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.

'The HMS Shipname' irks me.

'The Shipname' is ok, but not 'the His Majesty's Ship Shipname'. You don't put a 'the' in front of anything else that begins 'HM', such as HMG.

And 'a £100'. It's either 'a hundred pounds' or '£100'.

CBT Therapy is another example to go with PIN and ATM.

I suspect all of these fall into that weird crack where "English" has rules that make it sound "English". Hence the magical "n" in messenger". Put there to preserve our English faces.

So we've done orthography. Now morphology.

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

E2A: Considering how much I detested doing my English O levels, I wonder how many people in that class would be at home here ?

New Jane Plan TV advertisement. "I feel more healthier." Nyarrrgh!

That just sounds Irish to me.

Oh lord my colleague does this. It’s so embarrassing!

When people say both am/pm with the time AND "in the morning/afternoon". So "5am in the morning" or 2pm in the afternoon". Literally, what do you think the purpose of am/pm is EXCEPT to tell us morning/afternoon 😅

Erm … quite can have the sense of a little bit or the sense of absolutely and entirely, no? So quite unique could mean ‘wholly unique’ and that’s hyperbole, rather than dodgy grammar.

Unique is a word that cannot have degrees. Something is either unique or it’s not. Just like you can’t be a little bit pregnant, you are or you aren’t.

See also 12am/12pm. am means before noon and pm means after noon. 12 is either noon or midnight. I suppose you could describe midnight as both 12am and 12pm as it's 12 hours past the previous noon and 12 hours before the next noon, but this would hardly be helpful. 12 in the middle of the day is still 12 noon though.

Saw this today, thought it was pretty good 🌞

(especially the refusal to use the word "fewer" even though it would rhyme!)

Noon is 12pm. Midnight is 12am.

@ConnieHeart how do you reconcile that with the fact that 'am' is short for 'ante meridiem' ie before noon, and 'pm' is short for 'post meridiem', ie after noon? AT noon is neither before nor after noon, by definition.

This is one that SENDS me up the wall!

Brian Bilston is great, very clever.

I know it doesn't make a lot of sense but it's how I was always taught, seen it written like that many times etc and never the other way round

My boss is a woman in a senior position who insists on calling her desk drawers her desk 'draws'. She's Scottish, as am I, so both r's would normally be fully pronounced but she is very clearly saying 'draws' not 'drawers'. It makes me want to bite my own face off, it's not just a bit wrong, it's wilfully using totally the wrong word.

I take my petty revenge for this ridiculousness by not pointing out the glaring typo in her email auto signature that she's somehow missed for the last 8 months.

I've bought gardening plaques, against my better judgement, with those

Gardener's know the best dirt

The thread is so long. Have we had whose and who's? Why can't people understand that to say who's house is this, translates to who is house?

@Missymarple nothing to do with being scottish. the idiots who say draws instead of drawers usually also say "chester" in front of the draws!! they have no clue!! the same goes for people who use the incorrect word for borrow and lend, as in, can you borrow me a fiver??? what the hell is that even meant to mean?? My dh has even had a scientist?? telling him where the "sheeps" are on the estate!! I thought everyone knew that sheep is a mass noun!

I’ve noticed an increasing number of people online using he’s instead of his, and vice versa.

I worked with someone many years ago who did this.

I know it wasn't that she didn't read and never saw it written down, because we did a book swap in the office, and she joined in, contributing books and taking books that were brought in by others.

This is a weird but insanely unpleasant Mumsnet trope.

I can literally only say draws/drawers the same way. I don't even understand how they could sound different. I've lived all over the country and have never noticed anyone having distinct pronunciations for them.

I don't appreciate being called an "idiot" for my accent.

Eppy tome. I heard a political commentator say this on the radio last week. She knew what it means but presumably had never heard it spoken. For her benefit and ours, Ee pit oh mee. Epitome.

I think I only learnt epitome when it came up at university in the context of epitome of title.

Why on earth isn't it pronounced epeetohm ;)

After all, we talk about a heavy tome and not a tommy :)

Yourself and myself used in the incorrect context, which is almost always these days. I can’t stand it.

Also the ubiquitous wrong your/you’re and there/their/they’re.

I’m now seeing “peaked” interest more than I see the correct piqued.