To cringe when people say...

[Dalmore30]

Food being described as ‘beautiful’, ‘gorgeous’ or ‘stunning’ makes me wants to vomit.

I have to bite my tongue when people say ‘fry off’ rather than just fry.

And the word ‘secondment’ makes my skin crawl!

Is anyone with me on these?

@Nunoftheother

No - 'a hotel' is incorrect - it is 'an hotel' - read the grammar websites. It's something I have known all my life, if you use an indefinite article before a noun which begins with 'h', then it should be 'an'.

An holiday? An hockey stick? An hospital? An helicopter?

It's only when the H is silent. A hotel, an heir, a home, an hour, an honour.

Unless you all pronounce it "otel"😁
I forgot to add i like @Nunoftheother examples😁

I suppose "an hotel" is an example of when something has changed to the point where most people no longer say it, the newer version is mainstream and anyone who says the "correct" older version starts to sound old-fashioned.

Newsreaders, official documents etc don't say "an hotel" any more. It's had its day I think. If I hear it it makes me think the speaker must be very old, very posh or both.

I often think when I'm 90 or whatever I will sound old-fashioned for saying "ask" and "mischievous" as they will have been superseded. I can bang on all I like about them being "correct", but they won't be!

@HerselfIndoors

I suppose "an hotel" is an example of when something has changed to the point where most people no longer say it, the newer version is mainstream and anyone who says the "correct" older version starts to sound old-fashioned.

Newsreaders, official documents etc don't say "an hotel" any more. It's had its day I think. If I hear it it makes me think the speaker must be very old, very posh or both.

I often think when I'm 90 or whatever I will sound old-fashioned for saying "ask" and "mischievous" as they will have been superseded. I can bang on all I like about them being "correct", but they won't be!

I think you're right. I see "incase" (which is not a word) about 90% of the time on here and suspect that "in case" will eventually become elided (if that's the right term). Probably along with "inbetween", "alot" and "eachother". I think that's roughly what happened with "today".

But that doesn't stop them all making me cringe in the meantime!

I must be very old. I had elocution lessons at school back in the 60's. Wrap across the knuckles if a word was mispronounced. An 'otel was one of the words with a silent 'h'.

Times have changed, it's just an old fashioned word I expect but knowing Mrs. Townsley could still hit me with her ruler means I dare not move on!

@lollylimejuice maybe we are!

They did it 2 times. No, they didn't, they did it twice. Using 2 times instead of twice really grates on me.

Adults who suggest you “come out to play” - sound so 1970s, keys-in-the-fruit bowl, creepy.

A written dislike is when numbers instead of words are used in sentances, .

Ie. 1 flew over the cuckoo’s nest,

instead of

One flew over...

I suppose "an hotel" is an example of when something has changed to the point where most people no longer say it, the newer version is mainstream and anyone who says the "correct" older version starts to sound old-fashioned

We have lost the French pronounciation of hotel but, interestingly, valet has gone the other way. Posh Brits (who, let's face it, were the only people who needed the word until the car valet was invented) used to pronounce it "Val-ette", whereas, now, everyone says it the French way - "Val-ay".

@standrewsschool I thought the numbers rule was to use words up to twelve within text. For example: there were two boys who took 16 steps left, three right and then performed twelve cartwheels in front of 100 visitors.

I may be wrong but there's something in the depths of my memory long hidden since the day I left Lucy Clayton.

I thought you were meant to write the number up to ten, not twelve, but if I really cared, I'd look it up...

You are right EBearhug. Can't sleep so just looked it up.

‘A myriad of’ - nope. It’s just ‘myriad’. Such a beautiful word, please use it correctly.

‘So,’ before an explanation, however brief and banal. You don’t need thinking time, I just asked you where you got your top from.

‘Amazing’ used as an adjective for everything vaguely pleasant. You’re not amazed at the custard, stop being ridiculous.

And the current trend for being overly grateful for a compliment. Women are usually the perps of this one. You give the slightest positive feedback, and the head goes on one side, the voice jumps an octave and it’s, “Aawwww, thank yeeeewwww.’
It sounds sarcastic, not sincere.

Haha, this reminds me of a quirk which was very in when I was a teenager in France. We used to say "c'est trop belle" (it's tooooo beautiful, or whatever adjective) instead of très belle, si belle (very beautiful, so beautiful). It drove my mum absolutely crazy, she would say, "will you shut up with calling everything too this and too that!" Thought it sounded affected, for some reason... To be fair, I think it sounds even yuckier in English than in French.

I hate upscale. And synchronous / asynchronous learning. Blehh.

Loads of people on Judge Judy say " Well my car just turned up missing, or I found my car missing. NO JUST NO!!

Lots of people on Judge Judy use 'currently' as a past tense. Given how much she usually pulls up on people's use of grammar I wonder if this is acceptable in American English. Makes my teeth grind! (Example, when referring to a year ago, "I was currently unemployed")

A myriad of’ - nope. It’s just ‘myriad’. Such a beautiful word, please use it correctly.

Hear hear.

I was told (by a lecturer when studying for a law degree) that anyone with a law degree can call themselves a lawyer. You don't have to be practicing law. (I never have btw, but apparently I could).

And yes, not all people practicing law are solicitors.

Most phrases/ words that make me cringe have already been mentioned, for example "At the end of the day..."

One word that hasn't been mentioned (at least I don't think so) is "wonderful" - can't bear it, maybe because my ex used it as an exclamation.

So if you gave him good news, or put a plate of food down in front of him he'd say "wonderful, wonderful."
Arghhhh just say "that's great thanks."

I don't have any problem with languages evolving, absorbing other languages, or nouns turning into verbs etc. (otherwise we'd all still be speaking Old English and wouldn't use words that originated from other languages such as Latin, Indian, Greek or French, & we'd still be saying "I'm going to cook my dinner in the microwave oven" rather than "I'm going to microwave my dinner") but there are just certain things that make me cringe.

I think I don't like "wonderful" because it just sounds (to use an adj that came from a noun) a bit poncy.

Practising. It’s practising law, unless you are American.

@CheetasOnFajitas you are so right and I can't believe I wrote that wrong! I actually did know that, of course.

Don't know if anyone has mentioned "comprised of"? That is one of my pet peeves, but given the widespread use (I have heard it on the BBC news) I suppose it could not be considered to have become acceptable? I still don't like it though.

[quote theDudesmummy]@CheetasOnFajitas you are so right and I can't believe I wrote that wrong! I actually did know that, of course.[/quote]
thank you for taking that so well @theDudesmummy. It’s a bit of a pet hate if mine when our HR people email us about renewing our “practicing certificates” when “practising” is literally written on them!