I’m not an extreme language prescriptivist, but I think two phrases bear inspection since, for both, the correct form makes more sense than the other one. Here they are:
It’s “toe the line,” not “tow the line.”
And it’s “Give the person free rein,” not “Give the person free reign.”
I can’t recall how Steve Pinker comes down on these in his excellent new book The Sense of Style, but I hope he’s on the side of the better angels.
I’m sure readers have pet peeve phrases as well, so put them below. And no language policing, for if a phrase bothers you, it’s your LIVED EXPERIENCE.
For all intense porpoises, I try to avoid petting my peeves in pubic.
b&
I believe the correct phrase is “Intesive porpoises” 🙂
Awe, crap.
“Carp”? I bet you just did that for the halibut.
b&
You’re giving me a haddock.
No, he was just floundering.
Whale, that too.
Now you’re just going off on a tangerine with that well-read hearing.
b&
We could dolphinetly do better.
I just learned a what a flounder (n) is. I thought it was off-base but I saw fish.
Off bass, I think you mean.
b&
Yes. That one right there. That is my very most peevy pet peeve.
“Could care less” really rips my knitting.
“Less” where “fewer” belongs rips mine.
Ditto!
I could care fewer
I completely agree; but Pinker doesn’t seem to mind too much (or was that too many … ?)
https://xkcd.com/1576/ says it all …
I have to disagree with that comic. It’s not true that language is “chaos” and “you can never know for sure what any words will mean to anyone“, except perhaps in the most academic sense. And if that was true, it would be a problem.
I think most people who are annoyed by “I could care less” not trying to show off, but are annoyed by the substitution of a nonsensical idiom for a sensible phrase, by the degradation of something familiar, and perhaps by people “blindly flinging words out” instead of thinking about what they say, as the comic says.
‘Course, I could be taking it too seriously. 😛
I liked the cleverness of the comic, even though I disagree 100% with its conclusion.
How phrases can be changed can have a commercial purpose, too- I remember years ago an eye makeup ad saying, “The eyes HAVE it” (play on “the ayes have it”, from parliamentary voting); the next year Visine had an ad entitled, “The eyes have HAD it!” Both seemed to assume that the reader had some familiarity with the original phrase.
What I’ve wondered about for years is how blacks came to say, “axe” for “ask”, and “Her-on” (pronounced like the bird’s name)for “heroin”.
I think I read somewhere that the aks thing came from some African language.
“Aks” instead of “ask” is a feature of many (British) English dialects, e.g. the speech of the Black Country near Birmingham.It was common in Middle English-used by Chaucer-and the standard form in the Old English of Wessex.Modern African-American usage may well have developed independently because this phoneme transposition,called “metathesis”,is a common feature of many languages from various families.
The use of “aks” instead of “ask” is not unknown in Australia, though it is very highly stigmatised.
I think the comic says more about people’s attitudes towards language than it does about language itself. Fortunately for English, there is no governing body like the Académie française for French. Unfortunately for those of us who have studied linguistics in detail, people’s attitudes towards language tend towards the chaotic.
If you want real chaos in language, there’s a school of thought among historical linguists that in Proto-Indo-European, every verb was irregular.
Every verb being irregular is bad ass!
David Mitchell and I agree with you, but I did see something recently, possibly quoting The Pinkah, pointing out that the subtext of that statement is to be preceded by an understood, but unstated, “as if”, as in “As if I could care less”, which actually makes some sense.
That comes off as a rationalization or a “just so story” to me.
I think it’s much more parsimonious to say people are just sloppy and unthinking. Because we are, in many contexts.
That’s what I thought, too.
There might be a clever way grammatically to get it to show itself. Experiments like that in psycholinguistics are quite clever – and not my field, so beats me if this makes sense, but “0-endings” and such are known.
If it comes to David Mitchell and prescriptivism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6smi2wrGD40
I assumed the subtext was “I could care less, but not much”. Implying that one cared a tiny bit, but not enough to matter. It still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Agree. This raises the hackles when I hear it.
Nice to see some standards being upheld
I’ve always thought a person looked really silly saying “I could care less” when they actually mean they “couldn’t” care less. It indicates the 180 degree opposite of the intent of the message.
Randal Munroe to the rescue:
https://xkcd.com/1576/
b&
The truth is that in America at least, “I could care less” is an idiom. It’s fine. No one misunderstands it, because “I could care less” and “I couldn’t care less” have come to mean the same thing. Ostensibly sarcastic in its origin, “I could care less” is now taken to mean the opposite of what it says–like “Tell me about it,” which means “*Don’t* tell me about it [because I already know].”
As Michael Quinion says in World Wide Words, “There’s a close link between the stress pattern of ‘I could care less’ and the kind that appears in certain sarcastic or self-deprecatory phrases that are associated with the Yiddish heritage and (especially) New York Jewish speech. Perhaps the best known is ‘I should be so lucky!’ in which the real sense is often “’I have no hope of being so lucky,’ a closely similar stress pattern with the same sarcastic inversion of meaning.”
Those who who condemn it for being illogical are missing the point. It’s an idiom, after all, and idioms (like “near miss,” for example) are inherently illogical. As John McIntyre writes in the Baltimore Sun, “Idioms, in any language, convey meanings that cannot be determined from the literal sense of the words. So you can object to an idiom and shun it because you find it trite or common or inappropriate for the tone or subject or audience. But you don’t get to kvetch about it for being illogical.”
While on ‘idioms I hate’, “tell me about it” is right up there on my hit list. It’s so glib and over-used and phony.
cr
I disagree that idioms are necessarily illogical. When you say “it’s not rocket science”, you are making an exaggerated comparison, but it’s not illogical. Once you parse them or investigate their origins, many (most?) idioms do make sense.
I could certainly be wrong, but it seems to me that even if we grant a sarcastic origin for “I could care less”, it still doesn’t make sense, and I doubt that was its origin. If a speaker wants to express, sarcastically, how much she doesn’t care, the natural thing would be to say “oh, yeah, I really, reaaaally, care; pfff” (or, indeed, the existing idiom “like I care”). “I could care less” is a convoluted inversion and I’m skeptical it came about because of deliberate intent to be sarcastic. The convoluted ness takes away the barb sarcasm should have. If someone repeatedly badgers you about whether you’ve completed some menial task like “did you lock the doors”, it would be a poor attempt at sarcasm to say “I could’ve locked fewer doors” rather than “no, I left them all wide open and put up a sign that said ‘please rob this house'”.
Just my thoughts.
Gah.
Should be “…I could’ve locked *more* doors…”
Just goes to show how convoluted putting it in that negative way is.
Generally speaking, the test of an idiomatic expression is whether most people understand its meaning, a meaning which cannot be logically inferred from the works’ literal meaning.
Those who who condemn “I could care less” for being illogical are missing the point. It’s an idiom, after all, and idioms (like “near miss,” for example) are inherently illogical. As John McIntyre writes in the Baltimore Sun, “Idioms, in any language, convey meanings that cannot be determined from the literal sense of the words. So you can object to an idiom and shun it because you find it trite or common or inappropriate for the tone or subject or audience. But you don’t get to kvetch about it for being illogical.”
?
That was a large part of what I was addressing. I think McIntyre is wrong that all idioms are illogical. Having a figurative sense is not the same as being illogical, as I demonstrated with “it’s not rocket science”.
But my main point was that I don’t buy the explanation of “I could care less” as being sarcastic.
yesyesyes
But you can’t correct them It’s some kind of comprehension problem.
It always bothers me when people say, bring, when they should say, take.
If one is coming, one brings; if one is going, one takes yet many people say, bring in both cases; seemingly never saying, take.
Or ‘take’ when they out to mean ‘leave’. ‘Take a dump’ comes to mind.
Yep. You really give a shit when you take a shit, except that former expression means something else entirely.
I’d offer a witty reply, but I could give a shit.
b&
The phrase, “I was laying some pipe” used to refer to the sex act; now I hear people using it to refer to defecating.
I happen to own a dictionary of euphemisms and there seems to be a lot of movement between sex/excretion terminology.
…I know, last year – we didn’t find it until Easter.
Americans saying ‘pissed’ when they mean ‘pissed off’ – ‘pissed’ meaning drunk of course.
My cousin, a Swedish engineer who dealt with colleagues in both the US and the UK had a clever English – American / American – English dictionary.
It was accurate and hilarious to read.
Ah, the great English ‘piss’
Let me see –
Piss – what you drink in a pub
OR the recycled end product (some say it’s hard to tell the difference)
Pissed – the state you get into as a result
‘Piss off!’ (imperative) = ‘go away!’
‘Pissed off’ (condition) means highly annoyed (equivalent to US ‘pissed’)
‘Pissed off’ (past tense) = went away
‘Piss [somebody] off’ (transitive) means to highly annoy somebody (as in, “That pisses me off”)
‘Pissing about’ means the same as ‘buggering about’, ‘faffing around’, generally dithering
‘Pissing down’ = raining
‘Piece of piss’ = dead easy
Have I missed any?
cr
Oh, just to illustrate, “The guys were having a piss-up in the pub, they all got totally pissed, so the landlord told them to piss off, which mightily pissed them off, but after pissing around for a bit they pissed off in the end, but they pissed on his car while they were leaving”.
cr
piss-poor
I do hope that was an addition to my list, rather than a comment on its quality 😉
!
There’s the term pisser as well. I’ve also heard people say “That’s a pisser” when they think something is funny, so in this case it’s used in a way opposite of its normal meaning.
I think your meaning comes from ‘pissing oneself laughing’.
And, I’ve just realised, there’s ‘taking the piss’ (I think our US cousins would say ‘taking the mickey’?)
Versatile word, ‘piss’.
cr
As a New Yorker, I know what Brits mean when they say “taking the piss,” but I’ve never heard anyone, anywhere say “taking the mickey.” Maybe it’s Australian?
