Fri 15 Feb 2008
Accepting as a given that (a) nearly everyone has engaged in some language-related grousing in their lives, and that (b) most of us are aware that this strange half-discipline, this “peevology“, is more about the pleasure of grousing (and even blogging) than anything more righteous and defensible…
What are your language / grammar / usage / paralinguistic peeves? And where did you pick them up? Do you remember when any specific bit of usage first began to drive you crazy — or when you first stopped taking it so seriously?
Have you ever seen a peeve develop in someone before your very eyes? Or, more on the side of the angels, successfully fought one down?
Posted by Josh Millard25 answers so far!
Okay, let's hear it.
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Unnecessary apostrophe’s on plural’s. They’re completely superfluou’s.
I think you’re making the dangerous assumption that this applies to everyone, and not just your own petty pedantic world-view. Begs the question. ;)
Oh. I know this one. People typing “could of, should of” instead of “could have, should have”. Honestly, do people not READ? Or “I could’ve went” instead of “I could’ve gone”. Ditto “I should have came” – no, you should have come. “Here here” instead of “hear hear”. Something is due, it is not “dued”. Lots of small things. I’m a bit anal about grammar. *shifty eyes*
OH. Also. On accident. Something happened on accident. It drives me insane, but I’ve started picking up on it. Dammit people, things happen BY accident. *cry*
Oh wow, where do I start. My head will “literally” explode if I think about it too much. Honestly, despite being a copyeditor, I don’t have that many peeves, pet or otherwise. Apostrophe abuse is annoying, and don’t smugly tell me not to put a preposition at the end of a sentence because you’ll get a 20-minute lecture about the history of that “rule” and actual language usage, etc. Since I’m pretty quiet and it’s rare to hear me talk for even 5 minutes about something, people usually back down right quick.
I read roughly a metric ton of freshman English essays every year, so obviously, I have my fed-up moments, but the only two things that make me twitch with rage rather than amusing me when I hear them (constantly) in ordinary conversation are “literally” and “mOmento.” But yeah, we nerdo English majors, except for a few prescriptivists, are generally pretty philosophical and way, way less anal retentive about this stuff than your self-appointed civilian armchair usage field marshals are.
Case in point: several years ago I went to see my general practitioner with some horrible gastrointestinal virus-of-doom. So I’m hunched over in the exam room, pallid, clammy, barely conscious, listing to port, and ready to heave, and when he asks me about my symptoms, I mention that I’m feeling quite nauseous.
“Nauseous?” he sneers, drawing back in derisive shock. “You mean nauseated. As an English professor should know, nauseous means “provoking nausea,” not “experiencing nausea.” This man is so fucking lucky I don’t carry a gun, especially since he also has a tendency to spout religious-fanatic bromides during check-ups. (Hey, GPs are in very short supply hereabouts, so you’ve got to take what you get, OK?)
It throws me off to see “loose” used in place of “lose.”
FellinBlank, it might be fun to buy a pentacle necklace and paint your nails black neck time you have a check-up scheduled. Or write, “Satan Rules” on your knuckles with black pen.
Begs the question.
Now that’s just fightin’ words right there.
Argh, neck instead of “next” on a grammar question! Neck tie I will do a grammar check and attempt to spell names properly.
Whether or not they sell expresso at the liberry, I’ll drink some irregardless.
Thanks, Josh: I have been playing for a while with the idea of posting my language peeve on AskMe or MetaTalk but it doesn’t fit either. Here is the perfect venue for futile language peeves:
“Hive mind”: I hate it, it’s disgusting and misleading. There is no hive. When you are at a conference and the speaker asks a question and somebody takes the mike and answers it, this answer doesn’t come from the “room mind” or the “conference attendees’ mind”. It comes from one person. A bunch of people doesn’t a hive make.
Sure, the “Wisdom of crowds” (as much as it is validated) could be considered a hive mind thingy, because it is not dependent on individuals but on statistics.
But answers in AskMe, as in Wikipedia, don’t come from any hive nor any collective mind. There is nothing collective in the person who answers a question. The only collective thing about it is the resulting accumulated knowledge: the AskMe database and the Wikipedia database are collective works. But questions are asked to people and answers come from one person at a time.
Therefore all “hive mind” users should be mocked, tarred and feathered.
Note: there is no BBQ mind either, no offense intended.
“very unique”
Gah!
Blogs that don’t capitalize at all. There was a recent post on the Blue with some blog links which sounded interesting enough to read, but not a single character was capitalized and I immediately closed the tab.
I’m not really sure why, but it just vexes me greatly.
Along the same line, people online who don’t use any punctuation. Really, a period every now and again won’t break the keyboard.
The use of “Irregardless.” It may or may not be a word, but just use Regardless FFS. Not really rational, but it irritates me. My current teacher uses it all the time and I just want to poke his eyes out every time I hear it.
They’re/their/there. It’s grammar school time. Come on, you can do it!
