Pet Peeve 1

[tsdragon]

What is your current pet peeve vis-a-vis language and usage?

Mine is the relatively new habit of people trying to sound more educated that they obviously are by using the word "myself" a lot. Unfortunately they rarely use it correctly. They usually use it when they mean "me" or "I". For example: "My wife and myself went to Europe this winter," or "The company gave my coworkers and myself a raise."

It just drives me nuts!

Tracy Dryden

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
For you are crunchy, and good with mustard.

 

[strongm]

Pet peeve...erm..

Could of
would of
should of

 

[flapeyre]

'Turbo Bass'

Could also be a game fish with well-developed tail muscles.

Me transmitte sursum, Caledoni!

 

[rosieb]

Pet peeve, spoken, "nuculer".

My name is Rosemary, but the only person who ever called me that was my mother - and then only when I was in trouble. I've always been Rosie, so I loathe it when I'm called Rose - I say "Hi I'm Rosie" [clearly enunciated] and someone says "Hi Rose" - which happens all too often.

On telemarketing, my husband and I have different surnames (but only a single vowel different) and I frequently get "Hi is that Mrs XXXX" - I find that "no, she died 2 years ago" works well.

In UK, TPS (an opt-out for phone marketeering), worked well for a while, but now the marketeers have caught on, they aren't marketing - it's market research, or offering a prize (thus exempt).

Even worse is calling from overseas, I had a call at Xmas "Ho, ho, ho, this is Father Christmas...." sounded like a mucky phone call and was a recording - potentially scary, esp for older people.

Rosie
"Never express yourself more clearly than you think" (Niels Bohr)

 

[Steri]

This week's pet peeve is "from the get go"

- Andrew

 

[mscallisto]

people who say

"I seen that movie"

You may substitute most anything for movie.

 

[SilentAiche]

My contribution would have to be "hairballs."

Oops, misread it. Thought we were talking about pet heaves...

THanks,
Tim

 

[tsdragon]

pet heaves

ROTFLMAO!

Tracy Dryden

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
For you are crunchy, and good with mustard.

 

[Katy44]

In our office we actually have a game which is to basically count how many times our boss literally says the words "obviously", "literally", "actually" or "basically" in one telephone conversation. They are not used in places I would consider appropriate, for example he will say:

"So what we would basically do, is he would actually talk to my team and myself [no 'me's for this guy] and then we would obviously have a sit down to discuss it."

I feel like saying: "Why was that obvious? How did the person on the other end of the telephone know what you were about to say?

 

[jennuhw]

Another thing that bothers me are basic spelling errors. I was following a truck on the way to work this morning with a hand written sign that said "In Trasit." A Burger King near my house has had a sign in their drive through for years that says "Clearence 9 ft."
Also, the misuse of accept and except. "We will only except cans/bottles that are cleaned out"

 

[ESquared]

PIN number, ATM machine and the like
Apostrophes in simple plurals
Confusion of homophones or near-homophones

These annoy me, but worse is when people don't care at all. I can overlook a simple mistake any day. But when someone doesn't care one whit about getting it correct, THAT bugs me.

The other day I went to a coffee shop that recently came under a new owner, and I saw that the newly rewritten menu whiteboard had many errors. I asked the owner (who was serving me at the counter) if he had any interest in the free editing services of a language & grammar fanatic. He didn't, and I could tell he was offended that I'd even suggest it. Why? Doesn't he know that the store's professionalism is reflected in those kind of details? Even if he truly didn't care, he didn't warm me up to repeat-visit his shop by humoring me and allowing me to correct those misspelled words and remove those extraneous apostrophes. It's not like he had anything better to do with his time than sit and wait for customers.

I think that shop owner is under the mistaken impression that he is in the business of selling coffee. He's not. He's supposed to be in the business of attracting customers. His loss.

 

[SilentAiche]

tsdragon: I should have said this sooner, but your response made my week. My curious sense of humor is still testing these waters.

Thanks,
Tim

 

[tsdragon]

SilentAiche: I'd say your sense of humor has found a perfect home. You seem to have the same quirky sense of humor that a lot of us here have.


Tracy Dryden

Meddle not in the affairs of dragons,
For you are crunchy, and good with mustard.

 

[LesleyW]

Tracy - my, my, fancy you being male. I'd always pictured you as a woman after my own heart, what with your wonderful signature. My best female friend is called Tracy spelt without an e so I have passed that information from you mum on to her!

Francis and Tracy - similar gripes, but complicated by the fact that in the US, Leslie is the female form of the name and Lesley is the male form - in the UK where I am from it is the other way round. It annoys me that even when I point out to people that I am female and therefore they should spell it with "ey" they still persist in not caring how they spell my name. (how many people here thought I was male? OK, OK, probably no-one cared
:-( )

Jennifer - I used to hate it when people shortened my name to "Les", as male Leslie's are normally the recipient of this honour. My boyfriend shortens everyone's name, so I am "Les" to him... since I've realised he does that nearly always I also forgive others who do it. Mind you part of the reason he does it is so he doesn't have to think when writing down my name LOL.

Stella - you made my day! it started with stuff being addressed to "MR W" after I'd spoken to someone on the phone. Now I seem to get "sir" in the middle of the conversation!! or after asking my surname, referring to me while I am on the phone as "Mr W".. at least I know it's not just me. It would seriously annoy me if I lived with a husband of the same name and stuff that I ordered came addressed to him. Another good reason not to get married then

Lesley

 

[SilentAiche]

The mnemonic device (does this qualify?) that I always heard for the Francis/Frances issue was i for him and e for her.

Tim

 

[ESquared]

I believe in giving children unambiguous-gender names. It just helps avoid all sorts of frustration.

 

[ESquared]

Should that be "unambiguous-sex names?" Words in English don't have gender.

 

[SilentAiche]

It may not be that easy because names keep getting hijacked. For goodness sakes, if Jamie is short for James, how can you have a girl named Jamie?

THanks,
Tim

 

[ESquared]

You do your best and cross your fingers. But I personally will not choose Sandy, Pat, Chris, Andy (Andi), and others which I know are used as female names.

 

[ESquared]

I meant to say BOTH male and female names.

 

[ToniL]

What I totally dislike is the blatant way some people purposely hack people's names to bits... When I graduated from college, I wrote my full first name (Antonia) phonetically on a piece of paper so as not to confuse the announcer when my name was called... (On-tho-nya...) I'm not sure WHO graduated that day, but someone named Ant-Toe-Knee-Ya was called. After that, I adopted "Toni" so as not to give people aneurysms...

Peace,
Toni L.