People! Either buy a dictionary or quit using words you don’t know how to spell. Sadly, this extends to the SDMB. In the past month, I’ve seen:
1)“bonified”. It’s bona fide. It comes from Latin. IANA Latin scholar, nor have I ever even taken a Latin class, but I know how to spell this simple phrase.
2)“for all intensive purposes”. What is this even supposed to mean? “Intensive purposes”? Perhaps if one paid attention to the actual words coming out of one’s mouth/pen/fingers, then one would realize how nonsensical it is. By the way, it’s “for all intents and purposes”.
3)“pre-Madonna”. This perhaps bugs me most of all. Reading the phrase makes it appear to be an adjective–“the pre-Madonna phase, when she was known as Baby Ciccone”. The actual phrase, prima donna, is a noun (well, a noun with a qualifying adjective), and people want to use “pre-Madonna” as a noun as well: “I told her that her uppity behavior made her look like a pre-Madonna”. What?
Also, please don’t be angry with the person kind/brave enough to correct you. Weer abowt despelling ignor ants, yawl!
By the way, I wrote this to sound angrier than I really am. This is my first pit thread, so I had to toughen up! Grrrrrr! Feel free to attack my spelling, grammar, personality, dumb posts, etc. Rawr!
That wasn’t really angry enough… plus, I think all three of these have been bashed in this very forum on this very week. But I’m a noob, so it’s not like I’m right or anything.
You are absolutely correct, Lisa.
Signed: a fellow language Nazi. (That is what some people here will call you…that or “grammar Nazi”). But never mind them. They are merely jealous of your facility with the greatest of languages.
You see, I am inviting a pitting of my own here by those who think I’m denegrating other languages. I know, of course that other languages, like, for example, Spanish and Italian, are more musical. But English has by far the largest vocabulary, ergo the widest means of expression.
Be warned, however, that you will never win one of these arguments, either in the Pit or anywhere else. I’m just sayin’.
Yeah, I learned that from when I discovered snopes a couple of years ago. Cries of “that’s an untrue urban legend!” were met with confusion and bullishness. “No it’s not! My friend’s uncle knew Lemonjello!” or “My preacher said that the Disney Corporation is evil and is infecting the minds of children!”.
Phrases like this MIGHT be the result of speaking software…though I’m not very familiar with it. Then again, it might be that you’re correct, and it’s just ignorance popping up.
There is no such thing as an “athiest” (which looks like some kind of superlative: athy, athier, athiest). I haven’t actually caught anyone who claims to BE one using this atrocious spelling, but the day will come.
Oh thank god you started this thread, Lisa! There’s one I see often on the board, but didn’t want to either correct the person in the thread (because it had nothing to do with the topic), nor did I want to start a rant of my own.
