Grammar and language issues that drive you utterly berserk - Pet peeves

Neo-Nazi Rich Evans said:
overuse of the word 'cathartic'. not sure i see it as much, but a few years ago it was a huge trend i saw people using it all the time. was annoying, it's like okay we get it, you saw this word on reddit and you think it makes you sound smart.

zoomers using the word 'underrated' and 'ahead of their time' to simply mean 'i like this thing."
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"He said fart and then he said poop and fart! Genius!"
 
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They just keep coming to mind ever since I first saw this thread...has "optimistic" always meant an unreasonably and unrealistically hopeful view of something? I always thought it meant a positive mental attitude, focusing on what could go realistically go right. I hate people respond to my expressions of hope and positivity with, "Mm, that seems optimistic" in a derisive or incredulous tone. Like yeah, I am a pretty positive person in general, I do try to look at the potential bright side of the future. Or when I use the word myself and people read some sarcasm into it that I didn't mean. Is that really what it's always meant, or was there a meeting I missed, or maybe people are just weird about it??
 
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It means both, and it'll largely be a contextual thing. Calling yourself an optimist is just going to be taken as what it is: You're saying you're someone who sees the bright side of things. Now, if someone said that, for example, that previous sales estimates were optimistic in comparison to the reality, they're saying it was overestimated. Someone who's looking out to find positivity in all outlooks may be more prone to making such overestimates by looking at the best case scenario, hence the word ending up with both of its meanings.
 
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The Last Stand said:
I spell "cancelled" with two Ls. I see that word spelled with ONE L sometimes. Which is it? I know we have a rule for double consonants

Oh wow, the double L is an English habit. Man, whatever.
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Well a Germanic habit/custom to be more specific. It's meant to show the length of the preceeding vowel but half the time it's just stylistic.

Geddy Lee's Fee and See said:
The entirety of the French Language, from the ways words are pronounced to how they are spelt, but especially the concept of silent consonants. It's just Germanic rapebaby Latin with Celtic cuckery tossed in. At least Romanians have the excuse that they are surrounded by Slavs. French "people" stop speaking that godawful language.
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I like French but I'm this way with Spanish. Spanish is so close to Latin that it's derivative and unoriginal, its spelling is robotic and soulless, and it has very few stories (Sir Windmill, Ferdinand the BVLL, some postmodern commie poems). Its one strength is its sound - which is good but not unique as every language sounds like Spanish, as almost every language has a few deep vowels, trilled or tapped R's, and simple consonants. I've mistaken the Semitic, North Germanic, Inuit, and of course the other Romance languages for Spanish before. The spics can swear though (so I've heard).

Also Professor Tolkien approves of your post
 
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I despise the pronunciation of "applicable" with the emphasis on the second syllable vs the first - "uh-PLICK-able" vs "APP-lick-able."

I know they are variants and both OK, but "aPLICKA-able" sounds stoopid. And (literally, in the correct way) EVERYBODY I work with says it the dumb way.

There's another word that ~85% of people I interact with in a particular setting say in a massively gear-grinding way. It's a fairly specialized word, so might not resonate with anyone here, but people say "complainant" as if it's "complainTant." Tf, people, yes, those people are registering complaints, but they are not complainting!

Since I'm getting it all out today, I also dislike the way people lately often do a weird thing cutting off/swallowing the "t" before -ant*. So, saying "important" like impor [tiny r]- [break]-ant, rather than impor[t]-ent...

I don't personally have the linguistic vocabulary to give the technical description, but this describes it (glottoral!) It's very Gen Z, especially among women - WHY.

* AND half of the people saying "complaintant" say it with this same stupid swallowed t, too. It's like they're doing it on purpose to murder me.

The Last Stand said:
Why have who and whom? Who even uses whom?
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(I do.) But in work writing (even formal documents) I do consider whether a sentence can be restructed to avoid it, both because it's now super-formal/unusual, and because it's very misused - and the last thing I want is some person who doesn't know how to use it correctly thinking my correct usage is incorrect. :lit: If the point of business writing is clarity, I'll aim for that (even if I personally find an extra-formal phrasing perfectly clear).

Neo-Nazi Rich Evans said:
zoomers using the word 'underrated' and 'ahead of their time' to simply mean 'i like this thing."
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I think it has already been included in this thread, but "iconic" is used similarly lately and I HATE it.

jONALD said:
People speak with words so strong that they are suddenly at a loss for words more than ever and I fear that they are also altering perception at times. I hope that one day people will read more books, physical, electronic or even audio just to help broaden their vocabulary.
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I agree with this completely.

Geddy Lee's Fee and See said:
The entirety of the French Language, from the ways words are pronounced to how they are spelt, but especially the concept of silent consonants. It's just Germanic rapebaby Latin with Celtic cuckery tossed in. At least Romanians have the excuse that they are surrounded by Slavs. French "people" stop speaking that godawful language.
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I hope a Disagree rating is a neutral rating, because I don't mean to give you negatives, but I love French, so I had to.
 