I’ve heard the phrase, “slipping a mickey” which is altogether different than taking a piss (i.e., drugging someone’s drink). The most common alternative to “take a piss” I hear is “take a leak.”
@pacopicopiedra
Oops, sorry. Seems ‘taking the Mickey’ is a Britishism. Apologies for the wrong attribution.
I’m not sure if there is a US equivalent, then.
cr
Bear Whiz Beer, anyone?
Son, it’s in the water!
That’s why it’s yellow!
“Getting pissy” = complaining, being upset by something. “Well that’s how it is, no use getting pissy about it.”
I knew the correct use of both of those, so you didn’t reign on my parade.
I think we talked here before about:
I couldn’t care less.
But this begs the question: are prescriptivists merely chomping at the bit?
I think it might bag the question more than it begs it. Reminds me…when does hunting season on questions open? And what’s the limit this ear?
b&
I think the train has left the station on “begs the question”. The talking heads on TV use the phrase frequently, but NEVER use the traditional meaning. You have to delve into rarefied philosophical texts to find it. To be fair, the traditional meaning is pretty obtuse, and the common meaning is, at a glance, sensible, and useful in more situations. That’s why it’s won. But I’ll never use the phrase in the modern sense.
Since language has evolved on this issue, what is the big deal? It seems a bit silly.
I’m endorsing the modern usage as more sensible and useful. I just can’t bring myself to use it.
Agreed. I could care less. :/
Because people commit the logical fallacy all the time and if people don’t understand it then they’re likely to commit it even more.
What’s wrong with “raise the question”?
“Raise the question” is good enough if I don’t much care, but if I’m gagging for it, why shouldn’t I beg?
I think you’re right. We’ve even had Hugh Laurie, as an American “Dr. House”, use it relentlessly when raising questions with his team. I’m sure it made his impression of a USAian that much more believable.
There’s a good explanation of petitio Principii on Wikipedia. You can’t get through a linguistics major unless you understand the genuine meaning of begging the question.
I’m not one to comprehend a lot of rarefied philosophical texts but the classic meaning of, begging the question, is rather straight forward.
If one, in trying to prove a point, assumes what one is trying to prove, that is begging the question. In other words, the argument takes for granted what it is supposed to prove.
Yes. But “begging the question” is a silly way to express it.
…But an evocative and succinct way of expressing it, and no sillier than countless other beloved English phrases.
It would be a real pity to lose this phrase (in its specialised sense) merely in order to gain one more synonym for suggests the question, prompts the question, raises the question…
Please excuse this test; if the hypothesis I’m testing is correct, nobody will see it.
Damn.
Okay, what I wanted to say, was:
…But an evocative and succinct way of expressing it, and no sillier than countless other beloved English phrases.
It would be a real pity to lose this phrase (in its specialised sense) merely in order to gain one more synonym for suggests the question, prompts the question, raises the question…
Right – one challenge of introductory logic instruction is teaching the stipulative definitions of terminology like “valid”, “sound”, etc. (Some students find it hard.) Now with the change of the meaning of “begs the question”, there’s another one to do.
See what?
b&
What are you testing?
Something appeared to be preventing me from posting anything. I have no idea what happened.
Idiom, oh, idiom!
I remember a fellow student in an adult French language class commenting on a French idiom, “well, that just doesn’t make any sense.”
Um, duh!
Is “it doesn’t work” really any better than “it doesn’t march”?
Yes it is. I want my washing machine to do the work of clothes washing, not march down the hallway!
It only does that if the spin dryer is out of balance.
cr
And as I said above people do this ALL THE TIME. Just read the newspaper or watch the TV That’s why we need not to lose this concept. People do it and they don’t know they’re doing it. It’s not just pedantry.
For the record, I agree with you here — enough so, that I looked up “beg” to figure out its etymology in this context. If I can trust what I read, it would stem from an Aristotelian style of debate which would (rightly) prohibit invoking (asking for = “begging”) the original proposition being debated.
Thus, “begging the question” makes a lot more sense as an idiom, than a hell of a lot of other idioms out there. It’s not a “stupid” or arbitrary thing… perhaps archaic (the wiki thinks it is “mistranslated”, but I wouldn’t go that far). Well worth knowing and saving. It’s probably too late, though.
In the mode of some GOP politicians, “I’m no logician, but…”
“Begging the Question” is one translation of the Latin “petitio principii”,which could also be stated as “asking for, requesting, or ‘begging for’ ” the “principle or initial point.” In logic, it means to place in one of your initial premises, usually very well hidden and difficult to perceive therein, your conclusion.
An absurdly obvious example would be:
1. All men are mortal;
2. Socrates is a mortal man;
3. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.
You haven’t concluded (proven) anything based on the 2 premises, because premise 2 already contains your conclusion of mortality.
Some of the proofs for the existence of god utilize petitio principii, but in such difficult-to-see ways that it took decades (or centuries) to ferret them out. This is a very common logical error, sometimes made intentionally in the hopes that the opponent will not perceive it, which, to me, is a form of lying.
A great site explaining common logical errors: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/
No, no — it should be, “3. Therefore, all men are Socrates.” Of course Socrates isn’t mortal; that’s just nonsense.
Sheesh. Don’t they teach kids anything in school these days?
b&
Ha, here you invoke *my* grammatical pet peeve: confusing “obtuse” and “abstruse”. I assume you mean the latter when referring to the “traditional meaning”, and here I’ll repeat the favor. 🙂
http://grammarist.com/usage/abstruse-obtuse/
I understand there was once an abstruse goose that was too obtuse to fly.
b&
“obtuse?” I think perhaps you mean “obscure”.
I’d suggest that you really mean “abstruse”, but that train may also have already left the station.
“Abstruse” is far too abstruse.
LOGIC, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The basic of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion – thus:
Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man.
Minor Premise: One man can dig a posthole in sixty seconds; therefore–
Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a posthole in one second.
I was thinking of commenting on this article concerning misused phrases, but I decided I could care less.
1. “No problem” in place of “you’re welcome”.
2. I hear this one a lot on podcasts. The host interviewing a scientist asks a question, and every response begins with “So”.
“No problem” actually makes sense to me– it has the meaning of the Spanish phrases “De nada” and “No hay de que”, both of which are frequently translated in to English as “You’re welcome”, but which more literally translate as “There’s nothing to it”, i.e. the doer of the good deed experienced no trouble or difficulty in carrying out the act– there was “no problem”. (“No problem” is widely used in Caribbean English in a variety of contexts.)
I’ve heard other people decry the use of “no problem”, but because they think it’s rude rather than because they think it’s wrong.
I don’t understand what they find rude about it. I think they were probably just brought up being told it was a rude substitution.
I’m okay with ‘no problem’ (which is odd since I usually hate such easy phrases).
Also, used often in NZ, ‘no worries’.
(Which I suppose comes from the older ‘don’t worry about it’)
cr
I say “no worries” a lot. It probably bothers some people but meh.
And French: il n’y a pas de quoi, shortened to pas de quoi. There ain’t nutthin’…
Also: ne rien
same thing.
And “What ever”
I asked a friend about the usage of “whatever.” She told me that it was just another word for “f*** you.” (My native language is Chinese.)
Not necessarily. It’s *very* context dependent.
If you’re telling someone to do something and they say “whatever” – then it’s a brush off and equivalent to (a very mild) ‘fuck you’.
If you’re _asking_ someone (e.g. ‘do you want coffee or tea’) and they reply ‘whatever’, it just means they don’t mind either way. They’re not necessarily being rude to you.
cr
Tone of voice plays into it as well. You can completely tell when you’re being given the brush off by the delivery of the “whatever”
Curiously enough, “fuck you” is equally context dependent….
b&
You betcha is another odd substitute for you’re welcome.
1. Even worse: “no sweat”, especially from a restaurant server. Hey, I’m eating here, I don’t want to be discussing perspiration.
I hate it when waitresses end every sentence with “Honey.” “What can I get ya, Honey?” “Sure thing, Honey.” I’ve had teenagers address me this way. Is it part of their training?
Having a waitress call me “Honey” is acceptable only if she’s middle-aged or better, has a matronly or materteral manner and has a hint of a southern accent.
One I’ve heard too many times in the last few years, especially from waiters and waitresses to my wife and I, is “you guys” as in, “How are you guys doing? What can I get you to drink?” and “Are you guys ready to order?”. We are often 30-40 years older than those who call us this rude phrase. What happened to showing respect to your elders? And when did my lovely wife become a “guy”? “Good evening, sir, and good evening to you, Madam” would be such a relief to hear, but I’m sure we will never hear it from anyone under 40.
I agree with all you say.
We’re a pair of old fogies and recently went into Nando’s (because it was there and we were hungry).
We got greeted with “Hi guys” (bearing in mind this was in Manchester, UK, we found it a tad inappropriate). A few “guys” later, we collected the food and were instructed to “enjoy”.
Even though I can be a bit of a grumpy old git, I found the experience more surreal than irritating.
I always find it highly disconcerting when a waitress says “enjoy”. It sounds like an order. Further, it implies that the food is so crappy we’re not going to enjoy it unless we’re told to. At best, as an alternative interpretation, it’s presumptuous, it implies that the food is enjoyable (whereas I’d much rather make up my own mind about that).
I think I take things too literally.
cr
And all this time I just took it as short for “I hope you enjoy your meal.” Who knew they were being so rude as to issue a command!
Well, grammatically, what else could it be but a command? The single word used by itself can only be in the imperative.
I know that’s not how they mean it, but it’s disconcerting in a way that “Enjoy your meal” isn’t.
cr
Although perhaps insufficiently formal for the occasion (I guess it depends on the kind of restaurant), “you guys” is perfectly acceptable New York English for a mixed-sex group, “guys” (and even “guy” on occasion) being considered of neuter grammatical gender. (In Brooklyn, it would be “youse guys”.) It is sort of equivalent to the Southern “you all”.
