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Mistakes that irk you in your vernacular

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Printed Date: 02 August 2021 at 12:29pm

Posted By: Chris13
Subject: Mistakes that irk you in your vernacular
Date Posted: 18 June 2014 at 8:10pm

Okay, so upon returning to the UK I have had to face a lot of changes since living here before the move. The particular area I'm from is not exactly prevalent for its language competency to say the least. However, I've recently noticed a particular "mistake" that is driving me to depths of insanity and it usually takes every semblance of self-control I can muster to not utter the correct word as soon as the speaker has misused it.

"Somethink"
"Anythink"

The above are the main culprits, but it got me thinking - besides the fact I have no idea if it's a regional error, though I've seen it on television and even in songs - do similar things happen in your vernacular? If so, what would be the main examples?

*Edited to fix a typo

Replies:

When I first came to England, I was supply teaching in a fairly rough school in Northampton. One day a girl asked what I thought about their accent, and then she asked, "Do we sound fick?"* I thought to myself, "Not until just now." In the same school I saw students actually write "somefink" in their work. The thing is, these kids were smart enough, but that's just the way everyone around them spoke.

*"thick" is British slang for stupid.
Jeffers on 18 June 2014

American English is riddled with these kinds of things. What gets me the most is poorly spoken grammar (on purpose). Examples:

Who you be with?
You be crazy
I seen it
What is you doing

(this is just the basic gist; there is a whole way of talking like this. It gets worse when they spell the word the way it sounds)

It doesn't bother me if it's a foreigner or maybe someone from in impoverished area with poor education, I completely understand that. But I meet people that grew up in middle-class homes in nice, rural areas that talk like this to sound more tough or "gangsta", but they just sound like fools to me. It's mainly just amongst youth though.

And don't get me started on made-up "words" from pop-culture that make their way into everyday speech....

soclydeza85 on 18 June 2014

For Italian "a me mi" is considered a mistake by many, but it's very common and not irky at all. (and to tell the truth in an informal conversation it's not even a mistake)

I can't stand people that use intransitive verbs (in a specific context) as if they were transitive. It seems it's common in southern Italy.
I won't use the most classic example, which is indecent, but for instance:
- Scendi il cane che lo passeggio roughly translated as come down the dog so that I walk him
drygramul on 18 June 2014

Oh no! Ways of using the language that make me feel like I am excluded from the group.
Of course there are. I dislike the way words like geil and krass are used. Because, I knew those words, and they meant different things, and then those kids learnt those words and used them differently from how I'd used them.
Bao on 18 June 2014

I find nearly all of us descriptivists, no matter how pure we try to be, still bristle at certain usages. For instance, I'm willing to accept singular they, but once you drop the [s] sound at the end of "coup de grace," well then sir you've really gone too far.

I also think people should say "octopodes" instead of "octopi."

Those are the big two. Strangely enough, I don't care that people put the stress in babushka on the wrong syllable.

PS: I'm secretly curious how far such a provocative-titled thread can go before someone's feelings get hurt. Given that Bao already seems irked, perhaps it's finally time to implement a forum wide rule: never say anything negative about anything.
ScottScheule on 18 June 2014

You mean you are supposed to pronounce the [s] ?!?
(wanders off for a quick look in the dictionary)

IPA: /ku də ɡrɑs/
IPA: /ku də ɡrɑː/ (hyperforeign)—Some English speakers, aware that some final
consonants are dropped in French, overcompensate by dropping the final /s/ sound in
grâce, making this sound like French coup de gras (“strike of grease”). This
mispronunciation is quickly becoming ubiquitous and is being popularized by the media
(e.g., it occurs twice in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Volume 2).

I've been doing this without even thinking about it, and yet in retrospect it's so
obviously wrong. And I've caught myself doing it before - I've tried to make words
sound more French by dropping the final consonant of everything.

I didn't know there was an actual term for this (hyperforeign)
kanewai on 18 June 2014

"Di questo NE parliamo..."

