Phrases And Words Used Incorrectly.

[ireckinso]

I work with bankers who say physical year instead of fiscal year.

 

Maybe it was a really tough year.

[ScifiChick]

I work with bankers who say physical year instead of fiscal year.

 

 

And we wonder why they needed bailing out.

 

 

[AlphaToOmega]

So technically its pronounced: Off-ten.

Unless one pronounces Oft as Off.

 

 

 

Faulty reasoning. What about the words "fasten" and "soften"? To make fast or to make soft. We don't say "fas" or "sof" but the t is silent in those words. I'm sorry, mate, you're going to hell now. And it's kind and loving of me to tell you so. Repent or die.

 

 

I like to know I'm going to hell. They have alcohol there from what I hear since its evil.

 

But, back onto this issue.

Often is a direct replacement for oft. There is no oft in use now.

There is however a fast and a soft.

 

Also, just because you pronounce, fasten and soften with a silent t, doesn't mean you're pronouncing it the way it was meant to be pronounced.

I've heard both of those pronounced with the t. So there!

 

 

 

 

 

[Roxie]

Several years ago I was living in the Atlanta metro area. Watching the news one day, the "Head" of the Department of Education was talking about the great progress Georgia had made in the education of their "chur runs" (children). (Is it any wonder?)

 

Living in south Ga., there is a language all its own:

 

Names: Sharon and Karen are pronounced: Shay Run, and Kay Ren

 

Superstition - That thar feller over yonder is superstition. (instead of superstitious)

 

Irises (flowers) - Irishes - I just planted me some Irishes. (Oh, that's what happened to the O'Donnels.)

 

Irish - Arsh

 

Iron - Arn, Tire - Tar, which translates to: tar arn (which, by the way, is the weapon of choice for many a redneck.)

 

My mother-in-law doesn't have or make money. She has or makes monies (because she has more than 1 penny).

 

Onion - ern yun

 

Oxygen - Ok sha gun

 

Doctor - Dofter (yes with an " f ")

 

Oregano - Oh ra JEEN o

 

Okra - O kree

 

scrotum - scroll (don't even ask how this came up in conversation)

 

ask - axe

 

Here's one I couldn't figure out for years: If anyone asked my grandmother, if we could have something or go somewhere she would say, "Ta reck dee", indicating "later". Somehow I finally figured out she was saying "directly", which means the opposite of later.

 

Again, from my mother-in-law: She didn't want to sleep in the same bed as my father-in-law because he had prostate cancer and "she" didn't want to "catch" it. (she's an idiot!)

 

I hate when I see any movie or television show where they use actors/actresses who do NOT have, but try to speak with, a southern accent. They are always dropping their "r's" at the end of words, example: flower - flow-ah. If anything, most southerns accentuate their r's.

 

Lap top - Lab top

 

Membrane - Membrame

 

Commode - Commole

 

they was/you was/we was

 

had went/have went

 

he done gone

 

teeth/tooth - teef/toof, and worse still, teefs and toofs

 

And my absolute pet peeve, is when people use the words "then" and "than" wrong. "Then" indicates "time". I am doing this now, "then" (at a later time) I will do that. "Than" indicates "sustitute or instead of". I would rather have this "than" (instead of) that.

 

Using the word "I" in the wrong place. Mostly used by people trying to sound impressive.

 

cell phone - cell-a-phone

 

gazebo - k'seebo

 

silt (as in dirt) - silk

 

jacuzzi - ka jew zee

 

Pyrenees - Pie-ra-Mees or, sadly, pair of knees (I swear I knew a man who had a Great Pair of Knees dog!)

 

cereal - surl

 

Samurai - Sam mur ee

 

grammar - grammer

 

That's just a few of the thousands. And I hope I spelled all of this correctly, lest my Georgia edu-ma-ka-shun shows through.

[Vigile]

I've been watching America's Got Talent online and the judges keep saying "it's/that's just perfection." Is this something new? I find it grating like Roxie's examples above given it's not mere colloquialism, but a bastardization of basic grammar rules using a verb as an adjective.

 

Roxie, is it really that extreme? Your examples sound like a bad SNL parody of Deliverance or the Beverly Hillbillies. I suppose Poe's Law is alive and well here.

[Ouroboros]

I've been watching America's Got Talent online and the judges keep saying "it's/that's perfection." Is this something new? I find it grating like Roxie's examples above given it's not slang, but a bastardization of basic grammar rules.

