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

ampersand

starlights wrote: »

One of my frustrations (and I have found as I age the list becomes longer) is when children in my class have been playing games and the victor declares 'I won Fred at dominoes.' It usually prompts my reply, 'What will you do with him? Take him home and put him on your mantlepiece?'

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'mantelpiece' - it was a typo, j'en suis sûr;).

Misplacement of 'only'.

Accept/except[several in these posts]

Meaningless use of 'basically'.

'them' for 'those', often[sic]'them ones wot/like wot' .

Confusion re: continuous/continual.

'done' for 'did'.

can/may[nicely disucssed above, thankyou]

'different than':eek:. 'different from', please.
'either' + 'or'; 'neither' + 'nor'.

misuse and misunderstanding of comparatives and superlatives.

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Off-topic, in spirit of mse. I'll catch up with the other pages over the coming weeks.
I recently heard the dark-haired Hairy Biker repeatedly mispronounce 'roux', as 'rou!', ending in 'e' acute [which mse does not allow to appear]. He came across as someone showing off mastery of 'foreign' and talking down to acolytes.

rou! ( ) n. A lecherous dissipated man.
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I am not against evolution of language, which is a living thing. However, cruelty to, debasement, violation and abuse of living things is not acceptable.

Years ago, there was a lovely Patrick Campbell piece about spotting the first 'ot ennit' of the season. It is not a 'snob' thing, nor is it denigration of dialect and accent - principled leftie speaking.

Barter

Belatedly reading the Paperback Review in last Friday's Independent, I came upon another of my pet hates: aging instead of ageing.

It was, ironically?, a review of a book called: "The 100 Words that Make the English"

thnurg

This one has already been mentioned but "big ask" makes me cringe.
Ask is a verb. It should be "this is a big request".

Another one is the term WAG. While the acronym makes sense for a group of Wives and Girlfriends it makes no sense to describe an individual as a WAG.

Here's where I get technical. Broadband Modems annoy me. We had modems back in the old days of dial-up but today's broadband adapters are not modems. Modem is short for Modulator-Demodulator. Modulation is the process of converting digital to analogue, as in taking data and processing it into a noise to send down the phone line. Demodulation is converting analogue (the noise from the phone) into digital (data). Our broadband devices deal purely in digital data and do not do modulation-demodulation. They are therefore not modems.

Oh, and finally it bugs me no end when people do not understand the meaning of the word "opposite". Here are some common terms that are not opposites but a lot of people seem to think they are.
Fast and Slow.
Light and Dark.
Big and Small.
Drunk and Sober.

quoia

thnurg wrote: »

This one has already been mentioned but "big ask" makes me cringe.
Ask is a verb. It should be "this is a big request".

Another one is the term WAG. While the acronym makes sense for a group of Wives and Girlfriends it makes no sense to describe an individual as a WAG.

Here's where I get technical. Broadband Modems annoy me. We had modems back in the old days of dial-up but today's broadband adapters are not modems. Modem is short for Modulator-Demodulator. Modulation is the process of converting digital to analogue, as in taking data and processing it into a noise to send down the phone line. Demodulation is converting analogue (the noise from the phone) into digital (data). Our broadband devices deal purely in digital data and do not do modulation-demodulation. They are therefore not modems.

Oh, and finally it bugs me no end when people do not understand the meaning of the word "opposite". Here are some common terms that are not opposites but a lot of people seem to think they are.
Fast and Slow.
Light and Dark.
Big and Small.
Drunk and Sober.

I'm not sure about the alternative

W ife
O r
G irlfriend

:eek:
:rotfl:

glitter123

My OH recently complained when a publication used the word Consortiums as the plural of Consortium rather than Consortia. Their response was that it was their "house style" (and accepted publishing practice).

John_Pierpoint

thnurg wrote: »

Here's where I get technical. Broadband Modems annoy me. We had modems back in the old days of dial-up but today's broadband adapters are not modems. Modem is short for Modulator-Demodulator. Modulation is the process of converting digital to analogue, as in taking data and processing it into a noise to send down the phone line. Demodulation is converting analogue (the noise from the phone) into digital (data). Our broadband devices deal purely in digital data and do not do modulation-demodulation. They are therefore not modems.

