Ask Lemmy

I hate that punctuation is “supposed” to go inside quotation marks. If you doing anything more complex than a simple statement of a quote, you run into cases where it doesn’t make sense to me.

Did he say “I had pancakes for supper?” and Did he say “I had pancakes for supper”? mean different things to me.

Similarly: That jerk called me a “tomato!” and That jerk called me a “tomato”!

It feels to me that the first examples add emphasis to the quotes that did not exist when originally spoken, whereas the second examples isolate the quote, which is the whole point of putting it in quotation marks.

I’m driven insane by the use of “itch” as a verb in place of scratch. ‘He itched his leg.’ Bleh!

"Would of", "could of", and "should of" infuriate me for some reason.

I really can't stand when someone says something happened, or they did something, "on accident".

No. You do something on purpose or by accident.

"On accident"..... That doesn't even make sense. You do something "by accident".

When discussion leads to another question, it raises the question.

To beg the question is to invoke a presumptive, circular argument.

And yet, now it's to beg the question, even on the US Senate floor by boomers who should know better.

I hate the confusion that "do you mind" questions cause.

"Do you mind if I turn off the light?"

What is meant in response: "No (I don't mind)"

What's said instead: "Yes"

I feel like two people never really know how the other will interpret it, so you almost always have to say something like "yes, go ahead" or "no, I don't mind" (or "no, go ahead"). If they do respond just "yes" or "no", I feel like I have to ask for clarification.

Also can we get the meaning of "semi-" and "bi-" figured out? I generally love the oddities of evolving language so long as we can all still be understood, but these two always require clarification.

Bi-annual: Every two years.
Semi-annual: Twice a year

Make it a law!

my peeve is the chopped infinitive, like “it needs fixed” instead of “it needs to be fixed”

Using "basis" to mean "based on".

"Basis our discussion, please go ahead and..." "We decided on a price point basis our market research."

It makes me uncomfortable.

One thing I try to avoid when I'm writing is when two words repeat. Kind of like your example "the thing is is that." If I catch myself writing it, I try to rearrange the sentence.

Although a pretty extreme example tickles me: "The cookie he had had had had no effect on his appetite."

I hate the recent trend of using "onboarding". It sounds clunky to me and as if you're trying to sound all cool and up to date.

What really gets me agitated is when people don't use the helper verb "to be." Examples include, "The tea needs strained," or "The car needs washed." No, you miserable cunts. The tea needs TO BE strained. The car needs TO BE washed. Nothing presently needs the past tense of an action. I know there's parts of the US where this sentence construction is common but those entire regions can honestly fuck off. People say it's a dialect or something. I don't buy it. Not knowing basic rules of your native language isn't a dialect. It's just you being dumb. I hate it so much!

You know what else I hate? "It is what it is." Of course it is, you dense motherfucker! If it wasn't what it was, it would be something else, which would then be what it is! It's the most nonsensical phrase I've ever heard and it pretty much exists so you have something to say when you have nothing even remotely worth hearing to say.

Misusing words like "setup" vs "set up", or "login" vs "log in". "Anytime" vs "any time" also steams my clams.

"Next weekend" "Next Friday" etc. Wherein they use "Next" to mean "the one after" rather than "the soonest interval in which it will reoccur"

If it is Wednesday and you say "Next Friday" I will immediately think of two days from now, not 9 days. I also especially dislike it because if feels like on a whim that it'll change. for some "next weekend" will be in 5 days if it's Monday, or 10 days if it's Wednesday! What the heck people??

This might be due to the fact that I'm not a native speaker and I encountered this phrase at a later date, but people saying "it's all but xyz" to mean "it's xyz" really gets on my nerves. I get it, "it's all but complete" means that virtually all the conditions are met for it to be complete, but I find it so annoying for some reason.

"The task is all but impossible" registers as 'it's not impossible, it's everything else: possible', so the fact that it means the opposite of that makes my brain twitch.

"Aren't I", as in "I'm still going with you, aren't I?", which, when uncontracted, becomes "are I not?" It should be "ain't I" since "ain't" is a proper contraction for "amn't", but there's been an irrational suppression of "ain't".

The thing is is that it's just a phrase to hold space while you collect your thoughts before you speak. You know you have something worth saying, but may not have organized it into a cohesive sentence/words just yet

Myself, where a reflexive pronoun wouldn't normally be used, typically near a conjunction where it is less obvious whether an objective or subjective pronoun is appropriate. eg "Jane and myself ate Bob's donuts." or "Bob brought donuts for Jane and myself."

"Going forward" bothers me so much and I have no idea why. It wasn't used when I was younger, but that's true for lots of things.

Also "cringe" is pretty annoying.

I hate it when people call the product of a company the name of the company; like "let's go get some Taco Bell" instead of "let's go get some tacos from Taco Bell" or "Let's go eat at Taco Bell".

I don't care so much when I'm just listening to people talk, but there's something about seeing people use needs washed constructs in otherwise normally composed and edited messages that drives me absolutely mad, for some reason. Stuff like "I need paid more to afford to live there." I first started seeing it on reddit a few years ago, but it seems as though I'm seeing it more and more now, all over the place. It's not something that is used anywhere I've lived, and it's just jarring to see sentences constantly missing a couple of words. I suppose I expect more variance in spoken language, especially in less formal contexts, but seeing it written is something else.

Turning words like"competence" and "resilience" into "competency" and "resiliency" because more syllables is moar smartr

I’m not certain if this is what you were getting at, but these are mine:

An historical - It doesn’t follow the general way of using a or an with consonants and vowels. Nor does it change the meaning if I said a historical (event) instead an historical (event).

Fewer and less. I understand that there is a rule, but the rule is fucking dumb. If I say there are less people or if I say there are fewer people - the end result is the same that there isn’t as much as there was before.

Language is fluid. As long as we understand the meaning of what is being said then who cares?

I really hate R's in the middle of familiar.

It's not feR-mill-yer.

I hate the word "cleanse" because it means the same thing a "clean" but uses two extra letters. Fuck the word "cleanse."

I've recently started hearing people say "It needs cleaned." Meaning it needs cleaning or it needs to be cleaned, and it just shifts to the wrong gear.

I also hate the word "leverage" in the bullshit business lingo sense of the word. Just makes me think "Your business leverages solutions, and uses people." Tell me, when did your brain die?

People who say "nucular" strike me as being completely brain damaged.

I hate when people use the transitive “going to be” to describe “is.”

“Hey, what’s your phone number?” “It’s going to be 911-551-0911.”

Her phone number is 911-551-0911 and has been such for a while now. Why does she feel the need to use a transitive verb structure to describe that it will change to that in the future?

I see people using this “it’s going to be” structure for ordering food (they are ordering food now, saying “spaghetti, please” is much less weird than saying “it’s going to be spaghetti”), as part of my job when someone is reporting current or past statistics, and events that aren’t coming up or aren’t scheduled, and are in the past.

Well I don't think there's any in English I mind, but I cringe about a ton of things in my native language.

However you did make me think of one expression.

You'll never hear "it did didn't it?" the same way again.

I still don't end sentences with a preposition. Even aloud.

I work in IT and the one that kills me is when someone says or writes "On premise" when they mean "On premises". I have worked for cloud companies and even the official literature is wrong. It has gotten to the point where so many people get it wrong that the official meaning is going to be changed because people are dumb and we can't have nice things.

Words have meaning, stop fucking them up!