on 3 July 2009Just been browsing a Facebook group called ‘Correct Spelling, Punctuation and Apostrophe Use’. It was recommended by Kenny, a magazine editor who’s pretty hot on all those things. The group itself, though, seems to be populated largely by the kind of language maven satirised by Steven Pinker: people who aren’t really interested in language, but have picked up bits of Fowler or Strunk, or just some prejudices from their parents or teachers, and get some kind of satisfaction from chucking these in the general direction of the cesspit of lazy non-standard usage that is everyday communication.
For example:
Has anyone ever gone “acrossed” the street or known someone who did?
I haven’t, but speakers of one of the many dialects in which this is a standard pronunciation of ‘across’ may well have done so. And what of it?
I am today reminded of the dickheads that use “aks” instead of “ask”.
Yes, all those Afro-Caribbean dickheads – I got nuffink against em but they don’t talk proper innit.
How about “anyways”? (I’m going over there anyways.) Like fingernails on a blackboard for me.
Quick, run back to your village where everyone talks the same as you!
Has anyone yet mentioned the ghastly errors with ‘alternate’ and ‘alternative’? The former is now used so often that we are in danger of it being accepted as correct usage.
Things are even worse in the States, where that usage has even infected the dictionaries. Where will it end?
People who say “pitcher” when talking about “pictures.” I want to rip out their vocal cords!
Surely you mean vochal cords. Are you pronouncing that “pick-cher”, or to be strictly correct should we say “pickt-your”? Oh, and, just checking: who died and made you Queen?
My personal pet peeve is the use of the word “healthy” for the word “healthful.” Let’s remember to start the day with a healthful breakfast and end the day with a healthful snack. (I know I’m on the losing end of this one.)
WTF???!!!! (Sorry about the punctuation.) You can’t cope with a transferred epithet, so you invent a brand new ugly word that fails to express what a perfectly good word was already conveying to everyone else? What are you, Percy Grainger?
One that bugs me is … “I could care less” when correctly it should be … “I couldn’t care less!”
As Pinker has pointed out, this usage is derived from a phenomenon known to linguists as ‘sarcasm’. Me, I’m bugged by people who misuse ellipsis and put punctuation inside speech marks that belongs to the framing statement.
With all the money that WalMart has, you’d think they would hire someone to edit their signs prior to printing…
Or just before.
‘funner’ isn’t bad grammar - I believe it’s bad syntax -but I’m prepared to be corrected.
I think you think it’s bad morphology, but really it’s a deliberate neologism. Apple weren’t* committing an error when they advertised ‘the funnest iPod ever’, just as they weren’t when they asked us to ‘Think Different’. It’s OK to play with language. Go on, you won’t break it.
*Singular noun, plural meaning. Take your pick as long as you keep it consistent.
so many people don’t understand why it is wrong to say “different than”.
Yes, it’s one of the major problems facing our society. So, um, remind us – why is it wrong?
I thought I wanted to be part of this group, but not when you mock people’s dialects.
A voice of reason! Swiftly squished by:
I highly doubt those that say “ax” don’t know it is spelled “ask”.
OMFG – we’ve all been agonising about this pronunciation stuff when all we needed to do was say everything just like it’s written!
In among the crap, though, are some genuine infelicities. I particularly liked
“So many options on our menu; each one better than the next”
Better order quickly.
on 1 July 2009
on 19 June 2009
adambanksdotcom TPB buyout lol - fines minus profits equals GBP2.3m. They still go to jail, though. Does any part of all this make any sense? #piratebay