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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To get irritated at the wrong usage of there/their/they're

127 replies

Made2OrderJelly · 10/03/2009 20:11

It bloody riles me, i don't know why, it just does

Do you get them right???

It really is not hard!

OP posts:
ChippingIn · 11/03/2009 22:00

Lend/Borrow is a very regional thing, but it still makes me want to correct the person saying it (I don't though!!! I'm sure I say/do things that annoy other people!!).

There are lots of things that are a little bit annoying (the ones already posted on this thread). My Mum & best friend are seriously the worst spellers, but to be perfectly honest, I'd rather have someone here (or my Mum & friend) feel relaxed and comfortable posting (emailing/writing to me) than sitting there worrying over everything they type.

I would love to join in with the pedants, but the thought of fucking up while there bothers me so much, I don't. For me, lifes biggest mystery is the use of the apostrophe - I know it should be simple... but for me it's not - if anyone can make it so.... please do

What does annoy me (and if the people who do it get the hump I don't care), is people who make absolutely NO effort to punctuate whatsoever!!

ChippingIn · 11/03/2009 22:10

A couple of other things... LOL

See - did it there - fucking up the thought of having to do it perfectly always makes me make a mistake

The other night (about 2am) I posted a comment on the Ann Summers thread and twice typed underware (instead, of course, of underwear), I'm not sure if it was sleep deprivation or just typo, but to someone else reading that (as I did the next day), I look like I can't spell a word where the clue is the use of the word (ware, wear) and something that I would pick up on immediately when reading another persons post!

Decimate - I never knew it meant 1/10 and yes, if you look at it logically the clue is there in the word (thanks to whoever said that earlier in a bit of a scathing way), but when you have grown up with it meaning 'damage/kill most of', why would you question it??

ingles2 · 11/03/2009 22:20

YANBU...
What really riles me is Scott Mills on Radio 1... occasionally I'll put it on in the car but have to turn it off, when he says someone is off of somewhere... urgghhh

ChippingIn · 11/03/2009 22:27

ingles2 - as in 'that bloke, he's off of Eastenders' ... if that's what you mean - then guilty as charged.

Also to whoever hates 'I got it off of Fred', also guilty as charged!! I'd never write it, but I would say it. I think a lot of it is just 'common usage' which doesn't make it right, but doesn't make it a shooting offence either

Olifin · 11/03/2009 22:34

ingles, I find that irksome too but I think he's trying to be a bit facetious. I could be wrong though, it's hard to tell with Scott Mills.

ChippingIn, the apostrophe is used to show contraction (where a letter/letters have been removed) e.g. can't, I'm, They're, it's.....

It is also used to show possession: Betty's cake, my Dad's car, the cat's whiskers, London's streets..... except where the noun is 'it' (the cat cleaned its whiskers).

Where the noun is a plural, the apostrophe comes after the 's' e.g. the boys' shirts. One that sometimes catches people out is plural and possessive of 'baby' and 'lady':

The babies are crying (more than one baby)
The baby's cot (one baby, possessive)
The babies' cots (more than one baby, possessive)

Where the apostrophe is NOT used is to show a plural, and this is the usage which riles a lot of pedants. It is sometimes known as the greengrocer's apostrophe, thanks to its appearance on greengrocer's signs (apple's, orange's etc...)

Hope that helps!

Just thought of another annoying one: whose and who's.

TrillianAstra · 12/03/2009 07:54

I'm not sure 'decimate' is all that obvious. It could easily be reduce to 1 in 10 (ie kill 9/10) rather than kill 1/10, which would fit with the more common usage (kill lots of/most of the population in question).

duchesse · 12/03/2009 08:29

I do love it when journalists in particular say "literally decimated" when they mean anything but...

UnquietDad · 12/03/2009 09:24

Use of "out of" with bands annoys me too. "Bono out of U2" and so on.

TrillianAstra · 12/03/2009 10:34

'Literally' anything is annoying when it isn't.

JulesJules · 12/03/2009 12:40

Sorry ChippingIn, did not mean to be scathing!

I do appreciate the point about semantic change over time, (not that I remember all that much from my Old English lectures!) but I don't see that it is necessarily more useful to gain another word meaning roughly "destroy" at the expense of losing the original and unique meaning of decimate.

If general (mis)usage results in change we might as well give up and abandon apostrophes now. I have just got back from the supermarket where they were selling "CD's and DVD's"

Habbibu · 12/03/2009 12:55

Well, I'm not sure that decimate in a broad sense does mean destroy - it's more like cutting a broad swathe through, or taking out a substantial proportion, and as such it's a useful word. Is the original meaning really so useful?

