To say the word is CUE and if you don’t know that then why not use a different word?

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So many people on here want to use the word “cue” as in “cue DS throwing his toys out of the pram.” People seem to want to use this phrase much more often in writing here than I would hear people use it in real life.

But why use a word when you don’t understand what the word is or how to spell it?

I’ve seen so many different versions in posts on MN - “queue,” “Q”and just now “qué,” which is the most ridiculous yet.

AIBU to say the word you are looking for is “CUE” and if you are not sure then maybe use a different phrase?

Yes it's just you. You're being purposely obtuse rather than admitting you misread.

Actually, I take that back: I just had a quick Google (because you should always be prepared to back up your position with facts) and discovered the average reading age among UK adults is 9.

Holy shit.

I mean it's not so bad on here I admit. But would you be so blase (sorry I don't know how to do accents on my laptop) if you got a letter from school asking "All parents to cue in an orderly fashion to collect there children"?

Probably not. You expect a minimum standard in written and official communications.

School letters have been posted on MN before

Some worrying mistakes on them!

Everyone is trying their best

But people who get things wrong don't know they're wrong.

I've very confidently said many things wrong in my life with no idea until I've been corrected and o had no need to double check because it wasn't something I was unsure about.

It is sad. Since text speak, social media and problems getting people to train as teachers it has become noticeable. People have stopped reading books, just mess with their phones all the time so it just spreads.

I don't correct it but I find that people who write for a living (web sites etc.) seem to have a poor grasp of what they are doing. Education seems to have given up the ghost.

First post of the cat sitter thread 😁

This should really be in pedants corner.

The one that gets me is using click in place of clique.

But I ignore and move on. My DD would get loads wrong, but still would be as deserving of support from MN as anyone else.

I agree with this. And people are reading less and less (or so I'm led to believe) so vocabularies just aren't being expanded in the same way.

Particularly embarrassing for the writer when you can tell they've made an assumption that no one has ever corrected - I remember reading a book that went on and one about someone's 'flaxen hair'. They clearly thought 'flaxen' meant 'straight' and not 'blond'. And the editor clearly didn't know either as it was repeated throughout!

As an interesting point, I work for a high street bank and one of my projects this year is to ensure everything is in line with the new Consumer Duty rules that the FCA have put in place. We have to do a lot of work to ensure that T&C and even just instructions are in the most basic and plain wording so that our customers can understand it. Even that's not enough sometimes though - case in point, recent threads about people enraged they've had to give the bank staff info on payments into their accounts.

Yes, that's the real problem -- some people don't read much or anything in print, or otherwise copyedited and correct, and their primary source of written text is online, so their sense of correctness is built on what they most often see on here or social media. Hence 'chester draws', 'brought' for 'bought', 'defiantly' for 'definitely'.

I do agree, OP, that 'que' (and variants) for 'cue' is turning into this decade's version of 'turned round' in the sense of 'So I turned round and told her X, and when she complained about me jumping the queue, DH turned around and gave it to her straight' etc etc.

I have a friend who wrote a book, which I duly bought and read. No-one appeared to have proof read it. This was sometime in the 90's.

I agree with you, OP. The other (annoying) misspelling I see frequently is “free reign.” I wouldn’t point it out to the writer directly, but I see nothing wrong with a thread commenting on such misspellings generally.

To "qué" may I add "Devine"? - shudder.

@ChiefWiggumsBoy But we're not talking about in the context of a school letter. What's the point in discussing irrelevant hypotheticals?

You expect a minimum standard in written and official communications.

Yes, but the minimum standard differs in formal and informal contexts. I admit it irks me when I'm reading a published novel and there's a typo, but that's a completely separate scenario to reading a post on MN.

People don’t know what they don’t know. I “knew” up until embarrassingly recently that porcupine was pronounced “porky-pine”. I didn’t pronounce it that was because I was unsure. I just learned an incorrect pronunciation which wasn’t corrected for years. People using queue, or Q also are probably spelling something they’ve only every heard spoken aloud before, and are using what they know about their language to spell it.

I read a quote once, which said don’t make fun of someone who mispronounces a word, as that means they learnt it by reading. Maybe the same should apply to words learnt from the spoken word as well.

Just seen a post elsewhere about break pads for the car... another common one.

It's the daily "point out how much better my English is than yours" thread.

In fact, in computer programming, to queue an action would be much more logical.

And indeed, we use 'event queues'. OTOH I've had to correct documentation referring to 'depth queuing' instead of 'depth cueing'. 'Cue' has meanings apart from the stage direction one.

Nonplussed misuse is rife atm too. It doesn’t mean laid back! That’s nonchalant.

Nonplussed means confused/bewildered.

OP language is about communication. Do you understand what they mean? Great, then job done. Different people have different challenges. Spelling isn't easy for everyone for a variety of reasons. If they got their message across that's what counts.

You don’t know what you don’t know.

Actually, if these threads help people I don't think they do any harm. When people pile on and start picking others is when they cause a problem.

Why are you so angry though? 😆