It bugs me when people say “the thing is is that” (if you listen for it, you’ll start hearing it… or maybe that’s something that people only do in my area.) (“What the thing is is that…” is fine. But “the thing is is that…” bugs me.)
Also, “just because <blank> doesn’t mean <blank>.” That sentence structure invites one to take “just because <blank>” as a noun phrase which my brain really doesn’t want to do. Just doesn’t seem right. But that sentence structure is very common.
And I’m not saying there’s anything objectively wrong with either of these. Language is weird and complex and beautiful. It’s just fascinating that some commonly-used linguistic constructions just hit some people wrong sometimes.
Edit: I thought of another one. “As best as I can.” “The best I can” is fine, “as well as I can” is good, and “as best I can” is even fine. But “as best as” hurts.
“Would of”, “could of”, and “should of” infuriate me for some reason.
Because they’re wrong. And not in a “these kids and their new-fangled language” way, but in a “this is literally improper English” way.
Right, I get that, it’s just that that particular incorrect usage annoys me more than most.
Yet “would’ve”, “could’ve”, and “should’ve” are fine, if a touch informal, and sound literally identical in most dialects and accents. View it as your own personal window into how your conversation partner engages with language.
It’s not about sound. Would’ve is a contraction of “would have” not “would of.”
Would of is not a different way to interact with English because the meaning of “have” and “of” are completely different.
LOL, all I really meant is you get to learn that they don’t really engage with the language beyond translating sounds into letters. No real thought is given to why they say or write the things they do. It’s useful information.
I hate the confusion that “do you mind” questions cause.
“Do you mind if I turn off the light?”
What is meant in response: “No (I don’t mind)”
What’s said instead: “Yes”
I feel like two people never really know how the other will interpret it, so you almost always have to say something like “yes, go ahead” or “no, I don’t mind” (or “no, go ahead”). If they do respond just “yes” or “no”, I feel like I have to ask for clarification.
Also can we get the meaning of “semi-” and “bi-” figured out? I generally love the oddities of evolving language so long as we can all still be understood, but these two always require clarification.
Bi-annual: Every two years.
Semi-annual: Twice a yearMake it a law!
This is why we need to bring back yae and nay. We used to have two different yes and no words, one set was used in exactly this context. French still has it IIRC. I can’t remember which were which in English, I think yae and nay were for positive questions, and yes and no were for negative questions. Aha, quick Google shows that is right, neat.
Just say “go ahead” or “please don’t.”
What are your thoughts on the word “biennial”?
I allow it only as it pertains to plants, anyone using it for an event deserves prison.
“On accident”… That doesn’t even make sense. You do something “by accident”.
I mean, to me it doesn’t really make that much sense one way or the other. Genuine question, how is “by” being used here? What are other examples of it being used this way?
By chance or by design would be other examples. Your question prompted me to look into the origins of the phrase and it appears to come from Latin.
https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/pardon-the-expression/by-accident-vs-on-accident/
I hate the recent trend of using “onboarding”. It sounds clunky to me and as if you’re trying to sound all cool and up to date.
Is there a replacement that you’re fond of? We use it all the time at work - onboarding free users, onboarding paid users, onboarding employees.
“Going forward” bothers me so much and I have no idea why. It wasn’t used when I was younger, but that’s true for lots of things.
Also “cringe” is pretty annoying.
Going forward is the worst of corporate-speak. I refuse to use this phrase.
Using “basis” to mean “based on”.
“Basis our discussion, please go ahead and…” “We decided on a price point basis our market research.”
It makes me uncomfortable.
I’m not certain if this is what you were getting at, but these are mine:
An historical - It doesn’t follow the general way of using a or an with consonants and vowels. Nor does it change the meaning if I said a historical (event) instead an historical (event).
Fewer and less. I understand that there is a rule, but the rule is fucking dumb. If I say there are less people or if I say there are fewer people - the end result is the same that there isn’t as much as there was before.
Language is fluid. As long as we understand the meaning of what is being said then who cares?
“an historic” works if you’re not pronouncing the “h”, which is common in some dialects. A vs an isn’t about there being an actual vowel, it’s about the sound. The same happens with honor and herb (again, depending on pronunciation).
Yes and in American English the H sound in historic is always used with “a” unless I’m missing a bunch of examples somewhere. The H sound isn’t silent
I really hate R’s in the middle of familiar.
It’s not feR-mill-yer.
I hate when people use the transitive “going to be” to describe “is.”
“Hey, what’s your phone number?” “It’s going to be 911-551-0911.”
Her phone number is 911-551-0911 and has been such for a while now. Why does she feel the need to use a transitive verb structure to describe that it will change to that in the future?
I see people using this “it’s going to be” structure for ordering food (they are ordering food now, saying “spaghetti, please” is much less weird than saying “it’s going to be spaghetti”), as part of my job when someone is reporting current or past statistics, and events that aren’t coming up or aren’t scheduled, and are in the past.
Don’t dial that phone number to see if it works; you’ll get the fuzz.
“In terms of” when it relates to nothing in the discussion. It’s just a fluffy pile of nothing to either make you sound smarter, make your idea sound smarter, or fill in space like “um”.
“In terms of the design, we’re choosing blue.”
“As a ________, this is my opinion about a related topic to the field in which I’m in…”
It’s the Internet. No one needs your credentials. People lie about credentials all the time anyways. People cheat through college. It’s a humble brag, nothing more. Just give us your thoughts, not your resume.
I still don’t end sentences with a preposition. Even aloud.
I still don’t know what a preposition even is. What are they even for?
Lmao to make your life harder apparently
I hate it when people call the product of a company the name of the company; like “let’s go get some Taco Bell” instead of “let’s go get some tacos from Taco Bell” or “Let’s go eat at Taco Bell”.
That’s a curious one, can you explain why it bothers you? Or is it just one of those things?
Couldn’t explain it, really; I just want to grab the person and explain that Taco Bell (or whatever) is not an object you can get some of, and Taco Bell doesn’t sell Taco Bells in any amount, they sell tacos! (In the voice you would speak to a toddler in, of course)
“Next weekend” “Next Friday” etc. Wherein they use “Next” to mean “the one after” rather than “the soonest interval in which it will reoccur”
If it is Wednesday and you say “Next Friday” I will immediately think of two days from now, not 9 days. I also especially dislike it because if feels like on a whim that it’ll change. for some “next weekend” will be in 5 days if it’s Monday, or 10 days if it’s Wednesday! What the heck people??
I hate the ambiguity in that too. My usual goto instead is “the coming Friday”
Just because thing, [that] doesn’t mean other thing.
You can’t even prove that it’s grammatically incorrect!
But it sounds awful. And I can’t even come up with an alternative.
“Correlation is not causation” is the phrase I use in that situation.
