This may have been done before - if so, apologies - but I'm bored, so I'm going to do it again. I've noticed that there have been several language-related comments recently, so I simply thought we could put them all together in one place.

The two intentions of this thread are that it should be a "safe haven" to post those little (or large) grammar and spelling niggles that really bug you, and it can also be somewhere you can come to ask advice about rules of which you are unsure (never end a sentence with a preposition).

I hope Cyrilla won't mind me mentioning that "here, here" (rather than "hear, hear") and "definate" (rather than "definite") are two of her pet peeves, plus someone mentioned "should of". I'm going to add "alot" and the wrong use of practice / practise. Oh, and confusion between "I", "me" and "myself".

One I'm less sure of is the precise usage of who / that / which, so if anyone has any handy hints for that one it would be appreciated.

hee-hee
*rubs hands in glee*

One of my pet peeves (yes, I have emailed on same) is the sloppy use of the word 'unique'.

No, radio 3 presenter, it does not make sense to say 'very unique'.

That's the spirit!

I'm glad you mentioned definate/definite - that's one of the words my phone corrects me on - wrongly..is one American or do they both exist?
Practice - noun, practise - verb?
The 'it's' from the other thread - I know it means 'it is', but how about when something is belonging to 'it'? is there an apostrophe then?

My husband has a pet hate - the over use of the word prodigy - whether attached with child, or on its (apostrophe or not??) own. What makes someone a prodigy rather than a brilliant soloist, amazing musician, or whatever?

Definitely is related to "definitive". I don't think "definately" exists in any context.

Yes, you're right about practice / practise.

If something belongs to it, use "its" - no apostrophe.

Prodigy is simply from "prodigious" (meaning, basically, "a lot of") but is used (connotatively, rather than definitively, I think) for children showing a prodigious talent.

Yay - permission to be pedantic!

Maybe we can also add tips that help us remember things!

I remember my physics teacher writing on my work that sepArate has A RAT in it - and she drew a picture of a rat next to it! I've never spelt (er spelled) it wrong since!

Also stationEry has an E in it for Envelopes when referring to paper products.

complEmentary has an E if it complEtes the things it refers to, rather than complImentary which could refer to me saying how lovely you all are.
If something belongs to "it" it is (it's) "its" - I think it is the only excpetion to the possessive rule regarding apostrophes. I could be wrong though.
Yes, practice is noun and practise is verb - I remember that by comparing with advice and advise.
My own pet hate at the moment is the overuse of the word iconic - to the point where it has become completely meaningless! grrr

So is it spelled or spelt? I am now completely unsure!

Thanks - they're all useful tips.

As far as I'm aware you can use both "spelled" and "spelt", just like "spoiled" and "spoilt" and several others.

Incidentally (sp?) they are considering changing the spelling of definite to definate, as it is spelt wrong on such an enormous scale they say it may warrant changing!

I also hate the word 'tasty' I know it isn't really an issue here, just thought I would share

I get annoyed when people say less instead of fewer, or vice versa. Also, incorrect use of the term "literally" drives me crazy (metaphorically). I get so annoyed by people saying things like 'she is literally driving me up the wall!'.

'They're', 'there' and 'their' are all different words with distinct meanings. Likewise 'your' and 'you're'.

Can anyone explain to me why something cannot be "so fun" though? Since Miranda started I've been saying "such fun" anyway, but I don't really understand why it's necessary...

Burned and burnt, too.
In US English, they will only use the -ed version. Spelt, to them, is a grain

The way to remember how to spell permanent is that it has a man in it. My mother taught me this, along with the concept of irony.

I hate it when nouns are converted into verbs. This often happens in corporate jargon. The worst example I have come across is "end-of-lifed". eg. "That version of software has been end-of-lifed".

NNNGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH

So true.


That's truly hideous. "Diarise" is another ghastly one.

I also hate "upcoming". We have a perfectly good word with exactly the same meaning: "forthcoming". Use it!

I actually love that. It's one of my favourite things to do with language. I'll be aware of it in future.

"I say to you"..
"At the end of the day"...
"Step up to the plate"...

AAAAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHH

It's different when it's in an informal setting like this, sorry, I should have said (after all i did use the word "woundupness" in another thread ). What I can't stand about my example is that it is done to make it sound more official or important. It doesn't.

Maizie - LOL - brilliant. Thanks for the laugh.

Oh yes, less and fewer. That is definitely one for the list.

And people who say Feb-you-erry. We'll hear a few of those over the next few weeks, no doubt.

(ed) I think I might be with Lucky045 on the noun-verb thing - maybe comes in the category of creative use of language.

Because fun is a noun. I can't think of any noun you can use with so. (Waits for all the examples of so + noun ). You can use so funny because it's an adjective.

Also, why are things now described as "on trend"? Is the word fashionable...um....off trend?

Sickth.

Yes - Maizie - wonderful !!

Ah - I also hate 'seck-er-terry'...

I never get the apostrophe wrong in its/it's because, in my mind's eye, I can see my old English teacher's Red Pen across the top of my work...'it's = it is'...

*enjoys thread*

My primary school teachers taught me how to spell February by repeating "it's not the way it sounds! It has an extra R in there that you don't pronounce!"

It's only lately that I've realised you're actually SUPPOSED to pronounce it Feb-roo-erry, and I'm completely mortified about it!

saying garrige instead of garage.

We use aesir's 'tasty' as a name-noun. It's a particular meal we occasionally have when one of us has had a bad day or we just can't think of anything else to cook. So the kids will say "can we have Tasty for dinner please?"

