There ain't many words or attempts at words that bother me much. It's them ToNEs, caDENces and VOLUMES that have the profoundest effect. Even dialects and incorrect grammar can't match it. It's that TOne, CADenCE and VOLUME that them ungyon eaters use that can turn any sequence of words into a powerful envocation of emotion. I should of said something aboot written tone. Think God for emoticons

I can't think of something much more hypocritical than saying I dislike white people using the word and then typing it myself... but I guess there's no pleasing some people

Most of the biggies have been hit, but the one that I get all the time when reading stuff in Canada - both by students and colleagues - is 'the people that work there'. It should be 'the people who work there': 'who' for people, 'that' for animals and inanimate objects. Never encountered it in Oz, encounter it all the time here.

The other one is related to political correctness: when you change to the plural pronoun 'their' to avoid using the masculine pronoun 'his', you should make the rest of the sentence plural too, so that it's grammatically consistent. I know that, due to the attempt to be inclusive, this one is sliding, but it's really not that hard to be both grammatically and politically correct: Instead of "Each teacher should pay close attention to their class", it can be "All teachers should pay close attention to their classes". And, if that's too ungainly, his/her or her/his are also available, although also ungainly.

Oh, you bastards. Starting this thread with out me.

Once again, I have to agree with JCD. I. Hate. Whiggers*. Nothing is more irritating than going to school with people whose entire vocabulary was learned from Eminem albums and Channel V. You're not dope-dealing "gangstas (sic)" from Compton, you're white Australian kids from Ashgrove or Red Hill or somewhere else. Not Detroit. It's not English. All those "gangsta" phrases - "Fo' shizzle," "dope (as an adjective)" and "dawg" is just plain stupid. You're not bad arse gangstas - you're stupid kids who wish you were and are just to pathetic to anything other than try and imitate massive music industry products. As a side note, "Whigger" isn't racist. I've had people try and point racism at me for paying out whiggers. It's nothing against black people, it's against people who wish they were - Eminem being the prime example. I think elftor sums up this mentality best.

You should all know my opinion on this one:

l33t. And txt spk. I blame mobile phones - when we have limited message length we have to save space. But honestly, if you took you're average text message and spelt it properly, it'd never reach 150 characters. With spaces. Things like "Am at the party. Are you still coming and will you be late?" doesn't bust the character limit. Stop being so freaking lazy and punch it out properly. There's no reason to cut it down to: "@ da party. r u coming n wil u b l8?".

And l33t. l33t doesn't make you an elite computer user. Why doesn't it make you a more powerful computer user than the rest of us? BECAUSE I HAVE NO FREAKING REASON TO BELIEVE YOU CAN KICK SOME ARSE AT CS OR CODE LIKE CARMACK IN C++ IF YOU CAN'T EVEN TYPE OR SPELL PROPERLY. Idiots. Do they really think someone's gonna accept a resume in l33t? Think it's in the realm of thirteen year olds, think again. Half the guys I go to uni with still do it. Maybe this is the reason the gaming idustry has gone downhill.

*Not anything to do with the Afghan Whigs, Splitcoil.

C'mon Lithos, the real reason you dislike 1337 speak is because you constantly get pwned in UT.

Admit it.

LOL!!!!111

This message has been edited. Last edited by: herr kuchen,

I would just like to point out that I only ever use 1337 5p34k 1r0n1c411y.

Oh, and 'breathable' Bandaids and the like: FUCK OFF, you can't breathe Bandaids!!

The thing that bothers me the most is when people use words they don't understand.

I still feel dirty after spending so much time around software marketing people. Example: "actionable" refers to legal actions, as in "grounds to sue". It doesn't mean "able to take action on". There are too many other examples.

Secondly, it bothers me when people substitute "was like" for "said". It's worse, because I do it too:

"she was like, 'ohmygod', and I'm like, 'no'".

But that whole, like, Valley girl thing is, like, so much fun when a 40 year old guy does it?

(Or not - great for embarrassing teenagers though!)

when people say the word Mirror "Mirra" really bothers the crap out of me..
that and putting a G sound in Onion. "UNNGion"

damn! that really pisses me off...

Gah, just found another singular/plural one that bugs me in an Apple ad: "An instant savings of..." FFS, "Instant savings..." possibly, or "An instant saving..."

It's kind of like grocery stores that offer 'great values'?!!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Bravus,

body language:

feet shufflers piss me off like you will never know.
there was a spell where i took a train and two busses to work everyday and the same back home. this of course enabled me to see a large amount of people between migrations. i was appalled at how many of the herd slide their feet while "walking". shrmmmf...shrmmmf...shrmmmf....
walk like you have a purpose for fucksakes. have a little pride in yourself.

Also bad on the shoes to shuffle.

Any case, it kind of offended me when programmers at work uses only minimally coherent English in their docs. I'd never use minimally coherent syntax when coding, so why should we expect any less in human language?

On I3375P33I<:

Hey everyone! I'm at 1337 posts! Woot, or something!

The biggest verbal sin - almost the only one really, is lack of clarity. People should be shot, for example, for saying "ie" when they mean "eg". Jargon of all sorts obstructs understanding, especially when the user doesn't really understand what the jargon means: management psychobabble is the great example at the moment. In the last year or so, for example, stovepipes have become bad things. I do believe this (I cross the road to avoid them) but I've no idea why. Another pet hate is Americanisms creeping into English - they are fine in their place, but their place isn't here.
On the other hand, there are still vigorous examples of English being invented. About ten years ago I discovered South African Emglish, which is like Australian English, but in my view more interesting because of the large range of influences. Some of it is just strange (does anyone know why traffic lights are called "robots"?) but some is hilarious. The first time I asked to borrow a floppy disk, people looked at me very oddly ;"Ja, no, man... that's old technology, what you want is a stiffy, not a floppy." I've never heard that anywhere else.

quote:

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Originally posted by Pauline:
On I3375P33I<:

Hey everyone! I'm at 1337 posts! Woot, or something!

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w00t w00t!!

ur n0 n00b, joo roo....

Yes, the first time I wanted to transfer some files and a woman in South Africa asked me if I had a stiffy...

I've heard them jokingly refered to as a "crunchy", but never a "stiffy".

Americans would mean something else by that.

Quite a few examples have already been given.
Some of these piss me off, some of them don't. A
few of them I find to be perfectly acceptable.

Honestly, my biggest "linguistic" pet peeves are
linguistic nazis who refuse to accept the fact
that language does in fact change and dictionaries
are never really fully up to date on spoken
language.

quote:

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Originally posted by Bravus:
It should be 'the people who work there': 'who' for people, 'that' for animals and inanimate objects.

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Hey! People are animals too!