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

[AnOminous]

Stupid idioms that are waaaay outdated.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".

No, fuck off, I like all those idioms and you're gay, and not even in a Freddie Mercury way, just like a really gay way. Cats rule.

 

[modern horrors]

Allow me to play doubles advocate here for a moment. For all intensive purposes I think you are ALL wrong.

In an age where false morals are a diamond dozen, true virtues are a blessing in the skies. We often put our false morality on a petal stool like a bunch of pre-Madonnas, but you all seem to be taking something very valuable for granite. So I ask of you to mustard up all the strength you can because it is a doggy dog world out there. Although there is some merit to what you are saying it seems like you have a huge ship on your shoulder. In your argument you seem to throw everything in but the kids Nsync, and even though you are having a feel day with this I am here to bring you back into reality. I have a sick sense when it comes to these types of things. It is almost spooky, because I cannot turn a blonde eye to these glaring flaws in your rhetoric. I have zero taller ants when it comes to people spouting out hate in the name of moral righteousness. You just need to remember what comes around is all around, and when supply and command fails you will be the first to go.

Make my words, when you get down to brass stacks it doesn't take rocket appliances to get two birds stoned at once. It's clear who makes the pants in this relationship, and sometimes you just have to swallow your prize and accept the facts. You might have to come to this conclusion through denial and error but I swear on my mother's mating name that when you put the petal to the medal you will pass with flying carpets like it's a peach of cake.

 

[Spitz]

This  may shock you, but an appeal, even if you win it, almost always goes back to the very same judge who fucked the case up in the first place.

LOL

Snip

Excellent.
Reminded me of this:

Edit: I used a semicolon instead of a colon. Jokes on me.

 

[Justtocheck]

No, fuck off, I like all those idioms and you're gay, and not even in a Freddie Mercury way, just like a really gay way. Cats rule.

You like keeping cats in bags for long periods of times? Lord almighty...

 

[An Sionnach Seang]

"Thee" (the) has the same usage as "an". It's "thee ohio state university", not "the ohio state university".

but in this case it's used a very old-fashioned plural form of 'you' (which becomes 'youse' or 'yez' in Irish and Irish-derived dialects)

 

[The Last Stand]

"Thee" (the) has the same usage as "an". It's "thee ohio state university", not "the ohio state university".

I've never heard of that.

And who says THE Ohio State University?

 

[Doctor John B. Zyklon]

I've never heard of that.

And who says THE Ohio State University?

People who call it the correct name. They're picky about it. Why it's considered the top 20 of schools I don't understand. I've never met anyone intelligent from there; and their engineering students are just partiers. The head of one of the studies there is / was an absolute moron who produced shite students as well.

Cute girls tho. Dumb girls, but cute.

 

[Friendly Primarina]

Can Americans confirm for me, the dollar sign goes to the left of the number, right? I don't know if it's euros (apparently ten euros can be written €10 or 10 € depending on local tradition). I just keep seeing things like 10$.

 

[Flatline]

The latest, stupid trend is people saying "The math isn't mathing" and other variations of "the noun isn't nouning."

 

[AnOminous]

Can Americans confirm for me, the dollar sign goes to the left of the number, right? I don't know if it's euros (apparently ten euros can be written €10 or 10 € depending on local tradition). I just keep seeing things like 10$.

Only retards do that.

 

[Hinttitroniikka]

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.

I so wanted to come up with a rebuttal to this, but you're right, it's just a joke that I personally think is stupid. That IS 95% of this thread, but fair point, well made.

Thread tax: I used to teach ESL and I still get asked for advice and clarification all the time, which I do love, but one thing some learners do really pisses me off. For example, the saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is pretty established in English, at least in some dialects. But for some reason, learners sometimes want to correct this (especially in a group learning setting, they try to correct each other) and don't want to hear why "Don't fix it if it isn't broken" sounds stupid in comparison.

 

[Lowlife Adventures]

I so wanted to come up with a rebuttal to this, but you're right, it's just a joke that I personally think is stupid. That IS 95% of this thread, but fair point, well made.

Heh, sorry. But in a way I do agree that it's stupid because it's one of those jokes that's so easy to beat into the ground. The just-follow-a-format jokes that are used a crutch by people who lack creativity.

 

[Biggie Smalls' Taint]

Pluralizing nouns with apostrophes.

Example: noun's with apostrophe's. I don't get why people do this. Why the apostrophe? You have to go out of your way to type it on a keyboard. It's become incredibly common in the past few years, and every time I see that shit it shortens my telomeres.

The word Melancholy is awful. It's grammatically correct to use it as an adjective but to me it sounds wrong. Example: a melancholy scene. My mind tries to auto-correct to 'a melancholic scene' because the other way sounds like some ESL shit.

 

[Haffhart]

How I hate the use of American and USA as modifiers to show edginess. I think this started just after our Hundred Year Rike was baptized by war-fire (it's for sure a very 60s/70s naming convention). Back then it might've been a clever way to address commentary to the All-American Establishment. But today it's a lazy way for a certain kind of (((fag))) and their cronies to "earn" a tip for flipping off a long-dead social order. At least it gives my homeland a "modern mythic" quality. It's also fun to riff on:

American Bookmarks
Lava Lamp, USA
A BWC Special Report: Pillows in America
Our American Doorstop
The American Statuette
An American Adapter
The United States of Long Underwear

(Now my room is edgier than a mid-nineties Matt Gr?ning/Neil Gaiman collaboration. Yes I don't know how to say Matt Simpson's name. The Ellis Island people should've Anglicized it right).

 

[The Last Stand]

You know how many times I've seen "break" and "brake" often misused? One time I've even seen "brakefast."

 

[Marcus Tullius Cicero]

Not particularly annoying, but what I notice the most is the use of "like" as a filler word. I can understand using "um" or "uh", as I use both often enough. Yet I'm starting to associate the use of "like" with stupidity. I'm also somewhat unsure of whether a comma is best placed before or after a quotation mark, in spelling.

 

[a hapless toad]

Calvary is the hill where Jesus was crucified.

Cavalry are soldiers on horseback.

 

[Steam Deck Verified]

"Ween" instead of "wean" e.g. "Make sure to ween yourself off of the medication slowly"

Also never the correct use of peak, peek and pique. "It peaked my interest," "It hit its peek in season 3," etc.

 

[Demon King]

This is cringe, but my autism won't let it go. The word "weeb".

While it is accurate in most applications, I find it annoying that any interest in Japanese culture is dismissed and labeled as "weeb", even if it has nothing to do with anime. I find it disrespectful towards people who go out of their way learn that culture such a food, crafts, and ceremonial arts. Or even learning the language.

 

[AnOminous]

Calvary is the hill where Jesus was crucified.

Cavalry are soldiers on horseback.

It was probably called Golgotha, which like Calvary, was a word for skull. The source of Golgotha is Aramaic but the KJV translators went with the Latin, derived from calvaria.