Annoyingly misused words?

[Gamblerjoe]

"******" Nobody knows it's the definition of a bundle of sticks or a meatball stuffed with pork.

You'll appriciate this then.

A professional Mixed Martial Arts fighter, Michael Bisping, is at the checkpoint, about to get into the octagon for a fight. As they are applying vasoline to his face, the guy gets some of it in his eye by accident. Its a little bit of a debacle, and theres some stalling as he tries to get it out, but eventually he has to get into the octagon so they can get the show on the road.

After the fight, durring the post fight press conference, someone asked him about it. He was like: "I didnt want to look like a ******, like i didnt want to fight, but i had vasoline in my eye." UFC President, Dana White, instantly cut him off and said: "He didnt mean that!". Bisping was like: "Well, you know what i mean...". Dana responds: "Trust me, they dont."

I thought that whole exchange was funny, because his use was in holding the actual connotation of the word. Even though it is more or less a catch-all insult, the connotation is that it means lazy or incompetent.

 

[Lilani]

Times. All throughout grade school, I wanted to throw large and heavy objects at people who would say things like "You times it by five, then you times it by four." It just blew my mind. How could they not realize how STUPID they sounded?

 

[Hawkeye16]

This word gets misused quite EGREGIOUSLY:http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Egregious

 

[Zaverexus]

Hooray Grammar freak thread!!!
"Times'd" instead of "multiplied"
"Versed" as another form of "versus"
and people using "literally" when there is no figurative or alternate form of what they said and they just mean "seriously"

I HATE PEOPLE WHO BUTCHER THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE!!!

 

[WaysideMaze]

Also, although this doesn't quite fit with OT I'm gonna include it anyway.

Winningest.

Is this real? Do people actually use that word?

I'm English, I've never heard that word used, or seen it before today. I sincerely hope I never hear it out loud, it's just awful!

 

[Spacewolf]

Seriously, I hate it when people don't know the meaning of irony as well.

according to my dictionary irony is pretty much the same as sarcasm i.e.
"a mockingly humorous use of words in which the intended meaning is the opposite of what is actually said"

So as far as i can tell seeing someone getting hit by a bus and saying how lucky would be irony

it is also apparently used "in a situation which seems to mock reasonable hopes"

and on-topic communism it does not mean a totalitarian dictatorship got it people

Also surely in most cases the most comman use of the word is the correct one which means i get annoyed when people try to dictionary definition me i mean come on language is not a written set of rules which never change and remains unchanged for thousaands of years

 

[floppylobster]

Literally
Eclectic
Random
Win
God
Media

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Seriously, I hate it when people don't know the meaning of irony as well.

according to my dictionary irony is pretty much the same as sarcasm i.e.
"a mockingly humorous use of words in which the intended meaning is the opposite of what is actually said"

So as far as i can tell seeing someone getting hit by a bus and saying how lucky would be irony

it is also apparently used "in a situation which seems to mock reasonable hopes"

and on-topic communism it does not mean a totalitarian dictatorship got it people

Irony is this.

 

[Lexodus]

When people say "he was hung to death"
It's hanged, people are hanged

I'm hung

 

[Tanto-chan]

I am less annoyed by the misuse of words than by the routine mispronunciation of words.

I hear you there. I was in my acting 2 class the other day and one of my partners for the scene couldn't say masochism or mahjongg. Masochism sounded more like machismo and I don't even know what he was doing to mahjongg but it hurt my soul just a bit.

 

[Lexodus]

Also, although this doesn't quite fit with OT I'm gonna include it anyway.

Winningest.

Is this real? Do people actually use that word?

I'm English, I've never heard that word used, or seen it before today. I sincerely hope I never hear it out loud, it's just awful!

I heard that word during the olympics when I was staying in a rental cottage in Wales. Long story short, my parents made me pay for the TV.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

As already mentioned "I could care less". BUT THAT MEANS YOU DO IN FACT CARE! Just add an n't and it'd be right!

