It’s hard to get away from here in Warshington State.
One that makes me NUTS is saying mis-chee-vee-ous. The word is MISS-che-vous! Also:
NU-clee-ar, not NUKE-you-lar
JOO-el-ry, not JOO-ler-y
But I’ve had to give in on the AKSing people instead of ASKing them. While everywhere else I’ve lived it’s a pronunciation strictly confined to the black community, here in New Orleans EVERYONE says it.
And since when is a grocery cart a BUGGY???
Respectfully disagree. Again, it has to be said with a sarcastic tone. Another example:
Joe says “Sally is stupid.”
Sam replies, “Yeah, like you’re some kind of Einstein.”
Meaning = “You’re no genius yourself.”
“As if I could care less,” said with the appropriate tone, implies that there is no way you could care less precisely because you already care zero. Maybe it’s an east coast U.S. quirk.
The “As if” changes the meaning, though. No matter what the tone, “I could care less” does not mean the same as “As if I could care less”. Most people say “I could care less” and that is just plain wrong. I agree that either preceding it with “As if” or using a sarcastic tone would make “I could care less” acceptable, but that, in general, is not what people do.
“If you would have done , I would have done [y].”
No, it’s “If you HAD done , I would have done [y].”
I have only seen one stylebook in my life that addressed this issue (the Random House Handbook). It’s surprisingly hard to prove anyone wrong on this. Not that I waste energy on such things.
Ex Cetra is one of mine, glad someone said it.
“Orientated” instead of “oriented” used to drive me nuts, but I gave up. Or are both correct? My dictonary is packed, and I am sorry, I prefer a physical book to an on-line dictionary.
Spelling someone’s name wrong bothers me. When my co workers spell a name wrong… Hello we have the CHARTS right beside us… is it that hard to turn your neck a few degrees and spell the name correctly? I know English isnt your first languace, but we spell your name correctly, can you do the same for the residents? (Ie Mery, for Mary, Liela for Lila, and Gladis for Gladys?)
Also (this is more amusing) when doing a chart audit, (Okay, I know we can’t listen to a chart, we read it… but thats what they call it at my facility and I get strange looks when I say “chart review”) I see that sometimes my co nurses have “heared a loud thumb” and also “care aid reported a large thug” both refering to the noise when someone falls.
Im not sure which is more disturbing, a Loud thumb or a large thug, but I do believe either one would frighten the residents enough to make them fall
I hate it when people use the word “orientated.” I grew up with the term “oriented.” As in, “Be sure you are well oriented with the material before you make a speech.”
My mother is an ex-English teacher, and she rigorously drilled my brothers and I on the rules of proper grammar. For example, she worked at the library, not the libary. Also, we had fewer toys than others as children, not less. We also sometimes did things accidentally, not on accident.
Gosh darn it to heck, what is it with me and posting the same thing as another person is at the same time?
Thought of another one, but it may be regional. in college my physics prof insisted on pronouncing measurement as MAY-sur-ment, wheras I’ve always heard it as MEZ-ur-ment.
Is this the way people outside the midwest say it?
KC Suze, that doesnt bother me. Glad to know Im not the only one who hates “ORIENTATED” too.
Thanks, juji, but it seems to be a chronic problem with me lately. Perhaps I need some sort of on-the-job training?
As for “orientated,” I especially hate it when I see supposedly educated people using it on television. I think I even heard it on “The West Wing.”
“Ummm”
“Ya know”
“Ya know what I’m sayin’?”
“Like”
“Goes”
For example:
"Ummm… Like, I went to the store, and, like, I saw this awesome, like, jacket on sale, ya know? And like, I couldn’t resist, ya know what I’m sayin? So, I ask the salesgirl if it, like, comes in orange, ya know? And she goes, ummm, no, like, we only carry it in, like, purple and, like, ummm, powder blue, ya know what I’m sayin’? And I go, “'aww, that, like, sucks! And she goes, umm…yeah, like, it does, ya know?”
My teenage daughter and her girlfriends converse this way all the time. The strange thing is, when she talks to me, she doesn’t use these “verbal tics”. It’s, like, scary, ya know?
How about CongraDulations?
I think it started as a pun, for Congratuations to Graduates, but now its everywhere. I even saw some note cards done in pen and ink that had that. Icky icky icky.
“My bad”.
I usually reply with, “Your bad what?”
Learn to speak the language or return to Milwaukee.
moot point
n. 1) a legal question which no court has decided, so it is still debatable or unsettled. 2) an issue only of academic interest.
from Law.com
“Normalcy”
Why can’t people just say “normality”? Or just rephrase what they’re saying? Wasn’t it a President who put this word into popular use? I did find a reference to the word from Websters, 1913 ed. Still, I think it looks wrong and sounds wrong.
“Methinks”
Come on, you’re not clever for using this archaic term. It uses less letters to say “I think” anyway, so which is more clever, efficiency or pretentiousness?
In advertising, “X% more”. For example, Product X, now with “30% more” raisins. “30% more” raisins than what? Than a bottle of laundry detergent? Than the sidewalk? It’s the whole not-qualifying-the-phrase matter that bothers me, on top of which, most of those added percentages, if referencing the previous incarnation of said product, are incredibly small anyway if you do the math. Sounds good in theory, but doesn’t equal much in reality.
I also hate the phrase “my bad”. Where did that come from anyway? Forcing “my mistake” to merge with “I’m bad” or something? That’s my guess.
Now THIS one I have to take issue with my boyfriend, (soon to be just my best friend) has a bad habit of not giving any feedback when I am talking to him.
So, I will have just finished a heartfelt sentence or two on our state of affairs (and this has been going on our whole entire friendship and relationship, it’s not a consequence of our impending breakup) and he won’t…say…A …WORD!!!
ARRRGGGGGHHH!!
So, I’ll say things like “do you know what I mean”? or “do you understand”. Or “does that make sense” as a way to get him to respond.
If that fails, I take a cue from two local “shock jock” DJs and simply demand:
“Now YOU talk”.
MS Word says it is.
Thank YOU! It drives me bonkers when otherwise well-educated people say “mute point” (a silent point?) when they really mean moot.