People who misuse/mispronounce words drive me insane, but what’s worse is when you call them on it. “You know what I meant!” Well, sorta, yeah, but could you at least make an effor to speak correctly? Like me, I’m making an effort to NOT kill you where you stand, would it hurt you to TRY and speak the fucking language properly?
Jesus, they can barely speak and I’m the one who gets in trouble, what kind of world is THAT?
I guess the bbq pit has the smartest people in the world. All going through their online dictionaries to make fun of one guys slip up. Chances are he did not recieve a great education but still wanted to try and impress… this was obviously to his own detrement as it is quite apparent that alot of you are perfect and never make mistakes. Would love to be there when you do though just so i could point and laugh at your unfortunate situation just to ensure that you are fully reminded of the abuse you dished out about this person. Suppose you do have some sense of respect though assuming you kept your mouth shut during his presentation!
The correct capitalization is “BBQ Pit.”
This is a sentence fragment. “Guys” should be “guy’s,” and the noun form is “slipup.” **
It’s “try to,” “detriment,” and “a lot.”**
This sentence needs a subject. Capitalize “I.” Separate clauses with commas. **
Again, you drop the subject here, and fail to insert a comma after “though.”
To clarify, in case you couldn’t be bothered to read the OP, this was an interview. An interview isn’t the time to hone your vocabulary. The interview is the time to impress with your grasp of the topic and the depth of your skill.
Without tearing your post apart like the last poster, if you don’t understand the world of Corporate Training, you really don’t have any business commenting. Good trainers speak with conviction and authority, neither of which you can command when your words are holding you back.
Don’t feel bad. We’ll keep your resume on file, too.
I would like to address this. Having taken latin, and knowing the words, until being corrected by an arrogant professor in college, I abbreviated the word ‘ect’ for ‘Et CeTera’. Which is still, to me, a logical abbreviation for two words. Often times (though admittedly, most likely, rarely) the person may be simply ignorant of the way in which tradition dictates abbreviation and not in the core latin root of said. When the words, “Obviously someone never took any latin, the word is ‘et cetera’ and it means…” came out of the asses mouth I wanted to choke him (having taken three years of Latin, and multiple years of spanish and french on top of it, and being perfectly aware both of the word/phrase and it’s meaning, only slipping on the abbreviation).
Something wrong with WHOOSH?
Hello fellow A**** employee.
Please tell me the new trainers names aren’t Max and Maxine?
I agree - both words are in the dictionary and I probably just think it sounds better. Also, having studied the Latin and other replies to this thread, I am relieved to have held on to the idea that language is a constantly developing means of communication.
Beware of mocking that new word - it may be in the dictionary tomorrow - I’m certainly going to be using monopolated from now on (monopolising in a manipulative way sounds about right for our times, in fact, I know a number of highly monopolative people).
I own a software business with 10 emloyees. Our Managing Director is a really energetic, charismatic guy - and he truly gets remarkable things done when the going gets tough.
But between you, me, and the gatepost - he’s a salesman first and foremost - and salesmen speak shit. Lots and lots of it. It’s the nature of the gig.
Well sometimes I hear our MD going off into “wild blue yonder” mode with a customer or a dealer and he drives me fucking nuts - but our clients love him so there’s not much reason in getting too worked up.
Nonetheless, I’m going to have some fun with our MD thanks to this wonderful thread. I’m going to write him a “think paper” about my ideas on where we can go in the next 18 months regarding the direction of our business. And in that “think paper” I’m deliberately going to use at least one example of every bit of bastardisation contained in this thread. And I’m going to see how many of them he picks up.
Now, bear in mind, I’m not going to humiliate him - I’m going to be “up front” and let him know it’s just a bit of fun and his task is to find the mistakes - but I’ve been telling him for some time now how often he uses crap English and it’s going to be a laugh. He’ll get it. He’s a good sport.
The former president of my company- a very successful businessman, note- misspoke on a daily basis. Some of my favorites:
expodentially (for “exponentially”)
Valentime’s Day (not “-tines”)
supposively
hyper-boil (I know this is an accepted pronunciation, but I hate it)
unfeathered (for “unfettered”)
volumous
contentuous
conceptionally
I should note that said former president pronounced these words this way regularly; they weren’t one-time mistakes. He actually thought that’s how they were supposed to sound. Valentimes Day!!! What are you- four years old???
Sorry to disappoint. I work more closely with a company that runs clever black and white commercials and has a blue logo.
Coworker: How are you feeling about our company being bought out?
Me: Clueless optimism is as good a description as any. You?
Coworker: I am feeling kind of incognito about the whole thing.
This coworker also tends to add extra syllables to technical terms, or create retronyms rather than use plain english words. I suppose that being wet behind the ears is a partial excuse, although trying to impress by misusing or creating big words is not a particularly good idea. This coworker has, after several months, begun to recognize the virtue and power of the phrase “I don’t know”, properly applied.
My wife uses the word “Ald-heimers” to describe her dear old Granny’s condition. My wife’s father says it, too. It makes me wince every time they say it.
As long as they’re not saying old-timers’ disease…
I’ve heard this (different THAN) spoken on TV shows and movies a lot of times that I deciced to check it out. Apparently, different THAN has already found some acceptance in American English. I still prefer “different from”, nonetheless.
This is one I’ve been hearing on the news channels since the Iraq invasion/liberation and it’s been driving me nuts:
[American soldier being interviewed] “We found a large cache of weapons” with cache pronounced as “cash-ay” and not “cash”.
“Cash-ay” is a word, spelled cachet, but it generally has nothing to do with piles of weapons.
My guess is some pretty high up in the US Army first used the word this way and all his subordinates learned (wrongly) from him.
Oh, and when the various shopping channel people pronounce “marquise” as “mark-ee” and not “mar-kees”, well that makes me nuts, too.
This one rung a bell with me because I get the “Whatever” comment often. The worst case was when my father was going to run an ad for his business informing people that his product was a good buy because of “YK2”. Obviously to keep him from looking bad, I corrected him with “It’s actually ‘Y2K’ you are thinking of” which got me the “Whatever” response. From that point on, I just gave up. I figure if people are not worried about sounding like idiots, I shouldn’t be worried about correcting them.
e.g. != i.e.
e.g. means “For example …”
i.e. means “Specifically …”
Why the hell is “Sault” pronounced “Soo” anyway? For that matter, why is “Grosvenor” pronounced “Grovesner” and “Strachan” as “Straun” and “Quay” as “Key” … I can hardly fault people for messing these up, but once corrected they really ought to pronounce them correctly.
The one I’ve heard several times recently is “prejudicial” in place of “racist” or “bigoted.” As in:
“Oh my gawd, I can’t believe that she would say something that prejudicial about Chinese [or Mexican or whatever] people!”
Definitely a case of “I do not think that word means what you think it means.” As I am a lawyer, I use that word quite often in its correct sense, and I have to bite my tongue when I hear this error. But I tend not to correct people because I don’t want to make them feel stupid. Plus, as others have pointed out, we all make mistakes - I’m sure I make stupid mistakes all the time.