Language fails that make you angry

[DaveC426913]

This might not exactly fit in with the others, but my pet peeve is when people say over-exaggerate. I've lost many arguments related to this before, as it has shown up in a dictionary or two. The redundancy kills me. It just gets me over-overwhelmed...

You should redouble your efforts to remain calm.

 

[DaveC426913]

If I've told you once I've told you a million times - don't hyperbolize!

(OK, not a real one.)

 

[dacruick]

You should redouble your efforts to remain calm.

How do you know I doubled them already? I think the only option for me is to play it by year.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Huh. Learn something new every day.

I didn't know this either. I was just checking to see if the "misuse" had finally become acceptable, as often happens. Turns out it actually preceded the "proper" use in acceptability.

 

[jtbell]

- I'm glad the word 'solution' has ceased being treated as a verb. For a few years (at least in business), people of been 'solutioning' problems.

I wish we could get rid of a few more noun-to-verb conversions, such as "to gift."

 

[zoobyshoe]

The one that really used to bug me is its vs. it's.

I write "it's" for both more often than any other living English speaker. The idea that a possessive must have an apostrophe + s seems to over ride all other considerations.

 

[dacruick]

I write "it's" for both more often than any other living English speaker. The idea that a possessive must have an apostrophe + s seems to over ride all other considerations.

Same here! Although, microsoft word has been training me over the past few years to remember so now I'm pretty good I think.

The one that I hate to mess up is their vs they're. It makes you look ultra stupid when you screw it up.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Same here! Although, microsoft word has been training me over the past few years to remember so now I'm pretty good I think.

The one that I hate to mess up is their vs they're. It makes you look ultra stupid when you screw it up.

I have their, there, and they're pretty well separated in my mind. "It's" is the one that I have to keep conscious track of. "It's" would be right for the possessive were it not for the existence of the contraction, which has to be kept separate. "Its" requires you to break a perfectly good rule in order to accommodate another situation.

 

[hotvette]

My current #1 annoyance is the repeated use of 'like'. It's almost as bad as 'you know'. Interesting that it's a verbal thing only, not written.

 

[vela]

"Its" requires you to break a perfectly good rule in order to accommodate another situation.

Not really. You don't say I's, you's, he's, she's, we's, or they's either. Possessive for pronouns never followed the apostrophe-s rule.

 

[Jimmy]

:)

Haven't enjoyed this, then?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KpmBI9AY2g&feature=related :)

I don't have a problem with that. I think most would agree that song lyrics are an exception to all them rules.

 

[FtlIsAwesome]

It is my understanding that the ongoing debate is whether or not English is actually a language.

Yep, it's actually a dialect of European.

 

[epenguin]

The post could also be "Langauge fails that make you mad" as in crazy?

How much is this site US, how much UK and how much other?

Many of these complaints must surely be particular to one side or another.

Because of the seeming US majority I found myself using in my very last post the expression "loused up" thinking to be better understood. On reflection I hope it's not too rude. I picked that up long long ago from Dean Martin's "Who loused up the house?" in the film "Some Came Running". In context that came across very funny to English.

A word that irritated me when first here was 'awesome!' Vivid and witty first time, then becomes a tiresome cliché that devalues a word. However I think it has worn off now and seems not to be heard so often.

 

[AlephZero]

Not really. You don't say I's, you's, he's, she's, we's, or they's either. Possessive for pronouns never followed the apostrophe-s rule.

Oh yes you do, in some parts of the UK, as abbreviations for "I am" "You are" etc. Not to menton future tenses like "I be'll going to London tomorrow" (I will be...)

The apostrophe s was originally an abbreviation for "his", i.e "John his book" (or more likely "John hys boke") became "John's book". But I don't think a book was ever described by saying "it his cover is red".

 

[AlephZero]

My biggest peeve is spelling not grammar. Specifically, US computer programmers writing spell checkers, who think British English words end in -ise not -ize. They should check the Oxford English Dictionary some time. The "-ize" spelling goes back hundreds of years in the UK, apart from a few exceptions.

 

[Dembadon]

I wish we could get rid of a few more noun-to-verb conversions, such as "to gift."

My signature!
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v

 

[zoobyshoe]

Not really. You don't say I's, you's, he's, she's, we's, or they's either. Possessive for pronouns never followed the apostrophe-s rule.

Because all the other pronouns have a distinct genitive form. "It" doesn't. "Its" is a fake genitive, adopted just to distinguish it from the contraction "it's".

 

[zoobyshoe]

My biggest peeve is spelling not grammar. Specifically, US computer programmers writing spell checkers, who think British English words end in -ise not -ize. They should check the Oxford English Dictionary some time. The "-ize" spelling goes back hundreds of years in the UK, apart from a few exceptions.