And if you want to annoy a Southerner, try this: “all y’all.”
I occasionally fall into the trap of calling a group including both genders “you guys.” I think the problem is that the best gender neutral pronoun we have is “you” which can also be singular, thus addressing a group as, “Hey you” seems neither courteous nor unambiguous. I suppose there’s “you people” but in my opinion, that sounds much worse than “you guys.” I guess we can always fall back to the equally cringe inducing greeting “All,” that I sometimes use in mass emails.
This female doesn’t mind “you guys” at all.
Yous.
The expression “no problem” is just a contemporary way of saying “not at all” or “it’s nothing” (“ce n’est rien”), or “not a bother,” meaning “it’s no trouble” to me to help you out. It’s meant to be polite in just this vein, and that’s exactly what it is.
Someone gave the people of South Carolina quite a bit of free rain over the weekend.
While looking for used furniture on Craig’s List a while back, my wife and I started counting instances of sellers using the terms “rod iron” when they meant “wrought iron” and “Chester drawers” when they meant “chest of drawers”.
However, I may just change my name to Rod Iron.
At least they type drawers. I have also seen draws.
Rod irons while Chester draws.
lol
Rod Iron would make a great name for a pr0n star. And Chesty Drawers would be a good costar for him. Might need a cameo from Craig Lust, too.
b&
Chesty would be his roller costar.
Chesty would be the swinging costar. Lazy Susan would be the roller.
b&
“Rod Iron” would make a good porn pseudonym.
1. “You’ve done good.” If you say these words you sound like a miscreant form a poorly written novel about the South.
2. “Perfect”. What is perfect? People have really set the bar low, low on this one. Einstein, I am afraid, turned the lights out on that hope: there are no straight lines in nature and randomness may suck but it’s da roolz.
Crystals have straight lines all the time.
Google images of defect free crystals on an AFM or TEM. Even at 0K – there is still zero-point energy.
Einstein has nothing whatsoever to do with randomness being the rule (or even da roolz), AFAIK.
All the best pet peeves are already taken, so I hereby nominate phrases abusively containing “Einstein”.
I thought it was obvious “I could care less” was sarcastic, as is “fat chance”.
If I had a pet peeve, it would be how people use the word “literally” when they’re just being emphatic. We have barely any words with the precise meaning “in a literal way as opposed to figuratively”. It would be a shame if the one we did have lost its edge because of such sloppiness.
Yes, that’s how I’ve always understood it, implying that it’s possible that I could care less, but I don’t.
Well, I’ve literally heard that complaint a million times. 🙂
If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a million times: Don’t exaggerate!
The use of “literally” as an intensifier bothers a lot of people, but, in fact, its non-literal sense has long been established in the language, dating back to the 1760s. There’s room here for greater tolerance.
Such use of “literally” is no more wrong than is the use of “really” in “If we don’t get home before midnight, my dad is really going to kill me.”
Excuse me, but it’s not an issue of tolerance; I’m launching no crusades to have it banned, or so much as arguing that it’s incorrect use and should be mocked. Convention or not, though, I think its non-literal use is stylistically clumsy. When there’s a lost opportunity to give the word a unique flavour, hearing people use “literally” in such a bland and unhelpful sense makes me cringe.
I tolerate it, but I don’t like it.
Like, totally…
Sure. No one, I hope, would insist that you like it. Nonetheless, its use as hyperbole is well established and common in literature, even among careful writers.
See Merriam-Webster’s esteemed Emily Brewster on this one:
Thanks!
I agree there, ‘literally’ used incorrectly irritates me, too. The resulting problem is, there’s no other synonym for it (in its correct usage). So when it gets corrupted by sloppy usage, what word can I use when I mean, literally, exactly what I say?
cr
“Very unique”, since it was pointed out on the West Wing (Galileo 5), surprising how often this is used…
Yup – makes me grind my teeth
Pinker does a nice takedown on this “very unique” objection being rather pedantic (as he does with many similar others), that very unique has a reasonable linguistic justification.
It’s better than chomping at the bit. That’ll really make your teeth hurt.
Ok, champ. We get it.
Strange thing… I learned this one only a couple years ago. Made me feel like a chump, having it wrong all these years.
Don’t feel too bad, we’re all chimps anyway.
Both “champ” and “chomp” are in acceptable use these days–and “chomp” is gaining. In fact, the word “chomp” has been a variant of “champ” since the 1600’s, though the early references deal with chomping on food rather than at metal bits.
Oh bugger. And here I thought “champ” was better, as it has not only the noisy chomping of the bit, but also the stomping (mashing, champing) action impatient horses frequently exhibit. I guess I have to let this one go, as even the “Shorter Oxford” gives a shit not, anymore.
I’ve heard “typically unique”:-(
I’ll see that and up you “uniquely unique”.
Well, I’ve upped my standards, so up yours!
b&
I really like that one: very meaty sarcasm, almost on the boundary of poetic.
“Typically unique” could work as a construction:
“The sculptor, whose pieces are typically unique, has produced several copies of her latest work, ‘The Prescriptivist'”.
Yes, that occurred to me. I think it’s possibly the only legitimate construction with a modifier to ‘unique’. (Along with similar cases like “occasionally unique”).
But I think it’s modifiers of degree that are particularly taboo with ‘unique’.
cr
Unique be like pregnant.
Either you am or you amn’t.
“Mother said I didn’t oughta
So I stayed a virgin, sorta”
(Sorry, that keeps running around in my brain)
cr
I don’t know. I think Scote makes a good point just below.
How about “expected to be unique”, like the generation of a GUID?
No conflict there.
A GUID is intended to be unique, and to distinguish its machine from every other machine on the (global) network. That’s it’s purpose, so in that context it IS unique.
And in that respect every computer is unique, even though there may be thousands of others that look exactly like it.
I guess once again it comes down to context. A thing (like e.g. my car, to get away from computers) can be unique in some details (the mileage on the odometer, the exact pattern on the tyre treads, the scuff marks on the carpets) while being a typical Mazda Capella and so not unique at all, and in another sense ‘just like every other car’ (4 wheels, motor etc) and so not even very unusual.
One could say ‘the Toyota Prius is unique’ (referring to its transmission) even though there are thousands of them.
I think the problem arises with the modifiers of degree – slightly, very – which explicitly contradict the concept of ‘unique’. How can something be ‘slightly’ the only one of its kind.
cr
Oh, and on reflection I agree, ‘the only legitimate construction’ was a rash overstatement.
cr
“Very unique” makes sense.
There are degrees of difference. Each flake in my box of Corn Flakes is unique, but not very, because they are otherwise alike. Very unique means unique in a remarkable or striking way.
I would use ‘special’ instead or even your ‘remarkable or ‘striking’, leave ‘unique’ to serve its purpose….
Credence: “There’s a bathroom on the right.”
HT: Lady Mondegreen.
Jimi Hendrix: “S’cuse me while I kiss this guy.”
My friend offers, from The Rascals:
“You and me and Leslie.”
(Hint: “endlessly”)
I’ll sea you one “kiss this guy”, and raise you one “disease all dried up”.
Wow. I’ve never heard that bit of Zappa before. Thanks.
Funny thing is: that was just the band goofing around on a sound check before the actual concert.
That’s the sort of thing you get from musicians of that calibre. Things just happen….
b&
“The girl with colitis goes by”
Named Lucy … ?
Lucy in disguise with diamonds.
A family of bears
Interesting that the second one, rein/reign, works either way. Though I agree that the first is better.
Oh and let’s not forget:
“It’s a doggy-dog world.”
I’d give a nominal egg to know who said that.
From the gecko
You and your elk
cat phrase
A bowl in a chinashop
What do you call the guy who scores the touchdown that beats the NFL Eagles?
Filibuster.
Doesn’t matter; it’s a mute question.
That’s good because the answer is still 42.
More a word than a phrase but – irregardless of that. Should be regardless but often you hear the other. A non-word I believe.
A phrase you will hear in Missouri and usually follows a statement of some type. “Don’t you know” Had a teacher from Missouri, of course, that said this one all the time. Usually I didn’t.
Another one that always gets old fast is- Having said that. Yes, you did and we heard it.
+1
Everyone knows it’s disirregardless.
Another Missouri one is, “He’s abouta”, as in, “He’s abouta dumb shit.”
There are a number of phrases that change somewhat on crossing the Atlantic, “pinch of salt” becomes “grain of salt” “green fingers” become “green thumbs” and one “knocks on wood” rather than “touching wood”. However none of those are irritating (at least to me, just local differences)
The couldn’t care less to could care less has been discussed, so the other one that always bugs me is that “the proof of the pudding is in the eating” has been shortened to “the proof is in the pudding” which, as far as I can tell, makes absolutely no sense at all.
So “the proof is in the pudding” isn’t the result of pouring your vodka into the bowl with dessert in it?
Recipe or it didn’t happen!
b&
😀
Actually, it is. But *only* with dessert in it.
Just desserts.
I’d hate to have to desert just such a dessert in the desert.
b&
The one that gets me over in the U.K. is Knock me up. Slightly different over here in horny land.
I was a DJ in college, and once made the mistake of reading cold from the liner notes of a recording of Britten’s opera A Midsummer Night’s Dream: “Bottom whistles a tune to keep his pecker up.” It was s Briticism I hadn’t encountered before. Nor had my audience.
Bahahahahahahahahaha!
I recall a review of one of Henry Miller’s books which was pretty critical, but ended with something along the lines of ‘But at least Mr Miller keeps his pecker up throughout.’
Good for him! If it was a very long book, however, he should probably call his doctor.
