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Grammar Gripes and Other Psycholinguistic Squawkings

Discussion in 'General Discussions' started by Baraka_Guru, Aug 6, 2011.

  1. Baraka_Guru

    Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

    Location:
    Toronto
    Air everything. Vent your frustration.

    Let us know about those language infractions that annoy you the most.


    * * * * *


    I'll start:

    Stating how very unique something is, is like stating how very single a unicycle's wheel is.

    It's beside the point, not besides it.
     
  2. ManPaste

    ManPaste New Member

    Incorrect: "I could care less."
    Correct: "I couldn't care less."

    Incorrect (in most contexts): "I forget."
    Correct: "I forgot."
     
  3. Fremen

    Fremen Allright, who stole my mustache?

    Location:
    E. Texas
    Saying "then" when "than" is supposed to be used.
    Walmarts when talking about a single store.
     
  4. Japchae

    Japchae Very Tilted

    Oh do NOT get me started.
    Today's irritation was the arbitrary apostrophe convention.
    Crimony fuck, plurals don't necessarily own anything and apostrophes are not pretty little decorations!
     
  5. Liquor Dealer

    Liquor Dealer Vertical

    Location:
    Southwest Kansas
    I'm old - and I realize that texting has changed what is acceptable when writing, but it really chaps my ass when people don't capitalize words that should be capitalized and don't use any punctuation.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  6. MeltedMetalGlob

    MeltedMetalGlob Resident Loser Donor

    Location:
    Who cares, really?
    Here's a few of my faves: It's "should have", NOT "should of". Also, it's spelled "retarded", NOT "retarted". As in, you should have used your spell checker, you retarded mouthbreather.
     
  7. Baraka_Guru

    Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

    Location:
    Toronto
    The bar across the street pays good money to have an entire exterior wall painted with murals that use arbitrary apostrophes. They've done this at least twice.

    Once was "Come in for Martini Monday's" while the new one says something like "Moosehead Friday's" or something. If it's a commercial message, there is no excuse, whether it's a mural or other forms of advertising. I keep joking with the SO that some night I'm going to climb up the wall with some red paint to edit in a correction.

    I don't understood this error. It doesn't make sense. Do people have the urge to add an apostrophe to plural forms like beaches? How would that look? Beach'es? Beache's?


    In writing, yes. However, in speaking, the contraction should've might simply sound like they're saying "should of."
     
  8. Ourcrazymodern?

    Ourcrazymodern? still, wondering

    If I said something,
    & you misunderstood it,
    who thinks it's nothing?
     
  9. Plan9

    Plan9 Rock 'n Roll

    Location:
    Earth
    Would this be the Newspeak rage receptacle?

    If so, somebody please tell my college-educated male friends to stop texting me with tween girl shorthand.

    I totally can't decipher that shit and I'm knowledgeable of a wide range of acronyms, military and legal.
     
  10. I strongly dislike 'Oi know 'ees the baybees farver - Oi am 150% positif'. Its a hundred bloody percent! Its as high as you can bloody well go you morons! Feckin eejits as father Jack might say (Craggy Island parish) - and the supposedly slightly educated interviewers will encourage them to go higher - is it possible it could be 160% they ask - 'well I dunno, 'spose it cawld be'.
     
  11. Japchae

    Japchae Very Tilted

    As I said on the other-book place this week, the "mute" point makes my jaw hurt.
    Seriously, I wanted to punch this smart person who used "mute". And then she said "pacifically" and I stopped listening.
    People have been getting pissed off at me for deleting their comments on other-book-place because they use a # mark and stick jumbled together words after it. I don't tolerate twit-speak no matter where it is. I also do not respond to text messages (except from my favorite Irish-woman, who has her own language when typing) when people text me with text-speak at work.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  12. EventHorizon

    EventHorizon assuredly the cause of the angry Economy..

    Location:
    FREEDOM!
    the ones that make my eyes twitch a little with frustration are the "their, there, and they're", using "foot" instead of "feet" ("that building is about 30 foot tall"), my gears sometimes got especially ground when people used "i.e." incorrectly but then i forgot what it mean so i stopped caring. However, the #1 granddaddy of them all is when people verbally communicate in internet speak: "omg" "i lol'd so hard" "gtfo" "stfu" "derp" but maybe what i hate about those words isn't the fact that they're retarded to hear come from someone's mouth, but rather that i hate the blossoming internet culture and how its leaking into the real world. maybe we really are headed towards a world like Neuromancer
     
  13. Spiritsoar

    Spiritsoar Slightly Tilted

    Location:
    New York
    I hate exclamation marks. I think they are often overused in personal correspondence, and I enrages me when people use more than one at a time.
     
    • Like Like x 1
  14. EventHorizon

    EventHorizon assuredly the cause of the angry Economy..

    Location:
    FREEDOM!
    oh-em-gee, people that do that should of realized how retarted that looks!!! i guess its a mute point neways since tomorrow is margarita monday's at the {local bar here}
     
  15. Baraka_Guru

    Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

    Location:
    Toronto
    It's bad enough they're overused, but there is never any reason to use more than one at a time. People will use multiple punctuation for emphasis, but it's just annoying.

    • OMG!!!!
    • WTF?????

    What's the point. If you want particular emphasis, there are other ways.

    • OMG!
    • WTF?!

    I understand why people do it, but it's just annoying. Just like this overuse can be annoying:

    • So, I just wanted to say hi.... Oh, and I'm coming to the party..... It's going to be fun!!! Don't worry, I'll pick you up... We should go grab a bite to eat first, tho....

    I should start new trends such as abusing the comma to suggest a particular emphasis implying a prolonged pause:

    • I could kill you right now,,,,, but I won't....

    Even the semi-colon could be used for this:

    • He could have killed him;;; he didn't.

    Or quotation marks to really punch up that dialogue:

    • """Good day to you, sir!""" he really, really said.

    Okay, I'm done.

    /asshole
     
    • Like Like x 3
  16. uncle phil

    uncle phil Moderator Emeritus (and sorely missed) Staff Member Donor

    Location:
    pasco county
    there, their, they're - there IS a fucking difference...

    there ARE many things in the world i don't understand, not THERE'S many...

    makes me fucking crazy, like the dumbing of america...

    (yes, i can be a grammar nazi...:))

    edit ; then there's the verbal use of 'supposably' rather than supposedly - lazy people...
     
  17. PonyPotato

    PonyPotato Very Tilted

    Location:
    Columbus, OH
    The "your" vs. "you're" mistake drives me absolutely bonkers. It's the most common mistake I see.

    One of my professors (for an online course) has numerous mistakes in the "there/their/they're" vein in his lectures and on our class website. If you have a Ph.D., you really should know the difference by now.
     
  18. Zen

    Zen Very Tilted

    Location:
    London
    IMDB reviewers have increasingly been saying "It does not disappoint"

    Well, it does not impress.
     
  19. MeltedMetalGlob

    MeltedMetalGlob Resident Loser Donor

    Location:
    Who cares, really?
  20. Baraka_Guru

    Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

    Location:
    Toronto
    Depending on the context/circumstance, I'm okay with this. Keep in mind that it wasn't until after the Medieval period (or was it the Elizabethan?) that double negatives were considered poor form instead of their being great for emphasis (i.e. too* two negatives = more negative).

    It's a rhetorical device to turn things on a negative when you could just use a positive equivalent, as it toys with what it could have been. Though in your example, it probably is too rampant and therefore an abuse.

    Would it be too Medieval for me to say that Captain America "doesn't never" disappoint?



    * Thanks, 9er.
     
    Last edited: Dec 19, 2013