We leave a little later… O’dark thirty.
This one is written not spoken, but it bugs the hell out of me even as I can’t help laughing:
“So I’m standing there looking at my poor dead dog and balling my eyes out…”
A former boss had a few choice specimens:
dust to dawn lights
50-50 hindsight
a few bricks short of a picnic
and she could not pronounce or spell ‘cordura’, it always came out ‘cadora’
and one the whole group got in a huge kerfuffle over:
‘nip it in the butt’ vs ‘nip it in the BUD’ (which of course is correct). I couldn’t believe how many think it’s the first one!
There are far too many people who refer to Ground Zero in NYC as “hollowed ground”. Here’s just one:
Chaps as in fellows is pronounced with a hard CH sound, as in choice.
If you are talking about the garment cowboys wear over their jeans to ride in, it’s supposed to be a softer sch sound, sort of like Schnapps but without the N sound. But most english-style riders (at least east coast ones) pronounce it the hard CH way anyway.
Forte is fort-ay (with a short ay, not aayy).
I’m not certain of what you mean here. Do you mean the emphasis is on the first syllable, but most folks think it is on the second one?
I remember reading somewhere that the word actually is pronounced just ‘fort’ but that so many people use hyperforeignism* that now it is pretty much correct to just say it ‘fort-ay’. I have no clue if that is true, so I avoid saying the word at all. Figuring those things out just isn’t my…niche.
ETA: * I learned that word from one of the links in this thread. I am going to try to work it into my conversations more.
And what are the sports teams logos wearing, that they are not bared?
The Buttcrack of Dawn is our favorite way to say that…
Boy, is that gonna open a can of worms.
A lot of folks here think that should be pronounced “fort”, and have good reasons to bck it up.
relevant link:
The problem is that people mix up the Italian “for-tay” (used in music to mean “loud”) and the French “fort” (for “strength”); they’re both spelled “forte” but the people tend to use the Italian pronunciation for the French meaning.
I’m right there with you on this and other words (phrases even) where there’s some dispute over correctness. Why bother? Synonyms or other ways of saying the same thing avoid the hassle and who needs the bother of being “corrected” over such trivial matters, especially when the philosophical issues of descriptivists versus prescriptivists get dragged in. You say potato, I say potato, and Dan Quayle says potatoe. If it’s such a big deal, say rice.
You’re right, I was thinking of the musical one, not the “strong point”.
I can see sound!
But rather I meant to say when I read people writing “peaked”… :o
Argh! I don’t know anymore!
holds head in corner and cries in fetal position
Your link, under the verb section, definition 2, is “To excite to action by causing resentment or jealousy; to stimulate; to prick; as, to pique ambition, or curiosity.”
Bolding mine.
Okay - that made me snort my coffee - thanks!
My ex-MIL used to mix up everything:
“if you get me another piece of cake, I’ll love you internally” Which I took to mean from the inside/out.
She called her cholesterol levels her “colester-oil” levels.
This made me remember that my MIL (and others in her age bracket I have heard on the topic) refers to Alzheimer’s as Old-timers.
Ignorance fought! Thanks Sam, I never knew this and actually lookied it up.
Yes, that carrot on a stick meme is well known, but it isn’t what people mean when they say we need to use “the carrot and the stick”. They mean that they need to use both punishment and reward, not dangle an impossible to acquire incentive.
There’s nothing wrong with using cycle instead of circle since those words are synonyms. There is no big book of metaphors that one must adhere to.
This one truly drives me crazy; and there are two variations of it to boot:
When people say “Ex Cetera” or “Ek Cetera” instead of "Et Cetera. I mean, doesn’t the abbreviation ETC give you a clue? :smack:
I was once indigently asked who appointed me Judge Judy and executioner.
But it was a mute point.