You know how I used to mix up the "are" and "is" quite a bit?

 

Well... apparently, it's very popular to mix them around here now. Kids say things like "I is hungry" or "You is trolling." I think it's because of lolcat in games, toons, and comix.

 

Also, I have noticed misuses of "-s" in third person on TV shows. (Especially after all the beating I got here. )

 

Sometimes, I also hear mixed up adjective and adverbs.

 

(And I'm guilty of all the above.)

[florduh]

In that context, I'm unsure why Ebonics -- or Spanish for that matter -- has to be viewed as such a threat to some.

I don't think it's a threat. It's an effort by certain groups to keep themselves apart from mainstream society. My feeling is it's counterproductive and actually a bit rude to be able to speak the predominate language and yet refuse to.

 

Ok, so are Italians rude? There are roughly 60 million of them, each one speaking Dante's Italian + at least one dialect. They are certainly regional. Is this a bad thing? If so, why? If not, what makes the use of dialects in the US bad, but ok in Italy?

 

On second thought, I'm told some of them eat cats, so maybe they are poor examples after all.

Don't you think it's at the least counterproductive to refuse to speak the language that is common to a country? Italy, I don't know. I assume when one dialect meets another dialect they both defer to the common language for the sake of effective communication. To not do so would be stupid, and also rude in my opinion. What I see is people who deliberately set themselves apart from anyone not in their clan. It's as if everyone else is not worth talking to.

 

It's just my take on what I see happening in this "melting pot." Some refuse to "melt."

[Roxie]

I've been watching America's Got Talent online and the judges keep saying "it's/that's perfection." Is this something new? I find it grating like Roxie's examples above given it's not mere colloquialism, but a bastardization of basic grammar rules turning a verb into an adjective.

 

Roxie, is it really that extreme? Your examples sound like a bad SNL parody of Deliverance or the Beverly Hillbillies. I suppose Poe's Law is alive and well here.

 

It's worse than you can imagine. Sadly, there are teachers that speak this way. Not to mention lawyers, judges, librarians, doctors, nurses, you name it. It amazes me that some of these people graduated from high school, much less college.

[Roxie]

Forgot to mention the crazy names down here in south: Catfish, Sookie (rhymes with cookie), Munch, Sugie, (pronounced shu-gee), Curley, Bubba-Chuck, Bogie, Uncle Daddy (chew on that one a while), Peck, a lawyer I worked for named Scooter, to name a few. Not sure what their real names are, except Scooter. And then there's the little old lady that lives down the street known as Aunt Panky (pronounced: Ain't Panky - Panky rhymes with hanky). Is it any wonder they have such a bizarre language?

[Vigile]

I don't know. I assume when one dialect meets another dialect they both defer to the common language for the sake of effective communication.

 

So you're issue is basically not with the existence of dialects, but with common courtesy related to when to use and not use them. Fair enough. Is this a big issue though?

 

I don't have the answers here as it's a complex issue. I had a supervisor and good friend in DC who spoke in Ebonics. It wasn't an issue of intelligence or education or class. In fact, he lived in a million dollar home and his wife was just two steps away from leading the department of VA and he himself was project manager for a major government contract with HUD. It was a mystery to me, but it appeared he just couldn't help himself. He certainly wasn't trying to be rude.

[Vigile]

I've been watching America's Got Talent online and the judges keep saying "it's/that's perfection." Is this something new? I find it grating like Roxie's examples above given it's not slang, but a bastardization of basic grammar rules.

You know how I used to mix up the "are" and "is" quite a bit?

 

Well... apparently, it's very popular to mix them around here now. Kids say things like "I is hungry" or "You is trolling." I think it's because of lolcat in games, toons, and comix.

 

Also, I have noticed misuses of "-s" in third person on TV shows. (Especially after all the beating I got here. )

 

Sometimes, I also hear mixed up adjective and adverbs.

 

(And I'm guilty of all the above.)

 

Ha ha, I threw you for a loop Hans. I was referring to the word "Perfection" not it's/that's. I bow to your English skills though. That you have mastered it at your level after moving to the US as an adult deserves huge accolades. The tiny bit of confusion you have with grammar is more than understandable and certainly nothing to be embarrassed about.

