Mispronunciation/ Poor grammar that annoys you?

Gotham

People cant use the word hence properly.

If you Google it you'll see it's abused nearly all of the time, you've likely done so yourself. I know my teacher patted me on the back for using interesting synonyms even if they were incorrectly used. Recently though, hence has become used all too often online by people wanting to sound smart.

Hence is not a substitute for therefore, thus, or ergo. These words are not interchangeable all the time. If you don't understand why, it's the same reason you cant use break and snap interchangeably.

http://painintheenglish.com/case/4452/

A good rule of thumb, if you say "Hence the" or "Hence <something in past tense>", you might want to double check what you're about to say.
If you're unsure, try to use therefore or thus, failing that you might need to use hence.

dxhound2005

Osgoodisgood wrote: »

Pretty much everything mentioned so far irritates me with special mention for "troath" and "heighth".

My all time most annoying one (at the moment) is "sikth" for "sixth". Every UK sports commentary seems to be designed to send me into a new Bruce Banner moment.

There are two standard pronunciations on this site:

http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=sixth&submit=Submit

Neither is wrong, both are correct. It would help if people who complain about pronunciations would realise that there is more than one standard pronunciation for lots of words. Before denouncing particular forms they could at least check the many sources for pronunciations which are available online.

Gotham

Stiletto72 wrote: »

Myriad of....

Myriad of is acceptable, I'm aware that myriad on it's own is used as well but one is not more correct than the other. If you don't believe me you can do the research.

On a related note, it's people using plethora and myriad interchangeably that annoys me. The two mean very different things.
Today on the radio I heard someone say plethora correctly and I get very excited.

People saying decimate to mean destroy. I know officially it does now but people dont seem to realise that it literally means "remove one tenth", which is anything but destroy. I'd like the old usage back please, it was cooler.

Another interesting one is aluminum, it was called aluminum first, then changed after the person who discovered it was requested to rename it to follow a convention. So, it's debatable; the Americans obviously believe it should be called by its original name.

dxhound2005

Gotham wrote: »

People cant use the word hence properly.

If you Google it you'll see it's abused nearly all of the time, you've likely done so yourself. I know my teacher patted me on the back for using interesting synonyms even if they were incorrectly used. Recently though, hence has become used all too often online by people wanting to sound smart.

Hence is not a substitute for therefore, thus, or ergo. These words are not interchangeable all the time. If you don't understand why, it's the same reason you cant use break and snap interchangeably.

http://painintheenglish.com/case/4452/

A good rule of thumb, if you say "Hence the" or "Hence <something in past tense>", you might want to double check what you're about to say.
If you're unsure, try to use therefore or thus, failing that you might need to use hence.

Google and blogs are all very well for basing arguments about usage and definitions. But dictionaries are probably better. This is just one of them and I don't think it supports your case.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/hence

Gotham

It seems I have a lot of peeves, another unfounded one is:
Southerly vs Southernly.

I find the latter better, but RTE (and apparently everyone else) does not. The same for Northerly and Northernly.

Anchises

Before the Public Accounts Committee recently , those who should know better kept referring to 'renumeration' rather then 'remuneration'.

But let's be charitable

A

dxhound2005

Anchises wrote: »

Before the Public Accounts Committee recently , those who should know better kept referring to 'renumeration' rather then 'remuneration'.

But let's be charitable

A

That's very common. So is pantomine instead of pantomime. And Drumshambo instead of Drumshanbo. But I don't take any notice, I know what people mean.

greenflash

dxhound2005 wrote: »

You might be aware that the meaning of words can change over time and if a particular usage becomes very common it can be accepted as standard. This is what has happend with disinterested. In fact the usage which you disparage has a longer history than the usage which has more recently been accepted as standard.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/disinterested

