You are MURDERING the King's English!!

medical student wrote:

another incorrect phrase:

"old stOmping ground"

along the same lines as "chOmping at the bit"

What's wrong with those?

malmo wrote:

What about those people who think that RE means regarding?

What does it mean?

best one i've ever seen was at an anti-war protest:

"somewhere in texas a village is missing it's idiot."

so the village is idiot, eh?

transplant wrote:

how about people (a lot of us) who describe a situation or scene that caused laughter as "hysterical." People become "hysterical," not situations. It's an adjective that describes a reaction to the situation.

The use you dislike is listed as a definition by Encarta. Granted, it says (informal) next to the definition, but it's here.

dean moriarty wrote:

I used to get annoyed when people used the word "peruse" to describe scanning something quickly. It means just the opposite. Eventually, I realized that everyone uses the the word the wrong way, and there is nothing I can do about it.

Encarta says peruse can mean to scan something carefully or quickly. Guess it just depends on the context.

Why can't anyone ever just see all of these little mistakes as charming?

...another good one: for all intensive purposes

adagag wrote:

malmo wrote:

What about those people who think that RE means regarding?

What does it mean?

It means "with reference to".

oh man i cant take it when people say "I have ran" instead of "I have run"

bleh

Why is Wednesday pronounced "Wensday" and colonel pronounced "kernel?"

adagag wrote:

malmo wrote:

What about those people who think that RE means regarding?

What does it mean?

It's short for latin "in res", or translated "in the case of"

grammar aside, these examples are known as malapropisms. Which stems from a character (Mrs. Malaprop) in a english play called The Rivals. i.e. using an inappropriate word which sounds similar to the one which is appropriate.

http://www.fun-with-words.com/mala_malapropisms.html

Many people even news reporters use the word an before words beginning with H even when the H is being pronounced.

It should only be used if the H is silent.

Also: "I was on tender hooks" instead of tenter hooks

WHY wrote:

Why is Wednesday pronounced "Wensday" and colonel pronounced "kernel?"

Why isn't "phonetic" spelled the way it sounds?

Why do they have such a long word for "abbreviation?"

How come there's no other word that means the same thing as "synonym?"

Why does flammable and inflammable mean the same thing?

From Steve Wright:

If people from Poland are called "Poles," why aren't people from Holland called "Holes?

Why are a wise man and a wise guy opposites?

Why do overlook and oversee mean opposite things?

If horrific means to make horrible, does terrific mean to make terrible?

Why isn't 11 pronounced onety one?

Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?

Why is a person who plays the piano called a pianist, but a person who drives a race car not called a racist?

If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?

If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?

When someone asks you, "A penny for your thoughts," and you put your two cents in, what happens to the other penny?

Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?

Why do croutons come in airtight packages?

If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn't it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged, models deposed, tree surgeons debarked and dry cleaners depressed?

Do Roman paramedics refer to IV's as "4's"?

Where do you go to find another word for Thesaurus?

darkness wrote:

I could look it up but I don't really care enough.

I think this might be at the source of the problem.

How's about:

* "Especially unique" (repetitive and redundant)

* "Per say" (res ipsa lock-the-door)

* "For all intensive purposes" (surprised this one's already been noted once before; I've only seen it at one point in time in my life, but it stuck in my crow)

* "26.2-mile marathon road race" (admittably, I'm use to this one)

* Using "ironic" to characterize a simple coincidence (ironically, I heard some guy in the supermarket do this just today)

* "Meteroric rise" (meteors don't rise, they *fall* - it doesn't take being an astrologer to know this)

malmo wrote:

From Steve Wright...

From the memory archives:

I bought some powdered water and didn't know what to add.

I used the wrong key to get into my apartment the other night and the whole building started up.

A cop pulled me over and asked me why I was speeding. I said, "Because I had my foot to the floor. Makes more gas go through the carburetor and the car goes faster."

e- wrote:

And when people use the term "sub-par" to describe a bad performance. Isn't sub-par good?

Par refers to the expected result. In golf it is good, but that is because of golf's specific scoring system. If something is refered to as being sub-par, not specificly involving golf it is less or worse than expected and thus bad.

I always thought that forte was borrowed from the french word forte, with the little accent on the e, hence the two syllables. Forte in french means strong. Hence, the 5000 is my forte, the 5000 is my strength.

It's actually the Queen's English!

Bilbo's birthday in LOTR is "eleventy-one" (111 years old). He actually says "I'm eleventy-one today," in the first film (LOTR FOTR).

Tolkien was a philologist and musta been having fun.

a miler wrote:

I always thought that forte was borrowed from the french word forte, with the little accent on the e, hence the two syllables. Forte in french means strong. Hence, the 5000 is my forte, the 5000 is my strength.

Actually forte is one of the most commonly mispronounced words. It's pronounced "fort" -- one syllable please.