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

John_Pierpoint

On the subject of lender and borrower, I was overtaken by a vehicle with the slogan "We hire all vans" painted on its side; I wondered if its driver would like to hire the one I was driving.
So perhaps lender and borrower is an unusual example of clarity in the English language?
Mortgagor & mortgagee trips up the majority of the population.

ViolaLass

Barter wrote: »

From whence does that come? (Being pedantic)

I may have misunderstood, but were you being pedantic about the misspelling or the unnecessary 'from' before 'whence'?

scragend

There was a programme about Formula 1 on BBC4 recently called "The Killing Years".

At one point the narrator referred to a "coup de gras" (i.e. pronounced by her as "coo de graaa").

Presumably she meant a "coup de grâce".

asbokid

The pedant is fighting a losing battle in trying to preserve the spelling of "publicly" over "publically".

The OED is holding out, but American dictionaries have already conceded defeat and list the latter word as a correct, alternative spelling.

Devout_Miser

asbokid wrote: »

The pendant is fighting a losing battle in trying to preserve the spelling of "publicly" over "publically".

The OED is holding out, but American dictionaries have already conceded defeat and list the latter word as a correct, alternative spelling.

:eek: The OED must hold the line!

Paul_Varjak

asbokid wrote: »

The pedant is fighting a losing battle in trying to preserve the spelling of "publicly" over "publically".

The OED is holding out, but American dictionaries have already conceded defeat and list the latter word as a correct, alternative spelling.

Try typing publically into Google (google.com or google.co.uk) and it wants to change the spelling to publicly.

kneelbeforezod

Tut tut MSE...on your main page as well! :money:

The lead article reporting the mis-selling Payment Protection Insurance includes the heading

"Ignore banks' "reclaiming's on hold" lie."

What nonsense is that? Setting aside the general clunkiness of the sentence, the banks can't physically or legally prevent people from claiming. They may be stalling in their consideration of people's submitted claims, but that's something different entirely...

suttonsaver

Not all of which have been mentioned before. In no particular order:
1. The "also, as well" brigade - as in "he also did that, as well".
2. An amount of people - anything you can count is a number.
3. "Your" when meaning to say "You're".
4. The greengrocer's apostrophe - apostrophes inserted randomly in words that look as if they might need them.
5. Ridiculous misuse of "myself", as in "Myself and Jean caught the bus to town". What's wrong with "Jean and I ..."?
6. "He got off of the bus" - arghh, truly horrible.
7. The politician's "ay" - as in "I have made ay decision today, ay truly momentous decision that will have ay big effect on us all". Just listen to how many MPs talk like this. It's like a contagious disease. Sheer affectation.
8. And another thing - politicians who start every other answer or platitude with "Listen ..." or "Look ..." How patronising is that?
9. Footballers and football journalists who talk about "getting a result". How could they avoid getting a result?
10. Mispronunciation of words like "Febury", "seckertary", "garridge", "deteriate" - again, argh.

I could go on (almost indefinitely) ... anyone share my views?

Niemand

suttonsaver: I've always felt the use of patronising in the context you've used it is wrong. My wife patronises Sainsbury's when she does her weekly shopping. Somehow, this other meaning for patronise seems to be gaining acceptance.

suttonsaver

Niemand wrote: »

suttonsaver: I've always felt the use of patronising in the context you've used it is wrong. My wife patronises Sainsbury's when she does her weekly shopping. Somehow, this other meaning for patronise seems to be gaining acceptance.

Sorry Niemand, you're wrong about my use of the word. (Yours is obviously OK too.) Try looking in the dictionary. Dictionary.com gives 3 meanings, including:

"to behave in an offensively condescending manner toward: a professor who patronizes his students."