It's clique not click!

[Pinkywoo]

I'm so sick of seeing this, there's not a cool mum click, it's a clique, and they're not clicky (well if their joints are anything like mine they might be) they're cliquey! and breathe

I'm Scottish and they're pronounced differently here.
Clique as in week
Click as in dick

I've only ever seen clique spelled click on Mumsnet

How do you feel about correct punctuation?

Including on this thread…

Unfortunately, most of the examples cited do not reflect language evolving but rather literacy declining.

I have to care about this stuff, as it's a large part of my job, but it's getting harder to fight the tide.

I also know that language changes for ease of use etc, etc. But the curious thing about sm needing more people to be literate, is that it just seems to amplify the mistakes alot.😉

I think this is American. Friends from the USA say this, and when I asked, they were genuinely surprised that we say “couldn’t”.
“I could care less” appears to be commonly used in the USA. Totally agree that it makes no sense, though!

Exactly. And it just makes things more confusing. Clicky means something very different from cliquey, loose is definitely not the same as lose, ditto bare and bear, boarder and border, and so on. As for "would of", "could of" and similar, the problem there is that "of" just doesn't work as a verb.

It's still clique even if most people get it wrong. Click means something different. Also bear / bare. Different spellings, different meanings.

Someone referred to a 'tik for tak' situation recently, and I've seen 'few' instead of 'phew'.

Also, when wounds 'heel' or, alternatively, 'heals' (and 'souls' ) on people's feet. Or should that be 'feat'?

😀😀

Yes, indeed. The ability to express oneself coherently in writing no longer seems to matter to many people and if you try to suggest that perhaps it should, you get dismissed and accused of being a tedious pedant.

Though I think some people posting on this thread haven’t noticed that it’s in Pedants’ Corner.

@TheMoth ... so what is your take on clique being used to mean a group of people and click to mean the same thing when the original meaning of both means either a sound or a locking mechanism?

I often spot people meaning discreet but using the word discrete. Also see phased, when they mean fazed.

When people talk or write about taking something 'off' someone, for example " I took his pocket money off him for being rude"
Conjures up images of a child with coins and banknotes stuck to his clothes!
Surely an item, privilege or whatever is taken from or away from you, given that you are unlikely to be wearing it!

I don't mind that one and I don't think it's incorrect. But "off of" is dreadful.

I hate 'right' of passage and confusing discreet with discrete

Though I think some people posting on this thread haven’t noticed that it’s in Pedants’ Corner.

I'm not sure that means people aren't allowed to talk about language change or notions of correctness. There was a time when Pedants' Corner was full of interesting discussions about language rather than just a lot of grumbling.

I don't see "click" as an example of language change particularly- it's a long-standing variant of "clique". I'm also not sure that people who use it are trying to write "clique" and spelling it wrong- they're simply using a variant. It's different from "border"/"boarder" and so on, which are obviously misspellings.

I wonder whether it's a form of shorthand.

When Americans say 'I could care less' I hear 'I could care less but can't be bothered to waste my time thinking about it'.

My personal favourite is "viscous circle".

I like to picture the liquid glooping around... very... slowly...

I also do enjoy the mental image conjured up by people demanding others "bare with them". it's the only way not to go nuts

Then why bother to post in Pedants' Corner?

I rather like 'on route'. It's a perfect example of Anglicising a French expression, as the meaning remains the same in both languages.

Unlike 'on suite', which does not work. And is therefore an abomination.

Just thought of another one I see a lot. Affects and effects.
“It’s going to really effect them”. “I was going through their affects”.

And, then again, some of us have been on PC for about 20 years, and remember fondly when it was used by intelligent posters who liked to discuss language quirks. Sadly, after the Mumsnet demographic changed about 10 years ago, it became more of a "point and laugh at the thicko" corner.

My husband says ‘choritzio’. How I haven’t killed him yet, I don’t know.

To be fair, 'pooh' is the traditional spelling and the spelling 'poo' is quite recent. I'm in my mid 50s and 'pooh' was the correct spelling when I was a child; it's the only spelling given in my Collins dictionary from 1991 which is only 30 years ago ('poo' isn't even given as an alternative). So when people who spell it 'poo' complain about people spelling it 'pooh', it's the same as people who say or spell it 'click' complaining about people using 'clique'. I can adapt my spelling and do, but 'poo' will always look wrong to me.