[pitchu]

"Which begs the question" is now used everywhere when one actually means "which raises the question." Begging the question is a logic/legal phrase for avoiding an answer through circular reasoning (it's more complicated than this, but this should suffice). It drives me bonkers every time I hear it used incorrectly, especially by Talking Heads who should know better.

[Ouroboros]

Ha ha, I threw you for a loop Hans. I was referring to the word "Perfection" not it's/that's.

I know that. ("It's perfect" or "You have achieved perfection"...)

 

My hook was into the whole thing of media, culture, and bad grammar at the moment. The young culture now is to use bad grammar and misuse of words. For instance, kids can call parents "paradoxes" or "parentheses." My kids made up the verb "to waffle" to mean when someone is "trolling" in real life.

 

 

I bow to your English skills though. That you have mastered it at your level after moving to the US as an adult deserves huge accolades. The tiny bit of confusion you have with grammar is more than understandable and certainly nothing to be embarrassed about.

And the kids are making it worse with the lolcat.

 

Now, I'd like to master derivative and integrals of hyperbolic trig functions and their inverses. AAAAAAaaarrgh!!!

[Noggy]

Now, I'd like to master derivative and integrals of hyperbolic trig functions and their inverses. AAAAAAaaarrgh!!!

 

Anyone who tells you that you need to master those are just assholes who want you to suffer. Probably because their teachers made them memorize it.

 

www.wolframalpha.com

[Ouroboros]

Now, I'd like to master derivative and integrals of hyperbolic trig functions and their inverses. AAAAAAaaarrgh!!!

 

Anyone who tells you that you need to master those are just assholes who want you to suffer. Probably because their teachers made them memorize it.

 

www.wolframalpha.com

Yup.

 

Here's one for you:

 

Take the derivative of y=sqr(4x + cosh²(5x)).

[Randi]

The two that get me are "for all intensive purposes" and "Shur-burt" It's fucking sherbet you fucking nitwit!

[mwc]

"Shur-burt" It's fucking sherbet you fucking nitwit!

Be careful with this one.

1. also sher·bert (-bûrt) A frozen dessert made primarily of fruit juice, sugar, and water, and also containing milk, egg white, or gelatin.

This poll shows out of those people they say it "shur-bert" (I say this). And this Turkey Hill ice-cream journey says it should be "shur-bit" which is unlike the others.

 

Your best bet is to just get some real high fat ice-cream and not worry about this one.

 

mwc

[Ouroboros]

sherbet |ˈ sh ərbit|

noun

a frozen dessert made with fruit juice added to milk or cream, egg white, or gelatin.

• a frozen fruit juice and sugar mixture served as a dessert or between courses of a meal to cleanse the palate.

• (esp. in Arab countries) a cooling drink of sweet diluted fruit juices.

• Brit. a flavored sweet effervescent powder eaten alone or made into a drink.

ORIGIN early 17th cent.: from Turkish şerbet, Persian šerbet, from Arabic šarba ‘drink,’ from šariba ‘to drink.’ Compare with syrup .

USAGE The tendency to insert an : r into the second syllable of sherbet is very common. Frequency of misuse has not changed the fact that the spelling sherbert and the pronunciation |ˈ sh ərbərt| are wrong and should not be considered acceptable variants.

Oxford New Am.

 

Also: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sherbet (play pronunciation audio).

[mwc]

sherbet |ˈ sh ərbit|

noun

a frozen dessert made with fruit juice added to milk or cream, egg white, or gelatin.

• a frozen fruit juice and sugar mixture served as a dessert or between courses of a meal to cleanse the palate.

• (esp. in Arab countries) a cooling drink of sweet diluted fruit juices.

• Brit. a flavored sweet effervescent powder eaten alone or made into a drink.

ORIGIN early 17th cent.: from Turkish şerbet, Persian šerbet, from Arabic šarba ‘drink,’ from šariba ‘to drink.’ Compare with syrup .

USAGE The tendency to insert an : r into the second syllable of sherbet is very common. Frequency of misuse has not changed the fact that the spelling sherbert and the pronunciation |ˈ sh ərbərt| are wrong and should not be considered acceptable variants.

Oxford New Am.

 

Also: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sherbet (play pronunciation audio).

It may be wrong, according to this, but it goes back several hundred years (I could see references to "sherbert" in the 1700's). I have no idea where the "r" at the end comes from. Maybe people misheard it?

