Most Bizarre Errors You Constantly See

[nima55]

Some of these thing s bother me as well, but some are just being pedantic.

 

[michael87cn]

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]

"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]

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]

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.

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

 

[Strazdas]

"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).

Ah, so basically critical reactor is active fission. Since critical is usually used to decribe something that is beyond normal operating parameters the confusion creates. still a nuclear reactor can be critical technically in a bad sense, if we use critical definition as defined in first google link: Being in or verging on a state of crisis or emergency, Fraught with danger or risk; perilous.
Though yeah the technical definitino for reaction does create a lot of confusion.

also i always called nuclear initiation simply "nuclear reaction" as far a weapons goes. oh well.

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.

How about passive nuclear reactors using thorium, that is not self-sustained but can be easily "Agitated" into reaction and produces more energy than is needed to make it react? that ones would not fit the critical definition you give and still would be nuclear reactors.

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.

closed parking lots multiply the sound volume a lot. ive seen such things happen in real life multiple times sicne one of our supermarket underground parking lot is liked by local drifters.

 

[Singularly Datarific]

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?

Dude the doctor WAS the monster. _>

 

[Strazdas]

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.

The problem is local language definition. United Kingdoms in my local language is called united kingdoms, but thats never used. instead what everyone, including official documents use is "Anglija", which translates to England. We got queen of england, and all. its very rare to see somone use it as non england to decribe whole great britain. The same problem is with "America". no, america is many states, what you mean is united states, yet you call it america anyway. Besides, most people here consider the whole main island england and dont imagine what the hell is wales. They think its something like regions here locally, which would be "Elngland dividded into counties" type of deal.
The whole murder thing is probably mistranslation. the terms differ especially when it comes to legality. For example here there is aboslutely no different in definition of murder and manslaughter, they are both decribed by 1 word.
Also when it comes to that particular case it actually was murder. the roof collapsed because some rich ass decided its a good idea to make a garden on the roof (like real garden with dirt and all), and forgot to check that the construction cant hold it. imagine putting tens of tons of dirt on your roof and then claiming it caved in accidentally.


Capcha: elevator going up!
Oh yes it is.

 

[EeveeElectro]

Another one I've just seen this morning.

People calling Mulan and Tinkerbell Disney Princesses when they're not.
There is a few of them labelled as royalty when they aren't, I can't think of any more at the minute. Not every female lead in Disney is a princess D:

 

[Lovely Mixture]

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.

Maybe Frankenstein was the monster ;P

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?

Dude the doctor WAS the monster. _>

the following is to be taken with little seriousness

Y'all treating me like a racist. I did not mean to say that the Monster was a monster. I'm sorry for not capitalizing it.

www.imdb.com/title/tt0021884/?ref_=nm_knf_t4

See? He's credited as the the Monster. It doesn't mean he's a monster, but he's The Monster.

Next, you SJW-Types gonna accuse me of saying that I think Darth Vader is black cause I accidentally used "darth" as an adjective, wait what do you mean he's voiced by a black dude?....oh.

 

[Something Amyss]

See? He's credited as the the Monster. It doesn't mean he's a monster, but he's The Monster.

No, he's credited as "?"

And no, treating you like a racist would look much different.

 

[Nuxxy]

One of my peeves is a company slogan wrapped in quotes without an attribution. It actually puts me off using the company.

 

[TheSYLOH]

I'm shocked by how many people believe the sarcastic phrase.
"50% of the population is below average intelligence"

This is wrong. 50% of the population is below MEDIAN intelligence.

For example 10 people take an intelligence test, where all you have to do is make a mark on a piece of paper.
One of the participants was a dumbass and ate the pencil, the rest got 100 marks.

So average score is 90.
Which 90% of the population is above.

 

[Tom_green_day]

A second of mine is that, ironically, one of the most commonly mispronounced words in the english language is 'pronunciation'.

Have you heard of this thing called 'dialect'? I'm not being sarcastic. It means that people in different locations speak in different ways and pronounce things differently. As a little off-topic fact, does anyone know that the American accent is closer to Old English than the English accent? When Americans are performing Shakespeare plays the rhyming and rhythm is more noticeable and accurate than when us English people do it. Just a fun fact

 

[PainInTheAssInternet]

Also, I hate it when people call athiesm a religion, since by definition it is without the qualities that define 'religion'.

Right. There is no dogmatic thinking in atheism. Except, you know, the part about the primacy of reason regarding the human experience, something that even atheist philosophers (actual ones, not teenagers who read some book and now think that regurgitating Harris automatically raises their IQ by 50 points) think is idiotic.

There are no personality cults in atheism, either. Except, of course, everybody on the Dawkins forums calling him "The Professor" in reverent tones, and talking about the typewriter on which he wrote his first book in the EXACT SAME MANNER in which a medieval Catholic would talk about the Bones of St Augustine.

There is definitely no tribalism in atheism. Except, well, a significant percentage of modern atheists using their atheism as a narcissistic crutch in order to belittle, ostracise and feel superior to others.

There cannot be any rituals in atheism, either. Except, alas, the part where now there are atheist megachurches, gatherings, leaders and assemblies.

Any of those things sound familiar? That sounds an awful lot like the way those religious folk are behaving, doesn't it? Maybe the idea of atheism lacking any of the qualities found in religion works in theory, but not so much in real life?


The problem with atheism is that you cannot define anything via an absence. And the problem with human beings is that they seem to like rituals, leaders, dogma, and tribalism, while at the same time abhorring a vacuum.

This isn't about whether there is a god or not, by the way. This is about how ever since 1348 or thereabouts, Western civilisation has been scrambling like mad to find something else to worship, always claiming that it was "reason" that had begotten the ersatz godhead - they tried "nation" for a while, and when that led to two global wars, they split up into "progress" on one side (let's not forget that Marx and Lenin both used "Science!" as proof that they were right) and "race" on the other, which of course set the entire world ablaze. Some tried "freedom", but that's been recently given a bad name by Ted Cruz and his loathsome ilk; "money" didn't work out so well, either, so now we're trying "science".


The thing is, what all those ideals have in common is that as good or bad, as rational or irrational as they may be, they are without exception shot through the human prism. And alas, we're a bunch of arseholes.
I am not implying that all atheists are science-worshipping, Dawkins-idolising people who have no grasp of cultural anthropology. However, to those that are, I strongly suggest picking up a history book. We've been doing this dance for bloody centuries now, pun intended.

[/quote]

So what was your point?

I feel like you're lecturing me for something, but i can't imagine what or why.[/quote]

Before this even starts, there are threads for Religion and Politics. This is NOT one of them. Don't make it into one.

 

[maninahat]

Here is one I made a mistake with, but I don't know how. I referred to Columbia as "South American", and the Columbian in the room corrected me to say "Latin American". Is there any particular reason why she would want to make this distinction?

The most bizarre error though is "could care less". *grumblegrumblelinktothatdavidmitchellvideo*