Linguistic Pet Peeves

I once had a Chemistry prof that I swore was simply 'showing off'. *edit typoThis message has been edited by 1.61803, 10-30-2004 02:09 PM

In my dotage I've come to save my wrath for professional wordsmiths of the teevee news variety, a race of incontinent nest foulers for whom verb tenses are an adventure and pronouns and antecedents are Chinese algebra. The greatest contemporary sin is the pandemic sing-song delivery (one assumes that test audiences somewhere find random verbal stresses authoritative), and the simultaneous adoption of a bizarre nasal dialect which eschews the schwa sound, turning "didn't" into Did-ANT and guaranteeing one local anchor in particular will be given copy involving Stu-DANTS at least five times per half-hour segment.

Rrhain writes:

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Um, as I directly said: It's a pet peeve.

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No, you didn't. You said it was wrong. Here's the quote:

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Nope..."fewer than ten dollars" and "fewer than five miles." Those things are plural and require the use of "fewer." I agree that quite a lot of people use "less," but they're wrong.

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Why do so many people spell 'monkeys' as 'monkies'?I've seen at least three individuals use the spelling 'monkies' in the past month, and at least once someone has discussed 'donkies'.They've written it repeatedly in the same post, so I believe they actually think that they are using the correct spelling.

berberry responds to me:

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No, you didn't. You said it was wrong.

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You're ignoring the context in which it was made. From the very first post: Indeed, "less than ten" is wrong, but enough people say it so it gains legitimacy and eventually turns into accepted usage. It was wrong (and to some degree still is wrong), but so many people do it that nobody seems to notice. Thus, it becomes a peeve.After all, what's the point of a peeve if it isn't a reaction to something that you consider to be wrong?

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

You're technically correct, Rrhain, but irrespective of anything you might have said earlier, in the post I answered you said that I was wrong. At worst I was only citing bad form. I said I thought the 'less than' usage was idiomatic and it is.You seem to know much more about proper word usage than I do, so I'd appreciate a comment on the following (apologies if any of this has been mentioned before):Today it seems to be quite acceptable to use the word 'impact' as a verb, though the usage makes me cringe. It sounds incorrect, but when I consider that the word 'contact' went through a similar noun-to-verb transition decades ago I have to wonder if I'm being too picky. You'd probably have a difficult time finding anyone who would disapprove of a sentence like:You must contact the authorities.The word 'transition' is increasingly being used as a verb today. Perhaps it's because of the 'ion' ending, but for whatever reason this usage makes my skin crawl.There was a brief period in the late 90s when the word 'office' was threatening to jump into the verb catagory. Thank God it doesn't seem to have caught on.

Hi berberry.

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Today it seems to be quite acceptable to use the word 'impact' as a verb, though the usage makes me cringe.

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According to The American Heritage Book of English Usage : Mind you, this is pretty much quote mining, as you will see if the read the link in full

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Confused ? You will be...

berberry writes:

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Today it seems to be quite acceptable to use the word 'impact' as a verb, though the usage makes me cringe.

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I've heard people make similar claims, but I don't know why. The etymology of "impact" is from the Latin "impactus," past participle of "impingere," to push against.To my mind, it's always been available as a verb. According to my OED, the use of "impact" as a verb predates the use of it as a noun by nearly 200 years: 1601 to 1781.

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It sounds incorrect, but when I consider that the word 'contact' went through a similar noun-to-verb transition decades ago I have to wonder if I'm being too picky.

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This has me scratching my head again wondering why you thought it was never a verb. It, too, is derived from a Latin verb ("contingere," to have contact with) though my OED has the first appearance of noun and verb forms reversed (1606 for the noun, 1834 for the verb). It's always been a verb.

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The word 'transition' is increasingly being used as a verb today. Perhaps it's because of the 'ion' ending

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But "-ion" doesn't make a noun a verb. It makes a verb a noun! "Transit" is a verb and the noun that is the thing that happens when something "transits" is a "transition."This is akin to my peeve about "orientate." "Orient" is a perfectly good verb as it is. You do not need to add "-ate" on the end to make it a verb. My guess is that it comes from not realizing that the noun, "orientation," has a really big suffix on the end, "-ation," and thus they just drop the "-ion" and add something to make it a word again.

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There was a brief period in the late 90s when the word 'office' was threatening to jump into the verb catagory.

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I guess I count myself lucky for never having experienced that. I can only hope it was off a good intention to create a word for putting someone up in an office to work the way we call putting someone up in a home to live "housing" (with a /z/). More likely, though, it was just another stupid example of officespeak where people refuse to use words that already exist in order to be able to have their own jargon and lingo for the business world the way other fields do.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Thanks for the link. It seems to say that using 'impact' as a verb is incorrect but not unprecedented. It compared the usage to 'contact' as I did. It doesn't really settle the matter, though, since the Usage Panel overwhelmingly disapproves of this verb form while the article itself seems to endorse it.I suppose any Latin-derived noun ending in '-act' is subject to use as a verb. 'Contract' and 'compact' would be other examples.

Rrhain writes me:

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This has me scratching my head again wondering why you thought it was never a verb.

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Because of what I was taught in my writing class in college. Perhaps I was taught wrong, but I am heartened to see that the Usage Panel of the AH Book of English Usage linked above agrees with me.

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This is akin to my peeve about "orientate."

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I've heard that one, too, and its past tense 'orientated'. Good God! It's almost like a pig-latinized form.

While we're on the subject, is 'state' in any way related to 'station'? I think they're both from Latin but I'm not sure whether they have separate Latin roots.

berberry asks:

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is 'state' in any way related to 'station'? I think they're both from Latin but I'm not sure whether they have separate Latin roots.

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Yes, they are both derived from Latin "stare," to stand.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Funny - I was pretty sure that I had. Of course, I guess you don't read my posts any better than you read Wikipedia articles.

Oh, here's one I really hate: People who spell it "whoop-ass" (as in "opening a can of") instead of "whup-ass.""whoop" is an idiotic sound you make when you fall off of something. "Whup" is what you do when you whup someone's ass.