Broadband modems should still be classed as modems, since they use complex waveforms to carry digital data. They are more advanced devices than traditional dial-up modems as they are capable of modulating/demodulating hundreds of channels simultaneously.
Many broadband modems include the functions of a router (with Ethernet and WiFi ports) and other features such as DHCP, NAT and firewall features.
When broadband technology was introduced, networking and routers were unfamiliar to consumers. However, many people knew what a modem was as most internet access was through dial-up. Due to this familiarity, companies started selling broadband modems using the familiar term modem rather than vaguer ones like adapter or transceiver, or even "bridge".
Many broadband modems must be configured in bridge mode before they can use a router.


That "last mile" of PSTN copper wire is still carrying wave form transmissions, all be it in the form of multiple frequencies at the same time?


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modem

Vortigern

What should pedants call that mathematical symbol that shares a key with the comma?

< "less than" or "fewer than"

Use of "different from/to" has already been discussed, but I seem to recall that Microsoft Word's grammar checker used to tell me to write "different than". I can't imagine any situation where I might use "different than", so I turned off the grammar checker.

Flyboy152

thnurg wrote: »

This one has already been mentioned but "big ask" makes me cringe.
Ask is a verb. It should be "this is a big request".

Another one is the term WAG. While the acronym makes sense for a group of Wives and Girlfriends it makes no sense to describe an individual as a WAG.

Here's where I get technical. Broadband Modems annoy me. We had modems back in the old days of dial-up but today's broadband adapters are not modems. Modem is short for Modulator-Demodulator. Modulation is the process of converting digital to analogue, as in taking data and processing it into a noise to send down the phone line. Demodulation is converting analogue (the noise from the phone) into digital (data). Our broadband devices deal purely in digital data and do not do modulation-demodulation. They are therefore not modems.

Oh, and finally it bugs me no end when people do not understand the meaning of the word "opposite". Here are some common terms that are not opposites but a lot of people seem to think they are.
Fast and Slow.
Light and Dark.
Big and Small.
Drunk and Sober.

Okay, I'll ask...what are the antonyms of these words? Because my OED Thesaurus disagrees with you.

thanmuwa

Haitch is the correct pronunciation of the letter "H" in Hiberno-English as has already been mentioned. The pronunciation of "H" is even used as a sectarian shibboleth in Northern Ireland. Another interesting letter pronunciation is the letter "J" in Scotland which is pronounced to rhyme with "eye" instead of "way". Having asked a few people, it seems this is the normal pronunciation in the West Central Belt of Scotland and fairly normal for the East. I am not sure how far north and south it goes or if it crosses the border into England at all... I agree with the previous comments on annoying phrases, like putting a k in etcetera, kids playing fast and loose with spelling online (when you are pretty sure that they haven't the foggiest what the correct spelling is) and so on. One of the worst for me is the current fad for describing someone from a TV program or similar as being "off of" that program. Urgh.

Flyboy152

thanmuwa wrote: »

Haitch is the correct pronunciation of the letter "H" in Hiberno-English as has already been mentioned. The pronunciation of "H" is even used as a sectarian shibboleth in Northern Ireland. Another interesting letter pronunciation is the letter "J" in Scotland which is pronounced to rhyme with "eye" instead of "way". Having asked a few people, it seems this is the normal pronunciation in the West Central Belt of Scotland and fairly normal for the East. I am not sure how far north and south it goes or if it crosses the border into England at all... I agree with the previous comments on annoying phrases, like putting a k in etcetera, kids playing fast and loose with spelling online (when you are pretty sure that they haven't the foggiest what the correct spelling is) and so on. One of the worst for me is the current fad for describing someone from a TV program or similar as being "off of" that program. Urgh.

Whist I agree with the sentiment, this is somerthing that irks me; it is "programme."