Latest language peeve

January 9, 2014 • 6:07 am

. . . and something you will never see on this website, unless some commenter wants to have their tuchus chewed.

It’s the following sentence:

“This.”

It invariably appears after a passage from someone else that a blogger has quoted with approbation. “This” is simply a faux-hip way to indicate agreement. It is the sign of a lazy writer.

What’s even worse is when it’s followed by the sentence “A hundred times this.”

Call me a curmudgeon (on second thought, don’t dare), but this is the opinion of Professor Ceiling Cat, which is His.

And close behind “this” on the disapprobation scale is the word “peeps” for “people.” “Peeps” is reserved for the marshmallow candies made by the Just Born company:

250px-Pink_peeps
THESE are Peeps. Got it?

Of course, I invite you to add your own language peeves below. Please, no comments to the effect of “language evolves, so everything is okay,” vfor this post is designed blow off steam.

p.s. I thought of another: Any sentence that begins with “To be truthful. . . ”  That, of course, implies that the speaker/writer has not previously been truthful.

546 thoughts on “Latest language peeve”

  1. One peeve of mine is the use of the contraction “there’s” followed by the subject in plural form as in: “There’s apples on the counter.”

    Another is the treatment of “data” and “media” as singular nouns.

  2. My former mother-in-law often ended sentences with a really drawn out aaaaaaaannnnnnnnddddd so that it was hard to get a word in edgewise.

  3. English isn’t one language. It’s an amalgam of old English, which is Germanic, French, and various Latin, Greek and miscellaneous words added in. This means we have conflicting pronunciation and spelling and usage. Most “errors” are made via analogy to a situation in another part of the language.

    So, I forgive analogous “errors” because I know their logic will make them overcome in the long run.

    I also forgive “like” “y’know” and “um” because they’re place-holders for the brain to catch up with the mouth. Some people can’t handle even a brief silence and will steal the floor out from under you if they think you’ve finished.

    I have picked up a few “wrong” things that just make too much sense not to use. My favorite is “might could.” “Might be able to” is just too much of a mouthful to win that one.

    1. Yes, I forgive a lot of Latin pluralization issues because you have the choice to pluralize, accepting that the word is pure Latin or pluralize, accepting that the word is a now English word. So, I won’t freak out if you pluralize “appendix” as “appendixes” instead of “appendices” & I have no strong opinions about “data” taking either a plural or singular verb.

  4. *whew* I finally read through the comments and I can’t believe nobody brought this one up:

    “Science tells us” or “Scientists believe.”

    No, “Science” is not the Bible and it doesn’t talk. How about “Evidence has shown that” or “The best theory to explain…”

    That kind of usage feeds the canard that science is just another religion.

    1. Yes! I remember as a kid someone say “they say” to our science teacher and he asked “who’s they” and someone replied “scientists” and then I believe he corrected them. It stuck with me all my life.

  5. I learned a new one today: “squish”

    As I was leaving work, (female) undergrad #1 said to (female) undergrad #2 “I’m going to have to put the squish on her”

    Fortunately for me, #1 explained what that meant: a “squish” is a friend-crush. #1 is going to send a friend invitation to a stranger she thinks is cool.

    Later, I looked it up in the urban dictionary</a., and sure enough, it's been a usage for awhile.

    This demonstrates the problem with the English language. Even with hundreds of thousands of words and countless idiomatic expressions, it can't keep up with the human imagination. And unlike Germans, we English-speakers can't pile up other words to create one long ingenious word. We have to put the squish on an old word and give it more dimension.

    (What would that be in German? Freundheitwunschaufsetzen perhaps?)

    2. Squish is a well-defined IC engine technical term which has been in use probably since the 30s. It relates to the area on top of the piston which approaches very close to the cylinder head at TDC, thereby ‘squishing’ the trapped gas out sideways creating turbulence and improving combustion.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squish_(piston_engine)

      So far as I know any other use is just slang for ‘squash’.

  6. “General consensus” or “consensus of opinion.” A consensus is a general opinion, so both of these are redundant.

    1. Surely that should be “either one of these is redundant in the presence of the other”?
      [Grammar Fascist – I can object to Romance languages as well as Germanic family ones.]

  8. When children begin with “I want,” I think parents would do well to encourage them to say “I would like” instead.

    2. Only if the parents want the child to be the subject of brutal abuse in school! That’s very uppity.

  9. One more: calling any online list a “listserv/listserve”; Listserv is a list managing software.

  11. I am not sure if this qualifies as a language peeve, but “center around” has always bugged me.
    A center indicates a point, and a point cannot encircle anything, so its either “center on” or “revolve around”.

  13. I think we’ve proved one thing with this thread.

    We atheists really are very angry.

    (Apologies if this has already been said above and I missed it).

        1. Oh, we are as nice as we think we are. But we’re maybe not quite as nice as we try to lead others to think that we are.

