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words most often used incorrectly

#144
Wait, one just popped up that absolutely makes me want to punch people in the mouth:

Addicting.

"Oh my God, I can't get enough of this cheese; it is soooo addicting!"

No it is @#$%ing not, you mealy-mouthed waste of oxygen. It's addictive. Go write it on your giant forehead a hundred times, backward, so you can read it in a mirror.

The other one *is* a real word, but it's a transitive verb (and an uncommon one at that due to its specificity) - like, I dunno:
"Doctor Burgess liked to spend his afternoons slowly addicting his patients to the smooth, dulcet tones of Charlie Parker. Soon, Birdland would be the only home they'd ever want."

And now, I have to go take a walk before I put my fist through the computer monitor. Good day.
 
#146
J-Bassomatic said:
I didn't mean to sound like I was disagreeing with you. I find your explanations to be very clear and well reasoned and it's obvious you are well read. I noticed you did not use expressions that might cast doubt on that. This is what I'm saying. I read a lot so I see how things are spelled and organized, I know I'm not going to come across 'baited breath' in a major publication such as The New Yorker magazine. Speaking of the New Yorker and this thread, there was a cartoon in one issue that depicted a gravestone on which was written "He Literally Died".
Anyway, I think the impression you leave on people who use these 'terms of endearment' is one of being NOT well read. I know language changes, I've read some things on it too. If I signed up for a literature or English course and the professor said, "I want to ax you a question," that course would get dropped.
Thanks for your informative posts though, good reading!
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You raised an important point I overlooked, probably because sociolinguistics is not my forte I'm afraid. See, to a theoretical linguist's eye (which I'm not, to be clear), as I said "axing" for "asking" is not substantially different from "toining" for "turning". Or, to be more specific, one sound change may be considered more or less interesting than the other for strictly theoretical reasons only. (In this case, the solitary methatesized item vs. a change across the board, for example.)
However, within the (wider, or "diasystemic") community of native speakers, the image projected by/response to the use of one can be radically different from the other. I've already commented upon crying "laziness", as another poster has since my last post, being off the mark. A person who is heard saying "axing" can be seen as ignorant because (s)he doesn't seem to bother using the "correct" form to which (s)he must have been exposed to forever. This (the assumption/reaction of non-users of the form) is a fact, and not to be glossed over.
Still, it's worth pointing out how, and asking why, other phenomena get filed under "accent" and accepted more easily. To varying degrees, that is: to a speaker a) with a given education, class and accent, hearing speakers b) and c), both with a heavy, non-standard accent of their own might (and does) elicit very different assumptions about their school years. The reasons are not easy to establish, but have much more to do with the attitudes to the different social groups than aesthetic preferences. It's normal. I do it all the time with speakers from different corners of Italy - don't get me started.
Again, there's an entire discipline dedicated to these fields of inquiry, and I know just enough of it to raise questions, not answers however provisional.
J-Bassomatic said:
OK, can o' worms time. "Myself" as in "Please see John or myself about the program." "Please see myself about a grammar book."
It's ME.
I will do it by myself is correct.
Please see me for more information.
Please see Jim or me for more information.
I know haphAsSard is probably waiting for me on this one.:laugh:
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Ha! You'll get no argument from me about this one: it is illogical ("Fascinating, Captain..." 'ò¡ô' ) and a head-scratcher.
...However! :D
- I wonder where this replacement of "me" with "myself" takes place. Always? In pseudo-formal registers? When the wider context is a description of proceedings which at first don't seem to involve the speaker, so as to signal the latter's entrance, by now unexpected, with a "bam!"? The above isn't meant to condone this usage, just to try to explain it;
- I myself am guilty of writing..."I myself". It's not a reflexive form either. Now I wonder if it might be considered just as dumb as the other...


EDIT - Oh, I thought of a form that, even if not incorrect in today's English, I strive to avoid if possible: I really can't wrap my head around the singular "they". I know, saying "he" is sexist if you don't know the gender of the person you're talking about. Still..."they"? Ugh. Hence my cumbersome "(s)he", "he or she", or making the phrase referred to actually plural. You can do it only so much though.
 
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#147
This always bothers me at the store—it should be "fewer."
At least I taught my kids the difference.
IMG_0630.JPG
 
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#149
My Grandma remarried when my Grandpa passed. Her new husband was from the Bronx, a hard core NY'er. Aside from the many very colorful phrases he used, (Whaddya tink you are, some sorta fancy pants gangsta?), he had that VERY THICK "Bowery Boys" type accent. Being a life long Chicago 'burbs kid, it just cracked me up to hear him say some stuff. An example,
"Look at dem dare tree boids in da tree." That was him commenting on three birds in a tree.
 
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#150
"It's always pleasant to go carol-singing, or carols-singing, with the Pedants' Association, formerly the Pedants Association, originally the Pedant's Association. I first joined 10 years ago with the long-term aim of attracting the requisite number of votes in order to change its title to The Association of Pedants, thus rendering the apostrophe redundant."
Craig Brown (from In defence of grammar pedantry)
 
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#152
Heard the word I first mentioned here used 3 times yesterday, all to imply ABSOLUTE destruction of something, and all incorrectly. One example was in a TV show where a planet was blown out of existence, the character saying it was "decimated". You would think a person who writes for a living would know better. This is literally the proof of the fall of Western civilization.
Man, this thread has got some legs. It has literally stirred up the figurative hornets' nest.
Great, now I look at that last sentence and wonder, did I just use my possessive apostrophe incorrectly?
Thanks a whole effin' lot, KBD...:roflmao:
 
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#155
Savagehenry said:
My Grandma remarried when my Grandpa passed. Her new husband was from the Bronx, a hard core NY'er. Aside from the many very colorful phrases he used, (Whaddya tink you are, some sorta fancy pants gangsta?), he had that VERY THICK "Bowery Boys" type accent. Being a life long Chicago 'burbs kid, it just cracked me up to hear him say some stuff. An example,
"Look at dem dare tree boids in da tree." That was him commenting on three birds in a tree.
Click to expand...
It's Da Bronx. Youse guys needsta loine howda speak!
 
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