I think it was a long book. He’s dead.
Shoulda called his doctor, but I suppose I can understand the impulse to keep…”writing”.
There’s a story from WWII of an Australian coast watcher in New Guinea: He had to be evacuated by American submarine as Jap patrols were searching for him and nearing his location. He was a portly man, a former trader, and the difficult hike through the jungle to the beach wore him out to the point where he had to be carried by his native friends. Setting up the “pick-up” with the sub by radio, he informed them that he was, “all knocked up”, Aussie slang at the time for exhausted, which puzzled the American crew to no end as to how a man could be pregnant.
Yes. And then there’s “full of spunk.”
I don’t know whether this qualifies for the discussion, but I hate rogue apostrophes. They are creeping in everywhere, wherever English is spoken (written is what I really mean.) It seems to get worse by the day – even used in plurals. e.g. Day’s instead of days. Ugggh!
Indeed. You’d think most people work for supermarkets!
Mis-used apostrophes are a biggie for me too.
Your/you’re irritates me intensely – how hard can it be?
Another pet hate is “bored of” instead of “bored with.”
Getting bought and brought mixed up bugs me a little, but not so much. I’m a bit more understanding with that one.
It’d be nice if people said “please” and “thank you” and “sorry” and “pardon” at appropriate moments. I couldn’t care less about someone failing to toe the line if they were at least polite. (Actually, that’s not true – I suspect I’d continue to get just as annoyed!)
See my reply to #67, below!
As a Georgia resident I get tired of hearing about forgetful elderly people with “old timer’s disease”, but “cuts off her nose to spiderface” is surely the dumbest misused phrase I’ve ever heard.
Someone I knew thought it was called “Alf Symond’s disease.” (He was a senior public servant where I grew up, and his mind was quite sound. He had nothing to do with the health system either.)
Working in a grocery store in Georgia I had a manager who would write “sells floor”, instead of sales floor.
“And no language policing, for if a phrase bothers you, it’s your LIVED EXPERIENCE.”
It may also be one’s livid experience.
Well, I’ve been compulsively predicting whether a TV talking head or NPR personage will start a response with “Well, …”. My very successful strategy is to vote yes every time.
Well, well, well: three holes in the ground. Muy profundo!
b&
Someone once said the collective term for TV/radio personalities is an “actually” of pundits.
My least favorite NPRism is that EVERY time a talking head says “thank you” to a person being interviewed or another commentator, that person says “thank you” in reply. What ever happened to “you’re welcome?”
In a similar “vain,” It annoys me when guests end their on-air time with, “Thanks for having me.” Am I the only one to whom that sounds most salacious?
b&
The proper response to that is, of course, “Thanks for being had.”
“Well”, “so”, “errm”, “actually”, “in fact” etc are usually just place-holders, to break the silence while the speaker collects their thoughts. Better than sitting there looking dumb for a couple of seconds.
As such, I don’t mind them. Not many people have such quick minds they can start a meaningful sentence the moment the question is posed.
cr
Could of (said, done, …) rather than “could have”, and several variants.
Spoken or written? Because spoken it’s usually could’ve, which sounds an awful lot like could of. On second thought, spoken it’s usually coulda, which is even worse.
Written, of course, in pronunciation I can understand some slack.
Could of bugs me too.
I hate that one too!
And sub
‘Temperatures tomorrow are going to be hot’ even TV weather persons do this: the weather is hot/cold; temperatures are high/low: end of (hate that too).
Not a phrase but a way of speaking: vocal fry
But the only thing I really care about is apostrophe’s
During a recent storm, the reporter at the scene came up with the phrase, “The weather has been relentless all day.”
There aren’t really any pacific phrases that annoy me…
You mean like “peace be with you”?
Or more like “hang ten”?
When you ask someone how they are, and they respond “I’m well” when they usually mean “I’m good”. I know they could be referring specifically to their health, but most people do it out of a misplaced desire to avoid using good as an adverb.
It is my non-native-anglophilic (see what I did there?) understanding that someone asking ‘How are you’ is referring to your health, and ‘well’ is the proper (polite) answer.
The only situation where I can think of using ‘I’m good’ is if someone is asking whether you’ve been bad.
I thought it was usually a health question too, but I don’t mind either response. The truth is, most people don’t really want to know if you’re neither well nor good.
More annoying to me is when they use neither/or instead of neither/nor and either/or.
I just used another one I don’t like – if instead of whether.
Hmm. Maybe I’ve been wrong all these years, but I always thought people were asking about my general situation. It seems a bit too personal to ask about someone’s health. If they have some type of illness that isn’t obvious just from outward appearance (like the flu or a cold), is it really any of my business to ask them if they’re well or ill?
Maybe it’s just me too, as people usually are asking about how I’m getting on health-wise. I don’t think anyone really ever expects an answer – it’s more showing consideration/thoughtfulness about their wellbeing than their actual health I think.
I always find that hard to answer. If people ask me how I am, I say “Okay” & I inevitably get the “just okay?” What’s wrong with “okay”? I think this is why so many people are unhappy. They just can’t accept “okay” as a way to be. They have to be “fantastic” or “great” or even “good” (but only on a bad day). I think it’s hybristic to say you are anything better than “okay” most times.
Then there are the more serious health questions. I usually say “mostly okay” because I suspect they don’t want me to itemize everything that is wrong with me.
I find that, “Not too terrible,” works surprisingly well as a response.
b&
The latest Dinosaur Comic has some other helpful alternatives.
Haha those were pretty good.
When I ask someone how he’s doing and he replies with “not too bad,” I usually ask, “So, just a little bad then?” 😉
I find that Canucks are likely to respond “not too bad” when asked how they are.
That’s similar to me. I don’t like lying so the culturally accepted “great” is out. Telling the truth is also culturally unacceptable, and it’s not something I want to do anyway. So it’s hard to answer. You’d think I’d have a prepared answer after all these years! 🙂
I generally reply ‘I’m 70 how long have you got?’
I have to tell me mom that.
Cool answer!
Agree with Draken there.
I have a tendency to take that question literally and tell them, in some detail. I have to remind myself they’re just being conventionally polite and the correct answer is “I’m fine thanks” even if I’ve just broken my ankle.
(The other reply if I’m in a satirical mood is “Who wants to know?” but I only use that on friends who know me well enough to know I’m kidding)
cr
I use “well” because it works for both main forms of greetings: “How are you?” and “How are you doing?
Anyways.
Hate anyways!
I just saw that I wrote “a cognitive phenomena” in the post about zen hospice.
It should be singular: a cognitive phenomenon.
There is some kind of disconnect between what I know and what I type.
Yesterday, in my tender delirium about Sholom Wacholder’s passing, I sent out a notice to a few people in the biostatistics department at the University of Washington. I wrote: “I believe you new him.”
Because I know that I do this, part of my phone’s signature is: “please treat silly typos gently.”
I wish I could see deletions when proofreading. There was one in my comment to the zen hospice piece. I see things as soon they appear in my sent mail or in a post. It’s like there is some kind of artificial distance between being the recipient of what I just wrote and proofreading before sending. I don’t know why this is.
I am unbothered by others’ typos, and often view them endearingly.
What does irk me is when editors insist on things I know are factually wrong, but it is rare for me to fight someone who thinks they are right. Someone once edited my speech, saying that I had incorrectly used germline in reference to constitutional DNA. I wanted to tell him to spend some time reading the literature. Instead, I spent more time with the literature, as it seemed more worth my energy to deepen my fascination and consider the possibility that I was mistaken than fight someone on something that mattered a lot more to me than to him.
I had a problem with a typist 30+ years ago back in the days when we didn’t do our own typing. I was working for the Department of Labour and part of my job was making sure job advertisements met legislative requirements.
The typist always changed my writing of “racist” to “racialist.” She adamantly refused to type “racist,” insisting there was no such word. (No, she definitely wasn’t racist herself.) “Racialist” was completely out of context, and I couldn’t bear to have my name on a letter that was grammatically incorrect. We were in different buildings and had no relationship, so it was awkward.
Eventually I showed her a copy of the Act, which used “racist.” She thought that was wrong too, but was okay with typing it as a quote from the Act.
Oy vey, Heather; what a predicament!
“Do you mind if I borrow your newspaper?”
“Yes.”
“Thanks!”
“Why are you taking my newspaper?”
I had to read that three times before I understood
Or “borrow me a dollar.”
That one drives me up the wall. It’s usually me asking someone if they mind if I borrow something, and when they answer yes in a friendly manner, I kind of hesitantly take it while keeping an eye on their reaction to see if I understood them correctly.
It would be rude to answer “Yes” to such a question. An appropriate answer would be “Sorry, I’m about to read it.” Or, if you assent, “OK”, “Go ahead”, or even “No problem”.
There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.
Centuries from now it will still beggar belief that people let that man have any job more exacting than school janitor.
My top 5
A hard road to hoe
On tender hooks
Baited breath
Do diligence
Peaked my interest
And of course – I could literally have (eaten a horse, blown my mind, died laughing etc)…
(row, tenterhooks, bated, Due, Piqued)
There is, of course, the story of the cat that ate some cheese and sat outside the mousehole with baited breath.
Oh, diawl, that’s dreadful!
“have got”
“Have got” makes complete sense as “have” has lost its sense of possession over the centuries by being used as an auxiliary verb. We need the “got” in there for emphasis.
Plus, some dialects of American English also make important distinctions using other forms of “got”.
I have an STD.
I’ve got an STD.
I’ve gotten an STD.
These three sentences mean different things
Sorry to hear about your health problems. Valid uses exist, but redundant uses outnumber them. Outside the USA, “have” has retained its sense of possession.
Thanks for your concern about my health.
And “have” certainly implies possession in most contexts, but it does sometimes need the help of “got”.