  14. I despise the misuse of words in order to sound more learned or authoritative, and I really regret the consequent elision of subtle shades of meaning. One example is the “ee” suffix applied to the doer instead of the doee 🙂 as in “attendee”. The attendee is the meeting itself, not the person attending. Another example is the almost universal replacement of “sympathise” with “empathise”, losing the particular implication of the latter. In order to restore that implication, it is necessary these days to waste extra words to qualify “empathise”.
    Before anybody refers to a dictionary, please appreciate that a dictionary records usage, not correctness.

      1. My point is that “ee” is a useful device for referring to the object of a transitive verb. It only retains that usefulness if it is used consistently, which requires that there is a such a thing as its correct usage.

        1. Perhaps. But largely irrelevant in real language evolution. Language usage doesn’t really give much of a damn for rules like that and just rolls along, changing as it goes. Over time the rule becomes a historical oddity. The fact that “attendee” means “person attending” to essentially all English speakers means that it is, in fact, correct usage (now).

          1. It seems to be a ‘middle voice’ construction, active or reflexive in sense but passive in form (as common in ancient Greek).

          2. I agree that we are stuck with “attendee”; I assume that it caught on by analogy with “absentee”, which arose when “to absent” was a transitive verb. It still retains a hint of that in the reflexive phrase “to absent oneself”, but that does not mean that we need to concede that same sloppiness more generally. In listing those who have attended a meeting, I have always used “present” as a header, or, when I am feeling particularly stroppy “attenders”. A few of my more alert colleagues have followed my example.
            I still think that it originated in a tendency to pretension, and I very strongly dislike that.

          4. 😉 (Are emoticons still allowed?)

            I agree with you, gb, but aren’t you committing the “language evolves” sin?

    2. My personal dislike of the “ee” thing is the use of “mentee” for “protegé”. It is mentor and protegé! When I here “mentee” I reply with “Manatee? What are you saying about this person? Is that a fat joke?” 🙂

      2. On the other hand, “protégé” has a certain “hoity-toity” flavor. At my company we use “mentor/mentee” which has a more casual and personable feel to it than French words with e-acute characters.

        1. Yeah I think all companies use that because protege sounds hoity but Canada is bilingual and French shouldn’t sound hoity to us!

      3. It is mentor and protegé!

        I have a suspicion that it should be more like mentor and eratomenos, or something similar. But I’m not really up to speed on the terminology of platonic relationships (in Plato’s sense), so I’ll just note some unease and wait to be corrected.

        When I here “mentee”

        … you want reach for that Spilling Choker and choke the life out of it?

          2. I’d bow to your superior knowledge … but I’ve exceeded my quota of “dropping the soap in the prison showers” jokes for the day.

  15. I’ve resisted up to now, but…..

    Misuse of mathematical terms irritates the hell out of me. Using “exponential” to mean “fast”, or “non-linear” to mean “difficult”, or most of all using “metric” to mean “measure”.

    Its just the lowest common denominator of language.

    1. I completely agree, especially about “exponential”. I think that these are more examples of what I said in my earlier post: attempts to sound more learned or authoritative than is justified. “Quantum jump” is the worst of all.

      1. All the talking heads keep referring to ” changing the calculus” in some situation or other. Do they want to take the 2 nd derivative of Syria or something???

      3. Since a quantum jump is (from my hazy understanding of physics) the smallest possible change of state – like, very very tiny – it means the exact opposite of what most people who use it think it means.

        1. SMBC had a cartoon on this, it’s one of my favourites. Makes me chuckle now every time somebody on TV uses it.

          http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2628

          “Reaching critical mass” is another one. It’s meant to sound positive, like in “our protest movement is reaching critical mass now” but of course in the nuclear physics where it originates it pretty much means the opposite.

  16. Absolutely.

    I ‘absolutely’ hate the ubiquitous & rampant ‘absolute’ misuse of “absolutely”… not only are the absolutes being touted ‘absolutely’ not absolute (see quote below), but even if such usage were ‘absolutely’ correct, still, does this word ‘absolutely’ HAVE to be used at ‘absolutely’ every single slightest opportunity?!

    “That there are no other absolutes is, probably, the only absolute.”

  17. My blood pressure rises whenever I see an IT headline, article, or job description peppered with undefined, needless acronyms and abbreviations just to sound or look “techy.”

    They make me think back to the Good Morning, Vietnam scene where Robin Williams mocks a hapless officer with a string of them:

  18. Just watch sports broadcasters, if. You want to tear your hair out. “The weather is going to play a huge factor in this game!” Something can plau a rooe, or be a factor, but never “play a factor.

    Then there’s the negative: “I don’t disagree with you, but….” Yes, yes you DO disagree, so get on with it!!

    1. Interestingly, “ax” is more correct than “ask” if you use history as a judge of correctness. “Ax” goes back to the eighth century. Chaucer used “ax.”

