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.
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 am all for woulda, coulda, and shoulda.
Right, I get that, it’s just that that particular incorrect usage annoys me more than most.
“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 really can’t stand when someone says something happened, or they did something, “on accident”.
No. You do something on purpose or by accident.
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!
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.
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.”
my peeve is the chopped infinitive, like “it needs fixed” instead of “it needs to be fixed”
I’m guilty of this, and for some reason “the dishes need doing” in particular tickles my brain. That one doesn’t even make sense with an infinitive!
that one doesn’t bother me at all. “needs fixing”, “needs to be fixed”, same thing. but “needs fixed” can fuck right off.
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.
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 haven’t encountered that and it’s upsetting and dumb.
Misusing words like “setup” vs “set up”, or “login” vs “log in”. “Anytime” vs “any time” also steams my clams.
So I use both, depending on context. “Setup” is a noun, “set up” is a verb. “Login” is a noun, “log in” is a verb.
I’ve been sitting here trying to figure out different proper contexts for “anytime” vs “any time,” but honestly, I can decide one way or the other.
“Thanks” “anytime!”
“I wish you had done that any time other than right now.”
Were the first two that came to mind.
I saw “I literally could careless” and almost had a stroke.
I have a friend who writes ‘a bit’ as one word… '“I was feeling abit weird”. That really peeves me!
“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”
Or Friday next week for… You know… The next week’s Friday
On a Wednesday I would use “This Friday” or just “Friday” to describe 2 days away. Using “next” in the context you’re describing seems weird to me.
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?
You may be fewer irritated by this with age
I understood what you were saying! I am fewer irritated. I would personally use less, because it sounds better in this instance, but totally agree. Not sure how I’d put a number to my irritation though. I am not a robot, so my irritation isn’t exactly a quantifiable scale.
“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
dialects
French?
No, mostly British and some parts of New England.
mostly British
No, mostly not British. Only proper cockney geezer really.
Ya “an historic”, when the h is clearly pronounced, strikes the wonderful double blow of being both pretentious and wrong as far as I’m concerned. Looking at you, NPR. Go run up an hill, why donchya?
This might be due to the fact that I’m not a native speaker and I encountered this phrase at a later date, but people saying “it’s all but xyz” to mean “it’s xyz” really gets on my nerves. I get it, “it’s all but complete” means that virtually all the conditions are met for it to be complete, but I find it so annoying for some reason.
“The task is all but impossible” registers as ‘it’s not impossible, it’s everything else: possible’, so the fact that it means the opposite of that makes my brain twitch.
English intensifiers tend not to follow Boolean logic flows very well (think of double negatives). Instead, try to think of it as a little bit of extra data for your or the speaker’s benefit. “It’s all but impossible” does mean it’s possible, as you say, but there is more there. It means, “while this is possible, it’s so difficult or unlikely that we cannot count on normal levels of luck or effort to help us; you should reset your expectations accordingly.”
Your other example is similar. “It’s all but complete” tells you that the project or event is almost but notyet complete, but more than that. It means “This is very nearly complete. It is so close to complete, in fact, that the remaining time will be trivial. I suspect or know that you are eager for it to be complete, so unless doing so is all but impossible (😁), please try to be patient just a little bit longer.”
“All but” is a way to linguistically make a fine gradation in levels of “almost”.
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)
I work in IT and the one that kills me is when someone says or writes “On premise” when they mean “On premises”. I have worked for cloud companies and even the official literature is wrong. It has gotten to the point where so many people get it wrong that the official meaning is going to be changed because people are dumb and we can’t have nice things.
Words have meaning, stop fucking them up!
“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”
Because it’s a management phrase meant for discussions in directing a group that’s been co-opted by peers to make them sound more authoritative than their relative position actually is.
Had a co-worker say this to me the other day about something and I realized that I don’t like being spoken to as a subordinate by my peers.
Going forward is the worst of corporate-speak. I refuse to use this phrase.
The thing is is that it’s just a phrase to hold space while you collect your thoughts before you speak. You know you have something worth saying, but may not have organized it into a cohesive sentence/words just yet
The context in which it is used makes sense, but the extra “is” is just there. By all rights it should be ungrammatical, but people pretty frequently have that extra “is”, and I do find it absolutely bizarre how pervasive it is.