English obsessively uses the verb, “to get” for way too many things. It’s the go to verb.
I get what you’re getting at.
b&
The only modern barbarism I can tolerate is “Begs the Question” – as, in, “raises the issue”, rather than “assumes what is to be proven”. The modern interpretation actually makes more sense than the original.
I prefer the modern use of that one, and so have even used it on rare occasions. I’ve never used it the old way, and consider that pointless as no-one would know what you meant anyway. In fact, I’d probably get it wrong myself. 🙂
I just avoid using the phrase altogether, because I know that if I use it in the original sense, quite a few people will miss the point, and if I use it in the more modern sense, quite a few people will think I’m ignorant.
The problem in this case I think is that occasions when one could use the phrase in its original sense are so rare that it’s fallen out of use.
One thing I find very ugly, but which just about everyone seems to have borrowed from business speak: functionalities rather than just ‘functions’.
And utilize” instead of “use”.
Orwell’s second and third rules apply here:
2: Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3: If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
Omit needless words.
b&
“3: If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.”
Did you mean:
3: If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it.
If it is possible to cut a word, cut it.
If possible, cut a word
Ben still has you all beat.
Although, my offering:
Be concise.
Shaddup.
b&
Omit needless words.
Be succinct.
I’m quoting Orwell’s rules as they appear in the essay Politics and the English Language. When I taught college writing, that was the first reading assignment I gave my students.
“2: Never use a long word where a short one will do.”
In other words, eschew obfuscation.
Gratuitous obfuscation is deprecated.
cr
It might, possibly, perhaps, be a not unwise thought to consider the possibility that a sufficient lack of adequate clear meaning and / or definition — or even connotation or interpretative nuance — could tend to be the sort of thing that one might on occasion be desirous of attempting to, in certain circumstances, avoid with a particular degree of conviction and affirmation.
b&
Is that the TL:DR summary? 😉
I think Sir Humphrey has you beaten for circumlocution.
Not seen that sketch before, you beat me to the Sir Humphrey reference 😉
Humpy is brilliant, as always.
In the fullness of time…
Although, I heard it as: Never use a long word where a diminutive one will do. 🙂
I’ve got two:
First, using “it’s” when it should be “its”. No one seems to know the difference any more.
Second, as an engineer, I often see “revert” used to mean “reply”. That usage apparently started as fractured Indian English, spread to the Middle East, and has now appeared in the USA.
Sometimes I think many engineers (esp. electrical & software) are loosing the plot.
One of my hates – “refute” used where “deny” is meant.
For the dummies – “deny” is to say some assertion is wrong. “Refute” means to *prove* it’s wrong. Of course we all know that but every single bloody reporter (NZ ones, anyway) gets it wrong all the time.
cr
You! Co-worker! Stop using “basically” in every sentence. It doesn’t help to throw in an occasional “essentially”.
Thank you for the hyphen. I don’t even know how one could ork a cow.
Well, one can imagine…
Some things exceed even the most inventive imagination…
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/jelly-covered-man-had-sex-cow-3187998
“Tow the line” or “Toe the line” ???
Clearly, it should be “One Toke Over the Line” !!!
https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/12/02/unbelievable/
Love isn’t always on time…
For the longest time I thought Patton Oswald was two people.
Several years ago, I had a student write on a paper, “In the 1960s, rock ‘n roll was spreading like wild flowers.”
That one could actually be pulled off, but you’d have to add enough allusions to both combustion and flower power to do it properly.
b&
“Several years ago, I had a student write on a paper, ‘In the 1960s, rock ‘n roll was spreading like wild flowers.’”
And why did you have him write that? Had he been naughty?
A nother instead an other really grinds my ears.
I’m geared toward preferring “another”.
So I guess ‘a whole nother’ is pretty bad, too.
“Toe the line” – with a possible sports origin – means to conform to the rules. But there’s also a connotation of doing your fair share, pulling your weight, etc. And in this sense, “tow the line” would be an apt metaphor. Though… this rationalization probably won’t convince any copy editor.
😉
The phrase “reason why” (as in “the reason why I did that”) grates on me. Unless you’re reading Tennyson (where “reason” is a verb), the “why” is redundant. “From whence”, though mostly archaic, is similarly bad. I also find other pleonasms annoying, especially with initialisms like “ATM machine”.
Since the “Jeb” in “Jeb!” stands for “John Ellis Bush”, I guess that makes “Jeb Bush” “John Ellis Bush Bush”.
You must really hate that GNU’s Not Unix, and have a burning passion to quench the La Brea tar pits.
b&
Would you like some Chai Tea?
This one goes out to Ant: it’s not for the hoi polloi.
“Should of,” “could of,” and “would of” drive me crazy.
In Texas, “might could” made me crazy. For example, “I might could learn to speak properly.”
I can’t even work out what that’s supposed to mean.
Umm, ‘might be able to’ learn… ?
Which reminds me, a murrain on people who use ‘able’ as an (implied) verb, as in ‘differently abled’. That’s two good reasons to persecute them (the second of course being that it’s a hideous euphemism which makes no sense at all).
cr
No language policing? What?
For a while, when I was Editor-in-Chief of Citations (the monthly magazine of the Ventura County Bar Association, I wrote a column, The Language Police.”
I haven’t read Pinker’s defense of relative states of uniqueness, but I’m naturally a bit suspicious. First, I should point out that it would be rather difficult to find a pure prescriptivist. Those of us who consider ourselves conservative about language usage generally just hold that while languages will evolve, careful speakers and writers should view proposed new usages with skepticism. Neologisms should be asked to prove their case before they are accepted. (Keep in mind that in psychiatric terminology, a neologism is “a meaningless word used by a psychotic.”)
Here are a few of mine:
1. Using “impact” as a verb outside of discussions of dental pathology, ballistics, and the actual physical collision of objects. I.e., in place of “affect.” Or as a noun meaning “effect.”
2. The redundant genitive: “a very positive attribute of Feinstein’s.” Of Feinstein’s what? Of her dog? Her mother?
3. Confusing “flaunt” and “flout.” Twenty years ago, Random House dictionaries gave up trying to keep them separate. Burn all Random House dictionaries…
4. Confusing i.e. with e.g.
5. “…baited breath.” (“Bated” is a short form of “abated.”)
6. “The reason is because…” Gack. Try “that.”
7. “Tenants” and “tenets.”
8. “Past” and “passed.”
9. “Legend” and “legion.”
10. “Affect” and “effect.” This one warrants a whole column all by itself.
OK, I’ll stop now. But I do have a few hundred more.
And of course I start right off with an unopened quotation mark. <> Well, no one can proofread their own work.
Even more than that, I hate “issue” as an euphonium for, “problem.”
b&
I hate *all* conical-bore brass instruments.
I completely agree!
Well, of course, except for the cornet — we wouldn’t have all those Clarke solos were it not for the cornet, after all.
And the tuba. Many don’t realize that the tuba is a conical instrument, but it is.
I suppose we can’t leave out the so-called “French” horn, either. Sure, most people who play it splatter notes everywhere, but on the belly of somebody like Phil Myers it’s simply breathtaking.
…come to think of it, the flugelhorn, in the hands of somebody like Chuck Mangione, can be a pretty magical instrument. And those cornet solos work just as well on euphonium, and I knew a guy who had a really neat conical trombone — and the British brass band just doesn’t sound right without a tenor horn.
But, yes. Aside from all that, I hate every last conical brass instrument, too!
b&
The redundant genitive can be useful in certain situations, though–compare “That’s a picture of John” to “That’s a picture of John’s.” Two distinct meanings.
Very nice list.
I’d suggest that “The reason is” is all one needs. No “because”, but also no “that”.
And NEVER “The reason is is!”
In this context, “outside” is a preposition, so “of” is unnecessary, and to my British ears this usage grates. Even worse is “off of”, which is ugly.
Perhaps people have been confused by the fact that when used as a noun, “outside” can correctly be followed by “of”, as in “The outside of the house was painted white”, for example.
Point taken. To the American ear, it’s not an issue. Of course, one could “fix” it by cluttering it (up?) even more: “…on the outside of discussions…”
’til is not a word. It annoys me that people think that it is. You should use either until, or till.
Some people think that ’til is an abbreviation of until, but this is folk etymology. “Till” is the older word *by far*, going back to at least Shakespeare’s day. For example:
Romeo and Juliet: I, v: “For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.”
No I think you may be wrong on that. I haven’t just googled it but I did some years ago and til is a word in its own right, not an abbreviated version of until. I think!
I sometimes use ’til – for me, the apostrophe is there for the missing “un” and it’s just casual. I use till as well.
Quite right. I was wrong saying ’til’ is okay, i should have said ’till’.
No worries. (Didn’t someone say they don’t like that!)
Do you use the apostrophe when you speak, too, Heather?!
Yeah, well I don’t think it really matters whether when you’re speaking whether you’re saying ’til or till, as long as horticulture isn’t involved. 🙂
Or glacial geomorphology.
As many people know, you can take a horticulture, but you can’t make her think…
Horticulture…+1
Not sure whether it’s appropriate, but I laughed anyway. 🙂
The most recent one I’ve heard is, “nipping it in the butt.” Oh my!
“gentle reminder” is neither one.
Neither is it necessary or kind to mind someone else’s mind which i) already has been informed of something or its information … … nor is it ii) gentle.
Instead, this phrasing states thus, “I don’t think you are adult enough to ‘get this’ whatever the ‘it’ is (including schedules) — without my buttin’ in to your head … … O say, once more yet again.”
Blue
Not a mistaken phrase, but “irregardless” wins my award for most annoying synonym. First runner-up: “inflammable.”
“Inflammable” is correct.It comes ultimately,via French, from the Latin “inflammare”. “Flammable” is a later derivation (but also correct).
