Poll: The Misuse of English

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siebje

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Nov 12, 2009
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boholikeu said:
...All evolutions of a language are "correct" so long as the receiving party still understands the speaker's meaning...
Nice job killing the thread.
 

Brandon237

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Mar 10, 2010
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The usage of the word like when someone doesn't know what to say. I also live in a country where the majority of people in my ethnic group speak butchered Dutch (Afrikaans). There is nothing worse than trying to correct a person who is used to speaking on of the simplest languages in the world. English has tens of thousands of words and complex rules. Afrikaans doesn't. It hurts my English ego. A lot.
 

RaphaelsRedemption

Eats With Her Mouth Full
May 3, 2010
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What is a "chav"?

Is it the equivalent of a "bogan"?

I do not like "woulda" or "would of". "To" when the writer means "too" and "loose" when the writer intends to say "lose" also annoy me. I think when it happens on a regular basis, the writer is showing a great deal of disrespect to the reader. Whether he/she intends to, the message I receive is "I do not think you are worth writing clearly and coherently for, and therefor I will not bother learning to spell or bothering to re-read and correct my writing."

Please understand, this is criticism of habitual bad spellers, those I know should know better.
 

Haagrum

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May 3, 2010
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I teach at a university level. I am constantly frustrated by the inability of many second- and third-year students to write a coherent sentence. These are supposedly some of the best and brightest 19- and 20-year-olds in the country, and they don't know enough about basic grammar to write properly.

However, here's my "Top Five Bastardisations of English" (not all are from student essays):

1. "Nouning" verbs. "Learnings" is management BS for "lessons" or "things that we have learned".
2. Using the word "immediately" in this way: "I gave him the document immediately it was signed." (Urge to kill... rising.)
3. Confusing "their", "they're" and "there". It makes me want to channel Phil Ken Sebben and start yelling "Not they're! Their!"
4. Misusing the word "wether". I do enjoy being able to point out that someone has in fact referred to a castrated sheep when this happens.
5. Using the word "gay" to signify dislike for something. If that something happens to be bi- or homosexual, you're a bigot. If not, you're a tool.

The use of "would of", "could of" and "should of" irritates me immensely, too...
 

Count Igor

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May 5, 2010
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Pants.
It just annoys me. (Pants = Trousers is the one I hate, I mean)
But the "I could care less" is the main one I despise.

Out of interest, who here says things likes "Brass" as "Brarss". So you pronounce it with an R in the middle even though it doesn't have one.

Oh, and Hache. It's hard to type >.>. The letter H. I don't like people saying Hache instead of Ache. ... You have no idea what I'm talking about do you?
 

Haagrum

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May 3, 2010
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RaphaelsRedemption said:
What is a "chav"?

Is it the equivalent of a "bogan"?
Similar, but not quite. Think of Vicki Pollard, from Little Britain. That's a chav. I've heard that it stands for "commission housing, alcoholic and violent", but that's just hearsay.

"Bogan" can be an affectionate term, depending on the person. There are better and worse categories of bogan - a bogan who doesn't drink pre-mixed bourbon, wear flannelette shirts and tight jeans, or drive a hotted-up Ford/Holden is probably in the former category. However, there's no way "chav" or "chavs" can ever be construed as being a term of endearment.*

* Unless it's the Christy Hemme Appreciation Vocational Society. That's an exception.
 

Cru31ty

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Feb 20, 2009
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I'm from England, possibly my least favourite trend at the moment is to preface almost any sentence with, "I'm not being funny, but..."

No, you're NOT being funny. You're not even being interesting. Go away now. You bore me.
 

EMFCRACKSHOT

Not quite Cthulhu
May 25, 2009
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I hate excessive use of he word "like"
There are people in my college who use it at least ten times in a sentence. It makes me want to leap over my desk and throttle them.
Another one is the misuse of the word literally. some people should just be banned from speaking
 

RobThePrezodent

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Oct 2, 2009
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SenseOfTumour said:
Oh hell, the above reminded me of another, going in the other direction, people using big or rarely used words when there's no need. Communication is meant mainly to share ideas or information, not just to make you look all clever.

I know someone who'd never yell fire if he has time to shout 'conflagration', and then explain to people what he means.

Another time he was asked what an mp3 was. (there's another one that bugs me, even tho I'm not sure if it's grammatically correct, I feel it should 'an' mp3, an S&M show or an X rated movie, but a B-movie and a TRX-80 calculator.)

Anyway, he goes on to explain the acronym and the technical specifications, until I can step in and rescue them by saying, 'essentially, its how a computer stores music, you put the cd in and copy it to mp3 files on the computer.'. Of course he was more correct, and gave more information, but there's social situations where the briefest answer is best.
technically it is "an" because the sound is a vowel (mp3 is pronounced "em-p-3" s&m is "ess-&-em" etc). and technically "mp3" isn't an acronym, it's an 'initialism' (I'm currently revising for my A-level english language so I'm a demon at terminology.) Feel free to tell him that and be like "yeah I'm actually cleverer than you trololololol" :p
I also know a guy who just uses big words because he knows them, it gets really annoying
 

rokkolpo

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Aug 29, 2009
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it basicly became i saying but i can see what you mean.

anyway. ''have a cake and eat it too'' is just awful.
ofcourse i'll eat my cake once i have one.....FOOL.
 

joshuaayt

Vocal SJW
Nov 15, 2009
1,988
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Grammar, on this site, anyway, pisses me off less than it usually would- after all, English is a damn hard language to shift to.
But in real life, I'm a real tyrant.
 