It drives me insane.
biagio on 18 June 2014

God forbid the lower classes don't conform to middle class expectations. Why exactly is your
pronunciation "somethiŋ" more correct than "somethink"?

The question you should be asking is "what language variations erk you".
AlexTG on 18 June 2014

Probably the most annoying feature of in my local vernacular (that I can think of right now) is using the word how in place of why (as a question word). Sometimes it's not too bad (e.g. "How're you so late?" isn't a million miles from "How come you're so late?") but other times it just sounds wrong ("Don't do that!" "How (not)?"). In my area there's also a lot of influence from Scots which shows itself to varying degrees as a lot of people tend to code switch, although that tends to be more confusing than annoying.

kanewai wrote:

You mean you are supposed to pronounce the [s] ?!? (wanders off for a quick look in the dictionary)

Quote:

I've been doing this without even thinking about it, and yet in retrospect it's so obviously wrong. And I've caught myself doing it before - I've tried to make words sound more French by dropping the final consonant of everything.

I thought that actually was the correct pronunciation. It's good to know otherwise. As for being obvious, I assume you only mean as a French speaker, because it isn't to me.

Another related pronunciation that annoys me (although it isn't in my local vernacular) is when (mostly) Americans pronounce it /kuː də ɡɹeɪs/ or /kuːp də ɡɹeɪs/ - it just sounds so wrong.

kanewai wrote:

I didn't know there was an actual term for this (hyperforeign)

More broadly (i.e. including instances where it isn't foreign) it's called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercorrection - hypercorrection .
Alphathon on 18 June 2014

ScottScheule wrote:

I also think people should say "octopodes" instead of "octopi."

With my mum I might come up with the occasional 'Oktoponten' or similar made up plurals.

And, I'm not actually irked. Not more than usual. After all I have my pet peeves too. And I'm aware that while I might accept some things as language variation that doesn't change the general opinion of it.
Bao on 18 June 2014

Hmm, I'm not whether some people have purely misconstrued the point of my post, or are generally being pernickety over the wording.
I'm not an elitist in the slightest, it's just strange to me that, at least in my area, this was so uncommon that I'd never experienced it before yet upon returning to live in the UK it's so common that one might hear it on television.

To clarify, I used "vernacular" so as not to exclude anyone from the topic. I'm not talking about mistakes that a non native speaker might make without realising.

I was merely hoping to discover what sort of everyday words/phrases might have the same thing done to them in other countries, as I'm sure it happens in every language in some form. Who knows, perhaps some of those listed will help learners of the languages mentioned avoid particular mistakes they might hear and otherwise adopt if it were not for being told otherwise.

Thanks for the examples that have been given so far.
Chris13 on 18 June 2014

Chris13 wrote:

it's just strange to me that, at least in my area, this was so uncommon that I'd never
experienced it before yet upon returning to live in the UK it's so common that one might hear it on television.

Languages change over time. Upper class Romans got annoyed as the common people stopped
pronouncing 'h'. Then when the upper class started adopting the trait it became "correct", as in modern
Latin dialects like French, Spanish and Italian.

What is and isn't a mistake is really just about what sounds right to prestige speakers.

edit: btw sorry, I was a bit passive aggressive in that first post. I'm not saying you're elitist, but I think the
common judgement that certain language features are "mistakes" is flawed.

AlexTG on 18 June 2014

Oh my last post reminds me of something which I've always struggled with. It was beaten into me as a child
that 'h' should be pronounced as "aych" not "haych". So now I get erked by "haych". But I'm at fault here, not
the people saying "haych"
AlexTG on 19 June 2014

One that I see quite often written here on HTLAL (not so much from native English-speakers) is "noone" meaning "no one". "Noone" is incorrect English. I know it's a little thing, but it is a bit irritating.
iguanamon on 19 June 2014

iguanamon wrote:

That's one of those weird quirks of English that I've always thought about. Why is it anyone, someone, everyone, but no one? I can see how easy it is for a non-native speaker to make this mistake.
soclydeza85 on 19 June 2014

soclydeza85 wrote:

That's one of those weird quirks of English that I've always thought about. Why is it anyone, someone, everyone, but no one? I can see how easy it is for a non-native speaker to make this mistake.

