Words that bug you - written or spoken

odds_on

Milk & Honey wrote: »

Loose instead of lose. How can someone loose a football game?

In a treatise I wrote on the Difficulty of learning English for non-native speakers, I had the following paragraph:

"Native speaking children can also have a problem with certain fairly similar pairs of words. Two of these words, in particular, are “loose” and “lose”. Here, there are two different vocal sounds: “loose” is pronounced to rhyme with spruce. The word lose with one “o” rhymes with the word choose with a double “oo” which is spelt similar to “loose”. But loose and choose do not rhyme. Many native children confuse the spelling of these two words when writing them."

ootbitb

human been and generally been instead of being.

Ellsbells

thought instead of taught and there instead of their :mad:

Milk & Honey

odds_on wrote: »

In a treatise I wrote on the Difficulty of learning English for non-native speakers, I had the following paragraph:

"Native speaking children can also have a problem with certain fairly similar pairs of words. Two of these words, in particular, are “loose” and “lose”. Here, there are two different vocal sounds: “loose” is pronounced to rhyme with spruce. The word lose with one “o” rhymes with the word choose with a double “oo” which is spelt similar to “loose”. But loose and choose do not rhyme. Many native children confuse the spelling of these two words when writing them."

Maybe children, but individuals who purport to be educated adults and are native English speakers?

odds_on

Milk & Honey wrote: »

Maybe children, but individuals who purport to be educated adults and are native English speakers?

I think that there are many adults who are not good at spelling. Especially, younger adults where spelling appears not to be a particular concern of many teachers or the modern educational system.

franc 91

I see quite a few of these kinds of mistakes in the comments pages of on-line newspapers such as the Irish Times srl. In France too you come up against it quite often in readers' comments on newspaper articles - and those who do make spelling and grammar mistakes get strongly criticised for it by other readers.

Milk & Honey

odds_on wrote: »

I think that there are many adults who are not good at spelling. Especially, younger adults where spelling appears not to be a particular concern of many teachers or the modern educational system.

Adults are people who have finished school and if they don't know how to spell they should find out. People shouldn't go through their lives making excuses about their Senior Infants teacher.

namenotavailablE

A somewhat understandable (yet completely ludicrous) spelling mistake:

"The buildings were raised [instead of 'razed'] to the ground"...

Jellybaby1

Milk & Honey wrote: »

Adults are people who have finished school and if they don't know how to spell they should find out. People shouldn't go through their lives making excuses about their Senior Infants teacher.

Ah but if they don't know how to spell, then they don't know they have spelled something wrong!

Aglomerado

I hate: (in no particular order)

"Bugbear" (sounds stupid)

"Playdate" (sounds stupid and pretentious)

"Barista" (sounds stupid and pretentious)

odds_on

Milk & Honey wrote: »

Adults are people who have finished school and if they don't know how to spell they should find out. People shouldn't go through their lives making excuses about their Senior Infants teacher.

Learning to spell does not finish with the Senior Infants Teacher. When I was last in Secondary school, my English teacher was adamant that everyone in the class spelt words correctly. In any essays that we had to write, marks were deducted for poor spelling - which I don't believe happens so much today.

angelman121

dats air waya talkin its air culture ye know that sorta way, I mean you's hav yous'er way and we hav airs. shur we couldnt laf at each other if we wer all the same n prim n proper. my da used to say it's a narra mind dat can only spell a word the one way.
Happy Every Day
P

Dionysius2

Janorramean ?

Alice1

angelman121 wrote: »

it's a narra mind dat can only spell a word the one way.
P

Love it Angelman, just love it:)

ootbitb

Dionysius2 wrote: »

Janorramean ?

This one will probably be included in the OED soon.

CrowdedHouse

Sorry if this has been mentioned already but lately I seem to be reading/hearing 'Clearly' all the time, it's getting to me grrrr

Is clearly the new going forward ?

Condatis

Complete strangers calling me "mate".

Young bar maids calling me "dear".

What's wrong with "sir".

EZ24GET

I think the people who annoy me the most, all live on the home shopping channel. I have heard of the fabricality of a night dress and the wonderful colorfications they carry in a line of ladies undies. they seem to think that adding syllables makes for a better word and they seem to be in competition for pompous twit of the year.

Condatis

The widespread misuse of 'fulsome' as in 'a fulsome apology'. Fulsome actually means insincere.

eildoran

looksee wrote: »

Spell Czechs is a good outlet for grammar nazis (like me!).

There are a number of words that annoy me, sadly brain-fry has struck and I can't think of any of them! I'll be back if they return to my consciousness.

Shouldn't that read 'there IS a number' .... Being singular....and pedantic...

Jellybaby1

EZ24GET wrote: »

I think the people who annoy me the most, all live on the home shopping channel. I have heard of the fabricality of a night dress and the wonderful colorfications they carry in a line of ladies undies. they seem to think that adding syllables makes for a better word and they seem to be in competition for pompous twit of the year.

That drives me nuts as well!!!

Hedgemeister

People that say 'yeah' at the end of every sentence, used mostly by Irish people who lived in England.

When somebody prefaces a comment with 'well, I mean,' or 'in fairness' or 'to be honest,' or worse still, 'to be very honest.'
Or...'I'm not racist, but...'

People who use worn-out 'forewords' as in 'Bloated' Public Service, 'Gold-plated' pensions, etc.
The old Irish inferiority trait, still thriving with the youth of today - 'Ahh shure (insert your own branch of our public service here) there useless...shure only half trained...their much better over in (wherever country is flavour of the month)...

mike65

Virtuosic - virtuoso is the only word you need

Ironical - seriously, just stop it!

Attitudinal - ugh!

Thomas828

Iconic, a word that is dreadfully overused in just about every part of the BBC, from "iconic" rock albums, "iconic" paintings, "iconic" buildings and ships, especially the []Titanic[/] and the two yellow cranes in Harland and Wolff's Shipyard in Belfast...

It's a lazy word used by lazy people.

Bearhunter

Obligated, a hideous back-formation of obligation. What's wrong with "obliged"?

OldGoat

Bearhunter wrote: »

Obligated, a hideous back-formation of obligation. What's wrong with "obliged"?

Where I am, work is done between departments but bypassing the nightmare of bureaucracy is knows as an 'obligment'.

It's like a nixer but without the backhander. :cool:

Lorna123

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:

OldGoat

I'm guilty of that one myself.

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:

Why then, does the OED (online version) define unconscious as:
2. done or existing without one realizing:

He unconsciously stepped out onto the road and was hit by a car.
He subconsciously stepped out onto the road and was hit by a car.

Lorna123

odds_on wrote: »

Why then, does the OED (online version) define unconscious as:
2. done or existing without one realizing:

He unconsciously stepped out onto the road and was hit by a car.
He subconsciously stepped out onto the road and was hit by a car.

I would say "He unconsciously stepped out onto the road and was hit by a car" if he had no idea whatsoever that he was on the road.

I would say "He subconsciously stepped out onto the road and was hit by a car" if he was just walking along and stepped out onto the road without thinking, but actually knew that he was on the road.

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.

That is how I would explain this. I know it is very confusing and hard to follow so I guess it inevitably leads to misuse.