…. giving rise to the improbable
“ininflammable” marked on tanker trucks in Quebec.
Probably carrying bulk poutine.
Not if its trying to communicate that the contents won’t or shouldn’t burn.
That would be “unflammable”.
I blame 1066 for the confusion. Also with the word “entrée” for main course in Canada. That makes to sense if you know French.
Christ on a cracker.
“…it’s…”
But at the end of the day…
It’s nothing but a Fig Newton of your emancipation.
Sort of a digression here…. Why are we seeing this? My guess is that many people below about 40 yrs old did not spend much of their schooling reading.
Most of Professor Ceiling Cat’s readers seem to be, ah, mature…. aging boomers, perhaps?
We spent hours and hours in our formative years reading… Shakespeare, Hemingway, Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Hardy, Leacock, Mowat …. the list goes on. Also, a fair number of us probably had a few years of Latin, all of which gives one a solid appreciation of the origin of these idioms and of their proper usage.
Almost no-one in school today (by my observations only) has encountered these authors in anything but the most superficial way.
Anyway… what do you think?
I think it’s a lousy excuse. Kids today read, they just read Stephenie Meyer and
J.K. Rowling. Now say what you will about their stories, I bet both of those authors use phrases like “toe the line” and “free rein” correctly.
So nope, not buying it. Even if your entire library consists of nothing but Rolling Stone, Cosmo or Maxim magazines, you’ve been exposed to proper turns of phrase your entire reading life. Heck, the magazines probably contain more turns of phrase per inch than the good literature. If you’re getting the phrases wrong it’s because you’re not thinking about what you’re reading, not absorbing what the authors are telling you. Its not because you haven’t been exposed to the correct versions of the phrases.
‘Can I get’ instead of ‘May I have’ in shops, restaurants, etc.
‘So’ at the beginning of sentences. (One of my old mates has taken to doing this all the time. Infuriating.)
‘Around’ used as an all-purpose preposition (‘the issues around freedom of speech’).
‘Share’ as an intransitive verb.
Almost any use of the words ‘spiritual’, ‘destiny’ and ‘worship’.
I loathe ‘share’ when it’s used to mean ‘talk about’.
“He shared his arctic experiences with us” – no he frelling didn’t, we didn’t get to experience being frozen, he just told us about them. He is still in possession of 100% of his experiences.
“He shared his lunch with us” is physically and demonstrably different.
cr
Three I dislike
‘Moment in time’
‘Comprise of’
‘Irrelevancy’ (indeed any superfluous ‘y’ to an otherwise complete noun)
‘Competency’
ugh!
cr
Pedantry!
My pet peeves:
The tautological ‘revert back’
Using ‘criteria as the singular of ‘criteria’
Using ‘disinterested’ where ‘uninterested’ is meant. Perhaps in this narcissistic age few of us can afford the luxury of being disinterested any more?
“I have to” is perfectly acceptable for “I must”, but it still bugs me each time I use it. It sounds so antiquated and pompous. I’d change the spelling to “I haff to”, along with “I hatt to”.
Apart from that, I’d draw on my Australian upbringing and insist that the word “apparently”, when you’re repeating something you heard from someone else, should be altered to “parrotly”. That’s how it sounds (in Australian at least) and that’s what’s happening.
I’d also write the “intrusive r” where ever it occurs, eg., “drawring”; or for some Australians “follerin'” (“following”). (An Australian guru might have have a lot of follerers.)
And I’d drop the extra r’s out of February and library, just to annoy the school headmasters in Australia and England who are the only people on the planet who stubbornly insist on pronouncing them.
Californians want to be given free rain.
Such words are often called ‘eggcorns’, coined by professor of linguistics, Geoffrey Pullum, in September 2003.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggcorn
The Eggcorn Database has 643 entries. http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/
Yes. I was going to provide a link to the “Language Log” website on the “eggcorn” topic when I got to the end of the comments — and here I find you occupying that bottom-of-the-comments position of pride.
I find “Language Log” to be an insightful and entertaining place to visit concerning matters linguistic.
Longditude.
“Mitigate against” instead of “militate against”.
Politicians and crooks who “refute” allegations when all they are doing is denying them.
“The exception proves the rule” when used to imply that some assertion is correct- indeed somehow extra-correct because there exists a general rule which shows it isn’t. I suppose the original usage meant “proves” in the sense of “tests”.
In that saying, “prove” does mean “test” which is generally considered an archaic meaning. The only modern context in which “prove” keeps its old meaning is in the phrase “proving ground”. It’s also used that way in the adage, “The proof of the pudding is in the eating,” which is so commonly misquoted that it’s useless.
Actually, that’s not true. The existence of the exception shows that the rule outside of the exception exists. If I put up a sign that says, “No parking Wednesday – street sweeping,” this exception proves that there is a rule that otherwise parking is permitted. You wouldn’t see a sign like that on a street where parking is never permitted.
Cecil Adams wrote on this at length. http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/731/whats-the-meaning-of-the-expression-thats-the-exception-that-proves-the-rule
It seems evident to me that neither you nor Cecil Adams has ever done linguistics fieldwork. When you have a working theory and find a possible exception to that theory, the first thing to do is to find a way to exclude those exceptions as a class, thus putting them outside the theory, leaving the original proposition intact. For example, in investigating common principles of compound word formation, I found a set of expressions that seemed to violate those rules. They were phrases like “shut up” or “put out”. However, these are known as verb-particle formations, and, since they involve prepositions, can be excluded as a class from consideration as genuine compounds. This exception tested the rule, and led to a separate postulate for the excluded constructions.
“LIVED EXPERIENCE”?
Surely you are taking the piss. (At least I hope so).
Not only is it tautological and makes no sense (what other sort of experience could it be? Dead experience? Read-about-it experience – nah, that ain’t experience, by definition),
it is used to trump other peoples’ arguments by the same sort of precious fuckwits who go on about their ‘personal truths’.
cr
Maybe someone has mentioned this one above, but here goes:
‘flaunt’ mistakenly used used for ‘flout’.
‘X flaunted Da Roolz.’
‘Y flouted her belief in the Second Amendment (as interpreted by the NRA & Scalia) by indulging in “open-carry” at every possible opportunity.’
Very much agree with Chris Wallis about the misuse of ‘refute’ (there’s probably a bit of a confusion with ‘rebut’.
While remarking on last week’s Oregon shootings, Governor Jindal of Louisiana gave a long statement in which he blamed everyone and everything but the gunman. What I noticed, though, was this:
If people were flaunting the laws of G*d and common decency, I imagine Jindal and other osculators of the rump of religiosity would be quite pleased. On the other hand, he’s supposed to be an educated man, but he doesn’t make a distinction between flaunt and flout (Your comment posted while I was typing this, so I changed it to a reply.)
Jindal was just trying to distract you from noticing that his state scored 49th worst in the recent National Journal study comparing per-capita gun-caused, age-adjusted death rates.
Louisiana, with hardly any restrictions on buying, open-carrying, or concealed-carrying guns at all, came in at 19.2 per 100,000 — compared to Hawaii at 2.5 per 100,000. Hawaii requires permits for purchase, a 14-day waiting period, mandatory registration, has universal background checks, and no “stand your ground” law.
Bobby wants you to think a lack of gawd explains why Hawaii, California, and 46 other states are so much “worse” than the one he’s “leading”.
https://img.njdc.com/media/media/2015/09/01/wholechart.png
Oops, sorry. I didn’t realize that pasting a link would embed the picture. Didn’t mean to break Da Rulez.
Am I correct in thinking that most of the states towards the bottom of the list are GOP states?
(I’m in the UK)
You are correct.
One that’s been bugging me a lot recently is “sneak peak”. And people using “infer” to mean “imply” also sets my teeth on edge.
Yes, and nowadays it’s not enough to get a preview of a movie, it’s always a “sneak preview”. how can it be sneaky if it’s being advertised to one and all.
And now the damn previews are ten minutes long and give away every plot twist…They are like the Coles’ Notes of movies. Why even bother to see the movie after you’ve seen the trailer?
Cole’s Notes? I thought Cliff did the notes, and Cole the law….
b&
Yeah, I suddenly couldn’t remember the American Cliff’s Notes. Coles’ are British snd Canuck, presumably associated with the book chain. I have no idea who Cliff is or was.
I don’t know Cliff, either, but I hear people have this weird obsession with jumping off of him.
b&
I have to admit I don’t like that use of “infer” either. It sounds to me like someone using “listen” to mean “say”.
Agree on the imply / infer issue. It’s just ignorant to get it wrong, though on reflection I can’t say my score in that respect is 100%. I’ve heard ‘infer’ incorrectly used so many times I may have fallen into the trap myself.
cr
Totally Off-Topic
Doctors Without Borders has been mentioned here before and may well be one of the best of the official WEIT charitable organizations.
It’s clear that the deadly hospital strike in Afghanistan did great damage to, and the efforts of, Doctors Without Borders.
I’m not here to make any other comments, but Doctors Without Borders is a worthy organization and I urge all of you to make some effort to help them continue their mission. The hit was severe.
Here’s their donation link:
https://donate.doctorswithoutborders.org/onetime.cfm
It’s the least we can do.
Tangentially related:
Liberace’s “Crying all the way to the bank.” has been replaced by “laughing all the way to the bank.”
That’s more explicit but it subverts the magnificent sarcasm of Liberace’s original.
cr
‘explicit’ gives too much credit – it’s crass compared to the original.
Then there’s the all-time classic:
Ladle Rat Rotten Hut
Wants pawn term, dare worsted ladle gull hoe lift wetter murder inner ladle cordage, honor itch offer lodge dock florist. Disk ladle gull orphan worry ladle cluck wetter putty ladle rat hut, an fur disk raisin pimple colder Ladle Rat Rotten Hut.
