Most Bizarre Errors You Constantly See

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Strazdas

Robots will replace your job
May 28, 2011
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Ed James said:
Official documents are the worst for that. In Britain the list of nationalities that come up when filling in something official are;
White
Asian
Black
Sometimes Indian/Pakistani
Then Mixed combinations of everything above.
I am afraid of brittain now.

Vegosiux said:
"The reactor's going critical!"

Oh, well that's good. Means it's entering its normal operational parameters after all.
Explain please, how does critical = normal.

dolfan1304 said:
How most people use Hercules when talking about Greek mythology, when its actually Heracles and Hercules is the Roman version.
I think the problem is that they misspelled it on a very popular TV show http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0111999/reference
 

Isalan

New member
Jun 9, 2008
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Ok internet, for the 120 billionth time, the word your looking for is "Addictive".

Addicting is not a word.
 

Thaluikhain

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Jan 16, 2010
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Strazdas said:
Vegosiux said:
"The reactor's going critical!"

Oh, well that's good. Means it's entering its normal operational parameters after all.
Explain please, how does critical = normal.
Normal in the sense for the reactor to work, it has to be critical.

Similarly, there's a big difference between a nuclear weapon initiating, and exploding. If the trigger charge goes off, and there is no nuclear reaction, that's a chemical explosion. If the nuclear reaction goes off as intended, that's a nuclear initiation. If a plane carrying a nuclear warhead crashes, the device might explode (which is bad), but unless it was armed, it won't initiate (which is much worse).
 

Vegosiux

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May 18, 2011
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Strazdas said:
Vegosiux said:
"The reactor's going critical!"

Oh, well that's good. Means it's entering its normal operational parameters after all.
Explain please, how does critical = normal.

I'll actually let Wikipedia explain it, will do a better job than me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prompt_criticality

Basically, "critical" means the reaction is self-sustaining and constant. That's how you'd expect a nuclear reactor to operate if you wanted it to be useful at all. Supercriticality and prompt criticality are the areas where things can start getting out of hand if you're not careful with them.
 

floppylobster

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Oct 22, 2008
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Blood Brain Barrier said:
The word "trope" pisses me off. Seriously, who started using it as a replacement for "stereotype", and why? The word has a meaning already, and it's not close to what people mean when they say "trope". So I don't get it. Is "stereotype" too long to say? Is it just a huge troll on behalf of some unknown wordsmith? Or do people just not know the meaning of words anymore.
Tropes and people using 'plot holes' for things like character inconsistencies. How do they differentiate from an actual plot hole?

But language changes... (as a new generation grows up incorrectly thinking they know what the previous generation was talking about).
 

Yuno Gasai

Queen of Yandere
Nov 6, 2010
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People cosplaying Yuno Gasai covered in blood.

I get that you want to pay homage to her yandere side, but if you actually pay any attention to the anime/manga whatsoever, you'll realize she's actually very clean and careful in the way she kills. It's very rare that she ever ends up with more than just a few streaks of blood on her skin or clothing. She certainly doesn't bathe in the stuff like most people seem to believe.

This also extends to people who aren't cosplaying as Yuno but do still want to soak their cosplays in blood. I get that not everyone is a blood spatter analyst, but when it comes to costumes, less blood is usually more. Why not just soak a paintbrush in fake blood and flick it at your costume? It looks much more natural and less ridiculous than just pouring fake blood everywhere.
 

Vivi22

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Aug 22, 2010
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Terratina. said:
Was reminded of it when I saw it today: people calling the Playstation One/Playstation/PS1 the PSX.

Now:

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.

I know it's horribly pedantic, but the different names refer to different things. *sigh*
I call the Playstation the PSX all of the time since it was referred to as the PSX for years before the actual PSX ever even saw the light of day. And since it never saw the light of day outside of Japan, and it didn't sell well to begin with and was discontinued after only 14 months, the odds that anyone who says PSX on an english website means the DVR without specifying it are so unbelievably slim as to be completely negligible.

I get the names mean different things, and it's part of the reason I don't say PSone when referring to the Playstation in general. But nobody is going to mistake someone saying PSX to mean the actual PSX. It just doesn't happen.
 

Evonisia

Your sinner, in secret
Jun 24, 2013
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Lovely Mixture said:
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?
Because in most advertisements of Frankenstein the monster is always shown (because the monster is a very important and iconic figure of the book). I've only ever seen one advert, or trailer or TV show that even shown the Doctor nevermind said his name. Plus in western cultures 'Frankenstein' usually isn't seen as a name, and as it's not a name you could easily slap it onto the monster.
 

Mr_Spanky

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Jun 1, 2012
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The seemingly habitual tire squeal in movies and shows. YES the tires WILL make that noise sometimes but not when pulling away at the kind of speed that they are actually going at. The best example of this I can think of is in "The Transporter" in the very opening scene when Mr Statham is going about 10-15mph in a car parking lot. And the tires make SOOOOO much noise. Petty possibly - but I wish they'd cut it out. Would make it more effective when someone really is high-tailing it and slamming on max power.
 

Storm Dragon

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Nov 29, 2011
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Lovely Mixture said:
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?
Ah, but Frankenstein is a surname, and the monster (whom I like to call "Kevin") could be considered to be the doctor's son, meaning that he would inherit the surname.

For me, I don't get why people have so much trouble with "there" (referencing a location), "their" (adjective describing something that belongs to a group of people), and "they're" (contraction of they are).
 

