Words, usages, and phrases that annoy the shit out of you...

we could've cured cancer by now if we didn't get distracted by pointless grammar issues

or should that be "hadn't"??

Correcting grammar is just another of the million ways we pretend that patting sand onto our orderly castle is going to keep the tides of chaos from wiping that fucker out.

I don't think that's correct. 'Whoever' is the object that the subject is helping, regardless of the clause. We say 'I can help her/him' not she/he.

Not quite. The entire clause is the object. "I can help whomever" is fine, I think, though you probably still shouldn't say it because it sounds weird. But once you make it "Whoever is next," it has to stay that way.

Think about another example: "I am going to punch whomever ate my sandwich." "Whomever ate my sandwich" is clearly wrong, and any sentence that requires you to say it is wrong.

Anyway, I wasn't trying to get this thread embroiled in a long grammar discussion, just pointing out that how frustrating it can be when retail-speak combines with hypercorrection.

"pointing out how frustrating it can be" is of course what I meant to type.

had to create 'work goals' for myself

decided fuck it and used the word 'onboarding'

i got sighted on that onboarding, mookieproof, and decided to give it a deep dive

Let me know once you’ve bottomed that out

is it me or our nine out of people pronouncing the word pundits "pundiNts"?

haven't noticed that yet, but have noticed people pronouncing tenets "tenants."

don’t be pedatic

. be pedan✓

Restauranteurs

Criteria instead of criterion

oh FUCK yes

Always enjoy pulling out my Criteria Collection Videodrome

Videodome, I think you'll find

All That Jizz

Levelling up

I blame Scott Pilgrim for that one

Criteria instead of criterion

My organisation works with universities and we come into contact with consortia and alumni. For many of my colleagues these have now become the singular form of the words, and daily I hear people talking about "a consortia" and "an alumni".

One of my favorite-ever Futurama jokes was that the idiotic Fry knows the correct usage.

https://morbotron.com/meme/S01E08/19419.jpg?b64lines=V293LCBJIGxvdmUKIHN5bXBvc2lhLg==

similar to how people will say "so and so is BIAS"

"bias" without the "ed" and "graduated school" without the "from" are my all-time least-favorite, most-annoying things

"Graduated school" or "graduated college" seem like very Midwestern/Great Lakes regional usages to me, along with eliminating the "to be" from phrases like "the lawn needs mowed" or "the clothes need washed." I've been hearing those all my life, so they never seemed unusual to me.

People are pretty pleased with themselves for using alumnus, alumna, and alumni correctly, but you can still sometimes zing them with alumnae.

alumnopodes

alumnopotamus

alumninium

rock-ribbed

don't say "effort" when you mean LP or CD or release -- "bryan ferry's first solo effort" -- bcz it makes you sound like a condescending smug and bad teacher who shd immediately fuck off

^ otm

"fell pregnant"

Sounds like a calque from the French 'tomber enceinte'.

that annoys the shit out of me too

You fall pregnant like you fall ill. One for the babby thread?

pleasing echoes of plump, ripe babbies dropping to the floor like apples in autumn

LET THE BABBIES HIT THE FLOOR

eStork battery drained too quickly

Time to bring back, "She's got a bun in the oven".

"We're pregnant" is worse

No, you idiot,

she

"we've fallen pregnant" i think is ok

our bun's fallen into the oven

Great news, we're up the duff.

(week-old xposts) a v occasional and tangential part of my job involves writing emails which go "dear x, as an alumn__ of the University of y you are eligible for..." and the alumnus/-a/-i thing bothers me a lot; picking the right ending can seem too fussy, and alas "alum" seems oldfashioned, but it does bother me seeing "alumni" used in the singular

I think I go with -us as a general singular regardless of gender but sooner or later a classicist/pedant is going to be mad at being misgendered

(but I'm not sure I'd particularly appreciate feeling like someone had taken the time and conscious deliberation to assign me the correct feminine ending either? and then there's the risk of guessing wrong)

alumna is the correct neuter plural ending, use that if you want to rile literally everyone

side note: I'm sure I saw a linguistics paper once that said (though the details were way beyond my understanding) that it's no coincidence that Latin and Greek feminine forms, and perhaps other languages too, resemble neuter plurals - but last time I went looking for this theory I couldn't find anything, probably because I don't know any of the relevant words to search for

so if anyone has any idea what I might be talking about please do let me know, esp if you can find a dumbed-down version of the hypothesis suitable for non-book-learnin' morons (mora!) like myself

I say bring back the "Dual" of early & Attic Greek and possibly v. early Latin too: a special ending required for if I have to email exactly two alums at once

haven't noticed that yet, but have noticed people pronouncing tenets "tenants."

I've been seeing/hearing this a lot lately and find it vaguely annoying

also, increasingly seeing "slither" used for, I guess, "sliver" - "a little slither of cake" etc - this bothers me for some reason

People who say ‘the floor’ when they are talking about/should say ‘the ground’. Cretins.

slither for sliver
and phased for fazed
annoy the hell out of me