'The word pedants' top 10 | It's specific, not Pacific...' blog discussion.

dan2097

jackieblack wrote: »

On the subject of supermarket signs ......

"10 items or less" :mad:

The choice to favour "10 items or fewer" over "10 items or less" is arbitrary. "Less" historically and in contemporary use can be applied to countable nouns.

lizdg

you've already covered most of my pet hates but not the use of 'been' when it should be 'being' e.g. were you been nice to your little sister?, we are all been asked to contribute... etc. I see it in emails at work all the time and I'm supposed to work with educated people - even senior executives have used it at times.

lex

One that gets me is when people are talking about the receiving of a gift..

"I got a book off my mum"

rather than

"I got a book from my mum"

I don't know why this bugs me and maybe it's correct in some way, but it irritates me anyway!

lex

gordikin

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/42529430#Comment_42529430

dealer_wins wrote: »

Properly not much demand for them. The more niche the product, the higher the cost of it is usually.

Probably not Properly!

Eco_Miser

There is nothing wrong with 'almost unique' - there are two objects in the set. You'd need 110% effort to have a very unique object though.:)

On the other hand it is possible to 'give 110%' in certain circumstances, such as giving 110% of a week's salary to charity.

If an archer looses an arrow, it flies through the air; if he loses an arrow, he can't find it.

dreaming

My pet hate is the whole "he and I"/"me and him" confusion. I recently heard a newsreader saying "Well, it's goodnight from *** and I", and I wanted to scream. It seems that most people think it is correct to always use this phrase when it is sometimes correct to say "*** and me".
It is quite simple really. I was taught at school (a long time ago) that it depends on whether the people are the subject of the sentence, or the object - hence "John and I stole the money" is correct as John and I are the subjects and the money is the object. However, "the money was stolen by John and me" is correct as now the money is the subject, and the people are the object. My English teacher said that if you were unsure "take the other person out of the sentence". This makes it a lot clearer - "Me stole the money" / "the money was stolen by I" patently sound wrong (as would the newsreader saying "It's goodnight from I").

I do get described as a pedant (or even dinosaur) sometimes, but I am also interested in how language changes and enjoy reading the new additions to the OED, and have been known to use a few slang phrases to amuse and confuse.

Just wanted to make it clear - "me an John is innocent, right? We never stole no money right? ":)

bramblejam

My favourite is "affect" and "effect". It's easy. In normal speech "effect" is the noun and "affect is the verb". "Alcohol has an effect on your brain which will affect your response time." If you're a clinical psychiatrist you might talk about a patient's "affect", meaning their mood. But most of us aren't clinical psychiatrists, are we?

Flyboy152

Keith_Partington wrote: »

I hate it when folk say "your great" when they should say "you're great"! Whatever happened to the lovely apostrophe?

Another little bete noir of mine, is the plural possessive apostrophe, used in the singular form. When it is written "Thomas' friends were working hard," I always wonder how many of them are called "Thoma."

Flyboy152

dreaming wrote: »

My pet hate is the whole "he and I"/"me and him" confusion. I recently heard a newsreader saying "Well, it's goodnight from *** and I", and I wanted to scream. It seems that most people think it is correct to always use this phrase when it is sometimes correct to say "*** and me".
It is quite simple really. I was taught at school (a long time ago) that it depends on whether the people are the subject of the sentence, or the object - hence "John and I stole the money" is correct as John and I are the subjects and the money is the object. However, "the money was stolen by John and me" is correct as now the money is the subject, and the people are the object. My English teacher said that if you were unsure "take the other person out of the sentence". This makes it a lot clearer - "Me stole the money" / "the money was stolen by I" patently sound wrong (as would the newsreader saying "It's goodnight from I").

I do get described as a pedant (or even dinosaur) sometimes, but I am also interested in how language changes and enjoy reading the new additions to the OED, and have been known to use a few slang phrases to amuse and confuse.

Just wanted to make it clear - "me an John is innocent, right? We never stole no money right? ":)

This is a similar issue to the misuse of "who" and "whom."

john_s_2

Interesting. I think I can be quite pedantic (I know I can...) but I'm often hoist by my own petard. Or summink like that ;-)

It seems I'm guilty of at least three pet-hates on here:

- Summink (as above)
- Haitch
- aksed

The last one was a result of working with a lot of Caribbean (origin) people for many years. Although that was over ten years ago now. At first I thought it was a very sloppy way of saying the word. But I had always found it quite an awkward word to use. I tried pronouncing it "aksed" a few times, and realised I quite liked it! Over a few more years, it stuck.

Ten years on I think I use it more often than I don't. It is sometimes commented on (disapprovingly), to which I just shrug my shoulders.

I skimmed the last couple of pages so apologies if this has already been mentioned, but a couple of excellent book on the subject are (both by Bill Bryson): Troublesome Words, which explains which is the correct word to use (like specific and pacific); and Mother Tongue, which explores English throughout the world, but especially British and American. Apparently a lot of what we call Americanisms are nuffink of the sort (if I may). Gotten, for example, is a usage which has dropped from British English, but was exported with the Pilgrim Fathers. We retain its sense in Forgot and Forgotten.

Lastly, my biggest pet-hate, although not really a word, is people who say 0208 / 0207 (etc) for London phone numbers. That one really gets my goat...