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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[–] viralJ 10 points 14 hours ago (7 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] 6 points 14 hours ago

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 12 hours ago

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 13 hours ago (1 children)
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[–] theedqueen 47 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 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 14 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 17 hours ago (4 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.

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[–] Bosht 32 points 20 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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[–] BenLeMan 25 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Alot is not a word.

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

[–] [email protected] 4 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

We can make it a word though :)

[–] Buddahriffic 2 points 10 hours ago

Yeah, words aren't determined by dictionary committees or English teachers. They are determined by people using and understanding them.

All languages (other than ones designed deliberately, like Esperanto, Klingon, and Tolkien's elvish) started from the same root and diverged when populations reduced regular contact and all words and grammars were made up along the way.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 21 hours ago

There is no fucking s at the end of "anyway"

[–] RBWells 30 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Discreet vs Discrete used to crack me up on dating sites. All those guys looking for discrete hookups - which kind of makes sense but I am sure is not what they meant.

I literally ground my teeth today because I got an email from a customer service person saying "You're package was returned to us". Not a phishing email with an intentional misspelling, a legitimate email for a real order I made. If it is your JOB to send messages like this they ought not have misspellings.

So the context matters to me. I am more tolerant of spelling errors and mis-phrasing in everyday life than in a professional communication.

[–] Feathercrown 3 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

they ought not have misspellings

Wouldn't it be "ought not to"?

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[–] x00z 4 points 15 hours ago (7 children)

People that think "y" in online gaming means "yeah" instead of "why".

[–] Feathercrown 3 points 11 hours ago

y/n for yes/no is equally valid

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 21 hours ago (11 children)

Using weary/wary interchangeably. I am tired of people not being aware of the difference.

Also, "decimated". The original usage is to reduce by one tenth. It didn't mean something was nearly or totally annihilated, but thanks to overuse, now it does.

[–] viralJ 10 points 14 hours ago (4 children)

Are you also upset that "December" doesn't refer to the tenth month anymore?

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[–] rektdeckard 7 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

I mean, having one in ten of your fellow soldiers murdered by their own commander is pretty horrific, and I think that's the spirit of its modern usage.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

Must have been great for morale.

/s just in case

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[–] brap 115 points 1 day ago (10 children)

Americans saying "I could care less" instead of "I couldn't care less".

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