First, a disclaimer - I’m feeling a bit bored this afternoon and there’s a head cold settling in to my sinuses nicely, so I’m a bit cranky perhaps.
There’s a few things that I seem to get oddly picky about when listening to some folks speak. These things tend to bother me in a strange and uncomfortable way.
One is the comment made by many when making a phone call to someone in another time zone. You’ll hear something like “… it’s three hours earlier out there …” I hear this and immediately an inner voice kicks in and quietly screams “no, it’s NOT!” The actual time in which we all exist is the very same no matter where we are on earth. The people you are about to call have their CLOCKS set to a time three hours earlier than YOUR clock is set, bu the TIME is exactly the same.
Or how about folks that refer to time like this - “… it was 5 AM in the morning …” WHAT?? You mean as opposed to 5 AM in the AFTERNOON??? Just say 5 O’clock in the morning or 5 AM. Saying something like “5 AM in the morning” just makes you sound stupid.
My favorite, currently practiced by millions, including the current occupant of the White House (you know, that guy who keeps trying to convince us that he’s President of the United States) - and that’s the lovely non-word “nuke-you-lar.” LOOK at the word - NUCLEAR - I fail to understand how anyone could pronounce this word in the wrong way. It’s not spelled “nucular”
OK, so share. What are you favorite oddities of misused language?
I’ll agree with you about “nuclear”…imagine having a professor talking to you about multi-nuculated muscle cells. Argh! He was driving me crazy, good thing we are over that chapter.
Other than that, I’m not too picky with English misuses…I’m a non-native speaker and at times I have (unintentionally) mispronounced a word. Not nuclear, but others.
In Spanish, though, it’s another thing. I don’t like it when people change r with l. I don’t like it when people pronounce e as i.
This is not that uncommon of an occurance. Some even make it into mainstream English. For instance. How to you pronounce iron? Do you say I-RON? I cringe a little at nuke-you-lar, but I absolutely detest AXE for ask…
Some of my favorites: “You should learn to curve your appetite, so you can lose weight.” “I think it was a good ideal to come to this movie.” “Let me ast you a question.” “I need to bring that book to school.” And, sometimes, all the spoken acronyms and shorthand that has been promoted by the Internet is enough to drive me to distraction - TMI, AFAIC, BRB, YMMV, etc. Since I work in the “oil patch,” I hear all the Texanisms, like “I’m fixin’ to leave the office.” and, “How y’all are?” I’ll be able to add more, just by listening to people for the next few days.
I work in a university bookstore. We give refunds on books, buy textbooks back year round and have a rebate program. I’m annoyed beyond all reason by exchanges like this:
Customer walks in, puts books on the counter.
Me: Can I help you?
Customer: I’d like to get a refund.
Me: When did you buy them?
Customer: At the start of the year.
Me: We only give refunds until the 12th day of class at the start of the year, and after that only four days after purchase. I’m afraid all we can do now is buy them back.
Customer: Yeah, that’s what I meant.
Say what you mean! That’s the whole point of having words with different meanings!
I’m also vaguely annoyed when customers say “rebate check” rather than “rebate.” They’re printed on paper like checks, with the name and amount spelled out, but they read “certificate” and can’t be redeemed for cash. A coworker said a customer once picked up his rebate and went straight to a Money Box, and returned pissed off after they strangely enough refused to cash it.
Wait. . what’s wrong with “I need to bring that book to school”? I’m confused.
How about “an exercise regiment”?
“I should of”?
I’m not sure why, but when I hear “a myriad of. . .” I freak out-- apparently it’s totally acceptible but unless it’s a modifier it stands out in my mind.
Here’s my imprecise language rant. As DVD is gradually phasing out VHS, a lot of titles are currently advertised as being offered in both formats. What gets me is when an advertisement says, “Available on DVD or video”. In case these people haven’t noticed, DVD is video! The correct choices to be given should be DVD or VHS!
capybara - sorry, I’m probably wrong on that one… This just sounds better to me, I guess: “I need to take that book to school.”
dwc - how about “pizza pie”? and “icy cold”? I wonder if there is a name for this kind of repetitive phrase… sort of like a reverse oxymoron.
