Words that bug you - written or spoken

odds_on

Lorna123 wrote: »

Just saw this thread now so didn't read it all, but the one that annoys me the most is when someone uses the word "unconsciously" instead of "subconsciously" and this happens a lot and even appears in the paper.

"Unconsciously" means that a person is in a coma i.e. unconscious, but "subconscious" means that they are conscious but just not fully concentrating on a thing e.g. "Subconscously I could feel the heat of the fire as I chatted away to my friend". I would not say "Unconsciously I could feel the heat of the fire as I chatted away to my friend". :rolleyes:

I think this is more "unconsciously".

The word "unconscious" means that a person is not "conscious" and so is not aware, but "subconscious" means that a person is aware just below consciousness.

Would subconsciously not be better defined as "in one's inner conscious" or similar to "deep down in one's conscious".

Subconsciously, he knew he was wrong.

ootbitb

pax, a new word I learnt today.

Post no.9

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056802748

Lorna123

odds_on wrote: »

I think this is more "unconsciously".

Would subconsciously not be better defined as "in one's inner conscious" or similar to "deep down in one's conscious".

Subconsciously, he knew he was wrong.

I think in order to use the word "unconsciously" you have to be completely unaware, whereas you would be aware of the heat of the fire, just not concentrating on it. You would not feel the heat of the fire if you were unconscious.

If a person subconsciously knew he was wrong then that would mean that they had some awareness that they were wrong.

Yes, subconscious can be defined as "in one's inner conscious" alright, I would agree with that, but I would not agree that it is "deep down in one's conscious". Subconscious would be just below the surface, i.e. just below consciousness, not deep down.

looksee

People (loads of them!) who say disinterested when they mean uninterested. They are two totally different meanings based on different meanings of 'interest'. Sadly common usage means that both meanings are now given for disinterested in dictionaries, which is a pity as the different shades of meaning are useful.

A judge can be impartial as he is disinterested in a case.
A student can be uninterested in a lecture, but it is relevant to him.

Mensch Maschine

Jellybaby1 wrote: »

'kid' instead of 'child'

Such a handy monosylibic word. Kids > Children.

Jellybaby1

True, very handy. But kids were always baby goats, before they became baby humans!!

OldGoat

It wasn't me, you can't prove it, I was in Washington at the time.
<.<
>.>

Jellybaby1

OldGoat wrote: »

It wasn't me, you can't prove it, I was in Washington at the time.
<.<
>.>

Whaa? Huh? Whuttheheckwuzdat? OG what HAVE you done NOW?

Boskowski

Jellybaby1 wrote: »

Some people think it is ok to make words up. I wonder how big a dictionary will be in 50 or 100 years due to everyone making up words. Is 'functionality' a word now? I thought it was merely 'function'? Simple.

You may blame us IT people. Functionality is the sum of all its functions.

Sorry for barging in. I'm not an oulfella just yet, but not being a native English speaker I find this thread very entertaining and educating, too. Difficult for someone like me to distinguish between colloquialisms and correct use of the language. Some of the stuff is obviously wrong but one can't go around and question everything one hears.

Jellybaby1

Boskowski wrote: »

You may blame us IT people. Functionality is the sum of all its functions.

Sorry for barging in. I'm not an oulfella just yet, but not being a native English speaker I find this thread very entertaining and educating, too. Difficult for someone like me to distinguish between colloquialisms and correct use of the language. Some of the stuff is obviously wrong but one can't go around and question everything one hears.

Whaddya mean you're not a native English speaker, I understood every word you said!!

By the way, if you find us O & O's entertaining, then you are probably more 'oulfella than ya think! Welcome to O & O's by the way. Hang around for the ride. They'll all be back after Christmas I'm sure.

looksee

Hm, I think most of us are around now, just keeping out of the way of the grumpy humbugging of a certain moderator (not me!)

OldGoat

Harrumph.

Grandad Himself

Sniff.

Esel

Spend. As in "The total spend was €2.5 million."

dewsbury

...I know this thread is a bit dormant but...

