Words that people commonly use incorrectly ...

andypoole · Feb 6, 2008

You've obviously not been here for a while Alan!

AwayWeGo · Feb 6, 2008

Hail Brittania !

andypoole said:
You've obviously not been here for a while Alan!

Not since 1992, as tourists to Edinburgh & Loch Lomond & Loch Ness & Ben Nevis -- stayed with a USA friend on overseas work assignment who since then has completely Gone Native (bought real estate, married an Englishwoman, joined a lodge, drives on the left, the whole 9 yards).

In 1992, however, everybody spoke The Queen's English -- though mostly with a tangy brogue up where we were visiting.

Here's how naive I am. As a Yank grandson of an English grandmother & Scottish grandfather, I thought maybe I would be welcomed warmly by just about everybody I met who would recognize me as a returning colonial on homecoming after far too long away from the Mother Country.

In reality, of course, I was just another tourist, & a foreigner at that -- had an outstanding time anyway.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.

andypoole · Feb 7, 2008

AwayWeGo said:
Not since 1992, as tourists to Edinburgh & Loch Lomond & Loch Ness & Ben Nevis -- stayed with a USA friend on overseas work assignment who since then has completely Gone Native (bought real estate, married an Englishwoman, joined a lodge, drives on the left, the whole 9 yards).

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.

Driving on the right is not an option!

Alan - You chose some good areas to visit and even though it pains me as an Englishman to say this, the Scots generally speak better English than the English!

fnover · Feb 7, 2008

How about "true fact", if it's a fact then it is by definition true.

andypoole · Feb 8, 2008

Don't get me started on tautologies!!

'6am in the morning' Aaaaaaagggghhhhh!!!!!!

barndweller · Feb 8, 2008

"Where is it AT?" Arrgh! Drop the AT, people.

Utilize What's wrong with use? Why must everything be utilized? I am unsure regarding the correct usage of those two words.

cissy · Feb 8, 2008

Which is it?

I was taught that one doesn't feel good, but most people say that one doesn't feel well. Shouldn't an intransitive verb be modified by an adjective? Unless, of course, speaking about one's sense of touch.

Aussiedog · Feb 8, 2008

A Southern Contribution to the Thread...

VERY southern ----

Instead of saying "I can ....." it is common to hear even the most educated in our community say "I might could.....". If you visit our fair town you will also hear "might should".

Drives me crazy.

I also spend a lot of time with our state-level elected officials, and I am always taken aback when I hear them refer to our fiscal year as our "physical" year.

Ann

AwayWeGo · Feb 8, 2008

The Ways Of The Grey Old Bureaucracy.

Aussiedog said:
I am always taken aback when I hear them refer to our fiscal year as our "physical" year.

I'm pretty sure that's the way they say it over at The Pentagon.

Of course, they have other curious bureaucratic practices over there, too. For instance, they are required to make 2 Xerox copies of any document they throw away.

One guy's job over there was reviewing certain official documents, after which he would initial a copy of each, then put'm all in the out basket.

One day he received an official memorandum signed by the Assistant Administrative Assistant To The Deputy Assistant Secretary For Administration, to wit: "You were not authorized to review this document. Your are to erase your initials from the top copy, then initial the erasure."

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.

AwayWeGo · Feb 8, 2008

Yesterday I Couldn't Even Spell Grammarian & Now I Are One.

cissy said:
I was taught that one doesn't feel good, but most people say that one doesn't feel well.

Ike : My dog doesn't have any nose.

Mike : Really? How does he smell?

Ike : Terrible !

Shouldn't an intransitive verb be modified by an adjective?

I love it when you talk technical.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.

T_R_Oglodyte · Feb 10, 2008

artic vs. arctic

barndweller · Feb 10, 2008

Steve, You are getting nit picky.

That's like the jewlery/jewelry thing. My dear friend always says pitcher when she means picture. I cringe in my mind but would never correct her. The "where is it at" thing really makes me cringe, though. I actually physically shudder. I'm petty like that.

AwayWeGo · Feb 10, 2008

The Altogether.

Naked - Nekkid.

Naked means they don't have any clothes on.

Nekkid means they don't have any clothes on & they're up to something.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Buck Naked - Butt Naked.

