Please state in which country your phrase tends to be used, what the phrase is, and what it should be.
Example:
In America, recently came across “back-petal”, instead of back-pedal. Also, still hearing “for all intensive purposes” instead of “for all intents and purposes”.
“addicting”
Yeah /yĕ′ə, yă′ə, yā′ə/ is a different word than Yea /yā/
Ya
I know someone that says ‘Pacific’ instead of ‘specific’. The man has his talents & his place in the world, food man, but yes that is infuriating.
I know someone who calls it the “Specific Ocean”
Using “racking” instead of the correct “wracking” in “wracking my brain”. Not very common, but it annoys me… But not as much as “could of”… That is the worst, just stop it!
This is online and in person in Canada.
Niche is pronounced neesh and not nitch
I’ve heard this one like 3 times in the last month on youtube and it bothers me a lot
Depends on the context IMO
How
If I had to take a guess I would venture that this person says “It’s not my nitch.” and “wow that product is very neesh.”
I swear I’ve met someone like this now that I think about it
This thread peaks my interest.
I hope my words
piquedsomeone else’s interests more.Oh this one’s peak
Haha is this a follow up on that one post with the OP writing “back-petal”?
Using “uncomfy” instead of uncomfortable. I recognize this one is fully style, but it’s like nails on a chalkboard. Break the entirely fake rules of grammar and spelling all you want, but have some decency when it comes to connotation.
Comfy is an informal and almost diminutive form (not technically, but it follows the structure so it kinda feels like it) of comfortable. You have to have a degree of comfort to use the less formal “comfy,” so uncomfy is just…paradoxical? Oxymoronic? Ironic? I’d be ok with it used for humor, but not in earnest.
Relatedly, for me “comfy” is necessarily referring to physical comfort, not emotional. I can be either comfy or comfortable in a soft fuzzy chair. I can be comfortable in a new social situation. I can be uncomfortable in either. I can be uncomfy in neither, because that would be ridiculous.
FWIW I would never actually correct someone on this. I would immediately have my linguist card revoked, and I can’t point to a real fake grammatical rule that would make it “incorrect” even if I wanted to. But this is the one and only English usage thing I hate, and I hate it very, very much.
Idiocracy is literally a documentary anymore
“that begs the question”. I wish people would just use the more correct “raises the question”, especially people doing educational/academic content. I hear it across the English-speaking internet
From what I’ve understood, “begging” a question is more like “evading” a question. (Here’s a video)
Begging the question was originally a very specific logical fallacy. It’s a type of reasoning where you circularly try to prove your argument. I just kinda wish the usage wasn’t being muddied. https://danielmiessler.com/blog/the-original-meaning-of-begging-the-question
They’re, you’re
Sneak peek
In portuguese: mas/mais - people often use “mais” (plus, sum) when the correct would be mas (but)
What do people say wrong istead of “sneek peek”?
“For all intensive porpoises” is the one that really annoys me.
They’re dolphins, not porpoises. Fuck, get your cetaceans right.
Lol I believe it’s “for all intents and doplhins.”
[cetacean needed]
For all intensive porpoises, we should create a care-free environment.
For all intensive dolphins
I’m not entirely against it, but I’m amused by how common it is to put “whole” inside of “another”, making it “a whole nother”. Can anyone give any other use of the word “nother”?
Maybe it works like fucking
A-fucking-nother
A-whole-nother
people do generally fuck holes so that checks out
Q: “Did she do that?”
A: “No it was nother”It’s other, another is a whole other issue… heh
A nother one!
Pronounced like this
“Toe the party line” To align with the interests of a political party; to get in line with the agenda of the leader of a political party
“Tow the party line” Something to do with tugboats
TIL
People using ‘yourself’ and ‘myself’ instead of ‘you’ and ‘me’ when trying to sound formal or posh. You don’t sound formal or posh, you sound ill-educated.
Have you a merry little Christmas, commoner.
I remember once being on a call with some customer support guy who didn’t seem to even be aware that words “you” and “me” exist. My favourite part of the conversation was when he said “let myself put yourself on hold while I ask a senior colleague to clarify this for myself”.
were they speaking hiberno-english by any chance?