 

[thedeathscythe]

A lot of the things I'm saying have already been said, so I'll say something new. This one my buddy told me and listen close to your friends and you may hear it. I hate it when people say "For all intensive purposes..." That makes no sense. They always mean "For all intents and purposes" but they have never seen it written so they just say it phonetically.

EDIT: I actually hate it when people type to you and say "I'm not aloud to go out tonight, sorry." It just pains me to see the english language bastardized so badly these days.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

Irregardless.
The word is useless, the shorter version means exactly the same thing, it's used by people who try and sound smarter.

Actually it means "not without regard for." Cancel out the two negatives, and irregardless = with regards to. So it's even worse than useless: it's often the opposite of what people intend for it to mean.

I believe George Orwell made a list of cliche'd expressions in his essay Politics and The English Language. Toe the line, often misused as tow the line; the hammer and the anvil, people who think the anvil get's the worse side of the exchange. It just means that a person has no idea what (s)he's actually saying, and just thinks it sounds clever.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

I actually hate it when people type to you and say "I'm not aloud to go out tonight, sorry." It just pains me to see the english language bastardized so badly these days.

You should ask if they can sneak out quietly.

Seriously, I hate it when people don't know the meaning of irony as well.

I'd still hold that a diabetic getting run over by a truck full of insulin would be ironic. Words aren't said, but the outcome (killing a diabetic man) is different than the obvious intended result of a shipment of insulin. This definition is limited because it only takes linguistic irony into account.

 

[thedeathscythe]

I actually hate it when people type to you and say "I'm not aloud to go out tonight, sorry." It just pains me to see the english language bastardized so badly these days.

You should ask if they can sneak out quietly.

I think you meant "You should ask them if they can sneak out quitely." Those kind of spelling mistakes, which have all been said, also grind my gears.

 

[jboking]

I used to get frustrated when I heard someone use a word incorrectly. However, after listening to stephen fry I've slowly realized that it rarely matters if I can understand what they mean and what message they intend to convey to me.

Honestly, it's now the overuse of words the bugs me. Things like 'epic' or 'awesome.' It's not that I feel they shouldn't use the word because they are using it incorrectly, but rather that I wish they would find a more unique way to convey that message.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

Literally

Despite what The Oatmeal says, I don't mind when people use "literally" as exaggeration. Think of it as the ultimate in hyperbole - "I was so _____ that this actually happened. No really."

Just because someone asserts something as truth doesn't mean that it is, or is intended that way. Don't take "literally" so literally.

 

[Lexodus]

I actually hate it when people type to you and say "I'm not aloud to go out tonight, sorry." It just pains me to see the english language bastardized so badly these days.

You should ask if they can sneak out quietly.

I think you meant "You should ask them if they can sneak out quitely." Those kind of spelling mistakes, which have all been said, also grind my gears.

You know what else grinds my gears? When I can't find the droids I'm looking for!

 

[Zechnophobe]

Also, although this doesn't quite fit with OT I'm gonna include it anyway.

Winningest.

Is this real? Do people actually use that word?

I'm English, I've never heard that word used, or seen it before today. I sincerely hope I never hear it out loud, it's just awful!

I have only heard winningest used in Football. Where the Winningest Quarterback of all time was the one who had the most raw wins, independent of losses. It is actually a somewhat worthy distinction, since it doesn't say you have the greatest win percentage, and does bundle a concept into a single word.

Hooray Grammar freak thread!!!
"Times'd" instead of "multiplied"
"Versed" as another form of "versus"
and people using "literally" when there is no figurative or alternate form of what they said and they just mean "seriously"

I HATE PEOPLE WHO BUTCHER THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE!!!

Don't you mean "I hate it WHEN people butcher the English language?" Surely someone you like has at least at one point in their life done some of this butchery. And clearly you can't hate someone until you are aware of the butchery.

I think people seriously need to stop acting like language is immutable. It changes. We add new words, and snip out older ones. The words you think are 'okay' and 'real' are just those most familiar to you.