I believe you meant to say "Everyone should talk like me . . . " As long as you’re going for correct grammar and all. I personally believe all this grammarifical nit-picking is flunomunous.
And AerynSun, sorry, but did you mean penultimate, in that a more ignorant - sorry, I meant to say ignoranter - statement is yet to come, and that example will be the ultimate? Or was that a play on the idea that people mix up one word thinking it means the same as the other? Sorry if I offend you with that question.
I have to admit I like the word “irregardless” irregardles of your objections(sorry couldn’t resist). It has such a great little trill at the beginning. And the problem with regardless, is that it is hard to find a syllable to stress when you want to emphasize the negativity of the word. Throwing the “Ir” at the beginning is a perfect stress point, which is why I think it caught on, even if it technically doesn’t make contextual sence.
Although the one that pisses me off is “I could care less”, that just drives nails into my skull with its pointlessness every time I hear it.
I have actually seen “penultimate” used as a synonym for “ultimate” in the sense of “the best,” quoted from a book review on the back cover of a biography of some politician - wish I could remember which one.
I have also heard people use “pluperfect” as a synonym for “perfect,” in the sense of “flawless.”
Also, let me take the opportunity to commend NPR as well. They are the only other people on the planet I’ve heard use “comprise” correctly. It is a synonym for “contain,” and the phrase “comprised of” is not grammatical.
If you’re the “pluperfect” something or other, I guess that means that you used to be it, but there have been two guys in that role since you. Or am I just too tenses?
I also hate it when people mispunctuate the word “y’all” as “ya’ll.”
Apostrophes in contractions take the position of the letters they replace. Y’all, a contraction of “you all”, replaces the letters OU with the apostrophe.
I wish people didn’t get so damned upset when someone corrects their grammar. Why should we be punished for wanting our language spoken methodically and correctly? Why should I be forced to end sentences with prepositions for the sake of not sounding queer?
It’s difficult to be a grammarian and a hardcore Star Trek fan… It’s been using split infinitives since the beginning. I’ve heard of a few hairbrained petitions for paramount to change it to “Boldly to go where no man has gone before.”
Having never heard the word “pluperfect” before, I just looked it up. Merriam-Webster’s collegiate dictionary defines it as:
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English pluperfyth, modification of Late Latin plusquamperfectus, literally, more than perfect
Date: 15th century
1 : PAST PERFECT 2 : utterly perfect or complete
pluperfect noun
“Penultimate” however, only has the definition of “next to the last”
Your comment, “His other frequently used abomination is ‘youse.’” reminded me of a good story.
Several years ago I worked for a company with a LOT of people from New York. Being in the deep south this occasionally caused misunderstandings.
At one of our all-too-frequent status meetings, I was describing a situation, what had been done, and what still needed to be done. When I got to the punchline I said, “… once we’ve finished the work in progress it will be out of our hands. It’ll be up to ya’ll to take it over and complete the project.” I then continued with my briefing.
A short while later the boss asked my about my previous comment. Thinking that he meant the sentence I’d just vocalized I repeated it. But he was actually referring to the sentence above. It took us several minutes to get back to that point. Once we DID get there, I repeated the sentiment and upon uttering the word “ya’ll” I was stopped in mid-sentence for an explanation.
I was dumbfounded. They had never heard the word and wanted to know what it meant. Thinking slowly, and staring at all of the blank looks in the room, I finally came to my senses and said, “it’s kind of like ‘youse guys’”.
For all intensive purposes, the OP is inferring that people don’t know that “irregardless” is different than “regardless.” Supposably, many of we people use this phrase inproperly. Furthermore, the OP begs the question, “How come so many people misuse certain phrases despite of being corrected?”
Some snooty grammerians think a person should be hung for not knowing all these little rules. Me – no.
Maybe we could liason on this topic later. What we each know might compliment someone elses’ knowledge. But don’t forget, to air is human, to forgive, the vine.
I’m kind of tired, so I think I’ll lay down a while.
My pet peeve? Misusing the word “momentarily.” Many, if not most, people use it to mean, “in a moment,” or “shortly,” whereas, in fact, it means, “for a moment,” or “briefly.”
To wit:
Stewardess on intercom: “We’ll be landing momentarily.”
My expectation based on the above: The plane will descend, touch down, cruise along the landing strip for a few seconds, then ascend and fly away.
Sigh.
Still, the language is always evolving, and words are continually (or continuously) shifting in definition. That’s the nature of language, the efforts of the French linguistic legislators notwithstanding. 'Twasn’t very long ago, for example, that “nauseous” meant “causing nausea,” instead of its current widely-accepted meaning of “nauseated.”
We can resist the slippage, but only so far, and only at the risk of our collective sanity…
Just out of curiousity, why did you put Ebonics in quotes? It’s a recognized American English dialect, also known as African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) and has been a legitimate subject of linguistic study for nearly a century.
Your kidding. That bothers you? Well, that’s you’re option to let it bother you. Those people just don’t know they’re grammar. Obviously, their uneducated.
I’M KIDDING!!! I hate that, too. Obviously, also mixing up “YOUR” and “YOU’RE.”
It irks me to no end when somebody uses an apostrophy to preceed an ‘s’ being used to make a plural. To wit: Pig’s for sale; I have five disk’s; Twelve book’s. That mistake just drives me up the wall. How can any living person with a pulse and a breath in their lungs be so irredeemably stupid? It must be all the emphasis placed on pseudo-dialects like ‘Ebonics’. ‘Ebonics’: The liberal attempt to spend excessive amounts of money in creating bilingualism where none has ever existed instead of actually solving the problem by funding English departments.
missbunny: It is unpossible that I could of said it better.
And what’s the problem with Ebonics being considered an actual dialect? Not too long ago, when it was called “jive,” it required subtitles, for goodness’ sake.
