Examples of errors that have been normalised?

[spicedsoup]

Language evolves and I assume there are words or expressions that exist that developed from common misunderstandings or variations in usage. I don’t know of any examples though! Do you have any examples or know where I can find out more about how the English language has evolved?

I’ll also share that part of the reason I am curious is because I am irrationally concerned that one day ‘of’ in place of ‘ ‘ve’ as the contracted ‘have’ will become accepted as correct due to common usage. I’ll be an old lady ranting at young ones, “In my day it was HAVE! HAVE, I tell you!”. So I’m wondering what the precedent is

@SenecaFallsRedux

Disinterested does not mean uninterested.

Actually, the "not interested/uninterested" meaning of disinterested is older than the "impartial" meaning of the word going back as far as 1600 or so. It shifted sometime later, and grammarians began to insist on a distinction between the two. The meaning is now shifting back. "Dis" and "un" mean essentially the same thing. It's different meanings of "interest" that keep the distinction alive.

This is interesting (to me ), as until reading your post I thought it was true that 'Disinterested does not mean uninterested', and that had been the case till the word recently became widely misapplied. So, thanks for the information!

My own first sentence reminds me that I think I've also read that 'til' (rather than 'till') used to be the accepted shorthand for 'until' - but as I no longer have access to the online OED (used to have that through work) I can't check that.

A couple of things that I've noticed are (1) the creeping use (even in print journalism) of 'reticence' to mean 'reluctance' - I think this is perhaps because some people think a more complicated-looking word is an impressive thing? (See also examples of 'myself' and 'enormity' given above). And (2) the use of what I think of as past participles as the simple past (I'm struggling with the correct grammatical terms here!), e.g. saying 'the bells rung out' rather than 'the bells rang out' (I've seen this too in printed articles).

That said, I do agree with Clumping and others that language evolves over time. After all, I don't have a napron and can't remember the last time I ate a norange. And I really liked a pp pointing out the shift in the meaning of the word 'pathetic'.

My favourite is "Imma/I'ma". We'd all benefit from the universal uptake of a quick, 2-syllable way to say "I am going to".

I live in daily fear that 'draws' instead of 'drawers' will become accepted.

And while I strive to be a good descriptivist, I have to admit my inner prescriptivist occasionally manages to break out of her cage just enough to yell inside my head. Things like "Coruscate is not a synonym for excoriate!" But I pat her on the head, say "There, they're, their", and hope she goes back to sleep.

Oh, and gifting instead of giving. I hate that so much.

Oh, and 'on the weekend'. It's 'at the weekend' isn't it?

How are you with "of a weekend"?

@ClumpingBambooIsALie

And while I strive to be a good descriptivist, I have to admit my inner prescriptivist occasionally manages to break out of her cage just enough to yell inside my head. Things like "Coruscate is not a synonym for excoriate!" But I pat her on the head, say "There, they're, their", and hope she goes back to sleep.

How do you stand on things 'careening' out of control?

How do you stand on things 'careening' out of control?

Shush, you'll wake her up… I've only just managed to talk her down from unnecessarily correcting the "any" my phone typed in place of "a" a few posts ago

(Or is Ms Prescriptivist now fully in control, hence this post casually correcting the error while pretending not to?)

I try to chill out about my typos and whether I'm writing Perfect Correct Standard English on social media, since I know I don't give much of a toss how other people write as long as it's reasonably comprehensible — it's official stuff where I go a bit cause it just looks like a company that doesn't care about doing things right or how they come across, which often doesn't bode well.

I don't recall us having had this one yet, but they just said "marshmellows" on a children's programme.

That's another one like 'throw the die' or FebRuary, where anybody pronouncing it correctly is frequently looked at as though they are the dim one.

@ClumpingBambooIsALie

How are you with "of a weekend"?

Ah yes, the old "what did your last slave die of" - "he died of a Tuesday".

I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned the dreaded use of pacific to mean specific 😫😫😫 This drives me up the wall. I spoke to an otherwise articulate, knowledgeable person last week and was amazed that they used it repeatedly! I always wonder whether I should mention that it's completely incorrect and makes them sound well...stupid!!!

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll I had no idea with February or someone mentioned Wednesday earlier I’m sure as a child I was taught they had silent sounds. I remember a whole thing on it in Year 1 or Year 2!

