Or unravel a sweater. Um, if it’s ravelling, it’s coming apart already. If you’re unravelling something, my best guess is you’re knitting it. People do insist on making things harder than they have to be.
One of my least favourites is “seen,” as in “I seen her last night.” You have seen her, or you saw her; you did not seen her.
Or, *under * the dam.
Lsura, we must have had the same co-worker. I thought perhaps she was joking when she used “paided” until I saw that she had used it in an e-mail to one of the big shots.
I’m reading a book right now which repeatedly advises me to pour over a bargain with a fine-tooth comb.
Also, may I propose that I be allowed to spit on people who use the word “conversate”?
Screw the future, I’m weeping right now!
Speaking of whom . . . Just yesterday I saw The Leader of the Free World in a news conference talking about how you couldn’t trust Iraqi press releases because “these are people who are trained to dis-assemble.” He paused at the horrified silence from the press, and added, helpfully, “That means ‘to lie.’”
“Unravel,” at this point, is a standard word and has been for quite some time (as is “unloose,” but not “unthaw”) - no doubt because “un” suggests separation somehow.
My own faux pax in this arena was in high school physics. I would turn in my assignment sheet with the following scrawled at the top.
PROPLEM SET
The teacher never corrected the spelling; it wasn’t till the start of college when a teacher marked it as a spelling error :eek:
Apparently because they want me to smack them in the teeth with a brick. That’s my theory, anyway.
I work with someone who says it that way (and screws up many, many other words, too). I thought it was the result of profound ignorance until I discovered that my well-educated Canadian girlfriend tends to say it like that, too. I can’t let her get away with it, though - I was born and raised in Massachusetts and we visit there sometimes. I’m sure we’d both be barred from the state if anyone there heard her say it.
Thankfully, I’ve never heard anyone say “heighth.” Maybe it’s supposed to correspond with “width.” I don’t know. I can’t even imagine.
To be perfectly honest, that’s how I was thinking it in my head as I typed, but my fingers are smarter and typed “other” rather than “nother.”
I say “nother” sometimes, but I do know it’s wrong.
Wait, ‘unravelling’ is wrong? Consider my ignorance fought. Funny, I can’t remember ever hearing/reading ‘ravel’ on its own.
Huh, I thought I had something else to add. Apparently my brain is still reeling from featherlou’s revelation. Oh,well.
There’s a local dry-cleaning service that does pickup and delivery here in my office. Their collection bin in the parking garage’s elevator lobby is like a very large mailbox, with a hinged flap in front covering the hole into which your parcels are deposited.
And there’s a sign over the flap that says, “Make sure clothes pass end of shoot.”
And this exact message appears on all the collection boxes I’ve seen for this dry-cleaner.
I’m ready for my detergent, Mr. DeMille…
Is there an epidemic going on with this stuff, or do I just notice it more because of this thread?
Today I got a message from a client discussing her soon-to-be-ex-husband’s weird behavior. She wrote, “It was just bazaar!”
:eek:
What gives???
Well, according to matt to whom I bow in all things language, “unravel” has passed into common usage. Too bad. I like precise language, and ravel says all that needs to be said; unravel was just unnecessary.
I wish people would quit saying rayroad when they mean railroad.
I would like to leap over the counter and slap seven colors of snot out of my customers who ask for Marbs when they mean Marlboro cigarettes.
Methought I heard a voice cry, ‘Sleep no more!
Macbeth doth murder sleep’, the innocent sleep,
Sleep that knits up the ravell’d sleeve of care…
Macbeth, II.ii.33-35
I parked there once and now look at me.
Well, except for that one, of course. It must have just . . . um . . . slipped my mind is all. Yes, that’s it.
Actually, my biggest pet peeve is that many people seem to think that only language experts are supposed to concern themselves with proper grammer, syntax, and vocabulary. If you let them know that they’re not using proper language they get upset and act like you’re being onerous and unrealistic in your expectations. That may be true in a social setting, but many of the examples posted here are from business situations and it shows a lack of professionalism not to speak and write as properly as possible. I remember grading undergrad papers and thinking to myself, “Well, this person is lucky that I’m not the one reviewing their resume.”
There are people who think the letter H is pronounced ‘haitch’ rather than ‘aitch’. Perhaps they think that it needs to start with a ‘h’ sound. Strangely, they don’t pronounce F ‘feff’ or L ‘lell’.
And something which I think is particularly common in Britain is people getting the past tense of the verb to be the wrong way around. “I were going to work” “they was only talking”. How can you realise that there are different words, but get them the wrong way around? You don’t do it with other verbs. Imbeciles.
I totally agree on the apostrophes. Have to admit, I didn’t realise that A’s and 60’s were acceptable usage, but it does make things easier.
And another thing - spelling and grammar are important. People seem to think that it doesn’t matter, everyone will know what they mean, you don’t have to get it just right etc. However, if you are writing an email to the boss, or giving a presentation to a prospective client, or you are a shop manager putting a sign in the window, these things will be noticed. It demonstrates that you are either too stupid or too lazy to do things correctly - not just spelling, but everything else. Your poorly written CV will win you no lucrative jobs. It’s not a little bit of unnecessary icing on the cake,
YOU LOOK LIKE AN IDIOT.
Blimey, glad I got that off my chest.
Looks like Hypno-Toad and I are on the same wavelength.
My mother, bless her soul, still spells the last day of the week SatErday.
And a fellow I used to work with would call the meat wagon the “Bambulance”