[QUOTE=Wolfian]
Personally, it bugs me that NPR talks about Hilary is a “woman candidate” and voters with two XX chromosomes as “women voters.” Female, people! Female is an adjective. Woman is a noun. Would you call Obama a “man candidate?”
[/QUOTE]
I’d call him a mandidate.
[QUOTE=The King of Soup]
While “just not” and “not just” mean different things,
There’s more to it than that – but saying so brings
Up a question that withers the brain when discussed:
When is “just not” not just not “not just?”
It’s not just the just not that has Baldwin fussed
(It’s the Pit, which explains why he needlessly cussed),
At professional speakers he aims his rant’s thrust,
They should know better, he types in disgust.
But it’s just not the not just-ice that leaves me nonplussed
Among the syntactical rules that we bust
Are much bigger crimes (well, as big, I trust)
Linguistic quirks to which we all should adjust.
Just not to say not just won’t leave one’s hair mussed,
Not just to say just not, but to erupt with a gust
Of words from a grammar that’s gone all to rust
Getting along sometimes needs a thick crust.
There’s no law I know of that says that we must
Satisfy pedants’ grammatical lust
And wrap every thought like a prisoner trussed,
Gagged with a style-book, and choking on dust.
[/QUOTE]
Damn; not bad.
[QUOTE=phungi]
I believe we could remove the word “just” from spoken language and we’d be (ahem) just fine!
[/QUOTE]
Well, we could say “simply not” and “not only”; that would avoid the confusion. (Of course, so would thinking about what we’re saying! Motherfuck!)
[QUOTE=saoirse]
Actually, you’re most likely to hear it in a compound object, where the person knows better than to say “I”, but has had the ability to say “x and me” (even when it’s appropriate) drummed out of them in grammar school.
[/QUOTE]
I think we need more drumming, not less. Any good grammar teacher will make sure her students know when it’s right and proper to say “me” and when to say “I”.
It’s not like it’s hard, either - take the other person out of the equation, and who do you have left, me or I?
black rabbit, I’m not fussed about your criticism - it’s just a corollary to Gaudere’s Law. 
[QUOTE=Wolfian]
Personally, it bugs me that NPR talks about Hilary is a “woman candidate” and voters with two XX chromosomes as “women voters.” Female, people! Female is an adjective. Woman is a noun. Would you call Obama a “man candidate?”
[/QUOTE]
It’s no use. It’s everywhere. I don’t think people know the word female exists. It’s even in textbooks for pete’s sake! I’ve started taking it literally.
Doc Quinn is the best woman doctor I know!
I believe gynecologist is the preferred term.
What? No, she’s a woman who’s a doctor.
Oh, a female doctor.
That’s what I just said.
Sure.
[QUOTE=Baldwin]
Somebody said something like, “It’s just not immigration, there are several hot-button issues.”
[/QUOTE]
Isn’t immigration a low-polling issue? Maybe they meant to say it that way. 
[QUOTE=Wolfian]
Personally, it bugs me that NPR talks about Hilary is a “woman candidate” and voters with two XX chromosomes as “women voters.” Female, people! Female is an adjective. Woman is a noun. Would you call Obama a “man candidate?”
[/QUOTE]
So what that “woman” is a noun instead of an adjective? It’s perfectly cromulent to have a noun “modify” another noun; consider phrases like “car bomb” or “oil barrel”. Or just read any English text of suitable length; you can’t go long without finding examples. E.g., in the OP alone, we find: “gene pool”, “halfwit politicians”, “Morning Edition”, “hot-button issues”.
Let me get one more bitch in: misuse in movies of the term “T minus 60 seconds” (or any other number of seconds.) I first heard this in the movie Alien back in 1979:
Ripley has activated the nuclear self-destruct mechanism that any spacegoing oar freighter would naturally have. The ship’s computer announces:
“Detonation in T minus 60 seconds!”
NO, Scott Riddley, you smug twit, that’s not how you use the term. What the bloody Hell do you think the “T” means? It refers to the time at which a specific event is expected to take place; if that moment is 60 seconds in the future, then the time now is 60 seconds 'til T, or “T minus 60 seconds”. The announcement should be either “Detonation in 60 Seconds” or simply “T Minus 60 seconds,” yeh great slack-witted git!
That may have been the first movie to make that particular brain-dead mistake; I don’t know, but I do know I’ve heard it in several other films since. Fookin’ Hell!
ETA: And Riddley Scott doesn’t get any slack for being British and not having NASA. Why? Because the British have a particular time every day that’s actually called “Tea”. Motherfuck!
Also, don’t say “less than” when you mean “fewer than”. I mean damn.
[QUOTE=Liberal]
It’s going the way of “only”.
[/QUOTE]
I hear stuff like this in golf all the time : " Number five is one of the only holes on the course to feature a water hazard."
Is this the right thread to bitch about people who say “all are not…” when they mean “not all are…”?
This is something with which I think I will adjust not.
[QUOTE=Liberal]
Also, don’t say “less than” when you mean “fewer than”. I mean damn.
[/QUOTE]
My husband and I yell that at the tv in stereo these days.
I also learned recently that “world class” does not mean a really cool thing; it means the COOLEST really cool thing like that in the world - it’s a superlative. I suspected when I heard the real definition that a lot of people have been using that incorrectly.
[QUOTE=Liberal]
Also, don’t say “less than” when you mean “fewer than”. I mean damn.
[/QUOTE]
And while we’re at it, don’t say “two times longer” when you mean “twice as long”. “Two times longer” should mean “three times as long.”
I actually had this conversation (I’m the second speaker):
“That should take two times longer.”
“Does that mean three times as long?”
(Blank look). “No, two times.”
“You’re saying that ‘two times longer’ means the same thing as ‘twice as long’?”
(Even blanker look.) “Yeah, I guess.”
“Let’s subtract one from both those phrases. Do you maintain that ‘one time longer’ means the same thing as ‘one time as long’?”
“What are you talking about?”
And it went on from there. I hear this stuff all the time. “Three times more fiber!” when they mean “three times as much fiber.” (That’s still a lot of fiber.) And apparently you’re considered a nitpicker if you point out something that’s a matter of, literally, first-grade arithmetic.
It can drive you crazy if you let it. I’ve learned to go numb. Alcohol helps. (Example: the tv show “Saturday Night Live” premiered in September 1975. When a new season premiered in September 1999, they touted it as their “25th Anniversary!” I just had another beer.)
People who use ‘yet’ when they actually mean ‘but’.
“Widget X does this, yet the requirements say that it should do that.”
AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH. OG SMASH.
How very odd; you decry this usage, yet it is one of the standard meanings of the word “yet”. What is there to object to?
[QUOTE=Baldwin]
"And it went on from there. I hear this stuff all the time. “Three times more fiber!” when they mean “three times as much fiber.” (That’s still a lot of fiber.)
[/QUOTE]
But not as much fiber as Colon Blow! Colon Blow and you … in the morning.
(YouTube video with audio.)
[QUOTE=Baldwin]
Motherfuck!
[/QUOTE]
I agree with your general complaint against incompetent and careless usage.
Using vulgarity to express outrage is no less annoying and no less uneducated.