General usage does result in change - of course it does - sometimes we like the changes, sometimes we don't. I hate "texted" for example, but there's no doubt it's a useful word. I just personally don't think decimate is a battle worth fighting.

Pruners · 12/03/2009 13:05

Message withdrawn

Habbibu · 12/03/2009 13:33

I know, Pruni. A man utterly unaware of irony. Would fit in well with some pedants!

Habbibu · 12/03/2009 13:34

Have just dug out Jean Aitchison's book on language change, Pruni - she's such a wise woman...

ChippingIn · 12/03/2009 14:31

Thanks Olifin - The contractions are absolutely fine and I do know the theory (so I would have got the ones in your examples all correct) I can't explain when I find it confusing, so I will try to think of some of the times I wonder whether I should have one or not and I'll get back to you!! - get your tutoring pencil sharpened!!

JulesJules - no worries Sorry I couldn't be bothered to go back to see who had said it! I appreciate what you are saying about decimate/destroy and it not being that useful to pretty much change the meaning of decimate to mean destroy. To me it doesn't mean quite the same thing though and so I would use them differently, not quite interchangeably... well, actually, now I probably wont ever use the word decimate again as I can't ever see me needing to use it in its correct way!!

LOL did you pick on apostrophies because of the rest of my post . See, I know it's wrong to write CD's and DVD's - but CDs and DVDs just looks wrong and CD's and DVD's looks right However, even I wouldn't want to totally abandon apostrophies

Bubbaluv · 12/03/2009 14:52

I've now looked in a number of dictionaries and they all seem to agree that decimate can be defined as "to reduce drastically especially in number" or similar.
I would love to hear someone actually using the other definition though. Can you imagine redundancies being announced..."Unfortunately we are going to have to decimate our staff."

alsmutko · 12/03/2009 15:16

I think we should differentiate between colloquial chat such as SAYING "off of" and writing it! I do, for instance, say "innit" sometimes but I wouldn't write it! I would be prepared to give leeway for vocal errors which I wouldn't for the written word.
Esp when that writing is printed on documents/adverts etc.
My particular bugbear is the apostrophe. I often wonder why signs in shops will say "Sale of video's, TV's and fridges" as a local shop does. I mean, why do they think videos and TVs need apostrophes but not fridges? How do they decide? Or do they just bung them in anywhere they feel like putting them? I've even seen "Cypru's potatoes" on sale. Extra points for spelling potatoes right I guess.
I love the bit in Eats, shoots and leaves which mentioned some graffiti saying "Ni**er's out" to which someone had responded "but he'll be back soon"!

I too got 100% (smug smug).

duchesse · 12/03/2009 15:28

Does Cypru know that his potatoes are being sold in a shop? Or have they been stolen off of him?

Bubbaluv · 12/03/2009 15:42

Almutko, I have to say that oral erros are FAR more annoying to me than written errors.
My spelling can leave a lot to be desired, but speaking is easy!

mm22bys · 12/03/2009 16:38

It really annoys me when I see phone numbers like

0207 555 1234

The area code for London is 020

NOT

0207, or 0208 or even 0203.

UnquietDad · 13/03/2009 09:20

alsmutko - I did once see some nasty graffiti, etched (not even written) into a bus shelter saying "Paki's Go Home." For a moment I was not sure which offended me more - the horrid racism or the slapdash approach to use of the apostrophe. At that moment I knew I was a true pedant.

MelanieLiv · 13/03/2009 09:22

Couldn't agree more. Particularly riles me when I find it in 'official' correspondence (she says, spell-checking 'correspondence'!).

hmmSleep · 13/03/2009 16:31

I hate it when people use double negatives, 'I didn't see no one.' when they mean, 'I didn't see anyone.' They're writing the opposite to what they are trying to say.

I have to confess I just had to look up whether to use noone or no one, probably something that would irritate others on this thread.

ManicMother7777 · 13/03/2009 16:35

YANBU.

Their's nothing that annoys me more!

TheYearOfTheCat · 15/03/2009 15:07

I have always been of the opinion that my spelling and punctuation are faultless.

You can imagine my horror and self doubt to discover that not only did I not know the 'proper' meaning of decimate, but . . .

steel yourself . . . .

I always thought it was spelt 'dessimate'.

[Skulks off with a dictionary, weeping.]