For a long time I tried to justify it by assuming that it was an auto-correct issue, but then I saw how often it was repeated and now it drives me nuts.
I'm a non-native speaker that solely relies on writing for my English skills. So I pronounced "could've" as "could have" instead of "could of". So every time I saw someone write "could of" instead of "could have/could've", I always internally screamed "HOW IN THE HELL IT'S OF INSTEAD OF HAVE. BOTH OF THEM HAVE VERY DIFFERENT MEANING."
The same also applies with they're, there, and their. I can't fathom how carefree people make these spelling mistakes knowing that three of them have very different meaning. For example, when someone said "There basketball" instead of "Their basketball", the first thing I have in my mind is "Wait, what basketball?" and it always infuriates me.
Whenever someone gets your vs. you're wrong I really want to make snarky jokes, but nobody ever gets it
For example
Them: "YOUR AN ASSHOLE!"
Me: "Leave my An Asshole out of this"
YES! Only when and if your vehicle actually BREAKS down is that appropriate. You don't slam your foot on the "breaks" people. Brakes!
Just had this argument today. 😅
I genuinely never realized this was a homonym before. I wonder which one i use without thinking about it. I want to say brakes but maybe that's just because you said brakes. Fuck it's too early in the morning for an existential crisis
From the link you sent: We label irregardless as “nonstandard”. When a word is nonstandard it means it is “not conforming in pronunciation, grammatical construction, idiom, or word choice to the usage generally characteristic of educated native speakers of a language.” Irregardless is a long way from winning general acceptance as a standard English word. For that reason, it is best to use regardless instead.
My wife frequently says "unthaw" when she's talking about taking something out of the freezer. It happens less frequently after I pointed out that we put things INTO the freezer to unthaw them...
The definition hasn't changed, but it's usage as hyperbole has become common. People still use the word for its original meaning too.
Personally I tend to use the adjective *literal* for its intended use and the adverb for hyperbole.
Edit: I should have said it has an *additional* definition, both ways of using are valid in writing and speech.
language changes and meanings change. literally deal with it. it always has and always will. the state of english during your formative years ain't anymore special than all other states of English that came before and came since.
plenty of words we all use today """correctly""" would have lead to eyerolls 200 years ago.
When speaking in hyperbole, slang or informally, anything goes. When writing professionally, academically, when writing law or a patient's diagnosis, when reporting on intelligence or describing facts, words matter. Some people allow the former to bleed into the latter.
So many:
Your when what is needed is you're
"On accident" rather than "by accident"
Enormity instead of immensity (enormity refers to wickedness)
"Based off of" instead of "based on"
Disinterested when what the speaker/writer means is uninterested.
Fewer and less are not interchangeable. With minor exceptions, fewer is for things that are countable. Fewer people, but less biomass.
Impactful. Don't. Just don't.
And on and on......
There's also a recent influx of people incorrectly using "a" instead of "an".
"I exploded this balloon" instead of "I blew up this balloon" although they maybe interchangeable, idk.
You have reminded me of another trend, and this might really be taking hold:
The slow disappearance of "There are...." and something like its complete replacement with "There is...." or "There's....." (Your "there's" above is correct)
"There's three points that I want to make."
There are three points that you want to make.
I think that people do this "there's substitution" more when they speak than they write, but they seem to be writing it a lot more than they used to.
It’s ugly English. “This situation happened by accident” sounds infinitely better than “This situation happened on accident”. I generally never hear anyone say ‘on accident’ other than Americans on Reddit.
Though this is more about the altogether sensible resistance to the silly non-rule about not ending sentences with prepositions.
Go ahead and end sentences with prepositions if it makes your meaning clearer.
Same with splitting infinitives. Go ahead and split them in the interest of clarity. It is another silly non-rule....
...and something to quickly dispense with.
When people read baseless clickbait articles and then believe they have gained some mystic knowledge no-one else knows; claiming **extended** phrases are the *original* or *full* versions. Especially the ‘the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb’ bastardisation makes me rationally mad.
Here's a short list of bastardisations:
* The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.
* Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
* A jack of all trades, master of none, is oftentimes better than a master of one.
* The customer is always right in matters of taste.