Agreed. It's an easy mistake to make. Since I've only ever seen this usage online, it strikes me as "wrong" and I keep thinking of an older spelling of "noon" (12:00 pm) with a silent final "e".

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=noo ne - urban dictionary wrote:

] noone
Meaning "no one". Perhaps inspired by the word "nobody". Most commonly used by people who acquired their literary skills in online chat rooms. ...

It's just a little thing, but I've seen it used by people, primarily second language speakers, who have otherwise outstanding English skills.
iguanamon on 19 June 2014

Why is it anyone, someone, everyone, but no one?

This is going to stump me.

anyplace, someplace, everyplace or every place, no place
anyway, someway, every way, no way
anybody, somebody, everybody, nobody
anything, something, everything, nothing
anywhere, somewhere, everywhere, nowhere
anyhow, somehow, x, x

I cannot figure the pattern or rule out.
kanewai on 19 June 2014

kanewai wrote:

Haha, don't blow a gasket on this one, it's probably one of those exceptions that came about randomly during the evolution of the language. I like the way you think though
soclydeza85 on 19 June 2014

A little mistake in french that I hear everyday and that drives me crazy:
"La voilà, l'ascenseur !" (here comes the lift !)
Of course, it's "un ascenseur", a masculine noun, but people treat it as feminine because they hear "la scenseur"...
The worst is of course "Vite, elle est là, l'ascenseur" (Quick, quick, the lift is there). When I hear that, I push the "close" button of the lift :)
Arnaud25 on 19 June 2014

Great topic! I don't like to criticize how other people speak English but there is one question that I can't stand hearing,"Where are you at?" I know this is probably an example of language evolution as it's becoming very common where I live, but I refuse to use it.
mick33 on 19 June 2014

mick33 wrote:

Or it's child, "Where is you at?"
luke on 19 June 2014

soclydeza85 wrote:

iguanamon wrote:

That's one of those weird quirks of English that I've always thought about. Why is it anyone, someone, everyone, but no one? I can see how easy it is for a non-native speaker to make this mistake.

Isn't anyone coming?
Isn't someone coming?
Isn't everyone coming?
Isn't ... can't use "no one" - double negative.

Is anyone coming?
Is someone coming?
Is everyone coming?
Is no one coming?" This make me think of phonic rule that would be broken if it were "noone". Double oo sounds like moon, coon, loon, boon.
luke on 19 June 2014

When native speakers don't use the genitive subject! This is just particular to lazy speech, most people don't make mistakes like this but I sometimes catch my dad saying things like "se pitää olla" instead of "sen pitää olla" and it drives me up the walls. I know that it still can be understood as a subject because "olla" is an intransitive verb and therefore it can't be mistaken for a subject but it just sounds so wrong.
Henkkles on 19 June 2014

Two Spanish expressions that bother me a lot: "Subir arriba" and "Bajar abajo". Subir means "to go up", and Bajar means "To go down". If the verbs already indicate where you re going, why do some people add the unnecessary prepositions "arriba" (up) and "abajo" (down)? As if it were possible "subir abajo" (to "climb downwards") or "bajar arriba" (to "descend upwards") :P
nicozerpa on 19 June 2014

Haha, people actually say "coup de grace" like "coup de gra?" Never knew that...

The only thing that really irks me is when people hypercorrect and then insist that their hypercorrection is the right version. Like "viri" or "virii" for the plural of "virus."

Oh, and in French I think for a long time I failed to learn the proper gender of "(une) espèce" because saying "un espèce de [masculine noun]" seems to be somewhat common. :-)
tastyonions on 19 June 2014

nicozerpa wrote:

A similar thing happens in Italian when they say "entrare dentro": "entrare" already means "to go in", so why add "dentro" (in)?
biagio on 19 June 2014

mick33 wrote:

"Where are you at?"

