a suggested correction)
2. Part of my dissertation topic requires plowing through several English artists’ diaries from the turn of the twentieth century. While reading through a particular artist’s diary, I came across “loose” several times when the context clearly indicated that the word should have been “lose.” And this was from the hand of a reasonably intelligent artist, who also wrote quite a bit of art criticism for art journals.
That’s when I realized people have been misspelling “lose” as “loose” for many, many years, and they’re not going to stop any time soon. :sigh:
And it also goes to show that it’s not “just a typo” (as many people have claimed) when you write it out incorrectly longhand.
Barry
Referring to a person selling bootleg videos.
How’s that again? A complete misuse of the word and a spelling error thrown in for fun. An attempt at erudition that backfired maybe?