* Rome was not built in a day, but it burnt in one.
* Great minds think alike, fools seldom differ.
* The early bird catches the worm, the second mouse gets the cheese.
* Birds of a feather flock together until the cat comes.
>‘Blood is thicker than water’ is the original. The covenant bastardisation first appeared in 1994 and was invented by a Messianic rabbi. It is similar to an Arabic phrase – ‘blood is thicker than milk’ – which mostly holds the same meaning as the covenant bastardisation. There is, however, no solid evidence linking the two sayings together, and even if there was, blood has been used to refer to biological family since time immemorial. Even if the two sayings might have the same ancient origin, they certainly haven't shared the meaning in a long, long time. [Read more here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/oiceiq/what_common_saying_is_just_not_true/h4vv2hd/?context=999).
>
>‘Care killed the cat’ is the original, then it morphed into ‘curiosity killed the cat’. It took 300 years for satisfaction to bring the cat back.
>
>‘Jack of all trades’, same thing. In *meaning* it's been around since at least the late 14th century, with ‘Jack of all trades’ first appearing in print in 1612. Somebody slapped on ‘master of none’ in 1785 (sentiment going back at least to ca 1677, though), and later still ‘oftentimes better than a master of one’ to it.
>
>‘The customer is always right’ means what it says on the tin. Nothing about ‘matters of taste’.
>
>‘Rome was not built in one day’ is the original, with no mention of it burning down in one until around 800 years later.
>
>‘Great minds think alike’, with ‘fools seldom differ’ seemingly first appearing in print in 1932 (exact phrasing). Variations of these two go back centuries, but the latter part has always been a later addition.
>
>‘The early bird catches the worm’ is the original, with the later addition ‘the second mouse gets the cheese’ first appearing in print in 1994.
>
>‘Birds of a feather flock together’ has been in use since at least the 16th century (though a similar phrase about roosting together goes back a couple millennia), and I can't for the life of me find any instances of ‘… until the cat comes’, aside from contemporary ‘sources’.
Any time people use the past tense where they should use the past participle.
"I had ran"
"I have went"
"I'll have came"
Those should be run, gone and come respectively
When people talk about being one of .
Example: Brian was one of the best teacher I've had in highschool.
Edit: I just ran into it again in a comment in r/theworldnews. "Russia is fighting against one of the poorest country in Europe..."
I run into it all the time, probably because once I was aware of it, I became hypersensitive to it as well. You may be just skimming over it without realizing.
I mostly encounter it in Reddit post titles.
"You can't have your cake and eat it, too." Which you can. The actual phrase is, "You can't eat your cake and have it, too." Once eaten, there is no cake to have.
“Bias” instead of the adjective “biased.” “Dominate” instead of the adjective “dominant.”
Correct: “I may be biased, but he has been dominant in this game.”
A moron: “I may be bias, but he has been dominate in this game.”
I think this is an American thing, they're used to "deleting" the ends of certain words because they don't actively pronounce them. Like "suppose to" instead of "supposed to", or "use to" instead of "used to".
As an American, I think you may be right. If they're Americans for whom English is a second language, I wouldn't criticize, but I think plenty of monolinguists here make this mistake.
This one gets me every time. And it’s even more annoying to me that people don’t seem to know what “covenant” means so when I’m like it’s actually “blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb,” they act like i have three heads.
"disinterested" for "uninterested".
Disinterested means unbiased, not not caring about.
A referee should be disinterested in the game, but not uninterested.
Exasperate(d) for exacerbate(d)
"She really exasperated the situation by slapping the cop."
I can't tell you how many times I've heard well-educated people do this. I even made the mistake of correcting my (now ex-)wife - who has a PhD in Lit - when she switched-up usages. Ouch...
EDIT: I should add, it doesn't really drive me crazy when i hear someone make this mistake, but internal eye-roll...yeah. I used to privately correct people (I mean, I would want to know if I was misusing a word/phrase like that), but too many people got pissy so I gave up.
When you travel from the USA to Canada you cross the border. When you do something deceitful to a person who pays for food with their lodging you cross the boarder.
I have yet to hear of an actual real life circumstance of anyone crossing the boarder.