“Take that book to school” and “bring that book to school” are both acceptable, depending on the circumstance. “Take” means to move something from here to there, and “bring” means to move something from there to here. So if the book’s at home and you’re at school, you want to bring it. But if the book’s at home and you’re at home, you want to take it. If the book’s at home and you’re neither at home or at school, it’s a matter of personal preference.
Howdy y’all, this here thread ain’t gonna be 'xactly a grammar class neither.
ha-ha-
Why don’t some of us go back and check our previous posts for misspelled words, run-on sentences, and other errors. Especially, if we are going to rant about word usage in the “American” language.
Although, I do agree, it is aggravating sometimes when attempting to have an intelligent conversation with an illiterate jackass. I hope none of this is redundant.
Yes - however it was funny when Kramer said “statue of limitations” on Seinfeld. The bottom line here, I think, is that puns are funny and intentional. People do not respect the English language anymore and with W as our leader, what can one expect?
Yes - however it was funny when Kramer said “statue of limitations” on Seinfeld. The bottom line here, I think, is that puns are funny when intentional. People do not respect the English language anymore and with W as our leader, what can one expect?
Hey, it’s your thread Guy. Discuss whatever you want. I’m not disagreeing with anyone. I am merely suggesting that folks look in the mirror first.
Where a person lives has much to do with their verbage. Their culture may condone a particular abuse of the language. Whereas another might not. Some people may not have had the advantages of higher education. They should not be expected to understand and implement these particulars in their conversation.
It is another thing when the language is intentionally perverted in order to distinguish one’s self or peers from another. This is a practice which does bother me. I would rather not get into specifics here but suffice it to say. It lends itself to separation and racism.
There is - tautology. “5am in the morning” is a perfect example.
I would disagree with you on this, ultrafilter - you can only bring something to the place where you are. So if the book’s at home and you’re neither at home nor at school, you would still take it to school.
The take/bring thing seems (to me, at any rate) to be something that happens in American English more so than anywhere else.
The one that annoys me most of all, though, is incorrect use of the apostrophe of possession. Now, they taught this to me in about year four, and it took me a little while to catch on, but I’ve had plenty of time to practise and I’ve got it down by now. So why is it that newspaper copy editors and advertisers can’t figure it out? Incorrect use of “it’s” (eg “the cat had it’s tail chopped off”) is bad enough, but I saw a headline in a professionally-published magazine recently which was something like “Great Holiday’s in the South West!” AAAARGH!
<tritone runs screaming from the thread in frustration>
The meeting is not at ten bells. There is no such thing as ten bells. There is ONE bell at 12:30. There are TWO bells at 1:00. Three bells at 1:30, four bells at 2:00, five bells at 2:30, six bells at 3:00, seven bells at 3:30, and eight bells at 4:00. 4:30? It starts over at one bell. This means a 10:00 a.m. meeting is at four bells, not ten, and I’ve told you this before, you dolt, so knock it off already!!
Nope. Time (as indicated by clocks) is a human construct to allow people to regulate and organize their lives within the normal cycles of light and darkness. Aside from people who are monitoring world-wide activities using UTC (formerly GMT), (an action that was physically impossible as few as 100 years ago, out of the 120,000 or so years of Homo sapiens’s documented existence), “time” for the typical person is regulated by local clocks and time zones. While it is certainly possible to put oneself outside the terran frame of reference and note that an event does not change its nature regardless of the displays of the local clocks, the use of “time” to indicate the relative position of the sun during an event is quite acceptable.
(The alternative would be to insist that if you asked someone what “time” a meeting was to be held or a school or place of business was to open or close, they would be required to respond in UTC and you would be required to calculate the offset, yourself.)
Curiously, however, this appears to be a very old pronunciation, occurring in more than one British dialect. I would guess that the /sk/ phoneme is sufficiently rare in some dialects as to be substituted out on those rare occasions when it is encountered.
Yes - however it was funny when Kramer said “statue of limitations” on Seinfeld. The bottom line here, I think, is that puns are funny and intentional. People do not respect the English language anymore and with W as our leader, what can one expect?