Isn't this just the British rather than American pronunciation?

One which annoys me is confusion between "dependant" (noun) and "dependent" (adjective). My "dependent" child is my "dependant" - not vice versa!! The way to remember it is that if you could say "a dependant", with nothing more, then it's dependant.

I also can't bear the way speech (especially children's / teenagers' speech) is punctuated with meaningless uses of the word "like". "I was, like, getting my bag, and this boy said to me, like, ... " AAAAARGHHH!

Beyond that, it's punctuation errors which irritate me the most. In particular, commas in the place of colons, semi-colons or full-stops; and the truly horrible grocer's apostrophe.

But the plural of potato is, like, potato's, innit?

"Less" and "fewer" - I shout at the radio when I hear these two wrongly used.

"Sickth" - I hate this too

One I've noticed recently is the pronunciation of "nuclear". I say "new-clear" but I've heard a lot of people pronounce it "new-colour" (that's the nearest I can get to how I've heard it.)

Nu-cue-lar is sufficinetly common as a US pronunciation that it makes it in to dictionaries (usually as a 'colloquial' alternative pronunciation).

They're 'nukes', you see, so obviously the full work is nuke-ular

That one was a Bushism, wasn't it?

'Driveway' instead of 'drive' and 'park up' instead of 'park', and all the other similar horrible American elongated words.

'Regularly' and 'frequently' - I'm forever getting those two wrong and it really annoys Mr Willobie...

W

Possibly, but I hear it in England with an English accent all the time.
How about Marlybone instead of Marylebone? Is this mis-pronounced or a local colloquialism?

By the way, what's a grocer's apostrophe?

Garridge is the British way of pronouncing it. Gar-ah-ge is American. But when I hear Gar-ah-ge in an English accent I think of Hyacinth Bucket.

A grocer's apostrophe is a misplaced apostrophe. Usually a ridiculously placed one, as in "potatoe's".

I think you'll find that England is in Britain!

I think Marlybone is the local pronunciation.

A greengrocer's apostrophe is something like "banana's", i.e. an unnecessarily apostrophied (is that a word??) plural.

'They'? Who are 'They'?

Nope. He used that pronunciation and brought it to a wider audience, but it has been around a lot longer than that. I had an audio book in the mid-1990s which through referred to the "Teller Noo-cue-lar Research Facility"...

Yeah it goes way back to the era (pronounced "air-a") of aluminum and labrortory.

Sorry, read your original answer the wrong way round

Well who'd have thought...

'I'll facebook you' gets used rather a lot up here, and that's probably the same thing!

Ah, yes, I'm always seeing 'inbox me' on facebook...

Ewwww.

That's a bit different, I think, because Facebook hasn't been around for that long. Likewise "to google" or "to skype" or "to SMS".

Oh well maybe I am just an old stick-in-the-mud who would rather nothing ever changed

That's my instinctive response to the whole concept of facebook, let alone the idea of using it as a verb.

Two more to add:

Confusion between "lose" (verb) and "loose" (adjective);

Confusion between "who's" (contraction of "who is") and "whose" (possessive - equivalent to "its").

Firstly:
There's no such thing as a noun that can't be verbed or a verb that can't be nouned!

Second:

In context any of these are OK, it's just that they are used out of context and ad nauseam to become cliches. The "step up to the plate" is an American idiom derived from baseball, where the next hitter to come between the pitcher and the backstop steps up to the plate to hit.

Third:

You have to remember that for quite a long time now American and English have been different languages, albeit only slightly. Both are living languages and drift all the time. I don't see this as a problem.


Finally, my own contribution to the debate: Summary/Summery. I sometimes work in a place where there are summaries of notes. Someone who works there continually writes the word "Summery" on notes which still need summarising. I have pointed out that this means that they are sunny, warm, and only applicable between June and August, as opposed to "Summary" which in this case means that they need a summary, but it falls on deaf (ignorant and extremely irritating) ears.

An example of the American pronunciation gradually taking over from the English one?

Talking of Marylebone and Marlybone, I live not far from a street called Magdalen Avenue. I referred to it as "Maudlin", after the Oxford College and got some very funny looks as most people pronounce it as it's written - does anyone else pronounce it as "Maudlin"?

Oh dear, I'm sure we'll all become self-concious now when we're writing In fairness, I think that a lot of the errors which creap into messages here come from writing in a hurry, rather than a lack of knowledge

One of my pet hates is the missuse of 'can' and 'may' - 'can' as in being able to do something, and 'may' as in having permission to do something... e.g. 'can I sit down?' - well, you're quite able to sit down; what you really mean is 'may I sit down' - i.e. do I have your permission to sit down...

But, as I say, it's only a pet hate, and most people don't give two hoots these days!

Marylebone is another pet hate - I have always called it (and will continue to pronounce it) 'marry-le-bn' rather than 'marlybone' or 'marrylebone' (gosh...it's difficult to try and write what you say!)

I think this comes under the category of grammar usage which, while strictly correct, sounds rather fussy and / or antiquated these days, particularly in spoken English. It's a bit like using the subjunctive.

Seconded. And that irritating txt abbreviation "lol". Strange how people who use that excessively seem bewildered when I ask them what the joke is.

I do hate it when "lol" is used as if it forms a grammatically-functional part of the sentence lol.

Almost as bad as the excessive and superfluous (tautology?) use of "like" is, "and she turned round and said... and he turned round and said... and then she turned round and said...". That one's enough to make you dizzy.