Usage Note: In traditional usage, disinterested can only mean "having no stake in an outcome," as in Since the judge stands to profit from the sale of the company, she cannot be considered a disinterested party in the dispute. This usage was acceptable to 97 percent of the Usage Panel in our 2001 survey. But despite critical disapproval, disinterested has come to be widely used by many educated writers to mean "uninterested" or "having lost interest," as in Since she discovered skiing, she is disinterested in her schoolwork. Oddly enough, "not interested" is the oldest sense of the word, going back to the 17th century. This sense became outmoded in the 18th century but underwent a revival in the first quarter of the early 20th. Despite its resuscitation, this usage is widely considered an error. In our 2001 survey, 88 percent of the Usage Panel rejected the sentence It is difficult to imagine an approach better designed to prevent disinterested students from developing any intellectual maturity. This is not a significantly different proportion from the 89 percent who disapproved of a similar usage in 1988.

Freedictionary... Meh, you gets what you pays for.

dxhound2005

greenflash wrote: »

Freedictionary... Meh, you gets what you pays for.

It's a dictionary, they all have the same references available

Plenty more here is you wish to try to prove your case.

http://www.onelook.com/?w=disinterested&ls=a

My Chambers Dictionary printed version says inter alia under Disinterested:

(revived from obsolescence) uninterested.

Gotham

dxhound2005 wrote: »

Google and blogs are all very well for basing arguments about usage and definitions. But dictionaries are probably better. This is just one of them and I don't think it supports your case.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/hence

I'm not really sure I have much faith in modern definitions of old words.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2392586/Oxford-English-Dictionary-admits-used-wrong-sense-word-literally.html

As a point of note: thence/hence
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=thence&allowed_in_frame=0

Meaning "from that time" is from late 14c.; sense of "for that reason" is from 1650s.

dxhound2005

Gotham wrote: »

I'm not really sure I have much faith in modern definitions of old words.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2392586/Oxford-English-Dictionary-admits-used-wrong-sense-word-literally.html

As a point of note: thence/hence
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=thence&allowed_in_frame=0

It doesn't matter if you are unsure of how much faith to put in modern definitions. As someone said in your link: Language evolves, get over it, chill.

BizzyC

A lot of people seem to get "taught" and "thought" mixed up, drives me made.

Gotham

dxhound2005 wrote: »

It doesn't matter if you are unsure of how much faith to put in modern definitions. As someone said in your link: Language evolves, get over it, chill.

Then what's the very point of this thread. Everything in this thread is misused so much it may as well be the official definition.

dxhound2005

Gotham wrote: »

Then what's the very point of this thread. Everything in this thread is misused so much it may as well be the official definition.

Not true. You could take a leaf out of Stephen Fry's book. Anyway making some big argument about the word Hence is a bit fatuous. It's hardly ever used these days, never mind misused.

pajor

IzzyWizzy wrote: »

'Pronounciation' instead of 'pronunciation'. Drives me UP THE WALL. Especially when people look at me as if I'm an idiot for saying 'pronunciation' or even worse, CORRECT ME! :mad:

I had a French teacher in school who did exactly this. Was rather ironic I thought. :pac:

Alun

Gotham wrote: »

It seems I have a lot of peeves, another unfounded one is:
Southerly vs Southernly.

I find the latter better, but RTE (and apparently everyone else) does not. The same for Northerly and Northernly.

I've NEVER heard of Southernly or Northernly to be honest.

Irish Stones

Images are worth more than words.
These two photos that I've taken during some of my several holidays in your country can explain it better.
The first photo was taken Manorhamilton, co. Leitrim, in 2006.
The second photo was taken in Antrim, co. Antrim, in 2009.

But what might annoy me, as an Italian, is the improper use of Italian words in English sentences.
"Lasagna" is top of the list. We never use that word, because is the singular version of "Lasagne". Everybody always eats more than one lasagna, so the correct term is "lasagne".
"Bravo" is second in the list, because in English it is used regardless of the of number of persons who receive the approval or their gender.
There are more, but I don't want to annoy you, after all this thread was intended for English grammar

Quin_Dub

Candie wrote: »

I'm guilty of frequently misspelling marraige/carraige (marriage/carriage), and prostrate/prostate, those are my personal blind spots.

Prostate is in most peoples blind spot to be fair though(except for the very limber among us).

