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

[AlertCat]

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.

You could of loosed one of them o's from too for grater affect.

My pet peeve is when nasty, ill bred people on mumsnet abuse other people for grammar issues. Years ago, I worked with children with learning difficulties, and something I swiftly learned is that some of them were poor at spelling and grammar because it was how their minds worked, not because they weren't bright or trying hard enough.

Language is primarily for communication. Provided the person is communicating their meaning adquately, it is the absolute height of bad manners to correct someone on mumsnet on a mistake, and shows you were poorly raised.

One that annoys me (and is truly pedantic) is when people play at speaking Shakespearean English and then get the declensions wrong. E.g 'Maketh thou a cup of coffee?' instead of 'makest thou'. Ridiculous but it really winds me up and I want to correct them.

In all my 69 years I have never heard a single person say "hit or miss". I don't agree that it's the most common and I don't agree it's the correct one either, at least in this country. It seems to be used more in the States, but that doesn't make it right.

I agree wholeheartedly.

I don’t understand - I say “it’s a bit hit or miss”, all the time - just today I said it to mean variable and inconsistent. I find it hard to believe you have never used it or heard it if you’re in the UK.

Off of - I hate this too! It’s another bloody Americanism we can thank the influencers and media for. This annoying way of missing out words in some sentences but adding unnecessary ones in others - infuriating 🙄

I recently heard a newsreader say "was sat" instead of "was sitting"!

I think I give up. If even the news readers are being given the wrong grammar to read aloud.....

I’m with you @Fleetheart I’ve always used “hit or miss” and so does everyone I know.

I hate ‘yous’ and ‘it’s a bit cringe’ 🙈 cringeworthy!!! Say cringeworthy!!!

While I haven’t read every reply, I haven’t seen any abuse, rudeness, or personal/targeted attacks. In fact this post is probably the most unpleasant reply I’ve seen.

Please, if the topic isn’t to your liking, scroll past it.

Since this thread is running, can anyone explain the sudden fetish for saying "16 and 17 year olds will get the vote" rather than the much more succinct and less clunky "lower the voting age to 16" ?

Or are we seeing a brave new world where will say that "anyone aged 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 .....". ?

Fetish? I've seen both used a lot. Surely it's not unusual to phrase things in different ways? People aren't always on a mission to find the shortest, most simple way of saying things!

I don’t know if the PP meant this thread. I’d agree that anyone abusing or mocking a poster on a thread for SPAG errors is being ill mannered, some posters are downright unkind and may warrant reporting for breaking MN guidelines. Sometimes it’s possible to unobtrusively model correct usage, as we naturally do with our own children.

Threads like this, OTOH, can act as a vent, and are perhaps an exception re mockery when Muphry’s Law pertains!

I believe the Americans spell it, as well as pronounce it, without the second 'i'.

Those who are chemists spell and pronounce it correctly IME.

You might find it hard to believe, but it is nevertheless true. I have since looked it up (in case I was going mad) and it seems that hit and miss is the most usual in UK and hit or miss is most usual in the States. Perhaps it's a generational thing. I have no idea how old you are. I wonder if it's even, perhaps, regional in this country.

Sorry. It's clunky. Which immediately trips my "what are they hiding" alarm.

@AlertCat I kid you not, my dh has a legal office and regularly receives letters and emails from a legal company in another part of the country. the person writing those letters always says this! we sent yous documentation previously! legal occupation??? did they even go to school!

@AlertCat are house?? are family?? what is this supposed to be?

It doesn’t sound clunky to me - it’s a short sentence of easy straightforward words. I think this one may be a ‘you’ thing.

@DisabledDemon

The confusion over the aluminum/ aluminium spelling arose because of some uncharacteristic indecisiveness on Davy’s part. When he first isolated the element in 1808, he called it alumium. For some reason he thought better of that and changed it to aluminum four years later. Americans dutifully adopted the new term, but many British users disliked aluminum, pointing out that it disrupted the-ium pattern established by sodium, calcium and strontium, so they added a vowel and syllable. Among his other achievements, Davy also invented the miner’s safety lamp.”

— A Short History of Nearly Everything (Bryson Book 5) by Bill Bryson
https://read.amazon.co.uk/kp/kshare?asin=B0035OC7VI&id=2vsq2orfenbbzbxydn3wzvkjga

@DisabledDemon This might put you out of your aluminium based misery!

I don't think they're hiding anything, but there's an agenda. Sub-editors and the like who use this sort of phrasing are trying to wind up people like Mail readers by trying to bring it home to them that, OMG, 16 year old CHILDREN (they always use capitals like that) will be voting in lefty governments for evermore.

I suspect it's because it's used elsewhere with respect to education then.

You aren't over 16. You are a 16 or 17 year old. Which in relation to voting is a tautology. And I abhor them in a singularly unique way.