# Things in English that annoy you. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 3, 2010, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-english-that-annoy-you/527537 "2010-02-03T16:23:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Rumor\_Watkins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@Rumor\_Watkins](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rumor_Watkins)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-english-that-annoy-you/527537/21 "2010-02-03T20:05:53Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > Those are two words each. is that really a problem? like brother-in-law bothers you too? step-brother? half-brother? terms don’t need to be reduced to one word ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-english-that-annoy-you/527537/22 "2010-02-03T20:07:43Z")
I hate that black folks\* can’t get the way we use the word ‘be’ sometimes, to cross over into mainstream language use. It has a rhythm to it that I think really works well in making the conversation flow. Also, it often cuts down on a syllable or two: Let’s take, “You be in a red car?” Someone asked me that today. She knows I don’t drive, but I often am in a red car. Instead of saying, “Are you often in a red car?”, she saves herself a syllable. Sure, it’s just a syllable or two, but again, the omission of the word ‘often’ helps with the rhythm, in my opinion. I know I will never convince anyone that usinng ‘be’ in that way is good English, for lots of reasons. One reason is that folks will never figure out _how_ to use it right. ‘You be in a red car’ does not mean you are in a red car as we speak. Not at all. As a matter of fact, if you are in a red car now, but never at any other times, it would be completely crazy for me to say, “you be in a red car”. Despite what what tv shows and movies that try to duplicate black English portray. \*black folks means black people that I know. Not all black people. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-english-that-annoy-you/527537/23 "2010-02-03T20:10:06Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > Let’s take, “You be in a red car?” Someone asked me that today. She knows I don’t drive, but I often am in a red car. > > Instead of saying, “Are you often in a red car?”, she saves herself a syllable. Sure, it’s just a syllable or two, but again, the omission of the word ‘often’ helps with the rhythm, in my opinion. She could save herself an extra syllable by saying, “You in a red car?” ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-english-that-annoy-you/527537/24 "2010-02-03T20:21:17Z")
> [@Roland\_Orzabal](#): > > Mine is the lack of an easy way to make a negative declarative statement that definitively includes the possibility of the positive case. In other words, the difference between “I cannot eat apples”, and “I can not eat apples” (but I can also eat them). To say the latter unambiguously, there are many ways you could phrase it, but all of them are overly cumbersome for the sentiment you’re trying to express: “I am capable of not eating apples,” “I can decide not to eat apples if I choose,” and so on. (Nitpickers may note that the simple sentence “I can eat apples” is logically equivalent in this case, but that doesn’t apply if you imagine a situation with more than two possible truth values.) > > I’d lamented this long before the problem arose in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=550519), but it’s a particularly good example of why we need this. It can be done in speech quite easily, just by using emphasis. “I _can_ not eat apples, you know.” And, I don’t think it’s particularly kludgy to say “I do have the ability to not eat apples,” which accomplishes the same thing in text. > [@Roland Orzabal earlier](#): > > I’ve heard that argument before, but I think it misses the point. I don’t believe anyone is honestly arguing that there’s no way to write a given sentence such that the need to use a pronoun at all is avoided, just that having one would avoid unnecessarily clunky (or otherwise sub-optimal) sentence structures. > > Consider the sentence “He or she has a dog,” with the goal of rewriting it to get rid of the “he or she” part. I wrote that sentence specifically to avoid the tricks people often use to circumvent the problem that the no-gender-neutral-third-person-pronoun argument poses…devoid of context, you can’t rewrite it using a more specific noun (“He or she must possess strong HTML skills” —\> “_The applicant_ must possess strong HTML skills”), and absent the possessive form, “a” and “the” are no help. If you’re determined to get rid of “he or she”, the only option left is to change it to something ridiculous like “A person of indiscriminate gender has a dog.” This is the source of these complaints. All sentences can be rewritten to get rid of the ambiguity. You’re right in that we can’t do much with your statement without context, but when the statement is actually being used, there will always be context. In this case, I’d go with the context in which I can most imagine this statement being uttered. The owner has been mentioned previously (even if only by pointing), but the gender is still unknown. So you can say “That person has a dog.” I’m sure there is a place where “Someone has a dog” would work, but I can’t think of it offhand. Anyways, the most annoying thing I have about English lately is spelling. Sure, words aren’t pronounced the same everywhere, but there are ways it definitely isn’t pronounced. Of course, the reason it bugs me is not that I can’t do it, but that everyone has to constantly ask me how to spell things so that they don’t look foolish. And, for some reason, when I’m on the spot, spelling things out loud, I have a lot of trouble. The next is nitpicking grammar wankers like myself. