Language Peeves

What were they thinking? Why oh why did whoever, or is that whomever, was in charge of making the rules decide that a Y at the end of a word must be changed to an IE before adding an S to make the word plural? It's a stupid rule! Berrys is much easier and simpler than berrIEs. I think it must have started as a joke and we got stuck with it.
I think I'm going to revolt. I'm going to enjoy eating my strawberrys this spring and I don't care if spell checker does underline it.

Anyone else willing to join my revolt? Or does anyone have a language peeve to share?

 

It seems most people have never heard the use of does correctly. I hear people using do in place of does, the word is unknown to them. Was this not taught in school.

I find myself correcting people when they say it wrong and they look at me like I have lost my mind.

 

My Mom has always spoken beautifully and is far more aware of bad pronunciation than I am. But she's commented on this one error so often that I've become very aware of the number of people who mispronounce the word accept and say except instead. This even extends to some very well-spoken people on our local radio stations. Lately I've noticed that the same error keeps coming up in print as well.

 

Not necessarily a language peeve, but more a learning peeve. How many times when you were younger, did you ask a grown up how to spell a word and their response was, "Go look it up in the dictionary"? If I could look it up in the dictionary, that would mean I already knew how to spell it and I wouldn't have to look it up!!

Then I have to ask which idiot decided that we needed multiple ways to spell the same word, like - there, they're and their - piece, peace - whether, weather .... You get the idea. Or how about - I before E except after C or when it's like A in neighbor and weigh.

As to who or whomever - we always told my son when he was little and asked why we did things a certain way, "the old dead dudes decided".

 

From that, Mal, I have some kind of dictionary close by. Two, to, too is another one. My husband has a knack of using words the 'don't belong.' I challenge him all the time, and I grab my dictionary when he becomes stubborn about it.

 

I was once an Executive Chef at a yacht club in south east Florida.
One night I decided it was time to don a clean chef coat and go out to meet the club members while they were dining. I shook a few hands and patted a few backs and then I turned to an older couple who always did their level best to show how much they might be worth. They even changed the pronunciation of their last name from Rogers to Rojjjjeeiirrr or some such. If I could say what I really thought about it the good Lord might not look at me favorably. I do digress!

Mrs. Rojjjjeeeiiirr, to heck with it, ROGERS, asked me what we had special for dessert. I started the reply with, "I've got," at which time she stood up and shouted at me, and for all to hear, these words. I WAS A COLLEGE ENGLISH PROFFESSOR FOR 20 YEARS AND THE CONJUGATION OF THE VERB FORM "I HAVE" is I HAVE, YOU HAVE, AND HE, SHE, OR IT HAS!!!!!" "THERE IS NO SUCH THING IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AS I'VE GOT!!!!" After which the old bat sat down in a huff.

I must have had a small bit of of humor left in me, (what would you do?) because I too shouted, "MAY I TAKE IT THEN THAT HAVING THE CHERRIES JUBILEE IS NOT ON YOUR DIET LIST?"

To this day though, when I hear that one contraction and that one word combined, I've got, I still cringe.

 

I was listening to two young girls talking and one said to the other are you going to the show tonight? The other girl replied I will have to ax [ask] my mother. It made me wonder how long the mother has to live.

 

It's not just youngsters...my former boss, not far off the same age as me (so over 50!), always said 'asterix' rather than 'asterisk'. I found it very 'Gauling' (sorry).

 

I hate the "ax" one too! I hear it all the time. I had a boss who hated skinny girls and always referred to them as "anorectic." That drove me bonkers, but no matter how often I corrected him, he still said it!

 

My MIL who was one of the sweetest people who ever lived was a nurse. I still miss her. What always made me laugh was whenever a new illness came about, she would look at TV and declare that any personality that she did not like was suffering from this new disease and would most likely suffer forever!

 

Yesterday, I was rather appalled to see that the BBC are letting standards slip somewhat. During coverage of the World Snooker Championships (currently happening in the UK), they put up a message saying that "Stuart Bingham has beat Ronnie O'Sullivan." There was a time when the BBC was synonymous with good English. Evidently no more.

 

This is so so so much used in the language that it's was said that it should be added to the Webster's dictionary but I 'ain't' seen it yet.

 

Curious: I highlighted the dangers of using this dreaded word in another thread just the other day. My advice would be to avoid use of ;literally' altogether. The same goes for 'basically'. People seem to use this as a noise word. I used to work with somebody who used it all the time and used to say things like "Basically, I'm sitting at my desk." Aagh! You cannot sit at a desk basically. You are either sitting at it or you're not.

 

A peeve of mine would be 'you know.' Sometimes I don't know. Especially when it's use at the end of every sentence, you know.