To ask for your misheard common sayings?

[TheGhostsOfMeAndYou]

My husband thinks I am ridiculous that I always thought the saying "another think coming" was "another thing coming"

It's taken me 38 years to realise this and I now feel rather silly.

Which is fine. Please see my earlier comment about the development of language.

Irregardless...

@TheWickermanReturns , it won't be long before 'could of' will be considered acceptable.

Well now you know

If you feel so strongly about it, why aren’t you speaking in Latin or Anglisc? Language develops. Do I always agree? Of course not. But you cannot pick and choose which developments suit you.

My husband always says 'nip it in the butt' instead of bud. Drives me nuts.

I'm in the "think" camp, and as I predate the 80s (by a comsiderable time) then I guess that's why I'm right.....

“Flaunting the rules” drives me mad. As does this phenomena, this criteria, this bacteria……..

The proof of the pudding is in the eating

discrete and discreet. I know not a saying, but it rinds my ears

Anyone mentioned 'step foot'? It's 'set foot'!

@TheWickermanReturns , I'm not sure what you are referring to.
I don't disagree with language evolving unless the original meaning of a word is forgotten or if the evolution isn't positive. We have a rich language because it has evolved and borrowed from other languages.

That’s exactly what I came on to say and then you started debating with me - I said decimate has two meanings. You argued that the meaning has changed and that wasn’t the original comment. I said yes, that happens. Now it has two meanings. You made a sarky comment about ‘could of’, I reiterated that sometimes language changes. Sometimes spellings change, sometimes words change, sometimes phrases change. Sometimes this occurs because of a deliberate invention, other times it happens due to misuse. As I said, I don’t always agree with that - of course not. I don’t think it should be ‘of’ instead of ‘have’ and I never said that. I don’t know why you’re trying to draw me into an argument at all. I simply came on to say that language evolves and sometimes we have to embrace that and that it can be hugely positive. I have published phrases and words that I’ve invented or adjusted - it’s fun providing it’s clear and understandable.

@TheWickermanReturns , I did not debate with you, or argue with you, and I did not say that the meaning of decimated had changed from meaning reduce by a tenth. My point was that the decimated to mean destroyed had come about by misuse. Decimated still means reduce by a tenth, but it can nowadays be used to mean destroyed.

I was not being sarky. My 'could of' post was a comment - it is likely to happen.

FWIW, I don't consider decimated now being used to mean destroyed as being positive evolution. There are plenty of words that could be used for destroy, but I can't think of another that means reduce by a tenth.

But how often do we in today’s times need a word to represent the loss by specifically a tenth? I doubt that there is a great deal of confusion when the word is used these days to be honest. I can understand the frustration, sometimes it feels as though the beauty of our language is getting…’decimated’ 😉

Personally I can’t see ‘could of’ becoming official over ‘could have’. Same as I can’t see them changing ‘lose’ to ‘loose’ despite its constant common misuse. Same as it has stoutly remained as ‘an historic’ instead of ‘a historic’. But we shall see in time, I guess!

Conversationally maybe, but not correct in writing.

Depends on the context surely, I don't think there's any need to write formally on MN or social media.

When did heart rending become heart wrenching? Gut wrenching and heart rending.

And yes to thise pointing out set foot not step foot!

@PedantScorner nooooooo.

Or

your a genus

(I typed that with my eyes closed)

Depends on the context surely, I don't think there's any need to write formally on MN or social media.

I think there's a difference between writing formally, and writing ungrammatically @ColleenDonaghy. Grammar is the agreed set of rules through which we communicate, as are the meanings of words; I could call a 'table' a 'fish,' but it wouldn't be particularly effective communication. I could use the wrong preposition: I could say 'I put the table into the fish' but my meaning wouldn't be at all clear, if what I wanted to say were: 'I put the fish on the table.'

But I was responding to a post about "youse" which is popular informal usage in lots of places.

Similar to the misunderstanding about "chronic" above and the poster thinking someone was incorrect when actually they were just being informal.

Elsewhere on MN I’ve just seen ‘on tender hooks’.
It’s ‘tenter hooks’.
(What ‘tenter’ actually means IDK - must look it up.)

I’m fine with ‘youse’ (my own Hiberno-English makes frequent use of ‘ye’, which is useful for distinguishing between you as an individual and you plural), but I think the issue with things that are just misspellings or misheard/ misunderstood expressions is that some people only read online, unproofed prose, on SM sites, so they don’t have any ‘correct’ prose for comparison — hence the alarmingly widespread usage of ‘Chester draws”, ‘rest bite’, ‘defiantly’ for ‘definitely’.

Personally I can’t see ‘could of’ becoming official over ‘could have’. I do hope you're right. It gives me the ick.

I think of decimated as coming from tithes, so I might say I was decimating my take home pay.

The Roman army decimated my troop. How many soldiers survived?

Youse doesn't bother me. If yer from The Pool, yer used to it.

Yeah, I'd been saying Tenderhooks instead