A friend of mine, a Brit, always uses to itch when he means to scratch. I’ve told him a zillion times that it is incorrect but he keeps doing it.
And I am the one who learnt English as a second language.
“To itch,” both as what a mosquito bite does to you and as it is used in the examples given by samclem, is to cause the itching sensation, to bother, etc. The motion you give to relieve that is “scratching.” If you read the examples in samclem’s post, you’ll see that this holds true. In the first, for example:
The worm is itching the body in this metaphor, yes, but that means it is causing the itch, not relieving it. To relieve it, the victim of the itching scratches. This holds true throughout the block of text, as far as I can tell. There is a distinction here.
You still don’t itch your itch to get rid of it.
There’s a related “misuse” that throws me, the practice of hiring some inanimate object or another.
You rent a car, you hire a driver. You cannot pay the nonsentient object in any effective way, but you may pay for the use of it.
But I think that’s a British/American thing, hence my qualification of “misuse.”
[sub]Wasn’t there a lad across the pond disgusted by the idea of a peanutbutter and jelly sandwich, thinking gelatin (Jello) for jelly, not too long ago?[/sub]
Heh. This reminds me of one of my favorite “snappy comebacks” (I don’t know where I heard it first). When told by someone “you smell”, respond back to them, “No. You smell. I stink.”
Hmm.
Close the light. Shut the light.
I prefer just turning the damn thing off personally. 
My foster sister says “cut the light.” Now, “cut the light off” kinda makes sense. But she expects you to “cut the light on,” too. It annoys me. But then, so does her very existence.
How about “turn off the candle?” That’s another one from my wife. It never fails to make me giggle.
I first heard this in the Richmond, VA area:
“I’m going to make grocery’s”, to indicate said person is going shopping for groceries.
This thread is making me nauseous.
No, this thread is merely existing. Reading this thread is making you feel nauseous.
[sub]That would be an example of being annoyingly pedantic, yeah?[/sub]
Yeah “hire” gets used that way all the time here… actually more so in New Zealand than here.
We have hire-cars
we have hire-purchase (rent-to-buy)
There’re probably others, can’t think now.
P.S. the root of hire is 1. hyrian from Old English meaning to employ someone for wages, and 2. hyr of West German origin meaning payment under contract for the use of something.
Source: The New Oxford Dictionary of English
I would say the only reasonable meaning of to itch as a transitive verb is ‘to make something itch.’ *
But scratching an itch does make it itch, so that would be ironically appropriate
*Or, perhaps, ‘my arm is itching me’ or something.
Along the same lines as another poster has already stated.
“We doan’ got no”.
THIS makes me cringe and I have to REALLY bite me tongue, even THEN, sometimes a frustrated “ANY, you don’t have ANY” escapes (which brings YOU KNOW what kinda response,blank look and a “yeah, thass’ whut isay, doan’ got no”).
then there was the time I was in the parking garage, (brace yourselves you’re going to want to go throttle this kid yourselves).
The parking garage located at our 'fancy" downtown mall validates parking tickets. I rarely go downtown, but one day I went down there and spent a pleasant several hours window shopping, and might have even purchased something.
ANYWAY,I got my parking ticket validated just before I went back to the garage, when I got to the ticket booth I handed my ticket over to the boy in the booth expecting that, since I’d had it validated it would be free.
Instead the kid says “that’ll be 5 bucks”. So I say, “oh no, it’s validated”
The kid says “you ain’t got two hours, you gotta have two hours for it to be free”. I said, “oh, I’ve been here for well over two hours”.
He sits and thinks, “well, if you ain’t got no two hours you gotta pay”. I repeat “but I have been here two hours, I’ve been here at least 4”.
Kid: “4 hours you gotta pay, since you ain’t got 2”.
Me (getting TOTALLY exasperated): “what are you talking about, if I have at least two hours it’s free right?”
Kid: “yeah, if you got 2 hours, nowhaisay’?”.
Me: “well I HAVE at least two hours, ergo it should be free”
Kid: “no, cuz yoain got 2 hours”
Similar discussion ensues for a few more moments.
(okay, I’m blond, so a LITTLE slow on the uptake here),a light suddenly dawns
Me: “are you ATTEMPTING to say that I have to have 2 hours or fewer”???
Kid: “yeah, yogotta have 2 hours”.
Me: “OR LESS right???”
Kid: blank stare.
Me: MORE conversation attempting to get kid to understand the concept of " you gotta have two hours" does NOT equal to the average english speaking customer “2 hours or LESS”. He does NOT get the difference.
Me: “NOW, I am not paying this, get your manager or whatEVER you have to do, but you either let me out NOW, due to your COMPLETE lack of command of the english language, and your wasting my time and causing such a clusterf*ck beHIND us (yes, several cars behind me), or I will SIT here giving you ENGLISH lesson until your boss DOES get here”!!!
The gate was up in record time.
Me (one last parting shot): Go BACK to school and learn to speak english properly!!!
(btw, this was NOT an english as a second language person, this was a young, clean-cut, all american kid, NO excuse).
If you ax me, this is all irregardless.
Perhaps she was trying for a sophisticated English accent. I certainly pronounce it “chest of draws”.
{Cough} Prescriptive. {Cough} Proscriptive is another animal entirely.
No, being annoying pedantic would be saying, “No, the thread is nauseous, therefore reading it is making blowero feel nauseated.”
However, I get the feeling the winky smiley indicates that blowero knows that already.
Count me as another person who can’t stand hearing “itch” used to mean “scratch.” The first time I encountered it was in the 6th grade when a classmate was complaining that she’d had an itch in a personal area that she hadn’t been able to scratch in class because she was sitting next to a boy. She kept saying, “It itched but I couldn’t itch it, it itched, but I couldn’t itch it.” I was deeply confused.
Maybe an accent thing? Around here drawer is pronounced “draw” and we aint no ignoramiouses.
“draw” is the way it is pronounced in Massachusetts as well.