Commonly misunderstood words that get your blood boiling

[Marowit]

I get irritated when people misuse they're, their, and there.

They're not that difficult to use, and yet they're always misused.

On a side note, someone else mentioned how they can't stand when awesome is used for things that are not awesome.

All I could think of was Eddie Izzard:
"It's, it's awesome."
"What, like a hotdog?"

 

[Woodsey]

Pretty much the idea of swear words. The only thing that makes the word "shit" more offensive then the word "poop" is the fact that we aren't aloud to say it! But the only reason we AREN'T aloud to say it is because...it's offensive! But the only reason it's offensive is because WE AREN'T ALOUD TO FUCKING SAY IT!

"It is not allowed."
"He read aloud."

There's one.

When people get there/their/they're mixed up it really gets under my skin; fair enough if you had a problem with it when you started middle school, but if you're at least 15 you should be perfectly capable of remembering the difference between 3 words.

 

[Jast]

In typing when people don't use 'an', usually in front of an acronym like FPS. It's 'an FPS', the 'F' is pronounced eff. If you meant to say 'a First Person Shooter' then write that.

ditto

 

[AngryMongoose]

To a certain extent, almost all of these are forgivable because languages naturally change over time, giving us a far more useful, relevant and expressive language, and its only since the birth of dictionaries that people insist on using the "Correct" definitions; however, only thing I cannot stand is the extent to which people refer to "Weight" in Kilograms. Grams are not a unit of weight, they are a unit of mass. Those are completely different things. This is a fact, as defined by the International System of Units, as unchangable as the length of a meter. It is perfectly correct and acceptable to say "I have a mass of X kg" so why do people insist on saying "I weigh X kg". The sentence "I weigh X kg" is completely meaningless; comparable to the sentence "That will cost 200 ms^(-2)" or "Hello; my running is David".

It's not as if this is even just a mistake used to the ignorant masses. Many products proudly proclaim that they have a "Net Weight of Xkg". This is an outright lie on their part, and they should know better.

So... just stopit. Stopitstopitstopitstopitsstopit!

The only other time it annoys me is when people use a word because it's similar to another word; though I myself am guilty of this having never learned all the precise differences between "Too" and "To".

 

[SnipErlite]

Their so prejudice and your so bias to.

If that sentence doesn't cut you like a knife, you should probably be htting the textbooks.


-m

I actually winced when reading that..... And glanced at it just then and winced once more. *wince*
Ouch - That sentence should not exist.

OT: DECIMATE - been said a lot but seriously, it's used wrongly everywhere....well, quite frequently.

Also when somebody says to "allow" something, meaning actually to NOT allow it. And yes, I sometimes use the word in that sense. Horrible, I know =(

 

[KaiRai]

There's so many, where do I start?

"His" is a popular one I've seen recently, mostly on facebook. Context being "His a guitarist" etc

When it should be "He's a guitarist"
Where did it even come about!?

 

[AngryMongoose]

On the flip side, I hate it when people insist that "They" and "Them" can only refer to multiple people...
And the number of people who insist that "Decimate" ONLY means "To reduce by/to 1/10th" when "To greatly reduce" is a perfectly valid use of the word...
And people who say you can't use to word "Man" in certain situations because it's gender-specific, despite the fact that it's not; it's a shorter form of the word "Human" and thus words like "Polceman" and "Postmen" can refer to both male and female members of those professions, assume that they are human members.

So I'm pretty relaxed when it comes to people using the wrong word in a situation so long as the meaning is clear, there is no ambiguity, and they aren't using it where another word would be appropriate; it's just when people insist that you CAN'T use a word in a situation where it IS correct that annoys me.

One that does annoy me is people using "Way" and a synonym for "Far" and "Much", though that is mainly due to my brother literally hitting me for getting them wrong.

I also hate how ironic and sarcastic is thrown around so much.

I also hate the way people think their being Sarcastic when they;re being Ironic!

Because IRONY IS WHEN YOU SAY SOMETHING AND MEAN THE OPPOSITE!

while Sarcasm IS LITTLE ABOVE JUST INSULTING SOMEONE!

Balls man! It annoys me how much I see it on this sight...

This. I don't have much else to say. This guy sums it all up well.

Very common for sarcasm to be both; as in: "I consider your complaints to be correct, valid, and well researched". I'm using verbal irony in a mocking manner to point out obvious. Also, @ comadorcrack, it's "They're" not "Their" when you are using the word in the place of "You Are". Normally I'd let that pass, but in this thread it's not acceptable.

Alot of people here forget that the English Language has no official dictionary. What is correct is how people interpret the word. The fact that alot of people here are complaining about Oxford and Webster definitions of words here too just shows that their complains are unjustified.

This thread half full of pedantics and elitists. I'm surprised people here don't use the word 'gay' for 'joyful'. Or 'dived' instead of 'dove'. C'mon guys.

The word "elitist". Apparently no-one is allowed to know more than anyone else, otherwise they're an elitist. Which is bad, m'kay.