Wan moaning, Rat Rotten Hut’s murder colder inset, “Ladle Rat Rotten Hut, heresy ladle basking winsome burden barter an shirker cockles. Tick disk ladle basking tutor cordage offer groin-murder hoe lifts honor udder site offer florist. Shaker lake! Dun stopper laundry wrote! An yonder nor sorghum-stenches, dun stopper torque wet strainers!”
“Hoe-cake, murder,” resplendent Ladle Rat Rotten Hut, an tickle ladle basking an stuttered oft. Honor wrote tutor cordage offer groin-murder, Ladle Rat Rotten Hut mitten anomalous woof. “Wail, wail, wail!” set disk wicket woof, “Evanescent Ladle Rat Rotten Hut! Wares are putty ladle gull goring wizard ladle basking?”
“Armor goring tumor groin-murder’s,” reprisal ladle gull. “Grammar’s seeking bet. Armor ticking arson burden barter an shirker cockles.”
“O hoe! Heifer blessing woke,” setter wicket woof, butter taught tomb shelf, “Oil tickle shirt court tutor cordage offer groin-murder. Oil ketchup wetter letter, an den – O bore!”
Soda wicket woof tucker shirt court, an whinney retched a cordage offer groin-murder, picked inner widow, an sore debtor pore oil worming worse lion inner bet. Inner flesh, disk abdominal woof lipped honor bet an at a rope. Den knee poled honor groin-murder’s nut cup an gnat-gun, any curdled dope inner bet.
Inner ladle wile, Ladle Rat Rotten Hut a raft attar cordage, an ranker dough belle. “Comb ink, sweat hard,” setter wicket woof, disgracing is verse. Ladle Rat Rotten Hut entity bet rum an stud buyer groin-murder’s bet.
“O Grammar!” crater ladle gull, “Wood bag icer gut! A nervous sausage bag ice!”
“Battered lucky chew whiff, doling,” whiskered disk ratchet woof, wetter wicket small.
“O Grammar, water bag noise! A nervous sore suture anomolous prognosis!”
“Battered small your whiff,” insert a woof, ants mouse worse waddling.
“O Grammar, water bag mousy gut! A nervous sore suture bag mouse!”
Daze worry on-forger-nut gulls lest warts. Oil offer sodden, thoroughing offer carvers an sprinkling otter bet, disk curl and bloat-thursday woof ceased pore Ladle Rat Rotten Hut an garbled erupt.
Mural: Yonder nor sorghum stenches shut ladle gulls stopper torque wet strainers.
Who was responsible for this? James Joyce? It’s hard work but very funny.
Someone read that at a summer camp in the 70’s when I was a kid and I’d remembered it (not word for word) fondly all my life.
I thought that person had made it up until I discovered on line that it was a classic, only a few years ago.
I once sent out Christmas cards where I did a version of The Night Before Christmas using the same language mangling, and it came out pretty funny if’n I don’t say so m’self.
As a recovering H.S. English teacher, I have actually assigned Pinker’s book to my (also retired) colleagues for discussion at our next meeting. I am certain that we will have a lively time; however, I know that I will be a minority of one, because I truly believe that change is good: let the apostrophe disappear and free thousands of grocers.
Hmm, I have a slightly different take on it that you do–I think that using an apostrophe with an “s” to indicate a plural should be a capital crime. But I’m a liberal-minded guy, so I don’t think that other of the numerous misuses of the apostrophe deserves any worse than a flogging.
But then what will all the grocer’s do with all they’re extra apostrophe’s? Won’t “somebody” at least sometime’s think of the grocer’s?
b&
Off with his head!
Not to be pendantical, but I do believe you meant to write, “Off with hi’s head!”
Cheer’s,
b&
The plural noun for apostrophes should be catastrophe.
Catastrophe is the cat show award for la belle derrière.
Cat-ass-trophy. +1
Please! Dog a’s’s trophy. Leave the cat’s out of thi’s!
b&
But cat’s’s asse’s are so much more in-your-face
Depends on the cat…and the d*g.
For example…this d*g’s butt is a face!
Cheers,
b&
Couldn’t get your link to open. Is it the Jeebus face?
Aargh! Yes, it’s the well-known Jesus dog butt:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/13/dog-butt-looks-like-jesus-photo_n_3436086.html
b&
Could you open my cat butt link. Ahh, the level of discourse here is absolutely celestial😇
Yes — I hadn’t seen that one before. I wonder if that’s part of where Simon drew inspiration from….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s13dLaTIHSg
b&
I bought my daughter a mug and paper napkins with thst same French third-eye cat butt on them. Classy!
Ooh la la!
b&
Mais oui! Très chic.
https://www.google.ca/search?q=black+cat+third+eye&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari#hl=en&q=cat+third+eye+French&imgrc=rEdIhf-hEawLzM%3A
I spot a couple of surplus quote marks there too.
We once had a senior manager with a severe case of acronymia and cryptic abbreviations, plus a hyperactive shift key and an oversupply of apostrophes and quote marks. His memos were near unreadable. One of my undying regrets is that I never saved one for posterity.
But by way of example I’ve tried to replicate a sample of one:
The HL Working Group welcome’s “George Adams” to their rank’s. George has extensive Experience in H&S Initiative’s in the Forestry Industry, and will ‘liaise’ with the “R&I Manager” to Allocate Tier 4 Resources for E&I and SHQ Development in Q3 FY97 with a view to Implementing enhanced HL Procedures (ISO 9012 Compliant) in Real Time by the ‘Following Reporting Period’.
Yes, he really used to write stuff like that, only better. Honest. Other than that, he was a nice guy.
cr
I’ve been debating whether I should add another comment.
Yes…you bloody yanks saying…
“could care less”
instead of the correct…
“could(n’t) care less”
Why is the ladder (one for the halibut, Mr. Goren) correct over the former ? Because the phrase is supposed to convey that you do not care AT ALL about the subject in question. ‘Could’ care less means you have a level of giving a dam (sorry) somewhere above zero !
Don’t fall off that latter!
“With baited breath” as opposed to “with bated breath”, short for abated. The first makes absolutely no sense, but I still unthinkingly presumed was the way it was spelled in its arcanity.
And the Seinfeld-ism “What’s the deal with…?”. It makes sense but I have no idea why it should.
Yes, this is an annoying one.
Liz Lemon in 30Rock tried to do the same for dealbreaker
I assure you that I will ensure that “insure” is used only whem speaking of homes and cars.
Unless you are in New Zealand.
When people use “regiment” instead of “regimen”, as in “I’m on a new exercise regiment”, it really grinds my gears…
Why is something “part and parcel” of something else when it’s simply part of it? I can’t stand hearing “part and parcel”. I don’t know what it means and I always doubt the user knows, but I’ve always been too polite to say anything to a person using the term. Can someone tell me what it means? It’s very possible I’m simply ignorant of the real meaning that makes it a useful phrase.
And why do “flammable” and “inflammable” mean the same thing? Usually putting “in” in front of a word turns it into an antonym, but not when you’re setting something on fire.
The word was originally “inflammable.” This confused people who thought it was a negative, so for safety’s sake it was changed to “flammable” which was unambiguous.
And why do “flammable” and “inflammable” mean the same thing?
Because they derive from the verbs “to flame something” and “to inflame something” respectively. “In-” here just means the act of burning was more forceful or emphatic than usual, which is another grammatical function for the prefix “in-“.
This one’s for the (presumptive) next Speaker (hah!) of the US House of Representatives:
It’s “As a matter of fact”, not “As a manner of fact.”
Please try to set a better example for the children, Representative. Maybe read a book.
Here’s something I’ve seen recently – the “tenants” of a religion, e.g., “the tenants of Christianity”.
Ugh.
You *pore* over an arcane piece of literature; you do not *pour*.
Plus dozens of ones already mentioned, and the current Big Kahuna of grammatical solecisms–“I have went,” “I have did,” “I have wrote,” etc.
And, heck, while I’m at it “He gave it to her and I” or “Tell Corinne or I” is so common and so wrong that I even correct my boss–and she appreciates it!
Am I the only one here bothered by “from whence”? The meaning of “whence” being “from where”, when someone says “from whence” they are saying “from from where”, which I find a bit annoying.
No, you’re not 🙂
“From whence” had its fans, even back when “whence” was still part of everyday language: Psalm 121 I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.
This thread has really gotten my goat– I’m not sure what that actually means, let it suffice to translate it as “caught my interest”. My pet peeves (another strange construction) vary in intensity over time. “Fer shur” was most annoying in the time of Zappa’s Valley Girls single but I’ve grown quite numb to the phrase by now.
That being said, I still have peeves, here’s a two-fer that bother me the most at the moment:
1. “The proof is in the pudding.” This one drives me crazy because it is seemingly incoherent unless one is familiar with the proper usage: “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.” Provided that you know the fuller context, I suppose “… is in the pudding” is a convenient bit of shorthand, but it’s useful only to those who are familiar with the complete phrase.
2. “Yeah, no…” I get whiplash when in conversations with those who begin each comment/response with that verbal tic. Yes, I understand that it could translate to “Yes, I see your point and no, I could hardly think otherwise.” On the other hand, it might mean “Yes, I hear you, but I couldn’t disagree more.” I presume that difference will be clarified through further discussion, but still, it’s an ambiguity that needn’t be introduced in proper discourse.
/soapbox
“Two-fer”! Ugh!
Yes, that must be spelled correctly: Toofur.
To “get someone’s goat” means to annoy them.
Sub
I am hearing the word “So” used a lot in TV interviews these days as a place marker to begin a new thought (paragraph, if written) as in: “So, blah, blah, blah.” Then, another paragraph (thought) begins: “So, bleh, bleh…” This continues throughout the interview. It appears that “So” is replacing the earlier “Like” in that regard.
