Be Impeccable: Commonly Misused Phrases That Will Make You Sound Ignorant

Iain said:
Starting a sentence with 'Like...'. I have not seen it on these boards, but across the interwebs there's an epidemic... Just a little twinge of anger each time I see it!
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That's strange, because I'm sure text can be written to be read, or written to be spoken. Unless they're reading aloud what they read on those boards... which is still strange.

Fun fact : I challenged my kids one day to go one hour without saying the word "Like"
I thought this could be easy enough, since you can substitute "Like" with phrases such as "Similar to" or "As if"

They both laughed and said "That's easy" to then go on to fail the test within 10 minutes, and realise how they had no control over this programming.

I then offered them $100 each if they could go a whole day without saying "Like" and they both immediately refused, knowing they couldn't possibly do it.
 
It’s and its
Who’s and whose
Punkin pie rather than pumpkin pie, Valentime’s day rather than Valentine’s :umm:
Using ‘brought’ as the past tense for buy (i.e. bought)
‘I seen this’ rather than ‘I saw this’
Misusing & confusing infer and imply
Misusing apostrophes when it’s a plural, for eg.. ‘there are many schools here’ vs ‘there are many school’s here’
Who and whom

Added: wander instead of wonder

To name just a few. :-D I’m sure we had a thread on this at some stage in the past but it’s always good to have a rant anew lol!
 
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Using the word "where" for "were"; "We where going to go......"
"Specially" for "especially" "Foods are more expensive, specially meat...."

And it has already been posted, but I think it needs repeating, using "of" instead of "have". "They should of gone with us."

Along with all that has already been posted. And, there are more, I am sure.
 
Wow! Glad to know I am not the only grammar police around!

cassandra said:
“Your fantastic!”
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A neighbor on my street has a little sign attached to her mail box that says, "Smile! Your on camera!"
Jones said:
I can't remember any pacific errors at the moment.
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In the 1980s, there was a mayor of Philadelphia named Wilson Goode. He was the first black mayor of the city. He had taken speech lessons (paid for by taxpayers) to help him sound more professional and less like a sharecropper. At the same time, there was a protest movement in that city called MOVE. The police bombed the row houses where the group lived. When Goode was being interviewed regarding this fiasco, he said a few innocuous things, then said, "I can't get more pacific than that."

****
I hate misused apostrophes. Everyone seems to want to add one when it's not needed or leave it off when it is. (Or did I mean, "Everyone seem's to add one when its not needed". )

There was a book published a number of years ago, "Eats, Shoots & Leaves", about the proper use of punctuation and grammar. It's a funny book that will make you laugh and moan at the same time.
 
Lots of "I seen" instead of "I saw" 'round these parts.

Of course, it doesn't really bother me too much -- this is Appalachia, after all, and most of the folks here have a certain sense of mountain wisdom that doesn't necessarily correlate to book learnin'. 😅
 
The prize to pay is two high. There must be another wey to ask for change. I'll weight a few minutes to sea what happens. I just need one peace. You now what, I still have ate minutes left. I'll take a brake and a bit of fresh heir. Then, I'll by something else. Hopefully, I won't slip on the flour this thyme. Goodbuy. :-D
 
While people are complaining about the asinine and arbitrary stylistic guidelines of "modern" English, the kids these days are innovating so hard that they're foregoing even elementary phonetics. As an example ...


Give it a few more years, and the slang terms and techniques that youngsters inventively incorporate into their enunciation and verbiage, will surely become a new language, that to anyone who knows a proper language will find it surely as alien and incomprehensible, like Mandarin Chinese is to most English speakers.

Every single component that goes into the formation of a cohesive and comprehensible statement of any kind, will get reduced to a single word, that is poorly pronounced or written, along with a punctuation mark that disappears into the tonal emphasis given to the vowel.

What? or What!, turns into

Wa (short a) | "I am confused by the situation ... "
Wa (long a) | "I would like to communicate something with you, regarding ... "
Wa (ascending a) | "This is exciting ... "
Wa (descending a) | "I'm not really interested in what you have to say ... "
Wa (constant a) | "Well, when you put it that way ..."

Or maybe this sort of reductionist efficiency is just how languages develop over time. Who knows?

However, I do know that most have a vocabulary that is resounding with only a few thousand words at best, and the kids surely are limited in their creative expressiveness by it. You can find it everywhere, and all you need to do is ask for someone's opinion regarding anything -- you'll usually get a response that is denoted with middle-school constructions that are rather simple in linguistic complexity, bland in terms of flavor, and rather common-place. It's not their fault either -- they were failed by their parents, peers and predecessors in never being labeled simpletons. Without an impetus to "do better", all you get is a common-bar of complacency.

I hope someone here enjoys that song though, "sinz ih b popin". I still can't even recognize a single word voiced in it.
 
I feel like could of and similar get a pass when speaking them. Because when you pronounce "could've" it sounds like could of. So I guess it comes down to where is the line between making new contractions, acceptable and unacceptable slang? Wasn't it in Cloud Atlas where the English people spoke long after an apocalyptic scenario became really "degraded"?
 
Beau said:
Irregardless is a word

www.merriam-webster.com

Definition of IRREGARDLESS

regardless… See the full definition
www.merriam-webster.com www.merriam-webster.com
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Is irregardless a word​

Yes, irregardless is recognized by many dictionaries as a real word. And although recent online discourse may make it appear that this word is a new development, it’s not. In fact, it was added to Merriam-Webster’s unabridged edition back in 1934, and it has been in use for centuries. (Still, it’s typically labeled as “nonstandard” language because of its strange construction.)

The fact is that language is not static; it shifts and changes. After all, the main thing that makes language useful is that it conveys a meaning that we can all agree on. In other words, it’s a matter of both clarity and social buy-in. And when you use the word irregardless, people will still understand what you mean.

That said, there will still be people who will either cringe or correct you if you use this word, as some don’t accept its existence. (Hence the nonstandard label.) So you’re typically going to be better off opting for regardless instead, especially in more formal contexts, such as in the workplace or for school assignments.(www.grammarly.com)
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The Oxford English Dictionary tells me irregardless is chiefly an American word. Nevertheless it is in there.

There are a lot of differences between American and British English.
 
gottathink said:
The Oxford English Dictionary tells me irregardless is chiefly an American word. Nevertheless it is in there.
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Quite weird that a dictionary says that the opposite of a word means exactly the same as that word. I wouldn't call it evolution of language, more like degradation.

SevenFeathers said:
There was a book published a number of years ago, "Eats, Shoots & Leaves", about the proper use of punctuation and grammar.
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Yeah, I love that one too. Basically, a panda is an animal that eats shoots and leaves. Obviously, with a comma the meaning is completely changed.
 
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