What is the correct way to ask this?
Gemuse on 19 June 2014

"Where are you?", I guess. "Where are you at?" sounds fine to me, just less formal. Interesting that tacking on a preposition makes it seem more colloquial.
tastyonions on 19 June 2014

luke wrote:

Or it's child, "Where is you at?"

Mistakes with apostrophes really bother me. They are more common in the UK than in the
USA, as far as I can tell. In the UK they call an apostrophe used in a plural word a
"greengrocer's apostrophe", because it is common to see it on hand-drawn signs at
grocery shops. For example: "strawberrie's 95p" (or even "strawberry's 95p"),
"banana's 50p", etc.

Luke's mistake is a bit more difficult to avoid, and I accidentally write "it's" when I
meant to write "its" when I'm in a rush.

Gemuse wrote:

mick33 wrote:

"Where are you at?"

What is the correct way to ask this?

It should simply be, "Where are you?" The rule is that you're not supposed to end a
sentence with a preposition. This rule might just be one for sticklers, and there are
probably perfectly good examples where it sounds fine. But in this instance, it is
redundant. This reminds me of a joke:

Quote:

A man visiting Harvard asks a student, "Where is the library at?" The student
answers, "At Harvard, one does not end a sentence with a preposition." The man replies,
"OK, where is the library at, asshole?"

I am aware that I have broken a "rule" in this post. You're not supposed to begin a
sentence with "and" or "but". However, I tend to use "but" anyway just because I want
to. The correct option is to use "however", but I think it sounds a bit too stuffy. I
tend to alternate in this case.

EDIT to explain "it's" versus "its". You only use the apostrophe for "it is" in this
case.
Jeffers on 19 June 2014

Gemuse wrote:

mick33 wrote:

"Where are you at?"

What is the correct way to ask this?

Where are you? The "at" at the end is redundant.

Slang/informal usage of the phrase is high in many areas. In New Orleans, locals are known as "yats" because they'll often say "Where y'at?". The "y" has a slight "ye" sound. "Where y'at?" is like a "secret handshake" almost a "shiboleth" amongst New Orlenians. I almost never hear the phrase here on-island except from people from New Orleans.

iguanamon on 19 June 2014

I thought the kids these days say "Where you at" rather than "Where are you at".
Gemuse on 19 June 2014

biagio wrote:

A similar thing happens in Italian when they say "entrare dentro": "entrare" already means "to go in", so why add "dentro" (in)?

Those are http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/verbi-sintagmatici_%28En ciclopedia_dell%27Italiano%29/ - syntagmatic verbs , they work like English phrasal verbs. In this case the particle is used as a pleonasm to intensify the meaning of the verb.
drygramul on 19 June 2014

The FIFA World Cup commentary, particularly by British commentators, magnifies a language
usage that hurts my ears: Using collective nouns as plurals. "The team are playing well
today. England are playing great. Brazil expect to win the match." The same usage occurs
in other sports but it seems to be more prevalent in football. I can understand why this
usage is so common. It is a short cut and easier. But a team or a country's team is a
single unit. "Spain is out." "Germany is a good team". But I guess common usage makes a
language, so I guess I have to get used to it.
tommus on 19 June 2014

"Could of" in place of "could have" is my pet hate. It's so prevalent in my part of the world that I think I was 18 before I realised it was actually a mistake!
Radioclare on 19 June 2014

tommus wrote:

But a team or a country's team is a single unit. "Spain is out." "Germany is a good team". But I guess common usage makes a language, so I guess I have to get used to it.

So what are you supposed to say instead of "we beat them"?

Most football fans refer to their club side or country with the pronouns "we" and "us"
beano on 19 June 2014

tommus wrote:

You can use singular or plural verbs with collective nouns, but I think it is more common to use the plural in
the UK than it is in the USA.

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/words/matching-ver bs-to-collective-nouns-american - This website
confirms that there is a difference between American and British usage.
Jeffers on 19 June 2014

Gemuse wrote:

I thought the kids these days say "Where you at" rather than "Where are you at".