Daria.Morgendorffer

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Nov 26, 2011
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I hear people saying "flush out" a lot, when what the really mean is "flesh out".

As in: "We really need to flush out those paragraphs to better describe what we're looking for."

No. You don't. To flush out means to evacuate. To flesh out, on the other hand, means to expand upon.

I've heard more than one grown adult say this as part of a business meeting, and I have not been in any position to be pedantic without getting fired, but still, it bugs me to no end.

I've also, in proposals, from big-name companies, spell "Doppler Effect" as "Doppler Affect". Not a one-time thing, either. Throughout the whole {long string of expletives} document.
 

MarsProbe

Circuitboard Seahorse
Dec 13, 2008
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Little Woodsman said:
Where I live it's people not understanding that 'Hispanic' and 'Mexican' are *not* interchangeable terms! Drives me up the wall...
That's a bit like the whole Britain = England thing. I find myself wondering though, does this actually happen? Do people from foreign lands (like America) confuse Britain with England, as if forgetting the place is made up of more than one country? As the only time I can recall this "mistake" being made happen to be in the film In the Loop and in GTA IV (in a way) where they both intended for comic effect.

Also, one of the most recent Tragic News Stories was about a supermarket roof that collapsed in a country somewhere (the article is no longer listed on the BBC news app, and that's as far as I'll go to check), killing some people. Anyway, part of the story was the president of said country saying that the roof collapse was murder, seemingly. It seems I will need to revisit my definition of murder then, if that's the case. If that is the case, could I now treat the time my kitchen ceiling collapsed as attempted murder? After all, I could have being at least seriously hurt should I have been in the room while our usual weather pattern carried out its nefarious plan to finish me off by dislodging some roof tiles.
 

saluraropicrusa

undercover bird
Feb 22, 2010
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beastro said:
thaluikhain said:
beastro said:
With that said, feathered dinosaurs just look silly. Give me the old JP raptors any day.
XKCD would disagree with you:

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....
Except, you know, birds of prey, especially the big ones like eagles. Or cassowaries, who can rip you open with a kick.
 

Little Woodsman

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Nov 11, 2012
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MarsProbe said:
Little Woodsman said:
Where I live it's people not understanding that 'Hispanic' and 'Mexican' are *not* interchangeable terms! Drives me up the wall...
That's a bit like the whole Britain = England thing. I find myself wondering though, does this actually happen? Do people from foreign lands (like America) confuse Britain with England, as if forgetting the place is made up of more than one country? As the only time I can recall this "mistake" being made happen to be in the film In the Loop and in GTA IV (in a way) where they both intended for comic effect.
I can't speak for other places, but around here most people are not in fact aware that there is a place on Earth called 'Wales', never mind it's relationship to England, Scotland & Ireland.
Of course around here (and this one drives me absolutely crazy as well) I have had to explain *repeatedly* that Kuwait is not part of Iraq. Mostly to people whose husbands or siblings were stationed/serving in one or the other!
 

nima55

Paladin of Traffic Law
Nov 14, 2010
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Some of these thing s bother me as well, but some are just being pedantic.
 

michael87cn

New member
Jan 12, 2011
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The use of constantly in the title of this thread is pretty bizarre.

I don't really see that many bizarre errors except maybe grammatical errorz.

^-^
 

Naeo

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Dec 31, 2008
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"Quantum Leap" is NOT a large measure. It's the transition of an electron between two quantum states. It's an incredibly tiny change. It's madly tiny.

No, all metal does not sound the same. Jesus. Yes, most of what's played on the radio sounds pretty samey, but most of that is really just awkward hard rock with a few metal elements thrown in there. Metal encompasses everything from crazy fast, noisy, rough sounds (see Norwegian and early-wave black metal) to clean and highly technical (lost of prog metal) to painfully slow and unnerving (Khanate).

No, young people communicating differently is not "the decay of English". Because you talk differently from your parents, who talked different from their parents, etc.

No, "literally" is not being used "incorrectly," unless you're a pedantic prescriptivist who thinks that there's some form of "proper English" that everyone is required to speak (completely ignoring the concept of "dialect," "idiolects," and "that is moronic"). Yes, it's annoying as holy hell to hear it used every third word, but the meaning is shifting to that of a generic intensifier. For historical parallel, "soon" used to mean "immediately." But, people kept using it so hyperbolically ("I'll do that soon [right away]") that the meaning has shifted to "in the near future" rather than "right this very second".

A bit less frustrating is "ye olde". When the printing press was introduced to England, the language still used the Thorn character (a voiceless "th" sound--like in "three," "through," "think," etc; contrast with "the," "this," "that"). But, the printing press did not have one; so, "y" was used in place of Thorn. Thus, "ye olde" would not be pronounce "yee old," but more or less just like "the old".
 

bluegate

Elite Member
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Dec 28, 2010
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I particularly like this construction;

Person A: Do you mind if I take a glass of water?
Person B: Yes. *nods and waves person A as to say; 'no I don't mind, go ahead'
Person A: Thanks *goes ahead and takes said glass*

In other words, people who mix up 'do you mind' and 'can I' in their answers.
 

KOMega

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Aug 30, 2010
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Not exactly widespread, but just the pronunciation of certain words I try to introduce to people.
But that's ok because I don't expect people to suddenly understand a new language. But it still makes me twitch a little.

Lovely Mixture said:
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?
Maybe Frankenstein was the monster ;P