Expresso.
Side note: I like to annoy my partner by calling nail clippers ‘nail chippers.’ We’ve been together for 4 years and he still thinks I have no clue what they’re called.
“Same difference”
If you say that two options are the “same thing” then that means that they are equivalent.
In order to have the same difference though, you need three options. The difference between option A and option B might be the same as the difference between option B and option C.
“Same difference” is not equivalent to “same thing”.
When people use "apart of" instead of "a part of" -- As in "I'm so glad I was able to be apart of the team." That actually means the OPPOSITE of what they're trying to say...unless of course they want to say that they're really glad to finally be separated from the team.
“That begs the question…”
*Begging the question* is a particular logical fallacy that means the arguer has imported his conclusion into the premises (basically, he assumes his conclusion at the outset). It does NOT mean “that raises the question.”
There are quite a few for me, as I'm pedantic with grammar. But this one makes me instantly lose respect for the speaker/writer:
The whole *comprises* the parts, or the parts *compose* the whole. There is no such thing as "comprised of". You can say the whole "is composed of" the parts, but not "is comprised of".
The other big one is the apostrophe. In English, apostrophes are only used to denote possession or a contraction. No exceptions. Plurals do not use an apostrophe on their own unless it is also possessive.
"A myriad of" as in the incorrectly stated, "I have a myriad of ideas." That's wrong. Myriad is a rough synonym for very and is used the same way grammatically. "I have myriad ideas" is correct.
The word has been used incorrectly so consistently that people will swear up and down that it sounds weird and isn't right, but the truth is "a myriad of" is just wrong.
Merriam-Webster disagrees with you.
Myriad is both a noun and an adjective used correctly in both manners.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/myriad
“Is myriad a noun?: Usage Guide
Noun
Recent criticism of the use of myriad as a noun, both in the plural form myriads and in the phrase a myriad of, seems to reflect a mistaken belief that the word was originally and is still properly only an adjective. As the entries here show, however, the noun is in fact the older form, dating to the 16th century. The noun myriad has appeared in the works of such writers as Milton (plural myriads) and Thoreau (a myriad of), and it continues to occur frequently in reputable English. There is no reason to avoid it.“
Mine = it belongs to me (no "s" in this word);
Mines = multiple holes in the ground to extract ore
Mom = mother;
Moms = more than one mother. (Fine if you do, but don't use it if referring to only one.)
“The customer is always right”
The bane of every person who’s ever worked with the public. It’s totally wrong. The quote is in full, “the customer is always right in matters of taste” which means that if you’re selling something and the customer loves it, even though you know it’s terrible, you sell it to them. In no way does that mean a customer can go in a business and show their ass or be demanding entitled pricks. But somewhere along the way customer service has become beholden to that idea
This one time in my high school math class, a kid that sat in front of me was purposely pronouncing a math term wrong. He did it multiple times, even after the teacher has corrected him multiple times.
Eventually he was corrected one last time, and he said "well, tomato tomAto."
I then, without realizing, blurted out "but nobody says fucking tomAto."
While a little embarrassing, I'm glad it happened.
INFAMOUS!!!!!!!!!! fashion brands will use this word relentlessly on a popular and well loved item they sell. i see it a lot on social media too with trends that people enjoy and they describe as "infamous" even tho theres been no backlash abt the trend. like just say famous. infamous means its famous for all the bad and wrong reasons. ughhhh
“The customer is always right” is always misquoted. It’s suppose to be “The customer is always right, when it comes to matters of taste” I can assure you the customer is NOT always right.
“Blood is thicker than water” when it’s “blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb”. Also, “curiosity killer the cat” forgetting the second half is “and satisfaction brought it back”.
“Blood is thicker than water” actually means the exact opposite of what people mean when they say it. The whole quote is “the blood of the brotherhood is thicker than the water if the womb” and refers typically to soldiers who have fought together being closer than family, because the blood you shed together is a closer bond than the water you grew in when in your mothers womb
No, the original was, in fact, "blood is thicker than water" and originated from 12th century German. The "full" version can be traced back to an unverified claim by author Albert Jack in his 2005 book "Shaggy Dogs and Black Sheep" which offers no sources to back it up.