I say Febry, libry and Wensdy with no shame Sometimes the elided version of words is considered more "correct" and "educated" than the fully-pronounced one e.g. forrid and wescutt for forehead and waistcoat — though both those elided versions can come across as a bit affected now.

I do get a bit irked by "nucular" but try to insist to the Inner Prescriptivist that it's simply a metathesis, and if I have a problem with nucular I should commit to referring to the large equine neighy thing as a hros.

Well, not simply, there's probably some kind of analogy thing to other words ending in "-cular" going on there, but it's the same basic thing — move some sounds around a bit to make it easier to say.

[quote spicedsoup]@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll I had no idea with February or someone mentioned Wednesday earlier I’m sure as a child I was taught they had silent sounds. I remember a whole thing on it in Year 1 or Year 2![/quote]
I was also taught the r and the first d are silent in February and Wednesday respectively.

I pronounce them Feb-u-ary and wense-day.

I had no idea with February or someone mentioned Wednesday earlier blush I’m sure as a child I was taught they had silent sounds. I remember a whole thing on it in Year 1 or Year 2!

It was also I who mentioned Wednesday

This is the whole issue at hand though: errors that become normalised aren't universally known/acknowledged as 'wrong but widely accepted' but, before long, they become 'fact' to most people. Whether it's teachers, parents or any other adults, once you firmly believe something to be a fact, that is what you will teach any children in your care; why would you do anything else?

Anybody who does know and persists in trying to ensure the survival of the correct form will be considered stupid for 'not knowing' and may even be criticised for confusing people by spreading 'false' information.

I remember when we visited our DS's class for a reading session (Y1 or Y2, iirc) and the teachers had spent time making sweet little learning aids for every table depicting two caterpillars of obviously different lengths - one labelled 'longest' and the other as 'shortest'.

The difference between comparative and superlative has been completely lost to most people - so how are they ever going to teach what they have no knowledge of to children? When did you last hear a parent of two children refer to their 'younger' or 'elder' child? We've still retained "This is longer THAN that one" but not "This is the longer of the two".

I think the subjunctive has gone the same way too. People will accidentally get it right for the vast majority of regular verbs, where it happens to be the same, but when did you last hear anybody say "It's important that you be there on time"?

The normalised error is most commonly apparent when (mis)used in the third person. Have you ever recently heard anybody say something like "I must insist that she make her own way there next week"?

Also, on the silent letters, they were never originally silent: nobody just thought about purposelessly adding extra letters to spellings for a giggle.

Originally, a fighter on horseback with a sword and shield was actually described as a 'kuh-nite' and your fingers' little fat friend was called a 'thummB'. Just as people at some point in history started to omit the letter that we now universally acknowledge and teach as 'silent', we are currently seeing history in the making (nearing its end, actually) in the same way with February, Wednesday, walk and many others.

I can quite imagine that, a hundred years (or maybe fewer) from now, teachers may be explaining to children about the 'silent h' at the beginning of common words like 'ave', 'orse', 'appy' etc. that is still retained when writing the words as a quirk of how they used to be pronounced in the distant past.

The "gh" part of knight wasn't silent either. Lots of spellings for that part of it in Middle English (c, ch, gh, h, ʒ, and combinations of practically all of the above… Middle English spelling is bonkers), and in Old English generally h. Cniht to rhyme more with shit than with shite, but with a k at the front and an aspirated bit in the middle. Not surprised it changed…

Cniht (and its other vowellier spellings) in OE meant a boy/youth or a servant, though.

This shit all changes constantly tho, it's just kind of weird that we crystallised our spelling.

Basically teaching phonics would've been a fuck of a lot simpler a thousand years ago…

Errors that have been normalised or even normalized?

On radio on Monday Emma Barnett was speaking to someone in or with regards to the situation in Ukraine. Also this week the presenter on the local BBC news was speaking to an interviewee with or in regards to refugees and hosts, and Dan on morning TV was speaking to someone in or with regards to something - freeing of prisoners, I think.
I shall continue to use the word regard in those case, and I shall keep regards for the bottoms of letters.

The "gh" part of knight wasn't silent either.

Yes!! That part completely escaped me!

Apologies, I went off on an excitable infodump on my area of interest Not many people in my life are particularly interested in metathesis or Anglo-Frisian brightening or the habits of fifteenth-century typesetters…

To be fair, fifteenth-century typesetters pretty much did purposely add extra letters to spellings for a giggle…