Most Bizarre Errors You Constantly See

[runic knight]

Pretty much every time someone says the phrase "Evolution is just a theory".

Look up the term "Theory" in a scientific sense, then you may talk. Otherwise, I present you a dunce cap.

What bothers me the most about that is they can never understand that a theory explains what it is the theory of. Gravitational theory explains gravity. Atomic theory explains atoms. Cellular theory... you get the point. All of them explain verified phenomenon or physical aspects of the universe that exist. So it isn't even that it is "just a theory", because the theory part of it is the explanation of the observable and verified phenomenon of evolution. In order to have the theory explaining it, you'd have to have occurrence of evolution that required the explanation in the first place.

Saying "it is just a theory" is like them saying that they dismiss the theory, therefore the phenomenon doesn't exist. It is maddening.

 

[beastro]

With that said, feathered dinosaurs just look silly. Give me the old JP raptors any day.

XKCD would disagree with you:

Spoiler

Birds are what I eat, what my cats wants to eat and what my lab used to chase during walkies.

Cept Crows, but they're more like winged ferrets than birds....

 

[Imat]

I feel like people are getting a little too worked up over these things, but that may just be me.

Since Frankenstein's Monster's name got brought ip, allow me to throw in his appearance and how he was created as well. He wasn't stitched together from body parts, he was grown from scratch in a tank using a little bit of Frankenstein's flesh.

I read the book a while ago, and I'm fairly certain that's not how it happeed.

Also this. Pretty sure Frankenstein had not the resources to grow a monster from some of his flesh in a vat. Not that growing a monster from a bunch of stitched-together dead things does not take resources...

 

[Specter Von Baren]

Interesting how this seems to have turned mainly into a thread of pronunciation. But in line with that...... You see this?

You see this thing? It's a Golem. As in, Go-LEM. Go over there and lemme see you pronounce it right. It is not pronounced Gah-lum!

THIS, is a Gah-lum!

Do they look at all similar?! No? Then stop referring to them with the same pronunciation! Just because they use the same consonants doesn't mean that they use and pronounce their vowels the same.

 

[Pink Gregory]

Do they look at all similar?! No? Then stop referring to them with the same pronunciation! Just because they use the same consonants doesn't mean that they use and pronounce their vowels the same.

I have a book on cassette of the Hobbit. In that, it's pronounced "goh-loom". Crazy, crazy world.

 

[Queen Michael]

With that said, feathered dinosaurs just look silly. Give me the old JP raptors any day.

Read Gantz and you'll change your mind.

 

[Terratina.]

Was reminded of it when I saw it today: people calling the Playstation One/Playstation/PS1 the PSX.

Now:

Spoiler: This is a Playstation One/Playstation

Spoiler: This is a PSX

There is a difference. Call a Playstation, or the Playstation One, or even PS1 - it doesn't matter; it's clear you are referring to the first Playstation which was released in '94/'95. While if you call a PSX, I can only assume that you, if you are not Japanese, are not referring to the video recorder which could also play PS2 games, which was never released outside Japan. Oh, and please don't refer to the PS1 as the PSone either.

Spoiler: Of course, unless you are referring to the slim version of the PS1, the PSone

I know it's horribly pedantic, but the different names refer to different things. *sigh*

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

There's a grammar rule that never see anything, even edited articles follow: when you make a list of things you need a comma before the "and" at the end of the list.

For example: I need milk, butter, eggs, cheese (,) and bread
If you instead say: I need milk, butter, eggs, cheese and bread

You're grouping "cheese and bread" together so there's no pause in the list. There are times when no comma is applicable but I never see it used right. I will never understand why I such a simple rule is never followed

 

[Pyramid Head]

I've been in a professional cooking class for a few months now, and it's happened three times now where someone started a grease fire but cooking butter at too high a temperature, once with a classmate, once with someone who took the class before me, and once with my little sister. You'd think the smoke point would be common knowledge among people who cook but i keep seeing people burning butter and olive oil.

 

[Queen Michael]

There's a grammar rule that never see anything, even edited articles follow: when you make a list of things you need a comma before the "and" at the end of the list.

For example: I need milk, butter, eggs, cheese (,) and bread
If you instead say: I need milk, butter, eggs, cheese and bread

You're grouping "cheese and bread" together so there's no pause in the list. There are times when no comma is applicable but I never see it used right. I will never understand why I such a simple rule is never followed

Fun fact: The comma you're discussing is called an Oxford comma.

 

[rednose1]

Every time someone in a movie screams, "The reactor is going CRITICAL!!!!1!!!1ONE!"

Reactors go critical all the time. It's simply the point when neutrons in = neutrons out. It may seems like a simple thing to harp on, but misconceptions like this make it into mainstream, and people start rallying against something (like nuclear power) because of Hollywood lies.

 

[Beffudled Sheep_v1legacy]

There's a grammar rule that never see anything, even edited articles follow: when you make a list of things you need a comma before the "and" at the end of the list.

For example: I need milk, butter, eggs, cheese (,) and bread
If you instead say: I need milk, butter, eggs, cheese and bread

You're grouping "cheese and bread" together so there's no pause in the list. There are times when no comma is applicable but I never see it used right. I will never understand why I such a simple rule is never followed

Not sure about other people but I never use it because I was taught that it was incorrect to put the comma before the "and".

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

Oh yeah another one that really clips my begonias.

"The reactor's going critical!"

Oh, well that's good. Means it's entering its normal operational parameters after all.

I did not know that. Learn something everyday.

I think it's because of popular experience with nuclear technologies; we only ever hear about the bad stuff. Whenever I hear the term, it's inseparable from notions of war (bombs, submarines, etc) or malfunction (Japan's power facilities after the earthquake).