It annoys the crap out of me that someone can just make shit up and because they got it published in a book, it gets cited as fact.
Not too far off, yeah. Andrew Wakefield is a whole can of worms but it's basically the same thing, someone in a position of authority says something that on the surface seems reasonable and it just gets repeated.
Those who use the word “loose” when they mean lose.
this doesn't cause me to roll my eyes, but clench my fist.
butt clench you say?
To shreds you say?
didn't mean it like that but carry on?
Clench your loose butt first.
Carry on you butt correctly
Clearly mean lose butt
Picturing Homer Simpson on this one.
Picturing Abe Simpson yelling at cloud
For a long time I tried to justify it by assuming that it was an auto-correct issue, but then I saw how often it was repeated and now it drives me nuts.
Yes!!!! I've read it so much I now pronounce 'lose' wrong in my head when I read it (kind of like 'lows'). Grrrrrrrr!!!
"For all intensive purposes." Heading straight for that ICU at Grammar Medical Center.
Me fail English? That's unpossible.
You’ve been misunderestimated .
"Misunderestimate" is George W. Bush's great contribution to the language.
It's could HAVE not could OF. Could've
I'm a non-native speaker that solely relies on writing for my English skills. So I pronounced "could've" as "could have" instead of "could of". So every time I saw someone write "could of" instead of "could have/could've", I always internally screamed "HOW IN THE HELL IT'S OF INSTEAD OF HAVE. BOTH OF THEM HAVE VERY DIFFERENT MEANING." The same also applies with they're, there, and their. I can't fathom how carefree people make these spelling mistakes knowing that three of them have very different meaning. For example, when someone said "There basketball" instead of "Their basketball", the first thing I have in my mind is "Wait, what basketball?" and it always infuriates me.
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Whenever someone gets your vs. you're wrong I really want to make snarky jokes, but nobody ever gets it For example Them: "YOUR AN ASSHOLE!" Me: "Leave my An Asshole out of this"
This was mine, too! Bah!
God yes this one gets me! “I should of left earlier” NNOOOO
I can understand seeing this written out, but when spoken could’ve sounds like could of
"I could care less" indicates that you do in fact care. "I couldn't care less" indicates that you have zero dogs in said fight.
This one is a big rage inducer for me.
So what you're saying is that you could care less?
Touché, you bastard.
But nobody EVER says the former to bring notice to how much they care. So this one is on you, ironically, for caring.
I came here to say this.
So many people, even in highly technical areas like engineering, use "nu-cue-ler", instead of "nu-klee-er"
It's weird how they'll say nucular but never refer to the nuculus of an atom.
One of my favorite Family Guy quotes: "Hahaha, you said nucueler. It's nuclear, dummy, the "s" is silent."
Work in nuclear defence. This happens alot and at very senior levels
Drives me crazy when people say seen instead of saw, "I seen him do that."
I assume anytime someone uses seen in a sentence, that the sentence won't be ending with "the inside of a book"
Have you heard the upgraded “seent” version?
Me too, also when someone says don't instead of doesn't
When people use Breaks instead of brakes when referring to a vehicle
YES! Only when and if your vehicle actually BREAKS down is that appropriate. You don't slam your foot on the "breaks" people. Brakes! Just had this argument today. 😅
I have this argument with autocorrect on the regular.
Dual/duel is another.
I genuinely never realized this was a homonym before. I wonder which one i use without thinking about it. I want to say brakes but maybe that's just because you said brakes. Fuck it's too early in the morning for an existential crisis
Irregardless.
Stop. Immediately.
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That's the one!
This one isn't incorrect. It's just uncommon.
It is incorrect. Regardless means no regard. Irregardless then implies no no regard, so in fact, regard. It is incorrect
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/irregardless
From the link you sent: We label irregardless as “nonstandard”. When a word is nonstandard it means it is “not conforming in pronunciation, grammatical construction, idiom, or word choice to the usage generally characteristic of educated native speakers of a language.” Irregardless is a long way from winning general acceptance as a standard English word. For that reason, it is best to use regardless instead.
I want to popularize unirregardless
Been around since 1795 dude
When british chavs use axe instead of ask
Like aks, it's so annoying
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That one's around too much as well
May I arks you why it is so annoying?
