To invite the grammar and language pedants to share their pet peeves?

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AIBU to feel annoyed when I see people say Slither instead of sliver? It was even in a book I read recently. A slither of cake. No! That makes no sense, unless the cake’s been trodden into the carpet!

Also see: step foot in instead of set foot in

There’s plenty of others but those will do for now.

My pet peeve is hearing drawing pronounced as drorring...NO, it's drawing!
Why is that so difficult to say?

So that will give you a whole extra dimension of misused apostrophes (instead of prime marks in chemical names)... 🤓

No need for a new one!!

This shows a basic understanding of how language and culture evolve.

Every word and phrase you use was once a new one, replacing an older, familiar one. Language isn't going to stop evolving because you think the lexicon you use now is sufficient.

It’s absolutely everywhere now, but ‘there is’ with a plural really irritates me.

English has a fair few contranyms, this wiki page has some examples from other languages

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contronym

Stood/sat instead of standing/sitting. Most people I know do this.

Sometimes I think what sounds best is a good rule of thumb. Data is plural (datum being the singular) but I wouldn't say 'the data show...' because it jars.

Continuing the plural vs singular theme, I previously worked in consulting. My team would write reports where the house style was to use Management (capitalised) in the singular. Having to trawl through and correct 'Management have provided' to 'Management has provided' or 'Management are considering' to 'Management is considering'... shows how either the plural or singular would come more naturally to some people on the project than others.

Oh yes! ‘I text him’ instead of texted. Makes my teeth hurt.

That would be another's, then.

In American usage momentarily means very soon.

In UK usage it means for a very short period of time.

I became aware of this difference in a rather disturbing way when travelling on a US airline. Immediately prior to take-off the Captain announced that “we expect to be airborn momentarily.”

This has reminded me of a personal pet peeve.

A colleague frequently uses adversity to refer to an adverse result. For example, if profit margin is adverse to budget he might write 'the margin adversity is due to a one-off cost in the month'.

I would like to hear 'privacy' pronounced correctly as priv-acy, rather than pry-vacy. Urgh!
Also, schedule is pronounced as shed-ule in BrE. Skedule is US. I have to admit I was guilty of this when I worked in travel. None of us knew how 'scheduled' flights should be pronounced. But I learnt how from Ian Hislop, who had a moan about it on HIGNFY.

Chat about acronyms has made me think of another one:

Calling initials acronyms. It's only an acronym if you can say it as a word.

SCUBA = acronym
RSVP = initialisation/initials

Similarly, comprising of.

This thread has been so cathartic! It's great to be able to have a whinge in a safe space 😉. Can I whinge that WHINGE is not an accepted word in the New York Times Spelling Bee? They don't accept perfectly ordinary words (to us) and have some weird and obscure ones (to us). Eg. tony as an adjective. .

Not really, tbh. Accuracy in such things isn’t pedantry, it really matters!

That's all interesting stuff, thank you. But my point still stands. Biscuit means "twice cooked". The point of them being cooked twice was to make them crisp and crunchy, quite the opposite to a "biscuit" in the States. For what it's worth, home cooks in Britain tend to make cookies rather than true biscuits, because biscuit making is a specialised technique. We buy biscuits and make cookies.

What about "SQL" = "Sequel" ?

Does this count as a Mandela effect as I was convinced I'd always read it as unchartered? And no, I haven't read Arthur Ransome.

Online posters writing, 'Here Here' to show they agree with something. It's 'Hear, hear'!

On estate agents: writing 'Comprising of...' instead of the perfectly adequate 'Comprising'.

Using 'train station' instead of 'railway station'; even the BBC have started doing this. The station is on the railway, not the train.

Using 'decimated' to indicate something being utterly destroyed used to irritate me, as it originally meant to reduce by 10%, but I've let that go now.

My current grave concern for the English language is the trend for Adjective-Ness. We have many lovely nouns to describe qualities, and (I assume due to people not having the vocabulary) they are being erased and replaced with the adjective with 'ness' on the end.

Examples are:
Humbleness instead of Humility
Braveness instead of Courage
Wiseness instead of Wisdom
Curiousness instead of Curiosity

All heard on the radio recently. How long before it's She has patientness with people, He shows honestness at all times, They had great loyalness?

Please join me in this fight!

I agree... I meant a whole extra dimension of fliching at (and fixing) the wrong use of apostrophes, not just "grocer's potato's"!

Oops. I'm definitely guilty of dangling my modifiers. Sorry about that!

His when you mean he's - e.g. his going to work.. Surely people work out that you wouldn't say shis for she is?

I can understand this one though. It feels like renumeration should be correct.

If that's how it's said, then it's an acronym. As you're saying it as a word, not just listing the letters..