pet peeve: homonyms and incorrect word usage

:first:

Thank you for saying so eloquently what I did not.

 

I think I right good.

Tom

 

"She offered her honor. He honored her offer. And all night long he was on her and off her."

 

A preposition, however, is a poor thing to end a sentence with.
And don't never use no double negatives.

*** If you are easily bored, please stop reading now ***

Tony, while I agree that the true test of the acceptability an utterance or written passage is whether or not communication has occurred, the rules of language exist precisely to minimise the risk of miscommunication (as well as the more social aspects for which other animals use reciprocal grooming).

A case in point; "Tony banned Efusco because he was being difficult".

In that sentence, who was being difficult? (...and yes, I know, who's on first.)

Grammatical rules help us to disambiguate possible alternative meanings. (Pronomial references are full of ambiguities, that's why we don't use pronouns when talking to young children.)

When speaking, using correct grammar to disambiguate becomes even more crucial than it is in writing. Lest you think I'm being pedantic, (although I am certainly being just that) I have another example for your dining and dancing pleasure. One evening, many years ago, my wife and I were reclining in the back garden watching clouds pass overhead (I can barely remember what it's like to have time to do that!). In any case, after a long silence, my wife turned to me and said;

"Sam, I would never want you to have an affair".

I replied; "Why, do you want me to suffocate?".

What I heard was; "Sam, I would never want you to have enough air."

The two utterances sound exactly the same. I needed better grammar or more context to segment the speech stream accurately. Without that context, what you have is fertile ground for marital disharmony (homophones operate at the level of utterances as well as individual words).

While I'm on the subject of language and marital harmony, one also needs to be aware of gender differences in language use. When a woman says; "Don't you think its hot in here?", the translation for male ears is; "Open the window!".

In posting things on sites like PC, you can even improve communication by where you place things on the page, use of fonts, and of course, using emoticons to make up for the lack of facial expressions

When people make an effort to communicate well, I enjoy reading and listening to them. Regrettably, I realise that I've now digressed much too far and will retire back to the Boring Thread, Word, etc., and allow those of you with glazed eyes get back to discussion of Talking Sex Robots...

 

Pedantic, Sam antic.

And I thought we were supposed to say "No, Dear, it's just you."

Not a tall. Your hallucination is admiral. :yo:

 

It never crossed my mind.

Personally, I often enjoy using words and actions that confuse and mislead, only to show people what not to do of course.
Just like a Koshare.

 

Yes Hyo, it is just another case of Samantics

 

*groan*

:drum:

 

Tony, you do know I suppose that spelling in the English language during Tudor times was entirely optional! And to be fair, it really is a far less rational language that say German or Swedish, with inconsistencies in spelling and pronunciation that confuse non-English speakers. (We Brits used to tell ourselves that that was how you knew who the foreigners were!) During his lifetime George Bernard Shaw tried to propose sensible changes in English spelling, a brave task for an Irishman, without success. Winston Churchill once described Great Britain and America as "Two great nations divided by a common language", vividly illustrating that minor differences in spelling need not detract from genuine and valid communication.

 

Sam, your points are all very well taken.

Maybe it's my age, but in my opinion the overwhelming influence of mass communication in the modern era has had an effect on its quality. The advertising jingle, the TV sound bite, political sloganeering all tend to pander to "everyman" .... so the mantra is "keep it simple, stupid", even when the subject matter is often complex and cannot be made simple.

 

Wht abt txts? Wil th wrld nd w/o vwls?

Na

 

English as she is spoke has been deteriorating for centuries, according to some. I haven't been around that long to know.

But txting, ya, isit any wndr ppl cnt spl?

 

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Tony, it's my understanding that some traditional rules of proper English were based on the desires of academics for English to be more like Latin, which was considered the ideal language during much of the last couple centuries. Latin doesn't allow split infinitives, so they were arbitrarily labelled a bad idea in English. To really be understood however, it may be necessary to split an infinitive. And of course, being from Minnesota, a preposition is a perfectly fine thing for me to end a sentence with.

Things that are misspelled just jump out at me for some reason. I don't necessarily want to correct people, but these things do irk me. Like "should of" instead of "should've". I think one person on PC uses "allot" (meaning to distribute or parcel out) instead of the intended "a lot" simply because the spell checker flags "alot" which is what he probably wants to use.

For some reason I always have to think about "it's" vs. "its", but I make the effort. "Maybe" vs. "may be" is another one like that, but less chastised, or maybe just less commonly abused? My boss confuses "than" and "then". I had a colleague who would correct everybody when they misused an adverb, leaving off the "ly" ending, which was done more often than I realized when I was the one being corrected, but now I'm aware of it. Not sure if that's a good thing or not, because now I'm cursed with the knowledge that whenever somebody yells something like "Come quick!" they didn't say it correct.

Sometimes I type one thing while thinking another, it's just that my fingers are going on a familiar path but not the one my brain is on. At least, that's my excuse.

Sam, I wonder how your wife took the idea of not having an affair to be suffocating.

 

Ack... yes this is definitely one of my biggest pet peeves -- especially when they try to add a "d" to make the past tense "loosed".

I can understand people using "its" when they mean "it's" -- either due to confusion or laziness (not wanting to type the apostrophe) -- and problems with "your/you're" and "they're/their/there" are annoying, but "loose" and "lose" are not homonyms, and even if you think "loose" is pronounced like "lose", how would you get "loosed" instead of "lost"??!

 

Wrods are fnuny thnigs. Reshearcers hvae fonud taht so lnog as the fisrt and the lsat letetrs in the wrods are whree tehy shuold be, most peolpe hvae no rael tuorble raednig eevn copmlicated setennces.

 

Churchill said that was something "up with which I will not put".

 

This is sooo weird but you're right, you can read it.

 

Another common phrase that tends to irk me relates to someone praising another by claiming after some accomplishment he (or she) "Did good".

My urge is usually to respond .... "No; Mother Teresa did good; he did well"!