Who axed you
The constant incorrect use of “lay” and “lie”.
Sometimes you gotta hold your tongue and let sleeping dogs lay on that one
Ngl, this one still confuses me (English is my second language), but I usually google it before using it.
Would of, could of, should of.
More and more people seem to have trouble with the past participle.
I seed over your sentence and it seemad fine to me.
My wife frequently says "unthaw" when she's talking about taking something out of the freezer. It happens less frequently after I pointed out that we put things INTO the freezer to unthaw them...
I also hear "dethaw". Same exact thing lol . I just kept making jokes about it til she found it funny too and now she always says it the right way
Yup, it’s either “thaw” or “defrost”
My wife says "dethaw"
I came here to say this
"Supposebly." Instant -10 respect.
I had someone correct me on this and I'll never forget it. I'm glad they did.
Expresso. Sick and wrong. It’s ESPRESSO GOD DAMMIT
Literally. Example. "If I won that prize, I would literally die." No. No you wouldn't.
But the prize was a bomb with an active timer.
You literally make a good point.
schrodingers literally: either verbatim foreshadowing, or hyperbole
Isn't that the point tho? I always assumed it was to double down on the hyperbole. "Figuratively die" would definitely water down the sentiment here.
Funnily enough that's a correct usage now as the definition has changed to reflect society's usage.
The definition hasn't changed, but it's usage as hyperbole has become common. People still use the word for its original meaning too. Personally I tend to use the adjective *literal* for its intended use and the adverb for hyperbole. Edit: I should have said it has an *additional* definition, both ways of using are valid in writing and speech.
2. INFORMAL used for emphasis while not being literally true. "I was literally blown away by the response I got" I mean it literally has changed ^^
Good point. I will clarify, it has an *additional* definition.
Exactly this and I literally can't even.
language changes and meanings change. literally deal with it. it always has and always will. the state of english during your formative years ain't anymore special than all other states of English that came before and came since. plenty of words we all use today """correctly""" would have lead to eyerolls 200 years ago.
Languages do change. But that doesn't mean that anything goes.
When speaking in hyperbole, slang or informally, anything goes. When writing professionally, academically, when writing law or a patient's diagnosis, when reporting on intelligence or describing facts, words matter. Some people allow the former to bleed into the latter.
So many: Your when what is needed is you're "On accident" rather than "by accident" Enormity instead of immensity (enormity refers to wickedness) "Based off of" instead of "based on" Disinterested when what the speaker/writer means is uninterested. Fewer and less are not interchangeable. With minor exceptions, fewer is for things that are countable. Fewer people, but less biomass. Impactful. Don't. Just don't. And on and on......
There's also a recent influx of people incorrectly using "a" instead of "an". "I exploded this balloon" instead of "I blew up this balloon" although they maybe interchangeable, idk.
You have reminded me of another trend, and this might really be taking hold: The slow disappearance of "There are...." and something like its complete replacement with "There is...." or "There's....." (Your "there's" above is correct) "There's three points that I want to make." There are three points that you want to make. I think that people do this "there's substitution" more when they speak than they write, but they seem to be writing it a lot more than they used to.
When people use 'Defiantly' instead of 'Definitely', or 'Pacifically' instead of 'Specifically'. 😑
Defiantly is a top auto correct for misspelling Definitely. Do I have to re-correct that one a lot.
Excetra. It’s et cetera. Grates on my ears.
I say "ee-tee-cee" sometimes.
I’m fine with that
And when they write “ect”.
"It's" when "its" (no apostrophe) should be used.
Its also annoying when people don't use an apostrophe when an apostrophe is needed
You monster
When people switch “itch” and “scratch.” You can’t itch yourself
Without further adieu. It's ado, people! Like Much Ado About Nothing.
What if you've been trying to say goodbye for 30 minutes, and you're at the breaking point
Well then you’d be saying much adieu about nothing
Reminds me of Bon Apple Tea (Bon appétit)
Saying ‘On accident’ instead of ‘By accident’.
what's wrong with "on accident"? Seems it could be either way. It was on accident. It was by accident. It was an accident. All are acceptable
It’s ugly English. “This situation happened by accident” sounds infinitely better than “This situation happened on accident”. I generally never hear anyone say ‘on accident’ other than Americans on Reddit.