The two become indistinguishable fairly easily, since in casual speech the vowel of "are" is often reduced and "where are" sounds like just "where" with a longer "r" at the end.
tastyonions on 19 June 2014

Jeffers wrote:

tommus wrote:

You can use singular or plural verbs with collective nouns, but I think it is more common to use the plural in the UK than it is in the USA.

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/words/matching-ver bs-to-collective-nouns-american - This website confirms that there is a difference between American and British usage.

Actually, when I learned (British) English at a language school, we were taught to use collective nouns that way.
nicozerpa on 19 June 2014

I see 'bestfriend' a lot, and it really irritates me. It doesn't sound like one word
when said aloud, unlike 'a lot' and so I really don't understand why this mistake is so
common. I don't usually like to pick other people up on their mistakes because I know I
make a lot myself, but this one I just don't get.

Also, when people mix up 't's and 'd's. I know this is due to differing pronunciation,
but that doesn't make it any less annoying.

(By the way, don't hesitate to call me out if I've made a mistake in this post!)

*EDIT for spelling 'bestfriend' correctly!
Elenia on 19 June 2014

I agree with tommus; trying to read collective nouns with a plural verb hurts my head. I
had no idea that it was common in the UK and I'm usually pretty well versed in such
differences!
hjordis on 19 June 2014

A team, is it a singular unit or a group, or both at the same time? I lived in England for almost a decade and never got used to referring to a team with a plural verb, :). "England (they) have just equalized with a goal" or "England (the team- a unit- it) has just equalized with a goal". Both are correct in their respective sides of the Atlantic. A legitimate argument can be made that both subjects in both sentences agree with their respective verb conjugations, since a team is both a group and a single unit.

Edit: Uruguay has just scored another goal and leads 2-1.
Additional Edit: Uruguay has won 2-1. It seems to be hard for a European team to beat a South American team in South America
iguanamon on 19 June 2014

I'm annoyed by people thinking some of these things are mistakes.
When I hear "Where it is at" I realize that it is more specific.
"Where does he walk?"=Where does the guy walk around? vs. Where is the guy heading for?
"Where does he walk at?"=I know what the question is from the start.
Double negatives are not necessarily improper, they're just a variation in speech. For things like manuals and news,
maybe it should keep to the standard that is prescribed so people who speak different dialects can understand each
other better, but other than that, I say feel free.
Stolan on 19 June 2014

Stolan wrote:

I made another post, but deleted it. I must say I was a bit confused by several of your phrases: I wasn't sure what you meant by "Where does he walk at?" Do you mean "Where does the guy do his walking?" Part of the problem with an awkwardly worded phrase is that the hearer can be easily confused by it, unless he already knows what the speaker is getting at.

"Where it is at?" sounds like a foreigner with weak English asking where something is. Or did you mean it in the sense, "The new cafe is where it is at!"
Jeffers on 19 June 2014

Also it should be noted that collective noun with plural verb is almost completely
commonplace not only in the UK, but in many parts of the Empire/Commonwealth in all
settings, even outside of sports, in addition saying, "England was..." would sound
rather odd in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, British West Indies, etc. I
did a group project two years ago, and we always referred to our group as plural:

"Where are the group meeting today?"
--"The group are on the first floor (above the ground floor) of the main library.

"Where are the Spanish society (university club)?"
--"The society are in the pub."

This might explain why I used this with a friend long ago:
"Where bið our team?"
--"Our team bið in third place."

I have watched cricket for almost a decade, and never can I recall having heard the
third person singular conjugations (is, was) for teams during commentary.
1e4e6 on 20 June 2014

Gemuse wrote:

mick33 wrote:

"Where are you at?"

What is the correct way to ask this?

Where you is?

Actually, as tastyonions said, "Where are you?".

There is a of course non-verbal and other communication. Phrases like, "where's you's is?" and "where's you's at?" may be part of a socio-linguistic bond between the interlocutors that would be stifled by correctness and pedantry.
luke on 20 June 2014

I've heard a lot of "where you at" and pronouncing the word "ask" as "ax." I never cared for either of those.
Fuenf_Katzen on 20 June 2014

Jeffers wrote:

"Where it is at?" sounds like a foreigner with weak English asking where something is. Or did you
mean it in the sense, "The new cafe is where it is at!"

