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Pedants' corner

Scream into the pillow of this thread and avoid scorn on others...

305 replies

tethersend · 30/07/2010 22:04

Pedant's refuge: I have to get it out, but not on the threads themselves as I'll get ripped to shreds it's not polite. It's safe here.

Pier pressure

What gems have made your teeth itch in silent rage?

OP posts:
JackieNo · 03/08/2010 19:46

retiredgoth2 - you might enjoy this article about the Guardian style guide and grammar - particularly the bit about split infinitives.

Esmee · 03/08/2010 20:04

Another Facebook comment "I'm gluten for punishment!" [palm to forehead emoticon]

hogshead · 03/08/2010 20:21

i have a massive problem with the phrase " .... was released from hospital"

they were discharged not released!! makes a hospital sound like a prison - which I admit it may feel like a release for some but still winds me up. Sadly the media seem to accepted this as `the norm'

cantseeforlookin · 03/08/2010 20:27

bought and brought - makes me grit my teeth cos I wanna say - Did you bring or buy?????

UnquietDad · 03/08/2010 20:33

I always refer to Beyonce as "Mrs Zed". My friends were baffled at first, but now they all know who I mean.

UnquietDad · 03/08/2010 20:35

If someone is a gluten for punishment, do you think that may just be a rye comment?

cantseeforlookin · 03/08/2010 20:38

The relentless march of Americanisms - such as the new way of ordering something, usually food/drink: Can I get one of those? instead of Can I have one of those?? but maybe I'm being too pedantical.

Mbear · 03/08/2010 20:40

I work with people who say they "writ" it down. Aaarrrgggggghhhhhhh.
Also, when it's cold their toes are froze, and they bought paketed sandwiches. OMFG!

midnightexpress · 03/08/2010 20:48

I was driving down the motorway the other day and there was one of those overhead signs that said 'More passengers, less queues'. Whilst I applaud the sentiment, I spent the rest of the journey muttering under my breath.

cantseeforlookin · 03/08/2010 20:52

Unquiet, don't think that anyone is the yeast bit interested in your seedy jokes.

Mbear · 03/08/2010 20:54

My mum always has to comment on the "keep apart 2 chevrons" signs on the motorway! She spends the rest of the journey muttering on how to keep them apart!

cantseeforlookin · 03/08/2010 21:47

He turned round and said. Did he turn into a round shape before speaking??

cantseeforlookin · 03/08/2010 21:48

Or was he facing the wrong way before he spoke?

confuddledDOTcom · 03/08/2010 22:19

I'm crying reading these!

Popular on MumsNet is "a women". An ex's chat ID used woman as plural which all the regulars used to complain about, especially as he changed it regularly on the same theme and always "woman" as plural.

I was never popular at school when a teacher asked what someone had done and got the reply "I haven't done nothing!" as I would always say "so you did?"

midnightsun · 03/08/2010 22:24

A former colleague leaned over and asked me why his spellcheck function kept highlighting the word "disafternoon" as an error when he was emailing clients. He was a graduate. We had a good-natured laugh about it (after I hooted and belittled him in the open-plan office), but even now, ten years later, I am still amazed.

prism · 03/08/2010 22:45

It would be nice to think that one day evolution would deal with all of this. Personally I have been careful not to reproduce with anyone who can't spell or punctuate, and I'd like to see this policy adopted widely...

CouldOfWouldOfShouldOf · 03/08/2010 22:47

Earlier today on another site I saw 'she never battered an eyelid'.

midnightsun · 03/08/2010 23:02

I've just seen "mind field" instead of "minefield."

thumbwitch · 03/08/2010 23:19

'Equinox' - hahahahaha!!

UQD -

RG2 - to boldly split infinitives is one of the joys of the expressive writer - it doesn't work as well if you do it without the split.
Also, calling 50 cent 27 pence, brilliant!

I have to say that some of these problems seem to be regional dialect - e.g. I was sat there of a Saturday night - so without wiping out entire regions of the UK you are unlikely to get rid of it.

"Can I get" has permeated Aussie culture too - here, things like "I'm good" and double negatives are de rigeur - they just aren't taught properly. Even the newsreaders do it!

Still haven't found the classy example I wanted to share - will keep looking.

But while I think of it, another regional issue seems to be the use of inappropriate singulars: my boss and her DH were guilty of this (NE London and Essex born and raised) - e.g. We wasn't, they wasn't.

cantseeforlookin · 03/08/2010 23:20

prism, if only we could control our hormones long enough..... my DP's ability to punctuate, annunciate or apostrophise (so shoot me if I got that one wrong) is far outweighed by his various other attributes (again, shoot me for being the shallow, feeble woman that I am).

SoMuchToBits · 03/08/2010 23:23

The one I hate is "He careened down the hill" instead of "He careered down the hill". Careen means scrub the barnacles off the bottom of a boat - doesn't it?

thumbwitch · 03/08/2010 23:25

Sorry, SMTB - it's an acceptable use of careen:
ca·reen (k-rn)
v. ca·reened, ca·reen·ing, ca·reens
v.intr.

  1. To lurch or swerve while in motion.
  2. To rush headlong or carelessly; career: "He careened through foreign territories on a desperate kind of blitz" (Anne Tyler).
  3. Nautical
a. To lean to one side, as a ship sailing in the wind. b. To turn a ship on its side for cleaning, caulking, or repairing. v.tr. Nautical
  1. To cause (a ship) to lean to one side; tilt.
a. To lean (a ship) on one side for cleaning, caulking, or repairing. b. To clean, caulk, or repair (a ship in this position). n. Nautical
  1. The act or process of careening a ship.
  2. The position of a careened ship.

----------------

[From French (en) carène, (on) the keel, from Old French carene, from Old Italian carena, from Latin carna; see kar- in Indo-European roots.]

----------------

ca·re ener n.
Usage Note: The implication of rapidity that most often accompanies the use of careen as a verb of motion may have arisen naturally through the extension of the nautical sense of the verb to apply to the motion of automobiles, which generally careen, that is, lurch or tip over, only when driven at high speed. There is thus no reason to conclude that this use of the verb is the result of a confusion of careen with career, "to rush." Whatever the origin of this use, however, it is by now so well established that it would be pedantic to object to it.

cantseeforlookin · 03/08/2010 23:32

Now that's just showing off ...

prism · 03/08/2010 23:32

Well, cantseeforlooking, I find I come over all funny if I think someone is trying to indulge in some aspect of hanky-panky that the can't spell, so it just never gets that far...

In the days of the steam tripewriter my mum used to collect up her typos and then give them definitions. The only one I can recall just now is "afflinet", which she deemed to be an eyelash that no matter what you did would always point in the wrong direction.

cantseeforlookin · 03/08/2010 23:45

Ah, prism, so your selective breeding quest is to be blamed on a grammatically deprived childhood at the hands of a dysfunctional qwerty keyboarder!

Your mum sounds hysterical .., got any more??