this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2025
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Please state in which country your phrase tends to be used, what the phrase is, and what it should be.

Example:

In America, recently came across "back-petal", instead of back-pedal. Also, still hearing "for all intensive purposes" instead of "for all intents and purposes".

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

“Toe the party line” To align with the interests of a political party; to get in line with the agenda of the leader of a political party

“Tow the party line” Something to do with tugboats

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

They're, you're

Sneak peek

In portuguese: mas/mais - people often use "mais" (plus, sum) when the correct would be mas (but)

[–] naun 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

What do people say wrong istead of "sneek peek"?

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[–] viralJ 10 points 11 hours ago (5 children)

I'm not entirely against it, but I'm amused by how common it is to put "whole" inside of "another", making it "a whole nother". Can anyone give any other use of the word "nother"?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 hours ago

Q: "Did she do that?"
A: "No it was nother"

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 hours ago

It's other, another is a whole other issue... heh

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 hours ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 hours ago

Using “uncomfy” instead of uncomfortable. I recognize this one is fully style, but it’s like nails on a chalkboard. Break the entirely fake rules of grammar and spelling all you want, but have some decency when it comes to connotation.

Comfy is an informal and almost diminutive form (not technically, but it follows the structure so it kinda feels like it) of comfortable. You have to have a degree of comfort to use the less formal “comfy,” so uncomfy is just…paradoxical? Oxymoronic? Ironic? I’d be ok with it used for humor, but not in earnest.

Relatedly, for me “comfy” is necessarily referring to physical comfort, not emotional. I can be either comfy or comfortable in a soft fuzzy chair. I can be comfortable in a new social situation. I can be uncomfortable in either. I can be uncomfy in neither, because that would be ridiculous.

FWIW I would never actually correct someone on this. I would immediately have my linguist card revoked, and I can’t point to a real fake grammatical rule that would make it “incorrect” even if I wanted to. But this is the one and only English usage thing I hate, and I hate it very, very much.

[–] theedqueen 46 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago) (4 children)

English/US - seeing “would of” instead of “would’ve”or “would have”. This one bugs me the most.

[–] viralJ 5 points 11 hours ago

The thing is that, at least in the UK, many people also say "of". You might say that in quick speech it's not possible to tell between "would've" and "would of" which is probably where this misspelling came from, but I once was talking to my English friend and after he said something quickly, I asked if he just said that "she would see it?", to which he replied "she would OF seen it" putting a lot of emphasis on that "of", making it clear that he wasn't aware that it should be "have".

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 13 hours ago (3 children)

People using 'yourself' and 'myself' instead of 'you' and 'me' when trying to sound formal or posh. You don't sound formal or posh, you sound ill-educated.

[–] viralJ 10 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I remember once being on a call with some customer support guy who didn't seem to even be aware that words "you" and "me" exist. My favourite part of the conversation was when he said "let myself put yourself on hold while I ask a senior colleague to clarify this for myself".

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago

were they speaking hiberno-english by any chance?

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[–] BenLeMan 23 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

Alot is not a word.

Also, the vanishing use of countable quantities: they are all amounts nowadays.

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[–] Bosht 28 points 16 hours ago (3 children)

Idiots misspelling lose as loose drives me up the wall. Even had someone defend themselves claiming it's just the common spelling now and to accept it. There, their, and they're get honorable mention. Nip it in the butt as opposed to correctly nipping it in the bud.

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