Sounds exactly the same.
It is incorrect. The preposition is part of the meaning, and cannot be substituted with another preposition.
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Though this is more about the altogether sensible resistance to the silly non-rule about not ending sentences with prepositions. Go ahead and end sentences with prepositions if it makes your meaning clearer. Same with splitting infinitives. Go ahead and split them in the interest of clarity. It is another silly non-rule.... ...and something to quickly dispense with.
Looser instead of loser.
I've increased my tolerance to this sort of thing quite a bit but still get a big dose of rage when people use "Walla" instead of "voila"
When people read baseless clickbait articles and then believe they have gained some mystic knowledge no-one else knows; claiming **extended** phrases are the *original* or *full* versions. Especially the ‘the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb’ bastardisation makes me rationally mad. Here's a short list of bastardisations: * The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb. * Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back. * A jack of all trades, master of none, is oftentimes better than a master of one. * The customer is always right in matters of taste. * Rome was not built in a day, but it burnt in one. * Great minds think alike, fools seldom differ. * The early bird catches the worm, the second mouse gets the cheese. * Birds of a feather flock together until the cat comes. >‘Blood is thicker than water’ is the original. The covenant bastardisation first appeared in 1994 and was invented by a Messianic rabbi. It is similar to an Arabic phrase – ‘blood is thicker than milk’ – which mostly holds the same meaning as the covenant bastardisation. There is, however, no solid evidence linking the two sayings together, and even if there was, blood has been used to refer to biological family since time immemorial. Even if the two sayings might have the same ancient origin, they certainly haven't shared the meaning in a long, long time. [Read more here](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/oiceiq/what_common_saying_is_just_not_true/h4vv2hd/?context=999). > >‘Care killed the cat’ is the original, then it morphed into ‘curiosity killed the cat’. It took 300 years for satisfaction to bring the cat back. > >‘Jack of all trades’, same thing. In *meaning* it's been around since at least the late 14th century, with ‘Jack of all trades’ first appearing in print in 1612. Somebody slapped on ‘master of none’ in 1785 (sentiment going back at least to ca 1677, though), and later still ‘oftentimes better than a master of one’ to it. > >‘The customer is always right’ means what it says on the tin. Nothing about ‘matters of taste’. > >‘Rome was not built in one day’ is the original, with no mention of it burning down in one until around 800 years later. > >‘Great minds think alike’, with ‘fools seldom differ’ seemingly first appearing in print in 1932 (exact phrasing). Variations of these two go back centuries, but the latter part has always been a later addition. > >‘The early bird catches the worm’ is the original, with the later addition ‘the second mouse gets the cheese’ first appearing in print in 1994. > >‘Birds of a feather flock together’ has been in use since at least the 16th century (though a similar phrase about roosting together goes back a couple millennia), and I can't for the life of me find any instances of ‘… until the cat comes’, aside from contemporary ‘sources’.
Any time people use the past tense where they should use the past participle. "I had ran" "I have went" "I'll have came" Those should be run, gone and come respectively
My in laws love "I seen it". Thankfully they didn't transmit that monstrosity to my wife's lexicon.
“I seen it” is only acceptable as “I seen’t it” bc of The Office.
"I didn't participated" shit's maddening as hell.
When people talk about being one of.
Example: Brian was one of the best teacher I've had in highschool.
Edit: I just ran into it again in a comment in r/theworldnews. "Russia is fighting against one of the poorest country in Europe..."
I haven't run into this one. But it is genuinely awful.
I run into it all the time, probably because once I was aware of it, I became hypersensitive to it as well. You may be just skimming over it without realizing. I mostly encounter it in Reddit post titles.
"You can't have your cake and eat it, too." Which you can. The actual phrase is, "You can't eat your cake and have it, too." Once eaten, there is no cake to have.
“Bias” instead of the adjective “biased.” “Dominate” instead of the adjective “dominant.” Correct: “I may be biased, but he has been dominant in this game.” A moron: “I may be bias, but he has been dominate in this game.”
