Another vote for affect vs. effect, “orientate” and that good old favorite: lie vs. lay.
I see this one in a lot of emails: Your’s truly. What the heck is up with that? Think about it, people!
I had an amusing one the other day: “I hope my plea doesn’t fall on death’s ears…” I suppose a dead person can’t hear, so is deaf as well as dead.
Man, I hate it when they don’t proofread dictionaries 
Ok, let me clarify. I hate when colonists pronounce it with the superfluous ‘i’ when every Chart of the Elements and box of Reynolds Wrap here spell it without.
Hey, Unwashed, why don’t you guys quit throwing in all those extra 'u’s too? Honour…colour…favour…that extra letter will wear you out after a while
Short and sweet:
Realtor, as in real estate agent, pronounced re-la-tor.
Invigilator.
I really hate when people misuse that word.
OK, so I don’t really - hell, I didn’t even know it was a word until yesterday. It sounds dirty though.
“nekkid” - naked
“onced” - once
“2 Street” - Second Street (it’s a South Philly thing)
two pet hates:
infer/imply
I/me
especially when people use “I” because they think it sounds “more refined” when the correct usage would be “me”
Writing issue number one: When people use only one consenant when they should use two in the middle or end of a word, the most common offenders be “tt” or "ff. " Offending spellings include “mater” (for “matter”) and “of” (for off). Um, are you people aware of the fact that this completely changes the sound of the word? It makes me cringe every time I see it.
Writing issue number two: “a” vs. “an.” To be perfectly clear: you use “a” or “an” based on the first phonetic sound of the word, not the spelling. You do not, therefore, write “a hour,” you write “an hour.” What kind of dolt in actual speech would say “a hour,” eh? EH!? It doesn’t make you look more distinguished when you always go by the letter - it makes you look like someone who can’t talk.
Another nasty one is that/which. The two are not interchangeable! In situations where you could use either one, your choice will affect the meaning of the sentence as a whole! The quick, most important rule governing the use of that/which: When you are joining a statement that could stand on its own (i.e., an independent clause… I think) you use “that.” When joining a statement that requires the first part of the sentence in order to make sense (a dependent clause) you use “which.” Simple, easy, effective. Got it?
Hey, I like ‘flustrated’; a portmanteau for ‘flustered’ and ‘frustrated’, I assume. I really like it.
I usually use ‘befuddled’ for that feeling, but ‘flustrated’ is better.
“I could care less.”
radioactive for retroactive (no kidding)
V.I.A. for via
mispronunciations
Winsconsin
Sherbert
Cold Slaw
Athalete
passive voice
“A hospital was bombed.” for “We bombed a hospital.”
hopefully for I hope.
supposedly for I suppose.
misuse of the subjunctive
“If I was rich,”
And just south of Winsconsin, Illinoise.
I have a neighbor who insists the car I drive is a Saturen. Three syllables.
:rolleyes:
Neptune, your grandfather might have been hanged, but not for “horse rustlin’.” One “rustles” cattle but steals horses. To call a man a “rustler” was to accuse him of stealing cattle, not horses. A horse thief fell into a special category because the theft of a horse could easily put the owner’s life at risk. A horse thief was the lowest of the low.
Neptune, I missed your quote from dictionary.com when I posted the above. I hate it when dictionaries get things wrong. Back home in Texas, no one would ever associate “rustling” with stealing a horse. Unless they read dictionary.com----
A supervisor of mine (a professor of physics, and a smart fella) ALWAYS called Athlon processors “Ath-a-lons”. Drove me batty.
My REAL peeve, though, is “periodic”. It means “at regular intervals”, for Bob’s sake, not “occasional” or “sporadic”. Grrrr.
Grelby:
Actually, I think this is the other way around. One uses “that” for a statement that CANNOT stand on its own, and “which” for a statement that CAN.
“We stayed at the hotel that Ann recommended to us.”
“that Anne recommended to us” is necessary to the context of this sentence.
“We stayed at the Grand Hotel, which Anne recommended to us.”
“which Anne recommended to us” is not completely necessary here. It’s additional information. We already knew which hotel the speaker meant (the Grand Hotel).
I always concentrate on the comma. If there’s a comma (which indicates a pause in speech), I use “which”. If not, I use “that”.
And according to most of the grammar books I have here (I’m an English teacher, so I have quite a few), “that” and “which” ARE interchangeable in sentences such as these:
Anne works for a company that/which makes washing machines.
The machine that/which broke down has now been repaired.
UWmite, you beat me to the “begs the question” rant. Drives me absolutely batty. The rational linguist in me tries to remain calm and simply observe language change in progress–semantic drift, blah blah blah–but then the irrational purist takes over and makes me want to strangle these ignorami who don’t know that ‘begging the question’ is a very specific logical fallacy too subtle for their puny, human minds to comprehend!
Gotta admit I also cringe when I hear or read “comprised of.” jjimm already covered this, but fwiw: O people who are trying to sound smarter than you are, please learn the difference between “comprise” and “compose.”
Penultimately :D, I must leap to the defense of “needs + past participle” as in “My car needs washed.” I grew up saying this…<sarcasm>so it must be acceptible!</sarcasm> Seriously, well-educated people in central Ohio–and there ARE some, thank you very much–can say “This shirt needs dry-cleaned” and no one will raise an eyebrow. It wasn’t 'til I moved out East that people started looking at me funny for leaving out “to be” in that construction.
And lastly, regarding “license”: some people in my parents’ home town in eastern Ohio have cleverly backformed the new singular “licen”. I kid you not; I have heard this first-hand. Example: “My driver’s licen needs renewed.”
Looks like no one has mentioned dangling modifiers yet:
*As a big Star Wars fan, Episode I was disappointing to me.
After spending five years in the field, the life of a salesman no longer appeals to me.*
I see this kind of thing i writing all the time, and it drives me nuts. Argh! Are you saying that Episode I is a big Star Wars fan? Are you saying that the life of a salesman spent 5 years in the field?
Also, it seems that the English-speaking world has completely forgotten how to spell the word lose. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve seen it spelled loose…
Hells ya!!!
I’m like, its like, you’re like…like,like, like!!! The over use of the word empowerment–especially by women.
ZEV–Thanks for the laugh-pershiate it!
to for too.
“That is much to personal for me to discuss”
It makes me crazy.
Those things that look like commas, but are higher…I hate them.
Please turn in your tax form’s by “Tuesday”.
People use those thing’s because they “look” right.
Now I don’t understand this…when a sentence is ended with a quote, why is the closing punctuation put inside the quotes? Like, Patrick Henry said, “Give me liberty or give me death.” That just looks so wrong.
Bryan Ekers – I believe short-lived (rhymes with hived) and short-lived (doesn’t rhyme with hived) have two different meanings. If one has a limited life expectancy, one will have a short life… but one that has not yet ended. For example, “hamsters tend to be short-LIE-ved.” On the other hand, a brief argument that is now over was “short-lived.” It’s done living, so to speak.
But I could be wrong. I don’t even remember when I last saw a usage guide.
My pet peeve word is “proactive” as the antonym for “reactive.” It isn’t.
Did anyone miss me?