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-english-that-annoy-you/527537/25 "2010-02-03T20:24:28Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > I know I will never convince anyone that usinng ‘be’ in that way is good English, for lots of reasons. One reason is that folks will never figure out _how_ to use it right. > > ‘You be in a red car’ does not mean you are in a red car as we speak. Not at all. As a matter of fact, if you are in a red car now, but never at any other times, it would be completely crazy for me to say, “you be in a red car”. Despite what what tv shows and movies that try to duplicate black English portray. In case you aren’t aware already, the/a technical term for that is [“habitual aspect”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_American_Vernacular_English#Grammatical_aspect_marking). It is a bit odd how few people who don’t speak AAVE ever catch on to the fact that are those grammatical rules governing its use, instead just implicitly assuming something like "Those lazy blacks often spontaneously just can’t be bothered to inflect the word ‘be’ ". ---
**Author:** ![Agent\_Foxtrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc29f/32.png) [@Agent\_Foxtrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agent_Foxtrot)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-english-that-annoy-you/527537/26 "2010-02-03T20:24:41Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > I’m right behind y’all on the gender neutral words. > > My peeves are people who misuse y’all (it’s a contraction of you all, and it’s second person plural) and foreign language plurals, like fora for forums and syllabi and all that stuff. Plurals should be formed with either sticking an “s” at the end of a word, or an “es”, and that’s that. English is quite irregular enough. I think the mediums would have a field day reporting on the criterions of your datums, confusing all the mans, womans, and childs – all English-speaking persons – who are used to voting with their foots. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-english-that-annoy-you/527537/27 "2010-02-03T20:30:17Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > There are no sex-specific words for cousin. There are no family-specific words for any relatives, just “My Uncle Bob on my Mom’s side” and the like. Also no shortcuts for aunts/uncles who are, um, \*‘legally’ related, and those who are simply married to a ‘legally’ related aunt/uncle. \*Not a good word, but I couldn’t find a word that would encompass a) blood aunts/uncles, b) aunts/uncles by adoption, c) aunts/uncles that are step-siblings of a parent. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-english-that-annoy-you/527537/28 "2010-02-03T20:31:28Z")
> [@Agent\_Foxtrot](#): > > Bring back the words “fortnight,” “thrice,” “betwixt,” and maybe even “thou” as a formal pronoun. There was nothing wrong with those words! Don’t they still say “fortnight” in the UK? I believe it was fairly common usage not too long ago. On the other hand, “sennight” would be a great word to revive. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-english-that-annoy-you/527537/29 "2010-02-03T20:33:45Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > She could save herself an extra syllable by saying, “You in a red car?” Never mind. Forgot to read whole post. > [@](#): > > Don’t they still say “fortnight” in the UK? I believe it was fairly common usage not too long ago. On the other hand, “sennight” would be a great word to revive. Psst… see Posts 2 and 5. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-english-that-annoy-you/527537/30 "2010-02-03T20:35:04Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > It is a bit odd how few people who don’t speak AAVE ever catch on to the fact that are those grammatical rules governing its use, instead just implicitly assuming something like "Those lazy blacks often spontaneously just can’t be bothered to inflect the word ‘be’ ". Er, I guess I’m occasionally spontaneously too lazy be bothered to write “the fact that there are those grammatical rules”. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-english-that-annoy-you/527537/31 "2010-02-03T20:35:52Z")
> [@sachertorte](#): > > Interesting. Here language matches science. Science-wise, cold is the absence of heat. So it makes sense that “coolth” doesn’t exist as a word. > > How would you use “coolth” in a sentence? The coolth of the metal of the axe gave me goose pimples as it was slicing through my head. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-english-that-annoy-you/527537/32 "2010-02-03T20:37:30Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Don’t they still say “fortnight” in the UK? I believe it was fairly common usage not too long ago. On the other hand, “sennight” would be a great word to revive. “Fortnight” is still used in Australia, and I suspect that it is in the UK too. However, I don’t see the point of using “sennight” when we already have its synonym “week”. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-english-that-annoy-you/527537/33 "2010-02-03T20:45:43Z")
> [@Bytegeist](#): > > Also add “lest” to that list. I find myself wanting to use it ever since I learned about it (from Shakespeare, I think). Who says “lest” is dead? Herbert Kornfeld of _The Onion_ used to use it all the time, although mistaking it to mean the same thing as “unless”. With its true meaning, it may be obsolescent but I don’t think it’s quite dead yet. _Lest Darkness Fall_ is a time-travel science fiction classic of the 1930s; granted that’s a long time ago, but it’s not like we’re talking about Elizabethan times. _Lest_ calls for a present subjunctive verb in AmE, so it works better in that variety of English. With regard to the lack of gender-neutral pronouns that can refer to people, I have noticed some writers using “she” and “her” exclusively, or alternating them with the masculine pronouns. It’s as good a solution as any, but knowing German it reminds me of the fact that German uses “sie” for “she”, “they”, and in some contexts “her” and “them”; it also uses variations of “ihr” to mean “her” in other contexts, as well as “them” and “their”. So the use of “she”/“her” in this way looks vaguely German-ish to me. ---
**Author:** ![Nzinga\_Seated](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b5ac83/32.png) [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-english-that-annoy-you/527537/34 "2010-02-03T20:48:57Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > In case you aren’t aware already, the/a technical term for that is [“habitual aspect”](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_American_Vernacular_English#Grammatical_aspect_marking). It is a bit odd how few people who don’t speak AAVE ever catch on to the fact that are those grammatical rules governing its use, instead just implicitly assuming something like "Those lazy blacks often spontaneously just can’t be bothered to inflect the word ‘be’ ". Thanks for that link! I never knew the name for it, or how to explain it, and I always fail at trying to explain it. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-english-that-annoy-you/527537/35 "2010-02-03T20:56:25Z")
Some languages have two words for “we”- one meaning “you and me and possibly others”, the other meaning “me and someone else, but not you”. I kind of wish English had something like that. > [@Agent Foxtrot](#): > > maybe even “thou” as a formal pronoun. “Thou” was the _informal_ pronoun (like the French “tu”) and “you” was the formal one. > [@Zsofia](#): > > There’s no “proper” second person plural, and the invented ones are “improper” (y’all, yinz for you Pittsburghers, etc.) Y’all fills a real need in English and I don’t see what’s wrong with it. I suspect that dialect prejudice against the Southern dialect is why it doesn’t get more widely adopted. ---
**Author:** ![Kolga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-english-that-annoy-you/527537/36 "2010-02-03T21:25:12Z")
> [@sachertorte](#): > > Interesting. Here language matches science. Science-wise, cold is the absence of heat. So it makes sense that “coolth” doesn’t exist as a word. > > How would you use “coolth” in a sentence? Pretty much in the same way I’d use warmth. “I’m enjoying the warmth of this fire.” “I’m enjoying the coolth of this beverage.” “We’ll sit on the back porch and enjoy the coolth of the evening.” ---
**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-english-that-annoy-you/527537/37 "2010-02-03T21:25:26Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Who says “lest” is dead? […] With its true meaning, it may be obsolescent but I don’t think it’s quite dead yet. True, the word is not completely unknown. Still, try slipping it into your daily conversations and see what kind of looks you get. ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-english-that-annoy-you/527537/38 "2010-02-03T21:27:02Z")
> [@Agent\_Foxtrot](#): > > Bring back the words “fortnight,” It’s in regular use here. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-english-that-annoy-you/527537/39 "2010-02-03T21:29:31Z")
> [@Kolga](#): > > Pretty much in the same way I’d use warmth. > “I’m enjoying the warmth of this fire.” > “I’m enjoying the coolth of this beverage.” > “We’ll sit on the back porch and enjoy the coolth of the evening.” We have “coolness” for that. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [February 3, 2010, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-english-that-annoy-you/527537/40 "2010-02-03T21:30:55Z")
> [@Kolga](#): > > Pretty much in the same way I’d use warmth. > “I’m enjoying the warmth of this fire.” > “I’m enjoying the coolth of this beverage.” > “We’ll sit on the back porch and enjoy the coolth of the evening.” The thing is, while “coolth” looks like a pretty cool word, it doesn’t fill a gap: we already have “coolness”, which works with all the meanings of “cool”. So I doubt if “coolth” will ever stop looking like a linguistic joke – not that there’s anything wrong with such jokes. ETA: And I was beaten by **Anne Neville**. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-english-that-annoy-you/527537.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-in-english-that-annoy-you/527537.md?page=3)