Indulge me in my little pet (unreasonably) hate.

It may be my imagination but there seems to be a certain class of people who say "ye" for the plural of you.

"Ye" may well be correct but "you" is also the plural of "you".

I am convinced that certain people who did not grow up saying "ye" have somehow adopted the word i preference to "you".

There you go, I told you it was unreasonably! I feel better now!

Jellybaby1

I'm sure you feel much better now for that, dewsbury, but sorry to tell you that I am one of those people who uses the word 'ye'. It's not uncommon for me to use it as I was brought up to read ye Bible hence it's not unusual for us. I often hear my 20-something daughter using 'ye' in conversation too.

OldGoat

I'm a 'Ye' user too. Using 'you' as a plural never sounds right to me.
I love that I'm now in a class of people. :cool:

Jellybaby1

A better class of people! Har! (Sorry, snob just slipped out)

looksee

Right on jb, I am one of that class too - I would use ye informally as a plural, and even yiz at times! even though I have an English accent and it isn't at all part of my background. Its a very useful word though.

Jellybaby1

When my brother was a young lad, wayyyy back in the mists of time, he'd come in from playing outside (for hours) and instead of saying 'did you have your tea?' he'd say 'did youse have yisser tea? I still laugh at that.

Esel

'Ye' is frequently used by us Hiberno-English speakers. Lots more instances of different usage and sentence construction too...

Jellybaby1

What about that old Yorkshire thing of 'thee' and 'thy', as per Compo in LOTSW: "Have thee got any dripping, Sid?" None of the other characters used it. And it was always 'thee', but never 'thou'. Wonder if anyone uses it now in Yorkshire?

looksee

Don't know, its a while since I lived there, but it wasn't so much thee and thou (like the Quakers) as thi and tha - 'give us thi coat' and 'whats tha doin''. I think it probably still goes on.

There's also that t' sound that is used instead of 'the'. People trying to copy it say 't' but in reality there was mostly no sound at all, just a kind of spoken hiccup 'put it on t' table' actually sounds like 'put it on table' but there is a kind of vocal hitch between on and table.

OldGoat

Y and Th were reversed in medieval English so that You would have been Thou and The was written as Ye, as in Dost thou see ye castle/Do you see the castle

Ye as a plural for You is a dialect thing rather than a grammatical one I think.

Rasmus

'FML'. It is so ridiculous.

Jellybaby1

'Compliment' instead of 'complement'.

Sam Kade

odds_on wrote: »

Some words that really bug me:
Spoken:
.... dude

Written:
.... would of (and all similar "of"s which should be "have").

And in general the poor state of spelling on so many forums, (there for their etc). I don't believe that these are typos but poor spelling by the posters.

I also hate all text message abbreviations.

No need to read too far into this thread to find a word that really annoys me :rolleyes:

.BrianJM

Yous or youse. - Normally spoken but I've seen both versions used in print.

~

Massive as in 'massive 200GB hard disk' or 320GB or 500GB etc. and also in 'massive 4GB ram'. - Given all that, it would seemthat massive is meaningless.

~

I'd love to know what the spelling standard is in english exam papers.

Jellybaby1

I've often seen job adverts for 'excellent English required' only to find a few misspellings within the advert. Daft or what?

Jellybaby1

When someone posts in an old thread, it really vexes the Mods, and they rap the posters knuckles by saying 'don't post on a Zombie thread.....thread closed'. Now I don't know what makes a thread Zombie, but if this thread is about to be closed, maybe our dahling Mods might consider opening a new one on 'Speaking English in Plain English'. I am here to inform interested parties that the English language no longer exists. I found this site while Googling 'crafts'

http://www.internetslang.com/CRAFT-meaning-definition.asp

A small sample....

CRAFT (Can't Remember A F***ing Thing)
AAYF (As always, your friend)
ICBI (I can't believe it) What would Victor Meldrew say?
GAFIA (Get away from it all)
GOAT (Greatest of all time) :D:D

and it really worried me......or should I say IRWM!