Pedant Party: Any Annoying Word Misuse Lately?

[NotQuiteCockney]

I was reading Julie and Julia over the holidays, and found it mostly very good. However, at one point, she uses the term "triage" to mean "perform first aid", rather than it's proper use. Grrrr. The original meaning is useful and distinct from "patch something together".

What misuses have annoyed everyone else lately?

there/their used incorrectly by someone who was talking about Home Ed'ing

counsellor.

Not misuse exactly but I did notice that the pack of new potatoes I bought in M&S yesterday said "Freshy Picked Potatoes" on it. M&S is definitely going downmarket with its misplaced giraffe apostrophes and knock off Jimmy Choo bags

DH and I spent a morning in PC World helpng MIL choose a laptop . Foolishly they'd left out a stack of Customer Feedback forms so I wrote them a nicely-worded note about the standard of English on their in-store displays.
iPod's, CD's and DVD's, anyone? Or the difference between 'everyday' and 'every day'?

There was a fabulous piece by Matt Harvey (I think) on Word of Mouth on R4 yesterday about how the misuse of words actually hinders communication, which I found a fascinating counterpoint to the regularly-wheeled-out line that 'it dont matter ow u write/speak cos EVRY1 can undrstand'.

Worth getting on \link[http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/wordofmouth.shtml\Listen Again] (think it's about 10min from the end).

wrong shaped brackets - Listen Again

Literally. I could have screamed when it was said of a colleague, "she was literally kissing the boss' a*se".

When people say "you" instead of "I". Now I notice it all the time and it drives me nuts. For example, when asked to describe their feelings on a particular matter people often say, "you feel sad/lonely/happy" instead of "I felt sad/lonely etc". Bloomin' annoying.

A bit boring, but wrong use of which and that, and my particular bugbear less instead of fewer. Especially when used wrongly by journalists - should they not learn the proper use of English at journalist school?!

Oh, ugh, sorry for the its/it's misuse in the OP. Serves me right for not rereading before posting as a pedant.

(Oh, god, Indig, a friend of mine is homeedding, and one day she called me up to ask how they make maple syrup ... fair question. So I explained. And then she asked "But why is there sugar in a tree?" Ok, her kids are still little, and her DH is some sort of science bod, so really, it'll be fine, but still .)

Oh, literally now means figuratively. Obviously. Nobody ever uses it except when they're being silly. Go figure. Still annoying, though.

People who mix up scarred and scared in ranty threads about dogs

Bekks - less and fewer; I agree!

However, dh now gets it wrong deliberately to annoy me as he's fed up of being corrected all the time

Really hate "discrete" instead of "discreet".

As a teacher frequently reach screaming point with grammar from pupils. Particular hates include:

"Should of" instead of "should have"

"learn me" instead of "teach me"

"Can you borrow me a ruler/pen?" Instead of "Can I borrow a ruler?"

Could go on and on and on....

This is probably full of mistakes...

Also really hate people who pronounce letter H as "haitch", it should be pronounced "aitch" (Grrrrrrrrrrr)

I heard the BBC News at 1 refer to "new innovations" today...

My Dad drummed the learn / borrow rule into me. If I said "can I lend such and such?" he'd say "of course, but to whom are you going to lend it?"

people who fail to distinguish between 'rein' and 'reigns'

(that'll be me then )

not quite the same but some bloke doing the commentary of the new year fireworks on the BBC
said something like 'and now it builds up to a crescendo...' (does it really?)

My two pet hates are split infinitives and using the word 'them' instead of these or those, e.g. "look at them toys".

In fact, to incorrectly use them grammar rules really annoys me. (!)

Please pedants , tell me when I should use affect and when I should use effect.
I used to pride myself on grammer and spelling skills (and did Latin at GCSE) but now since science A-levels and degree, they are deteriorating.

in general and most simply

something affects something else to cause an effect