People here are presumably elitists, since they're expressing a hatred of those who don't know as much as them.

Personally, I'm proud to be an elitist.

And just to extend this repeatedly edited post further.

 

[incandescent-smile]

It doesn't really get my blood boiling, but I often wonder why it's so hard to understand 'mind'

A: Would you mind if I sat next to you?
B: Sure

I was going to say the exact same thing! It's simple syntax - is it really that difficult to understand??

 

[Naeo]

People who say "harikari" annoy me. It's "harakiri".

Seppuku

Harakiri is more or less interchangeable with seppuku for all intents and purposes.

 

[dthvirus]

This thread half full of pedantics and elitists. I'm surprised people here don't use the word 'gay' for 'joyful'. Or 'dived' instead of 'dove'. C'mon guys.

The word "elitist". Apparently no-one is allowed to know more than anyone else, otherwise they're an elitist. Which is bad, m'kay.

If you were trying for a tongue-in-cheek rebuttal, you instead gave me a good example of what I was explaining. The word 'elitism' has been connotatively derogatory for the last hundred-or-so years, and people who cling to such definitions that predate the vocabulary of their parents are either attention seekers or people got locked in a 200-year-old library for a week when they were just learning how to read.

If you weren't going for that, I apologize in advance and you may ignore the misaimed ramblings of a penniless English student.

 

[Furious Styles]

I don't know, my mum says "torlit" instead of toilet because she's got a london accent. that gets on my nerves but I can't think of anything else.

 

[Furious Styles]

This thread half full of pedantics

The word is pedants

 

[crudus]

Ok people, "Then" is a word to show the sequence of events. "Than" is a word used in comparison. They are in no way synonyms.

Spoiler: Get it right or I will light this kitten on fire

Look at him. He is begging you to not give me a reason to light him on fire.

Obvious one is "ironic"
Me looking like someone you met before is not ironic!

Not so obvious one is "obnoxious"
Me saying calling you fat for eating ac entire package of Oreos is not obnoxious!

I roomed with someone that not only overused these words but used these words incorrectly. I wanted to punch him after a few months (and I did).

 

[onewheeled]

I know this one guy who just throws around the word "Inconceivable".

I do not think that word means what he thinks it means.

 

[micky]

the word like, its just a filler! its only needed for the emotion, i LIKE food not food is so like tasty.

 

[dthvirus]

This thread half full of pedantics

The word is pedants

I'll make nouns out of anything I please, good sir.
Yeah, but I like this one for some reason. My prof says it a lot.

Anyway, I should actually contribute to this thread instead of outlining my opinion of people I don't like:

Using 'as' and 'because' interchangeably. Grinds my gears. I know it's technically correct to use it as 'because' but it reads strange when used in certain situations, because 'as' has a whole bunch of definitions as a temporal marker and 'because' has one as a logical marker.

 

[Averant]

the word like, its just a filler! its only needed for the emotion, i LIKE food not food is so like tasty.

I have no clue how that started, but you're quite right, it is a filler word. It got shoved in there when we didn't know what to say, and now we can't seem to get it out. I'm afraid I have no idea how or when we WILL get it out, but I'm sure it'll happen eventually.

EDIT: Oh yes, I almost forgot:

"Same difference."

NO IT IS NOT, YOU STUPID NONCE!

<punches seal, kitten, and innocent puppy>

Actually, you're wrong. Have you ever heard the phrase, "A difference that makes no difference IS no difference"? It's kind of the same idea. Same Difference came from the idea that something looks different even though it really isn't. It's pretty much synonymous with the phrase Same Thing.

You: It's one yard.
Person: No, it's three feet!
You: Same difference/Same thing.
(If three feet isn't the same as one yard, I apologize, I do not know the precise measurements)

If someone else has a different definition, then please correct me.

 

[Shoqiyqa]

This is not a misunderstood word, but I feel the urge to contribute it:

"Do you know what I mean?"

You're unlikely to hear that on your travels around Britain, although people who yearn for days of yore may still put it that way.

It's more likely to be shortened to "you know what I mean?"

Even more often than that, you'll hear it as "know what I mean?"

In that form, I heard it from someone who stabbed his finger onto a picture in another man's newspaper and shouted: "Aaauuuuugh!!! Know what I mean? Fuckin' ... " he then left the room. I'd have been happy to shoot him in the back as he did so.

In a further shortened form, it is heard as "know-mean?" The worst example of this that comes to mind is someone on a train, saying into his mobile phone: "I'll take it when I want it. Know-mean? I'll take it when I want it. I'll take it when I want it. Know-mean? I'll take it when I want it." Had he and I been the only people between those two carriages, I might have opened the door against which he was leaning.

 

[Eren Murtaugh]

It's like people don't understand that by a racist word becoming a standard part of their every-day vernacular they've done more damage to their race than any backwater racist hick ever could.

 

[Thundero13]

The way American accents pronounce certain words especially Bernard also my cousin for some reason keeps saying the word technically.