I think the phrase originated as buck naked even though these days it increasingly comes across as butt naked -- not that there's anything wrong with that.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.

barndweller · Feb 10, 2008

Buck Naked

Where & how did that originate? There's a website I used to have in my bookmarks that gives word origins. Anyone know the one I'm thinking of?
... errr ...the one of which I am thinking?

andypoole · Feb 11, 2008

Another little irritation is when people pronounce the word 'aitch' with an 'h' - 'haitch'. Does that happen in the US?

AwayWeGo · Feb 11, 2008

Sorry.

barndweller said:
Where & how did that originate?

I don't do research.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.

MULTIZ321 · Feb 11, 2008

Are you thinking of http://www.etymonline.com/ ?

Richard

barndweller · Feb 11, 2008

Thanks, Richard, that's not the one but it is good. This is the one I used to refer to but it seems to be inactive now.http://www.takeourword.com/index.html

Wordsmith dot com is good, too.

There seems to varied speculation on the origin of buck naked.

AwayWeGo · Feb 11, 2008

No Speculation Needed . . .

barndweller said:
There seems to varied speculation on the origin of buck naked.

. . . however, to figure out the origin of butt naked.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.

T_R_Oglodyte · Feb 11, 2008

barndweller said:
Steve, You are getting nit picky. That's like the jewlery/jewelry thing. My dear friend always says pitcher when she means picture. I cringe in my mind but would never correct her. The "where is it at" thing really makes me cringe, though. I actually physically shudder. I'm petty like that.

"artic" is not a word. It's like saying "Febuary" or "nukular".

"Roger" · Feb 11, 2008

T_R_Oglodyte said:
"artic" is not a word...

Ahhh.... the version of the Oxford dictionary on my PDA (it is actually amazingly complete) lists "artic" as "Brit. informal an articulated truck."

So maybe you are just misunderstanding people when the talk about the frigid artic. Apparently, there are a lot of ice cream trucks crusing around on the M roads in Britain.

T_R_Oglodyte · Feb 11, 2008

"Roger" said:
Ahhh.... the version of the Oxford dictionary on my PDA (it is actually amazingly complete) lists "artic" as "Brit. informal an articulated truck."

So maybe you are just misunderstanding people when the talk about the frigid artic. Apparently, there are a lot of ice cream trucks crusing around on the M roads in Britain.

I'm thinking about the ones that are driven by the little critters that build nests in the sand - the antartics.

fnover · Feb 12, 2008

Living in Greenville NC I learned to "cut" off or on the lights or anything with a switch and "burn" my headlights.
Also to be polite I had to "ho de do"

AwayWeGo · Feb 14, 2008

You Say Tomahto. I Say Tomayto. Let's Call The Whole Thing Off.

When my father transplanted the family from Indianapolis to the Virginia suburbs of Washington DC in 1949, some regional pronunciations in our new neighborhood sounded distinctive to us because they were different from what we were accustomed to hearing in our old neighborhood.

To us, route sounded like rowt, so that's how we said it. Around here, folks said root -- rhymes with boot, not foot. (Back in Indianapolis, the way some folks say root does rhyme with foot. So it goes.)

When Virginia people asked where we were from & we said Indianapolis, most of'm thought we meant Annapolis, just 40 miles or so east of here on Rooote 50. I'm not sure anybody around here had heard of Indianapolis in 1949.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.

T_R_Oglodyte · Feb 20, 2008

One of my pet peeves is when an action verb is needlessly changed to a noun. I thought of that this morning when I reading an AP news story saying that the basketball coach at the University of Indiana may have "committed violations of rules".

Arghhh. He may have "violated rules". Miss Larson and Miss Bergtold, my English comp teachers in high school, used AP news stories classroom examples. They would be most dismayed at how sloppy the editing at AP has become over the years.

If you can say the same thing with fewer words, that's almost always the best way to write. And one of the way to tighten up writing is to look for those little gremlin verbs masquerading as nouns - traipsing through your clauses like cross-dressers in a Mardi Gras parade.

Words that people commonly use incorrectly ...

andypoole

AwayWeGo

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andypoole

fnover

andypoole

barndweller

cissy

Aussiedog

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T_R_Oglodyte

barndweller

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andypoole

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MULTIZ321

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"Roger"

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