It might also have to do with the term "critical" which we often see in a negative light.

 

[Pseudoboss]

There's a grammar rule that never see anything, even edited articles follow: when you make a list of things you need a comma before the "and" at the end of the list.

For example: I need milk, butter, eggs, cheese (,) and bread
If you instead say: I need milk, butter, eggs, cheese and bread

You're grouping "cheese and bread" together so there's no pause in the list. There are times when no comma is applicable but I never see it used right. I will never understand why I such a simple rule is never followed

Well, according to my AP English teacher, in journalism you're not expected to put a comma before the and in a list because during World War II it was supposed to save lead for bullets.

However, outside of journalism, you are expected to have a comma before the "and."
You're also never expected to use a comma when you have a list of only two items separated by a conjunction, "bacon and eggs" is common, "bacon, and eggs" just looks weird.



My personal peeve is awful swirly fonts that affect legibility.
If you want me to be able to read your sign, you better make it readable. If it's hard to read your sign, then I simply won't bother. I have better things to do.

 

[mitchell271]

I've got a few!
- it's pronounced ESSpresso, not expresso
- a scientific theory is more than just an idea. To qualify as a theory, it has to be backed up by empirical data and repeatable experiments
- your computer becoming unresponsive isn't because of a virus, it's because of the 30+ tabs you've got running

When it comes to weird ones though, the worst offender I've seen is vaccines causing autism. How the hell did that even start?!

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

Fun fact: The comma you're discussing is called an Oxford comma.

So there's even a word for it...

Not sure about other people but I never use it because I was taught that it was incorrect to put the comma before the "and".

Well I'm American and was taught at a catholic school so maybe that has something to do with it?

Well, according to my AP English teacher, in journalism you're not expected to put a comma before the and in a list because during World War II it was supposed to save lead for bullets.

However, outside of journalism, you are expected to have a comma before the "and."
You're also never expected to use a comma when you have a list of only two items separated by a conjunction, "bacon and eggs" is common, "bacon, and eggs" just looks weird.

Well that's one more mystery solved. Sounds like the reason Americans don't use the letter "u" in words like "colour/color". The "u" keys on printing presses would wear out so they stopped using it in words where the "u" wasn't "necessary".

Also the "," is read as pause so a two item list would also sound weird when read

My personal peeve is awful swirly fonts that affect legibility.
If you want me to be able to read your sign, you better make it readable. If it's hard to read your sign, then I simply won't bother. I have better things to do.

One of my reading peeves is the use of serif fonts online. They're annoying to read on monitors because most only have a dpi of about 80

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

I've been in a professional cooking class for a few months now, and it's happened three times now where someone started a grease fire but cooking butter at too high a temperature, once with a classmate, once with someone who took the class before me, and once with my little sister. You'd think the smoke point would be common knowledge among people who cook but i keep seeing people burning butter and olive oil.

At least they're not burning water. I love my mother to death, she's one of those types of people who can do pretty much anything they set their mind to.... except cooking. She burned water once boiling it for mac & cheese. I didn't really notice it at the time but now I know why we went out to eat whenever my Dad was out of town.

 

[Something Amyss]

Spelling errors in the age of autocorrect mostly baffle me, as is the inability to check your spelling even without it. Most means of communication seem to have some way to automatically flag potentially misspelled words. I'm dyslexic. I'm a terrible speller, and I can still make my work legible because I can look for the flags. I'm not perfect, mind, but spellcheckers/spell checkers/spell-checkers often have a lot of missing words. I had to train everything I own not to flag 'okay,' for example.

"Beam Me Up, Scotty" was never an actual quoted line in Star Trek, at least not directly. One high school class I had ridiculed me for saying that, but I guess it's my fault for not forcing them to search up that particular fact up themselves.

Yeah, he comes close to it on a couple occasions, but....

Similarly with adding "Luke" to "I am your father."

It would make the scene rather silly. Sillier than a George Lucas ass-pull.

Where I live it's people not understanding that 'Hispanic' and 'Mexican' are *not* interchangeable terms! Drives me up the wall...

I'm American, so that's just about everywhere. Even quite frequently amongst Hispanics/Latinos.

Frankenstein is not the name of the monster, it's the name of the doctor. How the hell did this error begin in the first place?

If we're going to be specific, Frankenstein was the monster. He just wasn't the creation.

Yes, I know this is arguable, but think about the actions of the two in the original stories. He was hardly this shambling beast.

Was not the creature called "Adam"? Presumably Adam Frankenstein, named after his "dad", though.

Shelley referred to him as 'Adam,' and he was referred to as 'Adam' in the poetic sense, but he's never outright named in the book.

 

[Alakaizer]

The big one I can think of is "drownd/drwonded." It makes me feel like I'm about to puke. It's drown and drowned. I've never seen it, but I've heard it way too often, and there is no damned excuse for it. It's a lot like "expresso" and "excape." BLARG.

 

[soren7550]

When it comes to weird ones though, the worst offender I've seen is vaccines causing autism. How the hell did that even start?!

That's because someone managed to have a false report printed in a medical journal saying that they did. Think it was back in the 80s this happened, and if I remember right it was discredited not too long after, but people tend to not remember that part.

Penn & Teller had an episode of Bullshit on it, and I'd link it, but since it has some nudity in it I think, I can't. Will post a censored one if I find it.

OT: One for me is when people call the Medal of Honor the Congressional Medal of Honor. It's not awarded by Congress, therefore it can't be called the Congressional Medal of Honor. From what I can recall, Congress has absolutely no involvement whatsoever when it comes to the medal.