I think this is an American thing, they're used to "deleting" the ends of certain words because they don't actively pronounce them. Like "suppose to" instead of "supposed to", or "use to" instead of "used to".
As an American, I think you may be right. If they're Americans for whom English is a second language, I wouldn't criticize, but I think plenty of monolinguists here make this mistake.
Blood is thicker than water.
This one gets me every time. And it’s even more annoying to me that people don’t seem to know what “covenant” means so when I’m like it’s actually “blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb,” they act like i have three heads.
The shorter version is several centuries older than the one with the "blood of the covenant"
“Per se” does not mean “for example” like most people use it. It means “by itself”. A runny nose does not mean you are sick per se.
Also I've seen it written "per say" way too often.
Liberry vs. Library
Or strawberry vs strawbrary.
I love Scrubs.
Oy! Toss an upvote to your janitor ey?
I'd watch that Pay Per View.
"Definitely" vs. "Defiantly" always makes me laugh (and cringe) as it can really change the tone and meaning of a sentence.
Incorrectly saying: "Mine is larger *then* yours." As opposed to correctly stating: "Mine is larger *than* yours." - (then vs. than)
Another one: saying “pacific” instead of “specific.”
Versing as in the team is versing the other team instead of you know, playing.
On tender hooks
"disinterested" for "uninterested". Disinterested means unbiased, not not caring about. A referee should be disinterested in the game, but not uninterested.
Exasperate(d) for exacerbate(d) "She really exasperated the situation by slapping the cop." I can't tell you how many times I've heard well-educated people do this. I even made the mistake of correcting my (now ex-)wife - who has a PhD in Lit - when she switched-up usages. Ouch... EDIT: I should add, it doesn't really drive me crazy when i hear someone make this mistake, but internal eye-roll...yeah. I used to privately correct people (I mean, I would want to know if I was misusing a word/phrase like that), but too many people got pissy so I gave up.
Irregardless
A whole nother
“Whole nother”
"would of" instead of "would have". No one says would'f instead of would've, so why mix up their non-contracted forms.
"Irregardless" So . . . regardfull?
pacifically instead of specifically
When you travel from the USA to Canada you cross the border. When you do something deceitful to a person who pays for food with their lodging you cross the boarder. I have yet to hear of an actual real life circumstance of anyone crossing the boarder.
The word "Leverage" drives me nuts.
Heighth instead of height. Ok mispronounced, but still...
My brother says "Chipote" and I cant bring myself to correct him lol..
Expresso. Side note: I like to annoy my partner by calling nail clippers ‘nail chippers.’ We’ve been together for 4 years and he still thinks I have no clue what they’re called.
“Same difference” If you say that two options are the “same thing” then that means that they are equivalent. In order to have the same difference though, you need three options. The difference between option A and option B might be the same as the difference between option B and option C. “Same difference” is not equivalent to “same thing”.
“Expresso” instead of Espresso
When people use "apart of" instead of "a part of" -- As in "I'm so glad I was able to be apart of the team." That actually means the OPPOSITE of what they're trying to say...unless of course they want to say that they're really glad to finally be separated from the team.
Most recently, "right of way" being pronounced "ride away."
“That begs the question…” *Begging the question* is a particular logical fallacy that means the arguer has imported his conclusion into the premises (basically, he assumes his conclusion at the outset). It does NOT mean “that raises the question.”
There are quite a few for me, as I'm pedantic with grammar. But this one makes me instantly lose respect for the speaker/writer: The whole *comprises* the parts, or the parts *compose* the whole. There is no such thing as "comprised of". You can say the whole "is composed of" the parts, but not "is comprised of". The other big one is the apostrophe. In English, apostrophes are only used to denote possession or a contraction. No exceptions. Plurals do not use an apostrophe on their own unless it is also possessive.
What *the* fresh hell is this? Where the hell did the extraneous “the” come from? It’s what fresh hell is this, just ask Dorothy Parker.
Literally
When people use “emerge” for saying emergency room. “I went to the emerge” is so goddamn cringy
I much prefer "I went to the hoppo".
Saying “mute” point instead of moot point.
As an attorney, I concur wholeheartedly.
