# Tiny errors that drive you insane **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 29, 2016, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557 "2016-02-29T19:58:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 20
**Author:** ![Ignatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/3be4f8/32.png) [@Ignatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ignatz)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/381 "2016-05-19T22:19:20Z")
“As far as” instead of “As for”. “In terms of” instead of “As for”. (Not incorrect, just stilted) ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/382 "2016-05-19T22:33:38Z")
“As for” isn’t stilted? I’ve never even heard that expression. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2016, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/383 "2016-05-19T23:30:52Z")
“You can say there’s no such thing as Santa, but as for me and Grandpa, we believe!” “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” ---
**Author:** ![Marine\_One](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marine_one/32/3461_2.png) [@Marine\_One](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marine_One)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2016, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/384 "2016-05-20T00:57:52Z")
Drives me crazy when there is a show/film about a music conductor and he just waves his arms around. Doesn’t even come close to finding the beat or anything else. Just flailing away at the air. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2016, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/385 "2016-05-20T06:52:46Z")
> [@Lorne\_Armstrong](#): > > 1970’s hairstyles on M_A_S\*H The “Koreans” in black pyjamas? The funny helicopters shown? That on TV a 3 year war lasted 11 years? You pick one thing to be offended by, and it’s the haircuts? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2016, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/386 "2016-05-20T11:38:53Z")
The show didn’t depict the war as lasting 11 years. That’s not an error that the show committed. ---
**Author:** ![Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tired_and_Cranky)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2016, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/387 "2016-05-20T14:05:38Z")
> [@Marine\_One](#): > > Drives me crazy when there is a show/film about a music conductor and he just waves his arms around. > > Doesn’t even come close to finding the beat or anything else. > > Just flailing away at the air. I’m not very musical but I notice this too sometimes. I always get bogged down though wondering if it was the actor who missed the beat or whether something got lost during the film and sound editing. The sound on the stage probably didn’t match what’s in the film. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2016, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/388 "2016-05-20T14:37:10Z")
> [@heckofva](#): > > I’m sure the concept comes from the fact that with most squibs they don’t have the power to charge the weapon, hence with the fake ammo you would have to charge the weapon to reset the trigger and feed the round. So those without knowledge assume that’s how guns work. Plus I guess it makes for “Good Hollywood” to show the racking of the slide. I was going to post that people working the action on their firearms bugs the hell out of me. Nearly every time, they’re in a situation where they would already have a round chambered. Somewhere, hidden away in a box in a storage unit, I have a couple of ‘Hollywood style’ blank firing adapters for M-16s/AR-15s. These are plugs with small holes in them, that fit between the muzzle and the flash suppressor. Since blanks do not have a projectile, there’s no ‘equal and opposite reaction’ to push the bolt or slide back, nor anything to make the gas go through the gas port in gas-operated firearms. Restricting the barrel with a plug with a hole in it simulates a bullet in the cartridge. With an M-16 it’s easy. I’m guessing it’s easy with any firearm that has a flash suppressor or muzzle brake. Other guns take a little more work. For one film we modified the writer/producer/director’s Beretta 92FS to fire blanks. We bought a threaded plug from the hardware store and threaded the breech of the barrel. We drilled a hole in the plug. It turned out the hole needed to be larger than we thought, but before that we couldn’t get the pistol to cycle. We had to grind the lugs off of the locking block. Then it was a matter of widening the hole in the breech plug until pressures were brought down to a reasonable level so as not to slam the slide back. Of course this made the pistol unusable for live ammunition, and it would need a new barrel and locking block to convert it back. And of course, ‘Don’t try this at home.’ Blank-firing prop guns are available to rent. Robert Rodriguez didn’t in _El Mariachi_ because he didn’t have the budget and he borrowed guns from the local police, so he had to work the action for every round. (He edited so that it looked like machine guns worked like machine guns.) But any TV series or just about any movie is going to have the budget to hire an armorer and blank-firing prop guns. So working the action is ‘Good Hollywood’ for people who don’t know how guns work, but :rolleyes:-inducing for people who do. ---
**Author:** ![DrForrester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8edcca/32.png) [@DrForrester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrForrester)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2016, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/389 "2016-05-20T15:00:48Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > Nobody pronounces their own name wrong. Incorrectly. “Wrong” is an adjective. To modify a verb, you need to use an adverb. I mention this as it is a tiny error, perpetuated endlessly, that drives me insane. Did nobody pay attention in high school? ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2016, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/390 "2016-05-20T15:28:15Z")
> [@DrForrester](#): > > Incorrectly. “Wrong” is an adjective. To modify a verb, you need to use an adverb. You are [wrongly](http://grammarist.com/usage/wrong-wrongly/) ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2016, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/391 "2016-05-20T15:41:48Z")
