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

Niemand

whitbywoof wrote: »

I care a great deal about the English language. I absolutely hate people sending "invites". Invite is a verb - you may wish to invite me to an event but in order to do so, you will need to send me an invitation!

Invite in an informal sense is a noun and used to mean "invitation". But its use annoys me too. Sending someone an "invite" sounds wrong. Sending an invitation sounds so much better, and makes sense. I'm hearing the informal form a lot more these days.

AHAR

paul1664 wrote: »

I want to scream when I hear (usually Americans):

"I could care less about ....."

when it should be

"I could'nt care less ...."

If you could care less then it obviously isn't something to be that bothered over.

Idiots.

couldn't;)

thebigbosh

The usage of loose instead of lose is a real irritation for me, but here's the challenge: think of it from the perspective of someone who has never seen English written down. We say 'loos' the same as 'lose'. 'Loo' sounds exactly like the start of 'lose'. It's not easy!

My pet hate, and the BBC frequently annoys the hell out of me by doing it, is when someone says "...an Historical moment." It should said either "an 'istorical moment" (as if you were French) or "a historical moment".

eleanor.

I signed up to say there should be an apostrophe on 'pedants' in the title, but you have spotted it already - you can't have a rant about pedants and miss a vital apostrophe!

Wressledene

Another real bugbear (and there's a word to conjure with!) for me - when the word unique is qualified in any way: 'very unique,' for example. Something is either unique - or it isn't!

JimmyTheWig

I don't understand what Martin means on number 7 - "Basically". Am hoping that the reason I don't understand isn't that it is something that I think is correct!

I think the problem with "should of" comes via "should've".

ShaneUK

One of my hates is "stationary" and "stationery". The silly thing is, it is easy to get it right.

Stationary - a as in the arrival of a train
Stationery - e as in envelopes

What bugged me more though was on a recent trip to ASDA, they had a stationary aisle - so I am guessing that the stock wasn't going to move very far!! (Ironically, it was spelt incorrectly in two places, and even after making someone aware, only one of the two (the one sticking out of the shelf) was amended. The huge one over the aisle - to this day - is still incorrect 3 months on.

Others - advise / advice (I admit though - I do struggle on this one myself!)
to / too / two
their / they're / there

KimYeovil

Young'uns pronouncing 'clique' 'click'.

'Deja vu' is now almost never used to describe a feeling of deja vu. If it is similar to something else you have experienced (or watched) then by definition what you are feeling can not be deja vu. Grrr. If it's a sequel it's not deja vu.

jacj_3

All of the above annoy me especially aitch instead of haitch, that really gets me going and ive noticed most people on tv say it including news readers when they should know better.

amandada

Martin, I think I love you! (based on this post!)