 

mwc

[Ouroboros]

It may be wrong, according to this, but it goes back several hundred years (I could see references to "sherbert" in the 1700's). I have no idea where the "r" at the end comes from. Maybe people misheard it?

 

mwc

I suspect there's a linguistic explanation to this. The changes of people pronounce vowels and consonants in words follow some given patterns. Vowels at the end of words fall of. Sounds that help to transition between difficult consonants start to sneak in. Perhaps it's just easier to say "sherbert" than "sherbit"?

[Randi]

Okay, I'll bow to your explanations... but there's only one fucking r, so I'm gonna keep on being a pretentious ass and saying sherbit.

[mwc]

I suspect there's a linguistic explanation to this. The changes of people pronounce vowels and consonants in words follow some given patterns. Vowels at the end of words fall of. Sounds that help to transition between difficult consonants start to sneak in. Perhaps it's just easier to say "sherbert" than "sherbit"?

It is for me but that's because I've been saying that way my whole life. That doesn't explain hundreds of years of others saying that way though.

 

I don't know how the word traveled around to begin with. It may have gotten messed up because someone heard it wrong or maybe someone read it wrong. Maybe both? Maybe neither. All these languages have evolved over the past few hundred years as it is so it's hard to say. I'm imagining someone visiting the near east and getting a tasty treat. They ask what it is and hear "sherbert" (or had problems pronouncing the Arabic). That travels back in one direction. The proper name for this same thing travels out through "normal" channels. They overlap in places but "sherbert" is established and doesn't die out even though it's not the "right" name. As far as those who have been using it, it is the right name. So they just coexist. A proper name and the "common" name. If I were to worry about marketing, like today, I might say someone bastardized it to gain a simple market niche. That seems unlikely back then though.

 

This is all my guess (or as I read on another site WAG-for "wild assed guess").

 

mwc

[Ouroboros]

I suspect there's a linguistic explanation to this. The changes of people pronounce vowels and consonants in words follow some given patterns. Vowels at the end of words fall of. Sounds that help to transition between difficult consonants start to sneak in. Perhaps it's just easier to say "sherbert" than "sherbit"?

It is for me but that's because I've been saying that way my whole life. That doesn't explain hundreds of years of others saying that way though.

Maybe it's because it's rhyming.

 

I don't know how the word traveled around to begin with. It may have gotten messed up because someone heard it wrong or maybe someone read it wrong. Maybe both? Maybe neither. All these languages have evolved over the past few hundred years as it is so it's hard to say. I'm imagining someone visiting the near east and getting a tasty treat. They ask what it is and hear "sherbert" (or had problems pronouncing the Arabic). That travels back in one direction. The proper name for this same thing travels out through "normal" channels. They overlap in places but "sherbert" is established and doesn't die out even though it's not the "right" name. As far as those who have been using it, it is the right name. So they just coexist. A proper name and the "common" name. If I were to worry about marketing, like today, I might say someone bastardized it to gain a simple market niche. That seems unlikely back then though.

It's like the word aluminum. In Europe it's aluminium, to make it rhyme with potassium, rhodium, etc. Originally it was alumium (no "n").

[Thalia]

I just started grading my freshmen's first paper of the semester, so I'm sure I'll have tons to share with you all (keeping it as anonymous as possible, obviously, due to FERPA and stuff).

 

So far, I have "this day in age."

[agnosticator]

Forgot to mention the crazy names down here in south: Catfish, Sookie (rhymes with cookie), Munch, Sugie, (pronounced shu-gee), Curley, Bubba-Chuck, Bogie, Uncle Daddy (chew on that one a while), Peck, a lawyer I worked for named Scooter, to name a few. Not sure what their real names are, except Scooter. And then there's the little old lady that lives down the street known as Aunt Panky (pronounced: Ain't Panky - Panky rhymes with hanky). Is it any wonder they have such a bizarre language?

 

Hi Roxie! "Awiles" back I moved to Chattanooga and was about to ring a doorbell to inquire about renting a duplex, when a neighbor stopped me. She said to ask for "Skeeter". A middle-aged guy answered the door, and when I asked for Skeeter he was perplexed. She was laughing her ass off, he realized he was set up, and had to explain the story. When he was young and got a job at TVA, all the guys thought he was as skinny as a "skeeter". The name stuck, dang it!