> [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](#): > > I’m not very musical but I notice this too sometimes. I always get bogged down though wondering if it was the actor who missed the beat or whether something got lost during the film and sound editing. The sound on the stage probably didn’t match what’s in the film. I remembered listening to the director’s commentary for the cheerleading movie **Bring It On** , and there are several scenes where one of the actors is dancing, and the director describes how there was no music on set, and he was just yelling out “slower” or “faster” or something like that, and then music was added much later, when they had figured out what songs they had the rights to, and so forth. I’d imagine scenes of conductors might be quite similar. ---
**Author:** ![DrForrester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8edcca/32.png) [@DrForrester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrForrester)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2016, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/392 "2016-05-20T15:56:38Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > You are [wrongly](http://grammarist.com/usage/wrong-wrongly/) I was entirely prepared to admit the error of my ways. Then, I read the page to which you linked. I’m feeling much better now. Thank You! ---
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2016, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/393 "2016-05-20T15:58:35Z")
> [@DrForrester](#): > > Incorrectly. “Wrong” is an adjective. To modify a verb, you need to use an adverb. > > I mention this as it is a tiny error, perpetuated endlessly, that drives me insane. Did nobody pay attention in high school? Tell it to the OED. ---
**Author:** ![misling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3ab097/32.png) [@misling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/misling)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2016, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/394 "2016-05-20T18:35:19Z")
It’s extremely petty, but it’s also on the front page of the Straight Dope today: the lyrics are “Memories LIGHT the corners of my mind” not “Memories, like the corners…” ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2016, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/395 "2016-05-20T19:51:45Z")
> [@DrForrester](#): > > I was entirely prepared to admit the error of my ways. Then, I read the page to which you linked. I’m feeling much better now. Thank You! [How about this one?](http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-wro2.htm) Some select quotes: > [@](#): > > But wrong can also be an adverb. There’s nothing in the least new about this — the Oxford English Dictionary has examples from the thirteenth century onwards. > [@](#): > > The quick and easy rule is that wrongly appears before the verb being modified (“the earlier case was wrongly decided”) and wrong after the verb (“he answered the question wrong”). Like most such rules, it’s not even half the story > [@](#): > > More generally, English makes much less distinction between adverbs and adjectives than the more elementary grammar books would have us believe. It might be better to class such words under the general title of modifier (although contemporary grammarians reserve this word for a different phenomenon); often the form of the modifier doesn’t match the rule we learned in childhood about adding -ly to make adverbs. Lots of words that look like adjectives can act as adverbs, particularly in idiomatic English: “try hard”, “turn sharp left”, “hold tight”, “he had spread himself too thin”, “the desk was piled high with files”, “he burrowed deep into his memory”, “leave it as late as you can”, “the ships were wide apart”, “teach him to hold his pen right”. They’re sometimes called flat adverbs. > [@](#): > > To sum all this up, in the phrase “spelling his name wrong”, wrong is idiomatically correct but wrongly is acceptable, though formal and less common. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2016, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/396 "2016-05-20T19:56:54Z")
> [@DrForrester](#): > > Incorrectly. “Wrong” is an adjective. To modify a verb, you need to use an adverb. > > I mention this as it is a tiny error, perpetuated endlessly, that drives me insane. Did nobody pay attention in high school? [Dictionary.com](http://www.dictionary.com/browse/wrong?s=t) thinks you’re wrong, as well. > [@](#): > > adverb > in a wrong manner; not rightly; awry; amiss: > You did it wrong again. ---
**Author:** ![Big\_Norse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/big_norse/32/9954_2.png) [@Big\_Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Big_Norse)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2016, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/397 "2016-05-20T19:59:41Z")
I’ve mentioned my pet peeve of misusing “fewer” and “less” before. It seems to be cropping up in commercials more and more lately. Speaking of mispronunciation: a newer one I’ve started noticing in TV shows is characters mentioning “Calling in the calvary.” Or “We’re going to need the calvary.” [Calvary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvary) vs. [Cavalry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavalry) ---
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2016, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557/398 "2016-05-20T20:36:35Z")
> [@MaxTheVool's link](#): > > But wrong can also be an adverb. There’s nothing in the least new about this — the Oxford English Dictionary has examples from the thirteenth century onwards. This is totally incorrect! The earliest usage in the OED is from 1330: clearly the 14th century! > [@Big\_Norse](#): > > I’ve mentioned my pet peeve of misusing “fewer” and “less” before. It seems to be cropping up in commercials more and more lately. As I mentioned a few pages back, while “fewer” is indeed restricted to countable quantities, “less” is not now, nor has it ever been, restricted to uncountables. And [a link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fewer_vs._less)! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tiny-errors-that-drive-you-insane/747557.md?page=19)