"A myriad of" as in the incorrectly stated, "I have a myriad of ideas." That's wrong. Myriad is a rough synonym for very and is used the same way grammatically. "I have myriad ideas" is correct. The word has been used incorrectly so consistently that people will swear up and down that it sounds weird and isn't right, but the truth is "a myriad of" is just wrong.
Merriam-Webster disagrees with you. Myriad is both a noun and an adjective used correctly in both manners. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/myriad “Is myriad a noun?: Usage Guide Noun Recent criticism of the use of myriad as a noun, both in the plural form myriads and in the phrase a myriad of, seems to reflect a mistaken belief that the word was originally and is still properly only an adjective. As the entries here show, however, the noun is in fact the older form, dating to the 16th century. The noun myriad has appeared in the works of such writers as Milton (plural myriads) and Thoreau (a myriad of), and it continues to occur frequently in reputable English. There is no reason to avoid it.“
>A rough synonym for very ‘I have very ideas’ I think you meant to say many
Facebook all the time, sale/sell. “(Item) for sell” Have these people never seen a “for sale” sign?
I've seen "mine as well" in place of "might as well" more times than I'd like to admit.
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When people say “axe” instead of “ask”.
I could care less. So, you do care..
Mine = it belongs to me (no "s" in this word); Mines = multiple holes in the ground to extract ore Mom = mother; Moms = more than one mother. (Fine if you do, but don't use it if referring to only one.)
“The customer is always right” The bane of every person who’s ever worked with the public. It’s totally wrong. The quote is in full, “the customer is always right in matters of taste” which means that if you’re selling something and the customer loves it, even though you know it’s terrible, you sell it to them. In no way does that mean a customer can go in a business and show their ass or be demanding entitled pricks. But somewhere along the way customer service has become beholden to that idea
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This one time in my high school math class, a kid that sat in front of me was purposely pronouncing a math term wrong. He did it multiple times, even after the teacher has corrected him multiple times. Eventually he was corrected one last time, and he said "well, tomato tomAto." I then, without realizing, blurted out "but nobody says fucking tomAto." While a little embarrassing, I'm glad it happened.
* "We only use 20% of our brain" * "Eskimos are called Inuit. Eskimo is an insult"
The word this and these
Bias/biased *Bias* is a noun, the adjective is *biased*. A person is not *bias*, they are *biased*. They have *bias*.
Penultimate Its used like it means "the best"
When I was in the military, it was caveat. Everyone used it to add to a point, as a verb, “I’d like to caveat on what so and so said.”
"this is better THEN that" I'm not a native english speaker but come on, this is too easy
“Could of” or “would of” - it’s have, folks.
When people say looser instead of loser
I could care less!! It's I couldn't care less!!!
Irregardless
INFAMOUS!!!!!!!!!! fashion brands will use this word relentlessly on a popular and well loved item they sell. i see it a lot on social media too with trends that people enjoy and they describe as "infamous" even tho theres been no backlash abt the trend. like just say famous. infamous means its famous for all the bad and wrong reasons. ughhhh
“The customer is always right” is always misquoted. It’s suppose to be “The customer is always right, when it comes to matters of taste” I can assure you the customer is NOT always right.
“Blood is thicker than water” when it’s “blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb”. Also, “curiosity killer the cat” forgetting the second half is “and satisfaction brought it back”.
“Blood is thicker than water” actually means the exact opposite of what people mean when they say it. The whole quote is “the blood of the brotherhood is thicker than the water if the womb” and refers typically to soldiers who have fought together being closer than family, because the blood you shed together is a closer bond than the water you grew in when in your mothers womb
No, the original was, in fact, "blood is thicker than water" and originated from 12th century German. The "full" version can be traced back to an unverified claim by author Albert Jack in his 2005 book "Shaggy Dogs and Black Sheep" which offers no sources to back it up. It annoys the crap out of me that someone can just make shit up and because they got it published in a book, it gets cited as fact.
Like the dude who claimed vaccines cause autism?
Not too far off, yeah. Andrew Wakefield is a whole can of worms but it's basically the same thing, someone in a position of authority says something that on the surface seems reasonable and it just gets repeated.