Osgoodisgood

dxhound2005 wrote: »

There are two standard pronunciations on this site:

http://www.howjsay.com/index.php?word=sixth&submit=Submit

Neither is wrong, both are correct. It would help if people who complain about pronunciations would realise that there is more than one standard pronunciation for lots of words. Before denouncing particular forms they could at least check the many sources for pronunciations which are available online.

There are many sites that don't include sikth as a recognised pronunciation. The Cambridge Dictionary for example. I'm not really bothered in any case as my point was that it irritated me to hear it. I don't try to correct people and as for denouncing? Relax amigo

garancafan

Quote:
Originally Posted by garancafan View Post
As a denizen of Templeogue myself, I would be interested to know if that is "are" the plural of "be" or "are" 100 square meters.

sbsquarepants wrote: »

Eh, I'm not sure - I actually have no idea what you mean:)

The first rhymes with "bar", the second with "bare"

dxhound2005

garancafan wrote: »

Quote:
Originally Posted by garancafan View Post
As a denizen of Templeogue myself, I would be interested to know if that is "are" the plural of "be" or "are" 100 square meters.

The first rhymes with "bar", the second with "bare"

That is what I thought and I was going to respond to the other poster. But I checked the pronunciation in my Chambers dictionary and both are pronounced the same according to that, to rhyme with bar. But there could be more than one accepted pronunciation.

Are, noun. The unit of the metric land measure, 100 sq m. [French from Latin Area, a site, space, court].

Area has an accent over the first A.

garancafan

Er.. Chambers is Scottish.:)

BigBrownBear

I hate people who can't talk proper

kingchess

greenflash wrote: »

What gets to me is when people misuse a word to make themselves sound more intelligent.

Current in vogue malapropism is 'disinterested' instead of uninterested.

Disinterested means someone has no business in being part of the situation and should not be involved. Uninterested means they simply could not be arsed doing what they're supposed to be doing.

Commonly, footballers are accused of being disinterested in matches they are playing, but that's wrong because they are footballers and supposed to be there. A sea lion balancing a ball on its nose in the middle if the pitch would be a disinterested party.

That and the 99.9% of people in Ireland who say "Can I get..." Instead of "Can I have..," when ordering something (usually a roll or sandwich) in a shop. No you cannot 'get' it because you don't work in the shop. The staff will get it for you, bell ends.

when I was a small boy and asked my mother -can I have a sweet,she would reply-you can but you may not-so now, when I am in a shop I usually say"may I have..."

Digital Solitude

Irish Stones wrote: »

The first photo was taken Manorhamilton, co. Leitrim, in 2006.

The Slevins around Manorhamilton are a bunch of tools anyways...

Sinfonia

Irish Stones wrote: »

But what might annoy me, as an Italian, is the improper use of Italian words in English sentences.
"Lasagna" is top of the list. We never use that word, because is the singular version of "Lasagne". Everybody always eats more than one lasagna, so the correct term is "lasagne".
"Bravo" is second in the list, because in English it is used regardless of the of number of persons who receive the approval or their gender.
There are more, but I don't want to annoy you, after all this thread was intended for English grammar

What I find funny is that it's not even a standard misuse, they're all mixed up!
Lasagna (fem. sing.)
Bravo (masc. sing.)
Barista (fem. sing.)
Panini (masc. pl.)

Ring4Fea

Zaftig. Mae West was Zaftig. "Joan" from Mad Men is zaftig. If you have a waist you might be zaftig. Neither Penelope Cruz after a slice of sacher torte nor Rebel Wilson under any circumstances are zaftig.

Ann Landers

mike_ie wrote: »

Is it just me, or does anybody else have any mispronunciation or grammar pet hate that drives them up the wall?

No, nobody else does, you're special. :pac:;)

Ann Landers

BNMC wrote: »

Loose/lose.

I do this all the time even though I know the difference. It seems to be a slightly dyslexic thing.

Ann Landers

I know someone who pronounces 'advertisement' like the is in the middle is pronounced like 'is' as in "Mary is going to the shop".