You ought to write a British English spell check program and sell it over there.

 

[zoobyshoe]

A word that irritated me when first here was 'awesome!' Vivid and witty first time, then becomes a tiresome cliché that devalues a word. However I think it has worn off now and seems not to be heard so often.

There's always a current word for what is meant by "awesome". When I was a kid it was "groovy". Any remotely positive reaction was rendered as "groovy". There have been a few others in the years in between. "Fly" and "phat" didn't have such long runs. I can't think of the others.

 

[turbo]

There have been others, but groovy was a good one.

 

[Ben Niehoff]

The apostrophe s was originally an abbreviation for "his", i.e "John his book" (or more likely "John hys boke") became "John's book". But I don't think a book was ever described by saying "it his cover is red".

This is a common myth, invented in the 17th or 18th century. It is completely false.

The -s ending for the genitive has been around for thousands of years, and has cognates in Germanic, Norse, Latin (Old Latin, as in pater familias), Sanskrit and Proto-Indo-European.

There is no good reason for the possessive case to have an apostrophe at all. Genitives in German add -s with no apostrophe, and there is no difficulty understanding the meaning. Perhaps in English we have become too uncomfortable with case endings, so we pretend we don't actually have them.

 

[lisab]

There's always a current word for what is meant by "awesome". When I was a kid it was "groovy". Any remotely positive reaction was rendered as "groovy". There have been a few others in the years in between. "Fly" and "phat" didn't have such long runs. I can't think of the others.

Bad. Sick. Trick. Wicked.

 

[turbo]

Boss and Cool had good runs in certain circles.

 

[DaveC426913]

Wicked.

Oh god. My kids were wicked this and wicked that for years...

 

[turbo]

Wicked had a long solid run in Maine, and is still current in some areas. "Wicked Good" is still really popular when describing food, music, or other intangibles when words fail.

 

[1MileCrash]

Every time my roommate says "supposably," I kill one of his siblings.

 

[Evo]

Good things were "cool" or "fine", as in "she's so fine", far out.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Bad. Sick. Trick. Wicked.

Boss and Cool had good runs in certain circles.

Good things were "cool" or "fine", as in "she's so fine", far out.

Yeah, these.

Growing up in NH, we used "wicked" more as a modifier meaning "extremely" : "It was wicked cool!", "That's a wicked fast car!" I still use it that way sometimes.

 

[Ben Niehoff]

Has "hella" spread beyond California yet?

 

[zoobyshoe]

Has "hella" spread beyond California yet?

Yeah, "hella". I didn't start hearing that till about 4 months ago. How far has it gone?

 

[epenguin]

There's always a current word for what is meant by "awesome". When I was a kid it was "groovy". Any remotely positive reaction was rendered as "groovy". There have been a few others in the years in between. "Fly" and "phat" didn't have such long runs. I can't think of the others.

There have been others, but groovy was a good one.

Bad. Sick. Trick. Wicked.

Boss and Cool had good runs in certain circles.

Good things were "cool" or "fine", as in "she's so fine", far out.

Now this all reminds me that in English English 'magic' had a run not long ago.
There is another recent one struggling to get out of the back of my mind, I will let you know when it escapes.
Which in turn reminds me that 'struggle' is another recent one - anything you doubt, disagree with etc, you 'struggle' to see.

 

[Chi Meson]

Bad. Sick. Trick. Wicked.

Wicked had a long solid run in Maine, and is still current in some areas. "Wicked Good" is still really popular when describing food, music, or other intangibles when words fail.

Yeah, these.

Growing up in NH, we used "wicked" more as a modifier meaning "extremely" : "It was wicked cool!", "That's a wicked fast car!" I still use it that way sometimes.

I was going to say, "Wicked," properly used is a New England, or more specifically, a Boston thing. It's a set part of the vernacular in the way Zooby describes it, not passing, but multigenerational.

Moving to another idiom, during the 80s, did anyone else experience the term "FACE!" of "FACIAL!" which was then the equivalent of today's "OWNED!" or even "PWNED!"

 

[Fredrik]

The one that really used to bug me is its vs. it's. Now I've become numb to it.

I think this is usually a typo. It is when I do it.

 

[Saladsamurai]

Yeah, "hella". I didn't start hearing that till about 4 months ago. How far has it gone?

I'm in Massachusetts and hear it a lot. I'd like to uppercut the person who sent "stoked" our way. I mean, seriously brah?

 

[turbo]

Hella-good is still around up here, but is fading. Wicked-good is still pretty strong.

Of course we still have dump-ducks (seagulls) and swamp-donkeys (moose) scattered through the vocabulary, but mostly in rural areas, or in the routines of comics that want to pretend to be rural Mainers.