“Could of” and “should of” really bug me. I know many people who use “should have went” and it bothers me every time.
I used to have a math teacher who would always use the term “parenthesee.” As in, “put a parenthesee on the left side of that equation.” :smack:
Then we have those oh so clever and witty people who guesstimate. (Sometimes I wish murder was legal)
I know people, who really should know better, who think that testee is the singular of testes. “After the boy underwent an orchidectomy, he was left with only one testee.”
You pronounce the ai in Craig like you would in Paige.
I guess whether or not there’s an ‘e’ at the end doesn’t matter.
At least I think thats it. It’s one of those subtle things I don’t pay attention to…then again, my name isn’t Craig.
I never “guesstimate.” I just make SWAGs.
My old boss would give us pep talks every so often:
“Do you guys know what kinetic energy is? Kinetic energy is like when you have a book on the edge of a table and the gravity is pulling on that book and it is just about to fall. That book has high kinetic energy. I’m so excited for this company right now because I can feel that we have so much kinetic energy…”
ssssiiiiiiiiiiiiiiggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…
This was the same place where my manager insisted that helium was a highly explosive gas. Another manager would use “irregardless” when I’m sure “regardless” would have sufficed. He was a cool guy, and I could never quite tell if he was seriously using it or if he was being funny.
Then again, I sometimes use incorrect words/phrases on purpose. It amuses me, for example, to use the phrase “just as worse” to mean “just as bad, if not worse”.
“Whatever, dude. You hate Taco Bell, but McDonalds is just as worse!”
I assume that “irregardless”, like “same difference” and “perish forbid” was originally meant to be funny, but who knows.
Er… it is. At least, here, it is. With an “e” as in “egg”.
<sigh> Sorry, didn’t see the second page. But it’s still pronounced the same.
My rule of thumb on pronouncing names is to say it the way the named person says it. If someone introduces himself to me and pronounces his name “kregg,” that’s how I’ll say it. If he pronounces it “kraygg,” I’ll say it that way. So far, every single Craig that I’ve met has pronounced his name “kregg.”
My mother does this a LOT.
“Shell” for “shelf,” for example.
Comedy gold, unless you have to listen to her 24/7.
Oh God, my students in college write “could of,” “should of,” and “would of” constantly! :mad: They’re just writing what they hear instead of thinking about the fact that it makes no sense when written out.
Bites When Provoked: People saying “pacific” when they mean “specific” is just plain intellectual laziness. It offends me even more than ignorance!
Oh, and here’s another one from my little college darlings that is getting all over my last nerve: Attempting to say or write “nowadays” but coming up with the following instead:
now n days
now a days
now and days
nowdays
etc.
They could just write “now” or “today,” don’t you think? Or is that just too simple?
Penultimate.
It is quite rare to meet someone who actually knows how to use it.
No, folks, it does not mean something that’s really good.
“Flaunt” for “flout”.
“Illusive” for “elusive”.
“Diffuse” for “defuse”.
Doo Dooooo Doo Doo Doo…
Student last week kept referring to the World Trade Center destruction as “7-11.”
Oh yes he did.
I have a friend who pronounces “bra” “brawl.”
I have another friend who says “shot at gunpoint.”
Yet another friend of mine insists that “elaborate” simply means to talk. About anything. She actually said to me once
“You need to elaborate more.”
“On what,” I said.
“You just need to elaborate more. It means you need to conversate more. See, you didn’t think I’d know a word like that, did you?”
The woman I live with is always using the word “immaculant.” It’s like, her favorite word. I don’t have the heart to tell her it’s not one.
I once had a boy friend tell me he liked it when my hair was all tressled. I just laughed and laughed and explained to him he probably meant tousled as he was refering to when it got messy.
I could fill a page with these, and many of my pet peeves have been covered already, but:
*Write me *instead of write to me
In back of instead of *behind *
In tact instead of intact
On tract instead of on track
*Loose *instead of *lose *
Per say instead of *per se *
*Flouride *instead of fluoride
*Ensure *instead of *insure *(and vice versa)
*Cretin * pronounced cretan
*Router * pronounced rooter
*Roof *pronounced *roff *