that you're not umagining this?

The same thing bothers my little umdoggie too.

Last edited Wed Apr 16, 2025, 02:21 PM - Edit history (1)

First, I'm with you. It's jarring when I hear people mispronounce words or worse, use them inappropriately. To me, it illustrates a weak mind that doesn't know its native language.

My list of offenses is long but a few of my pet peeves include:

- Inverting "scan" and "skim." To skim something means to glance at its surface, (skim milk has the layer of fats removed leaving the non-fat milk). To scan something means to look at it in great detail, (a scanner copies things at 300 dpi or greater). Too often people will say, "I didn't have time to read it in detail so I just scanned it." That's an illogical statement.

- Inverting "infer" and "imply." I imply something and you infer it from my implication. Too often, people will use them interchangeably.

- Using the expression, "It begs the question..." This does not mean it suggests a question. According to Merriam-Webster, the phrase actually means, "To beg a question means to assume the truth of what you are trying to prove, often leading to circular reasoning. In modern usage, it can also mean to prompt a specific question that needs to be answered." It's quite a difference!

Second, English is a bastardized language meaning it changes all the time. If you could be transported in time back to Elizabethan England, you probably wouldn't be able to hold a meaningful conversation with Shakespeare because the words and grammar were so substantially different as to be practically a foreign language. Words change all the time! Consider that a mere 30 years ago, the word "suck" was almost as offensive as "fuck." Today, it's used in serious conversations. Fascinating

You and I and a handful of others are the bulwark against the destruction of the English language. Meanwhile, Trump & Co. have turned words inside out and upside down ala Orwell's Newspeak.

Enjoy your week, Rizen. We are pilgrims in an unholy land!

is a starving swan bobbing for scraps in the turbulent wake of society.

Fixed it. Pilgrim it is.

Thanks!

It's from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Sean Connery and Harrison Ford go to Nazi Berlin and witness a book burning. Connery says the line to Ford.

The schwa is that "lazy" vowel sound in English that happens with unstressed syllables. This is the "uh" sound you mentioned (as in "thuh" instead of "the&quot . It may be annoying but in all fairness language -- including phonemes -- are morphing all the time, and collapsing English vowels to uh is very natural.

Febuary or Febarary instead of February.

Don't get me started on irregardless (which I understand has now become an accepted word).

Not by me. Not ever.

people saying - and writing - CAUSE instead of BECAUSE

BECAUSE IT LOOKS FUCKING IGNORANT!

him went. . ." , heard when I was in high school (in the last millenium) and, unfortunately, never forgotten.

...people only do it with compound subjects. You never hear anyone say, "Him went to the movies," or, "Her went on vacation," or "Me's going out to dinner."

Even my husband and our 30-something sons have started doing this. I want to smack them all upside the head, as the saying goes. I'm resisting with all my might the urge to correct them, but I'm going to cave someday, I just know it.

I have, to my great horror, heard people make a possessive out of "I" - John and I's vacation," and so forth.

Amoung my many pet peeves is "of" instead of "have". ."would of", could of", etc.

Nails on chalkboard is almost Iess painful.

Husband's family says it and it drives me bonkers. Seems to be a Midwest thing (Indiana/Illinois), his family is from that area.

And he pronounces the "t" in often.

Bugs me.

I am of a different mind set.

I don't care about typos, and I generally do not care how people pronounce words.

I mispronounce words all of the time. In my case, it is because I learn new words via reading, and I don't always look up the pronunciation of them. So I will say the word incorrectly verbally, and I appreciate it when someone helps me learn how to say it correctly.

When some people speak, their minds are working ahead of voice, and this causes them to mispronounce a word.

Some people stutter. That can cause words to be said incorrectly.

Some have legitimate speech impediments.

For me, as long as I have an idea of what a person is talking about, in most cases, I won't correct them, and I won't be bothered about how they speak.

Also, there are regional dialect differences.

I pronounce "cement" as "sment".

Potato as po-tayda.

Tomato as toe-mayda.

Capicola as gabbagool (sort of...I say capicola so fast, that it sounds like gabbagool a little). In that case, it's like how my Italian family says it. Most Americans say "manicotti". I pronounce it as ManiGOT, because that is how I learned to say it.

I think language variations are very interesting.

If the message is conveyed, it is correct.

Mom was an English teacher and gave up on me.

"five words you pronounce wrong two years before your brain starts shutting down". I never get past that part before I hit the "skip" button, because I keep thinking, "so many people pronounce so many things incorrectly, how would one ever know?"

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! I hear that even in COMMERCIALS for JEW-EL-REE (or JEWL-REE)

I strongly suspect I must have been an English teacher or editor in a past life.

I often used to hear parents mispronounce the over-the-counter med Dimetapp as Dynetab. No "n" and no "b," so that was always a puzzle.

when I corrected my English mum saying al-u- MIN-i-um, she pointed out, "Well it's MY BLOODY LANGUAGE, isn't it?"

Looked it up, either:

jool ree

or

jool wul ree

Always stress on first syllable

no INDEED

or not knowing the difference between a possessive and a contraction.

Although, to be fair, some autocorrect/spellcheck programs are atrocious.

no. just no.

This is one of my favorite shows on my local public radio station. Every week they take calls featuring questions regarding where a word or expression comes from, and how it got here, plus discussions in spelling, pronunciation, and use.

A somewhat running joke is "What's the stakes in this bet" when one person says one thing is the standard use and the other disagrees. (like "dinner and a movie" or agreeing to do dishes for a year.)

I recommend all fellow word nerds and lovers of languages to check it out!

Heck, check it out even if you hate grammar and spelling, because the two hosts have a wonderful, friendly energy, and are a joy to listen to.

Happy Friday folks!