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.
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!
Just say “go ahead” or “please don’t.”
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.
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.
“Also too” drives me up a wall.
One thing I try to avoid when I’m writing is when two words repeat. Kind of like your example “the thing is is that.” If I catch myself writing it, I try to rearrange the sentence.
Although a pretty extreme example tickles me: “The cookie he had had had had no effect on his appetite.”
Dutch has the same phenomenon, being so similar to English, but the standard way of writing it is by putting a comma after the noun phrase. So in your example, it’d change to “the cookie he had had, had had…” Typically practical solution that forfeits a charming oddity.
Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo.
James, while John had had “had”, had had “had had”. “Had had” had had a better effect on the teacher.
I hate this, thank you.
The over usage of “that” on news broadcasts.
“It’s that time of ___!” (Insert day, week, year, fall, spring, summer, etc)
There are many countless examples. It’s like nails on a chalkboard every time I hear it
In English, I hate both “from where” and the rarer “from whence”. I first found out about the words “whence”, “whither”, “thence” and “thither” (respectively meaning "from where, “towards where”, “from there” and “towards there”) while reading the Lord of the Rings in English. I found these were powerful words that could make many sentences shorter and clearer and that it was a shame they went out of popular use…
But then, I also heard “from whence”, which struck me as far worse because it was redundant and stripped the word of its power. I first thought it was a mistake, but after seing it several times I looked up how it was meant to be used to see if I wasn’t in the wrong and saw that while it had started as a mistake, it came into use several hundred years ago and was used by many famous classic authors, making it acceptable.
Imo, that’s probably what killed these words. I guess it had the merit of being less easily misheard, but when “from whence” and “from where” mean the exact same thing, why bother remembering “whence”?
In my native language, French, I kinda dislike “C’est quoi ?” (Litt. “It’s what ?”, pronounced [sekwa] meaning "What is it ?). It’s a vernacular expression often found incorrect… But I also kinda understand why it exists. The most correct way to ask “what is it” is “Qu’est-ce ?” ([kɛsə] or [kɛs]). It works well when written, but I guess being too short, it can be easily misheard. For example, “caisse” (a large box) is pronounced the exact same way. The other alternative, more common in oral speech is “Qu’est-ce que c’est ?” (litt. “What is it that it is ?”). It might seem too long, but it’s pronounced [kɛskəse], which has the same number of syllables as “What is it”. It is redundant tho, so I understand why “C’est quoi ?”, which doesn’t sound like anything else, rolls off the tongue and has two syllables is winning over, and will probably be the correct way in the future, but it still kinda sounds wrong to me.
“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.
It’s a lot harder to cheat through a career
Every single career is literally filled with under performing unqualified workers. The Peter Principle will always be around
Edit: i had to fire a licensed physician that wanted to attempt cranial sacral therapy on me a couple months ago. The odds people are incompetent is a lot higher than people think, even among professionals.
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!
“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.”
The most grating to me right now has to be the comma splice (run-on sentence). For example: “Every one of our talented art students will have artwork represented in the show, it is always an impressive event.”
I see it everywhere lately! Even in official business/marketing emails. Someone got a college degree and got hired to write that email ffs. Use a damn period or semicolon.
ITT: people who understood the question and people who hate certain pronounciations for no reason.
One that bugs me a lot that I noticed just in the last 5 years or so is over pronouncing the T in words like celebrity and community - yes it’s spelled with a T but it’s not fully voiced like you’re saying the word Tea. I noticed it first on YouTube and now in some audiobooks and even the occasional coworker.
Don’t you mean youdube?
Generally these weird roundabout constructions used in English (not my native language). Like “I’m going forward to do X”. There’s always a bit of padding in language, but English seems to be very “paddy”.
Oh, and very non-descriptive words for very specific things. Like washer. What is a washer? It doesn’t do any washing. In German, we call these things Unterlegscheibe. A disk (Scheibe) to put (legen) under (unter) something. Says exactly what it’s doing.
So the first thing is definitely pulled from corporatespeak, so you sound very professional like you know what you’re doing.
As for a washer specifically, there isn’t really a known etymological origin, that’s just what they’ve been called since the 1300s. The thing about English is that it’s like 5 languages stack on top of each other and eating parts of other languages for sustenance.
I really hate R’s in the middle of familiar.
It’s not feR-mill-yer.
A lot of people pronounce Chicago with an R.
…How? Where does the r go?
I’ve heard it pronounced “Cha car go”. I have no idea why some say it this way.
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.
“Anyways”. Don’t fucking add the s to the end, it adds literally nothing but costs you more effort. Say or type “anyway”.
I think this is just a vestige of the original form “anywise” still popping up, so at least I can understand this one.
