Grammar that irks

December 19, 2016 • 7:19 am

I’m going downtown this morning for various errands, so all posts will be delayed until about 10 a.m. Chicago time. No worries, though: we will have Hili, we will have animals, and we will have a “spot the” feature. And there will be more on human sexual dimorphism as well.  In the meantime, perhaps you can fill this thread with things that bother you—or words and phrases that bother you.

Being a grammar Nazi, one of the things I don’t like to see is the use of the word “hopefully” in place of “I hope that.” Hopefully is an adverb that means “with hope”, as in “he looked at Shirley hopefully.” It is not to be used like this: “Hopefully, things will turn out for the best. Yes, I know that some dictionaries say “hopefully” can be used as “in the hope that”, but I don’t like it.  And I don’t care if Steve Pinker says it’s okay, for this is a thread about words that bother us.

Here’s another: “I could care less.” Well, if you don’t care about something, you couldn’t care less. If you could care less, that means there’s room for less caring, and that’s now what you want to say.

Alternatively, just talk about what’s on your mind, which would be a nice experiment.

Back in a few hours.

635 thoughts on “Grammar that irks”

  1. I have always hated the word “baby” used as a pet-name among adults. It find it creepy and gross, as it is too saddled with its literal meaning. There are more than a few decent songs that have been ruined by the overuse of this popular term of endearment in my opinion.

  2. I’m like literally like surprised that like literally nobody had like mentioned that like literally lots of like people literally don’t know what literally like means and stuff.

  3. At the risk of someone else here having already pointed it out as questionable: “in point of fact”.

    1. like ‘matter of fact’, “in point of fact” probably comes from Latin: ‘res facti’ (‘factual things’ or ‘things done’), I suppose from ‘legalese’ meaning according to the salient or critical fact or facts. ‘In point’ resembles the modern Italian ‘a punto’ (to the point) which is a response to a statement with which you are in agreement. In English it might be ‘Exactly’ or ‘Just so’. Its actually elegant and precise English but stodgy in overuse.

      1. Is it an improvement over just saying “In fact…”, or are the two used in different situations or word flow? In any case, from your explanation I see a basis for what I thought was only, maybe not pompous, but redundant.

  4. Okay, one more – not a grammatical error, but a common misspelling: “per say”. No. Just no. It’s Latin, folks! “Per se”, “by itself”. If you want to sound all fancy and edumacated, please have a slight clue what you’re doing!

    1. I actually somewhat like that sort of self-inflicted wound. It gives you so much information about the person who uses it.

  5. I know this has become so commonplace as to be acceptable but it grates my nerves every time I hear it. People in a meeting will say, “Blah, blah and that’s where we’re at.” Or, “Where are we at with project x?”

    Instead, I believe it is more correct to say, ” . .. that’s where we are” or “Where are we with project x.”

    Rant complete.

  7. Irregardless when they mean to say regardless, disillusioned instead of delusional (admittedly a rare one)

  8. I do wish that when referring to a colleague people would write ‘co-worker’ (or even ‘colleague) rather than the utterly (udderly?) bovine coworker.

  9. Just for a chane, going on the opposite direction to the nominal thread, I just saw this and loved the phrase :

    I’m looking at crater bait.

    (I doubt anyone is surprised that it’s Derek “In the Pipeline” Lowe talking about chemistry that is … best viewed through binoculars.)

    1. They’ve been dropping the “from” all over the place for some time, now, and it absolutely drives me crazy!

      1. I’ve noticed, but never before in The New Yorker!! I tell all y’all, we’s goin’ to hell in a handbasket.

      2. As a formal matter, it should be the passive “was graduated from,” since it’s the school that graduates the student, not the other way round.

        Nevertheless, I wouldn’t use the formal correct form unless I was writing to or speaking with someone I thought would grasp this distinction. Otherwise, they mistakenly might think it a subliteracy.

        1. Yep, that’s just like knowing the correct pronunciation of (the non-music-related) “forte.” Use at your own risk.

  12. Oh, something I see frequently that drives me nuts–people using “dominate” when they mean “dominant.” Grrrr.

  13. It is important to remember that capitalisation makes all the difference between helping my uncle jack off his horse and helping my Uncle Jack off his horse.

  14. It irks me to see this common usage for “entitled” even though grammar experts approve of it:

    …a book by Jerry A. Coyne entitled FAITH VS. FACT.

    I strongly prefer replacing “entitled” with “titled” and I believe I am entitled to being irked by “entitled” used to mean “with the title of” even if I’m wrong.

    I suppose I could care less about this than I do. (Note the rare appropriate use of “could care less.”) I imagine that some WEIT readers couldn’t care less about what irks me.

  15. What irks me? When people pronounce “espresso” as Iks-Press-O and “especially” as Iks-Spe-Shul-Ee. Planning on reblogging your post on Proof Pefectly.

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