Bellvedere

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Jul 31, 2008
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In a few months I will have completed a degree in English and Linguistics. I can say whatever I like due to the probability of being the more qualified in this language than whoever I'm speaking too. In real life though. Everyones qualified in everything on the internet.

OT: I'm really not that fussy about how people write or speak in casual conversation like on a forum or texting or anything like that. So long as it's easy to understand I don't mind if people use the wrong your/'re or spell definitely with an 'a'. Especially typing it's pretty easy to make a mistake because of habit rather than ignorance.

Correcting peoples grammar/spelling is annoying and boring.

In a published or formal text errors look sloppy and unprofessional and thus it is more offensive.

I wouldn't worry too much about the "could care less" thing. I once had a friend who forgot the word statutory and talked for about 10 minutes about mandatory rape before anyone was nice enough to correct him.
 

siebje

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Nov 12, 2009
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SenseOfTumour said:
Another time he was asked what an mp3 was. (there's another one that bugs me, even tho I'm not sure if it's grammatically correct, I feel it should 'an' mp3, an S&M show or an X rated movie, but a B-movie and a TRX-80 calculator.)
Another thing I hear people do, is use "an mp3" when referring to a device that plays digital media. There is even a commercial on TV here that promises a "new mp3" as a prize in a contest. And no, they don't mean they're going to send you an mp3 file as a prize.
 

SenseOfTumour

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Jul 11, 2008
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RobThePrezodent said:
SenseOfTumour said:
technically it is "an" because the sound is a vowel (mp3 is pronounced "em-p-3" s&m is "ess-&-em" etc). and technically "mp3" isn't an acronym, it's an 'initialism' (I'm currently revising for my A-level english language so I'm a demon at terminology.) Feel free to tell him that and be like "yeah I'm actually cleverer than you trololololol" :p
I also know a guy who just uses big words because he knows them, it gets really annoying
thanks for clearing that up.

In other news, I always thought Chav came from Council House and Violent, but it's similar to the wigga of the US, except they drive cars that look like what you'd get if you crossed Pimp My Ride with Scrapheap Challenge, and they're generally overjoyed to spend £10,000 on making a £5,000 car look like it's worth £50.

Example of chav 'pimped out ride'

http://www.barryboys.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=19283

They do the equivalent to cars of dunking a Rolex Watch in glitter glue. I normally don't like to stereotype, but if you dress to look like a terminally thick subhuman violent idiot, then, I might just assume you are one, you can choose what to wear after all. also, I've never felt threatened or been verbally abused by groups of skaters, punks, emos or goths.

but anyway, I'll stop on that subject as I could fill ppages with how much they annoy me, but as for language, many's the time I've been on a bus with them, and on top of the playing tinny R&B thru their mobile phones, they're usually louding calling each other 'caaahhnts!', especially if it's a young child and mother, both on the way to school.

Another point on language, swearing.

now I'm not against swearing at all, I love stand up comedy too much to be anti swearing, but it gets a bit much when it's not used for emphasis, but as punctuation, and again, when you're in public, with a captive audience like a bus, I consider it bad form to be shouting '****' at each other.If you're using profanity instead of commas, then you're talking out of your colon.
 

oppp7

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Aug 29, 2009
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Ok, that's it, I'm tired of this grammar Nazi flaming BS. Who cares about good grammar anyways?

its rly stupd n ppl ned 2 stop complanin

Could you understand that? Then I guess the whole coherancy argument is moot since most use at least that much. Who cares if it's a pet peeve of yours? That means it's you problem. I guess I could understand if it was something important like an article about P. vulgaris, but this is a gaming forum. Bad grammar doesn't take away from the points we're making and the amount of grammar use is optional.

Edit: My example was in that last paragraph.
 

bam13302

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Dec 8, 2009
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I understand the point you are trying to make; however 2 things caught my attention, 1, no poll question, 2, my English rule, if I understand what you mean, I don't care how you said it.
 

floppylobster

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Oct 22, 2008
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The use of random annoys the crap out of me but people who complain about the slow changes in human speech patterns probably also think the Polar Bears can be saved. Nothing lasts, nor should it, forever.

(Although I must lament the decline in use of 'thou' as a pronoun.)
 

siebje

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Nov 12, 2009
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Bellvedere said:
In a few months I will have completed a degree in English and Linguistics. I can say whatever I like due to the probability of being the more qualified in this language than whoever I'm speaking too. In real life though. Everyones qualified in everything on the internet.
Stop! Stooooop. It hurtses us.
 

Regiment

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Nov 9, 2009
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Apostrophes in plurals. This should be easy for people: it's always wrong. Why people find the need to arbitrarily cram apostrophes before any trailing "s" is beyond me. It's dogs, not dog's, anemones, not anemone's, and CDs, not CD's. ("CD is" what?)