Post your linguistic pet peeves here.
I'll start with with the improper use of the third person plural personal pronoun "they" when the singular form is called for.
(See below for the correct pronoun to use in this case.)
You need to be a member of Captain Comics to add comments!
Replies
When I was in college, I lived in an eight storey apartment building just off campus. The top four floors were occupied by students, but on the first four floors lived non-students. One night I stepped into the elevator with a non-student resident. We struck up a conversation and he asked me, "What are you majoring in?" to which I answerd, "English education." "If I'd have known that," he said, "I wouldn't have ended my sentence in a preposition." That remark reminded me of the story of the Midwesterner visiting the Harvard campus shared with the class by one of my professors. (Stop me if you've heard this.) "Where's the libary at?" asked the visitor, to which the Harvard student sniffed, "A Harvard man would never end a sentence with a preposition!" "Sorry," said the visitor. "Where's the library at, @$$hole?"
Or, the unfortunately apocryphal story that [Insert newspaper or commentator here], when Richard Loeb died in some conflict in prison, possibly with regards to prison sex, wrote something along the lines of:
"Richard Loeb, murderer and student of English, yesterday ended his sentence with a proposition."
OR
"Richard Loeb, despite his erudition, today ended his sentence with a proposition."
I saw a public service post that someone made on Facebook.
It says "Commas Save Lives!" and gives as an example:
"Let's eat, grandpa."
"Let's eat grandpa."
Scary!
You mean that all that stands between civilized people and cannibalistic grandpatricide is that comma? ? ? ???
"A missing comma does not give you the right to kill and eat your grandpa!"
Perhaps the most meaningful insertion of a comma on a television programme came in the 1967 series The Prisoner.
Every week, the opening credit-sequence included a voice-over confrontation between Number 6 (Patrick McGoohan) and Number 2 (whichever actor was fulfilling the rôle for that episode). The end of that exchange was this:
Number 6: Who are you?
Number 2: The new Number Two.
Number 6: Who is Number One?
Number 2: You are Number Six.
The final episode, "Fall Out", is a bit of self-indulgent mindlessness by Mr. McGoohan. In the climax, Number 6 finally confronts the mysterious Number 1, who wears a mask. Number 6 pulls off the mask, revealing a gorilla mask beneath. (I told you it was mindless.) When Number 6 tears that mask off of Number 1, he and the viewers see that Number 1 is actually Number 6 himself, or his double, at least.
Many Prisonerphiles insist that the relevation that Number 6 was Number 1 had been in front of the audience from the beginning. It just needed a comma to put the voice-over dialogue in context (note the last line):
Number 6: Who are you?
Number 2: The new Number Two.
Number 6: Who is Number One?
Number 2: You are, Number Six.
Now you have me thinking about re-watching the last few episodes of The Prisoner.
As a kid watching the two part finale, I was totally flummoxed.
There is a DISCUSSION waiting for you, of both the TV and audio versions (including my interpretation of the "episode order debate). I cannot recommend the Big Finish version highly enough to fans of the TV show.
Thanks. I'll review that thread.
I have been watching episodes of Danger Man (aka Secret Agent) recently. It may only be coincidence but in one episode John Drake utters the line "be seeing you" which was a common phrase around The Village.
Small businessman on the local news discussing the effect of tariffs on his business: "My customers have literally hit the pause button on future purchases."
"My customers have literally hit the pause button on future purchases."
Besides the incorrect usage of literally as an intensifier, this statement hits on another of my linguisitic annoyances. In this case, that the businessman who made this statement felt the need to use (what he erroneously thought was) an intensifier. The unnessessary employment of intensifiers is in overkill mode these days. In the heyday of Hollywood, folks like Clark Gable and Cary Grant and John Wayne were stars of stage and screen. Then, sometime in the 1970's, actors of that status became "super-stars". Being a star wasn't good enough, anymore. "Star" had been demoted.
Since then, that needless exaggeration has crept into the everday speech of the younger generations. One's cupboard isn't empty---it's super-empty. One isn't excited to go to the beach for the week-end; one is super-excited. Albert Einstein wasn't a genius---he was a super-genius. Besides the speaker sounding like an overblown adolescent when he says things like this, the unnessesssary addition of an intensifier deletes the impact and meaning of the subject word. Empty is particularly aggrieved. Empty is an absolute; a container is either empty or it isn't. I'll allow: "almost empty" is acceptable, but when it comes to empty, there are no degrees. So, how can something be "super"-empty?
The description of genius carries the connotation of being the acme of intelligence. If someone has that giant of an intellect, one doesn't need anything else but genius to indicate that level. But, if we allow "super-genius", where does that leave "genius"?
"Now, hold on there, commander," some will insist. In some cases, they say, the use of the intensifier "super" is needed to indicate a more intense level, such as in the word excited. For example, the argument goes, a person can be excited, but if he's excited to the point where he's jumping up and down and squealing in anticipation, then he's super-excited.
But that's wrong. The simple adjective excited takes in the jumping-up-and-down, breathless anticipation. That, in fact, is what excited is used to convey. If one intends to describe a lesser mood of anticipation, then there are more suitable words to describe the lower emotional intensity: one can be "thrilled" or "pleased" or "delighted".
As I began to write more and more, one of the first lessons I learnt was that the word very was almost never needed or desired. Stating that someone or something was "very rare" or "very attractive" or "very unusual" was unneeded fluffery. The words rare and attractive and unusual stand on their own merit of definition. In these cases, an intensifier is uncalled for. If one wants to indicate a degree greater than just rare or attractive or unusual, there are other words which he may use to do so. Thus, in that sense, using the word very is also lazy.
Along those same lines (and I'm sure this has been mentioned before) is the use of "very unique" when what is meant is "unusual." In this case, the intensifier "very" actually has the opposite effect. the next time you hear someone use the phrase "very unique," aske them to clarify: "It's unique?" If they're being honest (or if they know what "unique" means), most of the time it's not.
-
12
-
13
-
14
-
15
-
16
of 16 Next