I meant "Where is it at?". The meaning you said is included but what I mean is this:
Since English lacks "whither" now, "where" could replace it and "where at" would then replace that likewise.
Stolan on 20 June 2014

Fuenf_Katzen wrote:

[...] and pronouncing the word "ask" as "ax." I never cared for either of those.

As far as I know, aks/ax is the phonetically more conservative variant and it has been part of some dialects all along. And for some reason it has become a marker of group affiliation.
Bao on 20 June 2014

Here's one from the US midwest which has always irked me, although I know that it's well established there. They use "anymore" with the meaning "nowadays". As in, "Anymore, I like to wear a tie."

http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/anymore.html - This website has a brief discussion of it. The website, by the way, is a fabulous website for looking up common errors in English.

I have a simple rule for "anymore". In most cases you should be able to substitute "some more". If not, then you're probably misusing it.

Another one which bothers me a lot anymore is mixing up me and I. The old problem is that people used to say, "Him and me are friends," "Jane and me went to the cinema." Of course they should be, "He and I are friends," and "Jane and I went to the cinema." I know this usage was beat out of us in school, but I think more and more people make the opposite problem, using "I" when it should be "me". Like the other error, it is usually when there are two people involved ("Jane and I", etc). For example, "The pizza is for Frank and I." I always suspected this was due to overcompensation about the "me" error, and http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/myself.html - the same website agrees.

I also have a simple rule for the me/I problem. If you drop the second person, then it becomes clear which pronoun you should use. Nobody would say, "Me went to the cinema," so it should be, "Jane and I went..." Nobody would say, "The pizza is for I," so it should be, "The pizza is for Frank and me."

And yes, I did use the midwest "anymore" in the fourth paragraph, just to see how it felt. I feel icky.
Jeffers on 20 June 2014

There's also http://video.tpt.org/video/2365042610/ - How to talk Minnesotan .
luke on 20 June 2014

I seem to be a lot more permissive for the spoken language than the written one; I find misuse of "it's" and things like "could of" as annoying as most of us, yet in speaking I'm not too bothered. I do get a bit confused by conditional phrases like "if I would have done it" instead of "if I had done it", which I hear every so often. There are some "incorrect" usages you hear in Scotland, like using the past tense as the participle ("I've went" instead of "I've gone"), but I grew up hearing these so they just seem like a normal part of the local language even if I tend not to use them myself.

In writing, joining words together seems to be really common amongst people I know, even fairly educated ones. "Alot" is the classic example but I also see "aswell" really frequently. It's a bit surprising since browsers have built-in spell checking these days...
garyb on 20 June 2014

I don't like:

a) Canadian / Californian vowel shift (think San Fernando Valley, Calgary or Vancouver):

yellow [jæloʊ]
bed [bæd]
US [jʊ æs]
mom [mɔ:m]
lot [lɔ:t]

b) Northern Cities vowel shift (common in Chicago, Detroit, Buffalo):

mom [mæ:m]
adopt [əˈdæːpt]
adapt [əˈdeːpt]
bad [be:d]

c) L-colored rounding of the preceding vowel:

culture ['kɒltʃɚ]
pulse [ pɒls]
ultimate ['ɒltəmət]
involve [ɪnˈvɒːlv]
collage [ˈkɒ:lɪʤ]
wolf [wolf]/[wɒlf]
full [fol]/[fɒl]
adult [əˈdolt] / [əˈdɒlt]

d) bald-bold merger (both pronounced as [bɔ:ld])
e) mirror-nearer un-rhyming
f) inconsistent low back merger (pronouncing ''fall'' as [ fɒ:l /fɔ:l] (rounded), but ''falling'' as [ ˈfɑːliŋ ] (with a non-rounded vowel)
g) L-vocalization (common in the UK): will [wɪʊ/wɪw], peel [pi:ʊ/pi:w], dolls [dɔʊz/dɔwz] + common in the US: almost ['oʊmoʊst]
h) code-cold-called-culled merger (a combination of d) + g) ).

etc.

