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

lauraashton

People who use a reflexive pronoun when there is no need to should have their legs broken.

ZTD

redglass wrote: »

Email messages that inform me, 'This message was sent with High Importance', instead of 'this is an important message'.

That's because most messages flagged like this are not important by any rational measure.

redglass wrote: »

How do you 'send something with High Importance'? By puffing out your cheeks and looking pompous?

You got it in one.

sav2001 wrote: »

"New and improved"... It's one or the other, it is impossible for something to be both!!!

Of course it can. It can be new, and worse than what its predecessor was.

building_with_lego

Graham03 wrote: »

The BBC are only doing what I was taught at school. It's "a history of World War 2" but it's "an historical account of World War 2" - in other words it's "a" when the stress is on the first syllable of the h-word, and "an" when it's not. I hadn't heard that this rule had been changed...?

I thought that we used 'an' before a vowel sound i.e. an heir to the throne, or an heirloom. 'A' comes before a consonant, thus covering historical, hotel and history.

Loose/ lose :mad:
'Went' instead of 'said' always gets me, mostly because I say it myself sometimes . I am well aware of how irritating it is. I apologise

building_with_lego

Flyboy152 wrote: »

I mention this on another thread, earlier. Last year, our village fair had a stall called, "Jennies Jewlry" All the signs, letterheads and business cards were marked with the same title. The saddest thing in all of that is, the printer and sign-writer must have known, surely.

A craft and toy shop in my town is called Bizzy Fingers. :wall:I've made it quite clear to my children that it's incorrect and they can't understand that a shop would have got it wrong. (Or should that be would of? )

KimYeovil

choice and option

Mostly when people say you have two choices they are wrong - you are expected to make only one choice between two options. In such cases you have one choice, not two.

jenblackrod

I have a major bee in my bonnet about the use of 'fewer' used for multiple instances, fewer people, fewer tables, fewer instances and 'less' used for amalgous amounts which come as 'one' e.g. less money, less time, less light. Even BBC newsreaders get it wrong sometimes. It makes my teeth grind every time I hear it and I always notice. Mind you, my daughter calls me a 'grammar nazi' anyway. My father, (whose a retired English teacher), always corrected me when I was a child, and we turn into our parents do we not?

KimYeovil

malinky wrote: »

Sign seen today at Sainbury`s "Fresh Flavoured Milk" You cannot have `Fresh Flavoured Milk` ...you can have `Flavoured Fresh Milk`.:)

Hmm. I think that is moot. I would say the 'flavoured' is quite tightly bound with the 'milk' so 'flavoured milk' is a single compound. After all, you are not free to buy the fresh milk and flavour it yourself. (Well, you do have the free will to implement that policy if you like...)

'Freshly flavoured milk' would be wrong. But distinguishing between fresh milk and long-life milk seems fair enough.

Olokia

tindella wrote: »

Olokia - how can a word without an (not "a"!) "h" at the front of it be pronounced as if it has? Sorry - you are incorrect. The other way around - with an "h" but pronounced without - as in "honour" can be correct. Please don't tell me you pronounced it "Honour" - or, even worse, spell it "honor".

No it is pronounced as "Onour" but there are even more words with the "Haitch" pronounced such as Hospital, Holiday, Hearing, Hero, etc

So following your logic a word like Pneumonia means the P must be pronounced as "Ee" instead of "Pee".

That's just silly

ceelive

How about the use of 'revert back' when they mean revert - to revert back must surely mean go forward ?

The other word I cannot stand is when people say apsolutely instead of absolutely !

Gladys_Yates

Yes Martin - you have missed a huge one!

Off of as in "I got it off of the Internet" :mad: