Oh bliss!!

[Ijustwanttoretire]

I have just discovered this section - I am now officially addicted to MN. I will be on here all the time, day and night. I am a pedant and proud! In fact I might make a badge saying that. I would begin by stating my pet hate - but there are so many I don't know where to start... After a think I it has to be 'could of, should of, would of'

There is no more effective alarm that that "HACK, HACK" noise a cat makes just before it empties the contents of its several stomachs

I quite agree Schadenfreude. That noise is guaranteed to wake me.

That's always assuming I'm asleep in the first place, of course.

Defiantly is autocorrect's take on definatly.
Definitely defiant.

Hope the MhorCat is better, and that SchadCat is not throwing up.

Sick is vomit, ill is unwell. Poorly is not acceptable on MN.

Poorly is not acceptable on MN

Or anywhere else where English is spoken correctly.

but the other day there was an argument over what i think is rediculouse.
So i picked up a toy of the sofa

Hmm. Where do I start?

Bold fail above.

Duh.

Go to the pregnant board

Excellent advice, given on AIBU this morning.

Ah eh. Poorly is fine by me. And I eat supper around 7 pm because that's when I've always eaten it, it's a lightish meal. Dinner is a big meal, usually at lunchtime, and tea I drink with jam and bread.

Overuse of exclamation marks...

Ah but that isn't technically incorrect - annoying maybe, but not incorrect. Well as far as I know. I do stand to be corrected though. Obviously.

Overuse of exclamation marks...

And little anticipatory dots . . . . . . . . . . *

*I'm kidding here - I live by the dot, and will probably die by the dot . . . if the exclamation marks don't get me first!!!!!

(What can I say? They are my only pleasure . . . )

Defiantly is autocorrect's take on definatly.

I get particularly annoyed when it changes "causal" to "casual".

The bastard.

I place flowers on the grave of the word "hopefully". Its true meaning lost forever. Soon to be followed by the muddlement that is now borrow and loan.

PS so this is where most of the Mastercheffians hang out when not abusing Greggggggg

I would render the word literally soundless and invisible. The word actual would suffer the same fate.

Unfortunately, fourquenelles, I don't see a problem with meanings of "hopefully". Just as I started that previous sentence with the adverb "unfortunately", surely an adverb can be sentence-modifying rather than verb-modifying? So, if I read

Hopefully, I am travelling to York today

and

I am travelling hopefully to York today

I can tell which of the two senses are being used ("it is to be hoped that..." v "with an emotion of hope") especially in context or by a speaker's intonation.

I believe "hopefully" has been used both ways for a long time. When someone says "Funnily enough, I spoke to Fred five minutes ago about losing his job" does anyone grumble "oh, you spoke in a funny way to Fred, did you?"

DadDadDad Summarised from Dictionary.com - For four hundred years, the word “hopefully” was an adverb that meant “in a hopeful manner”

In the 1930s, it began to operate in spoken speech as a sentence adverb meaning “it is hoped.” Editing establishments rejected this shift in spoken speech, even though other words (like funnily, curiously, certainly, and frankly) are also sentence adverbs. The word “hopefully” remained in ambiguous territory and was not commonly used in print

The Associated Press has now accepted it but hopefully-the-sentence-modifier still irks some (me but I am an old gimmer).

The Washington Post say, “The barbarians have finally done it”, and Rob Reinalda editor par excellence called it “lazy and subjective.” So using “hopefully” makes you a lazy barbarian.

Seriously I accept that language evolves and has a fluidity. It's this one word that winds me up more than others. I have no idea why, I just don't like it. Maybe my mother was frightened by it when I was in the womb; I hope not.

My list:

Using myself rather than me

When ordering food and drink, saying can I get a coffee/cake rather than have

Using grab instead of get or buy

Starting every bloody sentence with so

Yes, so it's a usage that's nearly a hundred years old and as you demonstrate (and quote), objections to it seem subjective. If it's grammatical and communicates meaning to the reader clearly and concisely, why object except on the grounds that your old English teacher / editor / great-grandma didn't like it?

You misunderstand. I am objecting on the grounds that I don't like it.

so this is where most of the Mastercheffians hang out when not abusing Greggggggg

Ok - I hold my hands up - aberrant punctuation isn't my only pleasure .

"Curate" instead of "amass" or "collect", (or "hoard").

When it's used to describe (for example) some celebrity tosser's wardrobe full of free designer clothes, it is sheer pretentious wankery of the highest order.

@fourquenelles Did you realise 'old gimmer' is something of an oxymoron? A gimmer is actually a young adult ewe, between its first and second shearing. I have a farming connection

Ah, the dots...

Used by posters who like to leave heir thread dangling for affect...

*their, not heir, obvs

No Wombleish but thinking about it, in my mind I am a skittish young adult even though the calendar says otherwise.

I find farming terms fascinating. We used to stay in a pub in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales and each bedroom was named after something to do with sheep - the Yan Tan Tethera counting system I think but it was a long, long time ago.

posters who like to leave heir thread dangling for affect...

LOL!

You are playing a dangerous game here, my pretty! Dancing on the edge of destruction . . . .

Sick is vomit, ill is unwell. Poorly is not acceptable on MN.

In the bit of Wales I come the degrees of comparison for "bad" are "worse" and "dead".

Also knew a gynaecologist who could be driven to distraction by being told that someone had "had a bleed" or was "haemorrhaging".
"They have had a haemorrhage and they have been bleeding!".

I've been told off in Pedants' Corner - for being too pedantic!