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Friend of Dorothy Parker said:
There's another word that ~85% of people I interact with in a particular setting say in a massively gear-grinding way. It's a fairly specialized word, so might not resonate with anyone here, but people say "complainant" as if it's "complainTant." Tf, people, yes, those people are registering complaints, but they are not complainting!
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This reminds me of my utter seething rage at people using "disinterested" as a synonym for "uninterested," and if you consult a thesaurus, they actually are synonyms. I hate thesauruses. You can tell people who use them because they use fancy lad words that don't actually connote what they're trying to connote, because they just consulted a thesaurus and then chose the fancy lad word in there.

They don't know what it means. They don't know its context. They're just TALKING SHIT. Fuck these goddamn people.

Did I have a point? Probably not. Other than fuck you (not you in particular just the general you), you want a disinterested judge, you do not want an uninterested judge, well, unless you're wrong and you hope the judge is so uninterested you win the case because he's a complete fucking idiot.
 
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AnOminous said:
This reminds me of my utter seething rage at people using "disinterested" as a synonym for "uninterested," and if you consult a thesaurus, they acutally are synonyms. I hate thesauruses. You can tell people who use them because they use fancy lad words that don't actually connote what they're trying to connote, because they just consulted a thesaurus and then chose the fancy lad word in there.

They don't know what it means. They don't know its context. They're just TALKING SHIT. Fuck these goddamn people.

Did I have a point? Probably not. Other than fuck you (not you in particular just the general you), you want a disinterested judge, you do not want an uninterested judge, well, unless you're wrong and you hope the judge is so uninterested you win the case because he's a complete fucking idiot.
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Not that people seem to consult thesauruses much *sigh* , but there is usually some additional investigation/knowledge required to pick a good/best synonym*. Read (quality) books, kids.

*Example: synonyms of "hit," as a verb, in the sense of striking:

Synonyms
Strongest matches
Strong matches
Weak matches
Among "strong" matches are both "tap" and "bash, "swat" and "pound."

These days you don't even have to flip pages to confirm if the synonym has the correct vibe; you can just click a link for just a little more info.
 
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Subversion of this thread. I find AAVE pronunciation of police as "POH-lice" funny. Sometimes, they replace are with is. "You is NOT the police."
 
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I am amazed that people I have met do not know the difference between "This" and "Next" when it comes to the days of the week. Say today is Monday, THIS Wednesday refers to the day in 2 days' time, NEXT Wednesday is in 9 days time. I made an autistic chart restating it.
 
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People think the term “saving grace” refers to something that has saved them, when it actually refers to the one trait that redeems something from being totally awful. I’ve heard many people use the phrase like this incorrectly including Russel Greer, so now everyone who does so is linked with him in my mind.
 
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Stupid idioms that are waaaay outdated.
"Taking flak" Bro, WW2 was looong time ago.
"Cat's out of the bag" Which fucking cat, how the fuck is a cat and a secret related
"Take it with a grain of salt" Nobody even knows how this phrase started. Apparently it was that salt cured a poison or something. Just say "Be skeptical of the source".
 
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AnOminous said:
I hate when I notice a typo in one of my own posts only after someone quotes it.
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Same! And the number of times I've posted some epically long essay that I've read and re-read 50 times*, only to find some (multiple) errors that I grit my teeth and go back to fix, even though by point I'm sick of the whole topic, is more than I can count. I mostly don't care about minor errors/typos, and do it knowingly in short comments*** and any comment I write here is casual. But if I've acutally** written 45 paragraphs, even in a casual style, I'm usually intending to have full sentences that are at least mostly correct.

*I'm 98% on phone, so a long comment usually means editing. I always miss something.
**;)
***just had to edit out a wrong comma, SEE! Very meta.
Wood Logger said:
View attachment 5689549
I am amazed that people I have met do not know the difference between "This" and "Next" when it comes to the days of the week. Say today is Monday, THIS Wednesday refers to the day in 2 days' time, NEXT Wednesday is in 9 days time. I made an autistic chart restating it.
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I love your chart :lit:
Justtocheck said:
Stupid idioms that are waaaay outdated.
"Taking flak" Bro, WW2 was looong time ago.
"Cat's out of the bag" Which fucking cat, how the fuck is a cat and a secret related
"Take it with a grain of salt" Nobody even knows how this phrase started. Apparently it was that salt cured a poison or something. Just say "Be skeptical of the source".
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Ooh, hard disagree! Idioms, like other literary devices, give art and beauty to communication.
 
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Hinttitroniikka said:
There's a meme that goes something like, "The existence of x implies the existence of y," where x and y are words referring to opposite things, but there really isn't any such implication. Like, "Top hat implies the existence of a bottom hat." I know it's just a joke, but it sends me into a totally autistic rage every time. You may as well say that "The existence of a blue sky implies the existence of red dirt" is a joke and also the correct meaning of "imply." It doesn't even strike me as absurd or surreal, it's just dumb to me. I get so irrationally mad that anyone finds it funny or clever.
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It's not a surreal joke. The idea is you wouldn't need to add a qualifier to X unless there are other varieties of X (because why make X distinguishable if there's nothing to distinguish it from?) Your example of blue skies doesn't work because the punchline isn't that opposites exist. The joke is that following from the idea that there must be other varieties of X, you would then have a somewhat logical basis for saying that the wacky version of an existing thing also exists.
 
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