I like listening to native speakers with clear diction, like Lana del Rey ;)
Her pronunciation matches the one indicated in MW's Learner's Dictionary
(which is a rare thing, since neutral American English is hard to find in real life,
there are 16 regional dialects/accents of American English, according to professor Labov).

Medulin on 20 June 2014

There's been so much talk of mergers, has there been any phonological complexification at all in any English
dialect? Because it looks as if it is only simplification that has been happening.
Stolan on 20 June 2014

The word criteria used as singular. I hear this at work all day. Such as, "We have a criteria for that", or "This criteria is used for...." I get corrected by my boss when I write: "These criteria" or "this criterion". Sigh.

Actually this same boss has a uniquely annoying take on "haphazard", which she thinks is "halfhazard".

I get emails that say, "This is a halfhazard criteria, please correct"..... Ack! It's no wonder I have a headache at the end of the day.
DaisyMaisy on 21 June 2014

DaisyMaisy wrote:

Daisy, I think you win! This discussion has reached its peak. "Criteria" used in singular is a losing war, like "dice". But "halfhazard" is great. I might start to use that just to see what people do!
Jeffers on 21 June 2014

Maybe it's been said already, but I don't like it when people say things like "a orange"
or "a apple" or "a honest man."

We have the word "an" for a reason.
Darklight1216 on 21 June 2014

OK, let's rename the thread "Mistakes that irk you in English"...

biagio on 21 June 2014

The Northern Cities vowel shift (as described by Medulin) always throws me off when I
travel to that area. It sounds so different from the way we talk even though they are
not far from the Canadian border.

I have no idea what the California/Canadian vowel shift is, but I'm not very familiar
with IPA.

I'm hearing "based off of" instead of "based on" a lot lately and I find it irritating.

I'm also hearing "supposably" instead of "supposedly" more and more.

Maybe this is only common in my region but I sometimes hear people say "I'm not used of
that" instead of "I'm not used to that."

And, when did "addictive" become "addicting"?

Youse for the 2nd person plural is fairly common here too but it doesn't really irk me.

embici on 21 June 2014

embici wrote:

And, when did "addictive" become "addicting"?

Probably around the same time "irritatedly" became "irritatingly". I see this genre of
mistake often and it really IRRITATES me. They are not the same.
Elenia on 21 June 2014

Elenia wrote:

embici wrote:

And, when did "addictive" become "addicting"?

Probably around the same time "irritatedly" became "irritatingly". I see this genre of
mistake often and it really IRRITATES me. They are not the same.

Did you get that backwards, Elenia? I'm pretty sure "irritatedly" isn't a word.

EDIT: Okay, I Googled it a bit, and it does come up.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/irritatedly - thefreedictionary.com redirects to irritate, and "irritatedly" doesn't actually show up under the definitions, although at the bottom of the page there are a couple examples.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/irritatedly - en.wictionary.org has an entry for it, but there it seems to mean the opposite of "irritatingly": "irritatingly" refers to an verb that irritates you, "irritatedly" refers to a verb done in an irritated manner.

So I guess "irritatedly" is a real word, but it is far less common that "irritatingly", and it means something quite different.

EDIT 2: I tried it out on the Word spell-checker. As I thought, "irritatedly" was not accepted when it was set to English US, but when I set it to English UK it was accepted.
Jeffers on 21 June 2014

@Jeffers- Oh thank goodness, I thought it was just me. Although the wiktionary definition
is what I would think when I hear "irritatedly," all the synonyms that are listed there
sound better to me.

Perhaps Elenia has heard people who have merged the meanings of "irritatedly" and
irritatingly" into just the latter? I can't think that I have, but I could see it
happening.
hjordis on 21 June 2014

@Jeffers @hjordis

Yes, the problem is I see is that people use 'irritatingly' to mean something done in an
irritated manner. This mistake makes much more sense now that I know 'irritatedly' is not
common in the US. I've only ever seen it online.

