Linguistic Pet Peeves

Bravo!

Now I've gotten to see that you've already been pointing these sorts of things out.For us English speakers, one of the most easily observed examples of our language evolving is in the frequent appropriating of nouns into verbs. Some recent examples include fax, originally one only received and sent faxes; text (thanks to cellphones), I will text you what to get from the store; and many other various words from our technological boom. For older examples, think of your body parts like arm, head, leg, stomach and so on. Nouns that got turned into verbs.Personally, I think one of the more depressing aspects of the silly Latin-based grammar rules that were developed in the 18th century was the attempt to wipe out the use of the double negative. A double negative isn't like math--that's just silly. A double negative, like in other languages, is an intensifier, a way for the speaker to intensify the meaning.I can't get no, sat - is - fac - tionis a much more intense song than I can't get any satisfaction.

"Verbing wierds language" - Calvin.

Verb tense. Actually, we're looking at two different main verbs in these phrases. The main verb in the first is "has"; in the second, the main verb is "does."You can see that, in fact, they're in the same tense, and the plurality rule does hold. You're just getting hung up on the fact that a verb form of "have" is in both sentences; it's not, however, the main verb in both sentences.But that is a tricky point. That one bugged me all night until I figured it out in the shower.

For some reason it has become common to use the word "literal" instead of "figurative", in order to emphasive something. In other words using literal as a sort of exclamation point.Both me and my gf have been going nuts for the last two years listening to the horrific misuse of that word.The best one I have heard so far was when I was in a store and the clerk was talking to another customer about having pissed his boss off the other day."Man he was pissed", the clerk said "I tell you he chewed my ass off. I mean he literally chewed my ass off".I couldn't believe my ears and turned to look at the clerk and the customer. Neither noticed the error and the rather hysterical connotations it carried.The customer seemed non-plussed and so the clerk began to repeat louder and louder... "LITERALLY, he chewed my ass. LITERALLY!"At that point I had move somewhere else in the store so I could laugh out loud.This message has been edited by holmes, 10-18-2004 11:51 AM

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

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"Man he was pissed", the clerk said "I tell you he chewed my ass off. I mean he literally chewed my ass off".

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I too am not pleased by the change of literal, but would ask one to consider it as a case of a shift in meaning. The speaker here is conveying how intense the ass-chewing was compared to just a regular ass-chewing.Literally one day no one will notice the difference.

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For some reason it has become common to use the word "literal" instead of "figurative", in order to emphasive something. In other words using literal as a sort of exclamation point.
Both me and my gf have been going nuts for the last two years listening to the horrific misuse of that word.

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That one bothers the piss out of me as well. "He literally broke my arm off," was my favorite from yesterday. When I asked "Did they sow it back on at the hospital" I got a blank stare in return. When you try to explain to people why they are misusing the word they usually shoot back "Well, you know what I meant". God I hate that.Another pet peeve, and more evidence that I am turning into an old geezer at 30, is that I hate people who abuse the word "like". And when it's combined with "And then he said . . . and I was like . . . and then he said . . . . and I was like . . ." I only hope that I didn't sound like that when I was a teenager.

"Dressed to the nines" = Dressed to thine eyes.
"Spitn image" = Splitting image
"Egads" = Ye GodsPak tha ca = Park the car (Boston)
fogittaboutit= forget about it (NY)
Is she you? = Is she your woman? (cajun)
dondidit= I already completed it. (Southern)
Donchaknow = don't you know (North)

These are your pet peeves?Who the hell do you hang out with? The Mighty Thor?

Hi, 1.6, don`t forget the classic Aussie 'Owyergoinmatedidjahavagooweekend?'

"Money is the root of all evil."No, it isn't. At least not according to scripture."The love of money is the root of all evil."These two are completely different ideas.

Oh, I agree. That's why I said "literal" is now being used as a form of exclamation mark.However that doesn't sit well with me when they are using a word where its polar opposite is the actual one applicable to the case. In this case he was specifically using a figurative case, so to use literal in order to express how extreme this figurative case was, just seems lame to me.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

crashfrog writes:

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You can do that in English - retask words just by shuffling them around in sentences. Heck, I did it just now.

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Yes, but just because you can doesn't mean you should.Business-speak where "task" is a transitive verb is simply disgusting. No, I am not "tasked" to a project. I am "assigned" to it.Along those lines, "orientate" (*shudder*). "Orient" is a perfectly good verb all on its own. It doesn't need to be made a verb again by sticking "-ate" on the end. That's why we put "-ation" on the end when making it a noun: It's already a verb.The only "but English lets you do that" monstrosity I tolerate is "neatize"...a verb meaning "to make neat." Most of you know it as "neaten." The only reason I tolerate it at all was because it was a bit of a joke where we were trying to verbalize the adjective but do it in a nonstandard way. I only use it around a few, specific people because we're the only ones who get the joke.

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

Lam writes:

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Which one of the following sentences is correct?

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Does god has free will?

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Does god have free will?

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I've always thought that "has" is the right one to use. "God" is a third person so shouldn't it be "has"? However, "have" sounds better for some reason which I can't quite put my fingers on yet.

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So, which one is it?

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Surely you can figure this out for yourself: Substitute an actual, third-person pronoun in the place of "god" and see what you would say. Do you say, "Does he has free will?" or do you say, "Does he have free will"?The word "does" in that sentence alters the grammatical mood of the statement and thus, you use the subjunctive. Similarly, the emphatic mood also uses the infinitive form. You don't say, "God does has free will." Instead, you say, "God does have free will."Therefore, since "god" is third-person, you use the third-person format of the subjunctive: "Does god have free will?"

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!

crashfrog writes:

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The only time you use "an" is to avoid glottal stops. Since there would be no glottal stops in the h-words you've chosen, a is the proper use.

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Acutally, I believe "an" is an acceptable article for "hypothesis" and "historical." It has to do with the weak first syllable that vocally reduces the "h" at the beginning of the word.Compare this to "history." Since the first syllable receives the accent, the "h" is a bit more prominent and you say, "a history."

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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!