I use some British spellings because I am in Canada and I’m allowed. BUT when I use the word, ‘practise’ (the verb form) some idiot always corrects it! And then when I explain the difference between ‘practise’ and ‘practice’ they look at me like I am crazy!!!
I am not crazy! I am not British either! But I like precision when I am writing!
When someone describes something that is inexpensive as “cheap” – it irks me. To me, cheap implies quality and not cost. I think what upsets me about it is that it mixes the meanings and it is never clear from context if something is inexpensive or of poor quality by the context of a sentence that has the word “cheap”. Everytime someone says cheap in a sentence I ask “Do you mean inexpensive or of poor quality?” I enjoy clarity for some reason.
I’m glad that the neologism “keyboarding” does not seem to be catching on. What is the value of this term? What action does it describe that “typing” and “data entry” do not?
I disagree with you a little, Tube. I think “typing” is definitely the go-to word for describing the mechanical act of poking at either a typewriter or a computer keyboard; and that “data entry” is solid for the semantic notion of “typing (on a computer keyboard, generally) information into a storage system”.
But how do you describe that set of skills that are related distinctly to the use of a computer keyboard rather than a manual or electric typewriter? They’re not the same, and in that context I’ve talked pretty naturally about “keyboarding skills” in the past and will probably do so in the future. It’s niche — I don’t see any reason for it to overtake “typing” as the default word for “typing at a keyboard” — but it has its own little neighborhood of usefulness to me.
I guess I’m unfamiliar with what skills are related to a keyboard that you don’t use on a typewriter. On a typewriter you can depress “shift” then a letter to capitalize the letter. While I imagine that would be thought of most precisely as a “command”, it still falls well within the domain of ordinary “typing”.
How are the exotic keystroke combinations of programing fundamentally different? To me they differ only in degree, not in kind, but I’ll admit I’m arguing from ignorance here, as my knowledge of programming is at the total n00b level.
I think my bias against “keyboarding” came about when I encountered it in reference to childhood education. It seems to me kids need to learn how to type before they advance to “keyboarding”.
Phire: People typing “could of, should of” instead of “could have, should have”. Honestly, do people not READ?
Heh. I don’t recall which ones, but I’ve seen that mistake pop up in a few books. They weren’t ones by small, first-time authors either. It must
ofhave been careless editing or typesetting, I guess.I agree with many of the above, but just want to add the ubiquitous use of “verbal” (meaning to communicate using words) when “oral” (communicate using spoken words) is meant. Although it has become such an accepted usage that I will never win, everyone needs a Quixotic mission in life.
The term “pill” is a romantic anachronism. Pills were made by mixing an herb or drug into a gummy solid then rolling out little spheres to be taken orally. Pills have not been used in Western medicine in many, many, years.
When I was a pharmacist, people would sometimes give me a description of what kind of oral solid drug they were trying to identify. Inevitably, the first question I would have to ask was “was it a tablet or a capsule”? I kid you not, some times people would respond, “well, it was a pill…”
For many people “pill” means a tablet or a capsule, but really it is neither.
I don’t really have pet peeves per se, but I notice when people make spelling and/or grammar deviations from the norms and I absolutely love it. It’s almost like I get to peer behind the curtain of their mind for a split second and see how all their linguisticky stuff is organized back there. Some people are really messy and don’t care. Others are meticulous, yet they still get an apostrophe out of place every now and then. I love it. The “mistakes” are little gems.
Then again, I’m kind of a hypocrite, since somebody corrected me the other day on my spelling of caché vs. cachet and I sorta flipped my lid. I was really sensitive about it for some reason, and got all “Well, *I* will spell it how I want and who cares and leave me alone and blah blah blah!!”
I guess if I had to pick a consistently peevish pet I have about language, it’d be when I tell people I’m a linguist and the first thing they say is “Oh, neat. How many languages do you speak?” I usually tell them “one”. But that comes off rather snarky. I’ve never found a good way to answer that question, other than saying something akin to “That’s like asking a writer how many typewriters he has, or a plumber how many toilets he owns”.
I have a friend who says “supposably” instead of “supposedly.” Grates on my nerves every time.
Anal language people like me can join me in reading Pain in the English where they blog about this topic all the time.
While I don’t really mind the term “skill set”, I fail to see why it’s an improvement over “talents”.
The term “spiral staircase” is a misnomer, as they are actually helical. I have absolutely no faith that this misnomer will go away…
If you shuffle your feet on the carpet and and touch a metal doorknob you may be “shocked” but it is doubtful you will be “electrocuted” as “electrocuted” means death by electricity. The “cuted” part is the tip-off.
Native Americans hunted the bison, not the buffalo. The buffalo is an African animal.
I am actually NOT an insufferable prick in person…
Two things: People who attach “lol” to the end of their sentences in online communication, and people who use the word “utilize” in any non-ironic context.
@JD
Utilize butts, lol.