EDIT: Actually, I don't think irritatedly is too common in the UK, either. It's
not a very nice word.
Elenia on 22 June 2014

There's a lot of controversy surrounding the 3rd person plural pronouns in Dutch, but
people who say "hun hebben" for "zij hebben" are still wrong.
tarvos on 22 June 2014

@Elenia- Well that would just make me want to irritatingly have some words with them!

...Nope, it feels all wrong. I'd definitely use irritably or irately(but not
irritatadly). Better yet, I'd say "have some irate words," at least in that particular
sentence.

Darklight1216 wrote:

Maybe it's been said already, but I don't like it when people
say things like "a orange"
or "a apple" or "a honest man."

We have the word "an" for a reason.

Speaking of this, I know it's another dialect thing, but when somebody write something
like "an hotel." It's not a problem when spoken, since I can hear them drop the h, and
maybe it would be different if I didn't subvocalize when I read, but when written it's
a bit jarring. I've adjusted a little and just drop the h myself most of the time.

hjordis on 22 June 2014

hjordis wrote:

"An" before a vocalized "h" in some words is fairly common in England, although I haven't figured out if there are rules or regions associated with it. I've heard it with hotel, hospital and half.
Jeffers on 23 June 2014

Jeffers wrote:

hjordis wrote:

"An" before a vocalized "h" in some words is fairly common in England, although I haven't
figured out if there are rules or regions associated with it. I've heard it with hotel,
hospital and half.

Interesting! Either I've never heard it before or it doesn't
bother me as much as it does when I see it written (since it's not part of MY dialect and
I tend to read in my own voice).
hjordis on 23 June 2014

hjordis wrote:

Same here. I have to do a double take when I see that, and unfortunately it seems to be
happening more and more.

Actually, it could be that it's something that is making a come back because I know
that in the King James Version of the Bible, Genesis has a verse which states "I shall
make an help meet for him" and there is another verse which speaks of "an helmet."
Darklight1216 on 23 June 2014

Jeffers wrote:

"An" before a vocalized "h" in some words is fairly common in England,
although I haven't figured out if there are rules or regions associated with it. I've
heard it with hotel, hospital and half.

I've heard it with hotel and historic and perhaps a few others, but never hospital or
half (well, maybe "an 'alf pint" but I'm not sure that counts!).

As a network software developer I used to hear "a ACK" (rather than "an ACK") to clearly
distinguish it from "a NAK".

dampingwire on 23 June 2014

Jeffers wrote:

hjordis wrote:

"An" before a vocalized "h" in some words is fairly common in England, although I haven't figured out if there are rules or regions associated with it. I've heard it with hotel, hospital and half.

Although you never see anyone refer to "an horse"
beano on 25 June 2014

beano wrote:

Jeffers wrote:

hjordis wrote:

"An" before a vocalized "h" in some words is fairly common in England, although I haven't figured out if there
are rules or regions associated with it. I've heard it with hotel, hospital and half.

Although you never see anyone refer to "an horse"

I have heard someone once referred to as what sounded like, "an horse's ass", but i think they really meant a
http://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ours - bear's butt .
luke on 25 June 2014

I don't care much how other people speak, but I am slightly irked when native Swedes say interjuva (verb: interview) instead of intervjua. It's not like they would be caught dead saying they went to an interjuv (noun: interview).

There are also a handful of frequent idioms that you hear spoken incorrectly more often than you hear them spoken correctly. Dra alla över en kant instead of dra alla över en kam comes to mind.

My only other pet-peeve is in writing so I suppose that it doesn't count as vernacular: when adults consistently write dem (them) instead of de (they), or make a choice between de and dem seemingly at random. The vernacular is to blame, though, since both words have come to be pronounced the same.
eyðimörk on 25 June 2014

I am an Indonesian, and this kind of thing in my language is called "alay". I read somewhere that this phenomenon was derived from the Philipines. And yes, of course only youths who use them, like "keles" as "kali" or "ciyus" as "serius". I think all Indonesians here (if any) can relate.
Monox D. I-Fly on 13 July 2014