I have to confess that I’m a TV sports fan (can’t get enough football, basketball, or hockey). What really annoys me are the ex-jocks or coaches who appear never to have taken a course in English grammar. For example, the word “myself” always used where “me” or “I” belong: Jimmy and myself were at the game. Also, not knowing the difference between “few” and “less”. As in: He’s throwing “less” interceptions this season than last.
“center around” is another misused phrase.
a center indicates a point, and a point cannot encircle anything, so its either “revolve around” or “center on”.
Yes…and “HONE in on.” (It’s “home.”) Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a way around the ghastly dual preposition.
My wife, whose first language is not English, is an interpreter at the top of her game. (She was JPII’s personal interpreter during his summit with several Latin American presidents several years back.) Nothing in English vexes her like prepositions…
Last year, I taught a class on prepositions at the annual convention of the California Court Interpreters Association. To judge from the response (and the questions asked), this is a near-universal condition with non-native speakers.
“home in on” is not a dual preposition construction. “home in” is a verb-particle combination and functions as if it were a single part of speech*. The “in” is not functioning as a preposition, so “on” is on its own.
In languages that use case instead of prepositional phrases (like Finnish and Hungarian) verb-particle combinations are notably rare.
*The verb and particle can, however, be separated idiomatically like split infinitives, as in “shut the fuck up”.
Point taken, but that explanation isn’t going to be much help to a foreigner who is just trying to speak English like a native.
“Center around” has, alas, become idiomatic.
Does anyone else think that you should graduate FROM college or high school? I hear it said so often without the from and it vexes me:-(
Agreed.
Many of my days working in a public library were blighted by persons saying ‘I want to lend a book’
I had to be physically restrained from seizing them and screaming ‘No thanks we’ve got plenty!’
Some people say “itch” when they mean “scratch,” as in “The dog keeps itching himself.” I heard an adult say that just the other day.
I’m currently reading a book about the Second World War, which had the following, about someone narrowly escaping grievous bodily harm, that “…he wasn’t phased at all”, a turn of phrase which did not leave me unfazed.
There was also recently a headline in a Chinese English language news site, which had the unintentionally accurate headline “China reigns in Corruption”, but I believe this error has already been discussed.
I think the first is a Star Trek reference, the second a wonderful piece of irony. China is rich in slightly off-centre English – a recent Language Log article:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=21497
My dear (French) wife persists in saying ‘Low and below’ instead of ‘Lo and behold’. Some of the stuff I say in French is ‘affreux’.
People talk about being ‘descended from’ people who had NO OFFSPRING!!!! Well, duh! Related to is the correct term.
Grrrrr….
I had a mild case of incandescent foaming-at-the-mouth spittle-flying rage recently at some internet nirk who asserted that “Humans are good at killing. It’s the thing we’re best at doing.”
While I’m not dumb enough to try to assert that humans have never killed (hell, I’ve killed more people tan I wanted to), the statement is simply there for effect. He could not possibly have given it a moment’s consideration.
What is the range of human activity? to a first approximation: killing; fucking; writing operas in foreign languages; knapping flint tools (plus a few other things, the list is somewhat longer than this sample). What then is the criterion on which all of those activities can actually be compared? And does killing actually come out on top compared to ALL of them?
Simply considering the number of people involved, while not everyone in the world has killed someone (otherwise, we’d not have any population problem anywhere outside Hong Kong), everybody alive has at least two parents who practised fucking, and probably did it more frequently than they practised killing people. And seriously, people are better at killing than they are at fucking.
I’d better clean the spittle off the screen.
Come on, you’re really fucking killing me with this!
[Grabs chainsaw.]
In the words of the Doom protagonist, “Oh Yeah!”
The one that really gets up my goat is when people say “For God sakes!” You can only have one sake!
Should be God’s sake, or gods’ sake for pluralists! 🙂 Or better, Ceiling Cat’s sake!
“Breaking News” – it is broken once it is announced!
It’s probably futile at this point, but one of my peeves is “that’s a moot point”.
The word “moot” means arguable. A moot point is one that isn’t settled and is worth arguing over, exactly the opposite of what people mean when they say that phrase. That’s why fake court in law school is called “moot court”, because it’s entire purpose is to refine one’s skills in crafting convincing arguments.
Another mainly word-based peeve is often presented as “the enormity of the situation”, when what was meant is the enormousness or immensity of the situation, in terms of implications or consequences. Enormity is depraved abnormality. It has nothing to do with size at all.
On the whole, I often see common adages and idioms written out with incorrect component words. You can tell the author in question learned them in spoken language and never knew what the individual words were – it was only ever a collection of sounds with a collective meaning. When they had to write them down, they did their best to fit the sounds to words with which they were familiar, and which they thought contextually fit into the phrase.
This one (moot) depends on your side of the Atlantic. From the Wikiness:
So I guess you really hate Rick Springfield’s Jesse’s Girl
“Disconnect” used as a noun. What’s wrong with “disconnection”? You don’t say to someone “I feel like we really have a connect”, do you?
I don’t think anyone has mentioned “your” versus “you’re” yet – that’s related to the “its/it’s” issue. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said “If you can’t substitute ‘you are’ in its place, then it’s the wrong one!” Ohmygawd – I’m an a$$hole! (But I *did* use both “its” and “it’s” properly in the same sentence!)
Here’s weird one – I had a colleague who once referred to a “seed change” instead of “sea change”. I will admit that neither of them actually makes sense, although the correct idiom does derive from Shakespeare, so at least it has some literary provenance…
I’d like to see change.
Whenever I see someone who is distressed at the misuse of contractions, I give a hug and say, “There, their, they’re”.
I have not read every comment in this long thread, so forgive me if this has been mentioned, but “tow the line” and “free reign” and “nip it in the butt” ” and curled up in the feeble position” are all eggcorns–and they’re included in the Eggcorn Database, a very entertaining resource:
http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/
More than one commenter has mentioned the irritating (or at least obtrusive) new use of “so.”
The new “so” represents a recent, accelerating trend in speech and writing. Its linguistic purpose is interesting, I think. It’s a vogue usage that amounts to a brisk way for the speaker to hit the ground running. Conventionally, as a conjunction, “so” indicates that the speaker is building consequentially on a specific earlier reference, but in this new usage no specific referent exists. The listener is implicitly asked to adopt the sense of one, or just to hop on board a little out of breath. In linguistics such a habit of use is known as a “discourse particle.”
Discourse particles are are small words that do not contribute grammatically to the content of a phrase. They are common in conversation, where they are meant to suggest the speaker’s attitude, hint at background assumptions, express emotion, or contribute to coherence. Take “well,” for example. Depending on its context and inflection, “well” can suggest hesitation, uncertainly, deference, sarcasm, or other attitudes.
I knew a guy who would link his sentences together with “but uhh…” as if he wanted to ward off interruptions and not “lose the floor”, so to speak. I used to think of it as “buttering his sentences together.”
Maybe that phrase of his qualifies as a discourse particle.
Might this not be Irish influence? Here’s Seamus Heaney talking about translating the opening ‘Hwaet’ in ‘Beowulf’:
‘Conventional renderings of “hwaet”, the opening word of the poem, tend towards the archaic literary, with “lo” and “hark” and “behold” and “attend” and – more colloquially – “listen” being some of the solutions offered previously. But in Hiberno-English Scullionspeak, the particle “so” came naturally to the rescue, because in that idiom “so” operates as an expression which obliterates all previous discourse and narrative, and at the same time functions as an exclamation calling for immediate attention.’
I’ve heard linguists describe it as a way to indicate that the explanation is going to be lengthy and people need to listen.
I just saw this one on Facebook this morning:
“This is beyond the pail…”
It gave me a bucket of chuckles.
Heehee
Did he perhaps pee beyond the pail? Wife’s gonna be pissed:-)
The udder is what’s beyond the pail if you set the stool too far away from the cow….
b&
How about confusing “grisly” with “grizzly”?
More than once I’ve seen sentences like, “He came to a grizzly end.”
It’s only appropriate if a large bear was involved.
“Perfect.”
This word has literally taken over the service industry, in all areas. It now seems the de facto response after every inquiry.
“Will that be cash or charge?”
Charge, please.
“Perfect.”
“What would you like to drink?”
Diet coke.
“Perfect. I’ll be right back with the drinks.”
“Can I please have the number you are calling from before I look into the account?”
*gives number*
“Perfect.”
“Will you be coming in to pick up your car today?”
Yes.
“Perfect.”
The really weird, Twilight Zone-like aspect of this phenomenon is that it seems to have gone unnoticed! I almost never see it discussed or mentioned even by language mavens (of the type who now ruminate on the use of “so”), and when I bring it up almost no one has ever noticed it.
(Though when I brought it up to one pal the next time I saw him he said “you’re right! Now that I notice it I am constantly hearing that word ‘perfect!’ Damn you!”)
How about all the “pointed-haired boss” speak, like “going forward”, and such?
“Ramping up”:-(
That’s a whole other can of worms.
(‘whole other’? – ah, let it pass)
‘in the real world’, ‘at the end of the day’, ‘at the coal face’ (ugh!), ‘bottom line’ ….. there are many others but my brain has mercifully obliterated them from its memory.
cr
across the world
But OK for Flat Earthers.
Meanwhile, Alternet reports that Democrats have better grammar than Republicans. A study of posts to all twenty candidates’ Facebook pages shows that supporters of the Democratic candidates averaged 4.2 errors per 100 words, while posters to Republican candidates’ pages averaged 8.7 errors. Furthermore, postings to all five declared Democrats beat postings to all but one Republican candidate (the leading Republican tied the lowest Democrat).
Democratic supporters also displayed a broader vocabulary and wrote longer comments.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Donald Trump’s supporters came in dead last, at 12.6 errors per 100 words.