      More about “ax” here.

      1. Great ” ax” commentary. ( Love Keyband Peele!). My very well- educated West Indian friend, who taught French and Spanish, knows German, and speaks ultra-correct English, will come out with an ” ax” every now and then.

      2. Interesting. Middle English pedigree aside, perhaps “ax” will come to be accepted as part of modern “standard” English. Or is this taught in schools today?

        (I like K&P, by the way. But I enjoyed most Stephen Fry’s animated commentary. Thanks for that!)

    2. Dip-PLOD-duh-cus instead of diplo-docus.
      Ar-key-OP-tur-ryx instead of archaeo-pteryx.
      Fu-ka-shima (or Fu-ki-shima) instead of Fu-ku-shima.
      Shit-zu instead of shih tzu.
      Orangutang instead of orang utan.

      A forest full of “birds, insects and animals”.

      A planet with “no life forms” when the landing party is surrounded by plants (especially flowering plants).

      Kil-OM-etre instead of kilo-metre.

      I have been known to resort to kil-OG-rams, mil-LIM-etres and cen-TIM-etres in mock protest with the kids. But I round it off by pointing out one may get some strange looks if you start talking about thermo-meters.

    1. Had a tour of a California winery many moons ago during which the guy tried to sell us some “typically unique” red…

    2. That just goes to show what kind of shaky foundations language peeves are constructed upon. One of the the original senses of the word “very” was “truly” or “really”, and not as a marker of degree. I don’t see what is wrong with “truly unique”.

      In a similar vein, there is nothing at all wrong with “typically unique”. It could just mean that it is typical for their wines to be unique. That would be nice poetic contrast, not a failing of grammar or usage.

  21. Problem with language prescriptions is that if enough people make the “mistake” it no longer is one. (This is one domain where the principle applies!)

    That said, I really the use of “begs the question” to mean “raises the question”.

  23. Although I am guilty of having used it rarely in the past, IMO (or IMHO).

    Of course it’s MY opinion – if it were not I would attribute it. Why do people expect otherwise?

    2. No, I think it’s useful – to differentiate from a statement of (purported) fact. It ‘softens’ the view expressed, acknowledging that others may differ.

      e.g. saying “The Beatles were the most creative group ever” is just begging for an argument. “IMO, the Beatles were the most creative group ever” acknowledges that it’s just ‘my’ opinion and doesn’t invite the same automatic contradiction.

      IMO, of course.

  24. One of my big language peeves is “amongst”. I know it is a legitimate word, but for some weird reason, it just drives me nuts when someone says “amongst” instead of “among”.
    My biggest one is people using a word incorrectly; like celibacy for chastity, or something is “very unique” instead of “very rare(how can you have anything more unique than one of a kind), “Mute” for “moot” or “decimate” for “destroy”.

    1. My dad has a friend who mixed up “incest” with “nepotism”. He would not accept that hiring your relatives is not “incest”. 😀

      1. @Dana
        I can only imagine the fun of having a friend who unintentionally (maybe not unintentionally) make a comment (insult) like that; could cause something of a flutter.

  25. “Decimated” is nowadays almost always used completely different from what used to mean.

    Decimation as practised by the Roman army was both more and less gruesome than its modern day usage of “the population of pelicans was decimated due to the use of DDT”.

    I think people saw the “deci” and assumed it therefore meant “reduce tenfold”, like in the IS prefix deci – decimeter = 0.1 meter.

    1. I do find myself rather self conscious when writing here now but I make little mistakes all the time so I’m sure that will wear off.

  28. To disagree with Prof CC, but :

    It’s the following sentence:
    “This.”

    The overwhelming majority of the time that I’ve encountered this expression has been in a website (which really does predate “blogging”, and carries the byline “News for Nerds”) where the majority of commentators are programmers of some sort, or some degree of wannabe-ism. Here I’ve taken it as being a parallel usage to an object-oriented programming notation for referring to a public method of a recursive class which is declared recursively, when you wish to refer to the current level of scope of that method (i.e. “this.method”) as distinguished from the same method in the scope of the calling instance of the class (i.e. “parent.method”). And generally as such, it’s been used appropriately – such as referring to a point that the parent comment has made and contrasting it with the similar point made by the grandparent comment has made.
    If it’s creeping out into popular language (specifically EN_US ; I’ve never heard it in an EN_GB context), then that may be why I see some usages and think “wannabe programmer ; they’re not using ‘this.’ correctly!”
    To misquote Ugh, the Neanderthal Spear-Shaker, “Oh what a tangled web we weave / when first we practice using words instead of clubs.”

  29. “At the end of the day”

    This one seriously sets my teeth on edge. It has nothing to do with days, or their end, and adds nothing of value to the sentence.

    And, while I’m thinking about it, misusing “begging the question” annoys me, because just about everyone uses it and almost no-one gets it right.

    So yes, I’m both a pedant and an elitist.

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