PEEVES

[spiderwrangler]

Some would call it the evolution of language.

FUUUUUUUUUUCK!

[BDawg]

For me, it's loose vs. lose.

Lose is what you do in Vegas on the slot machines.
Loose is the opposite of tight, as in "Crazy Bitch's twat is so loose you can put both hands in and clap."

The other thing that drives me up the fucking wall is people with NO FUCKING "G" KEY on their keyboard!

[codewritinfool]

The other thing that drives me up the fucking wall is people with NO FUCKING "G" KEY on their keyboard!

sorry,
codewritingfool

[passlaku]

One thing that used to annoy me was the addition of "-wise" to words as a short cut for "in regards to..." It got to the point where BYO magazine was using the term in articles. One of my favorite uses was on one of the BN shows where one of the brewcasters asked, "how are we doing over there, porn-wise." That cracked me up.

It is peculiar that I don't hear it as much anymore.

[Dirk McLargeHuge]

For me, it's loose vs. lose.

Lose is what you do in Vegas on the slot machines.
Loose is the opposite of tight, as in "Crazy Bitch's twat is so loose you can put both hands in and clap."

The other thing that drives me up the fucking wall is people with NO FUCKING "G" KEY on their keyboard!

mine is "sight" for "site", or vice versa. Spell check is not always your friend.

[Charlie]

The one that makes me cringe is irregardless. It seems to be a contraction of regardless and irrespective, and is "an erroneous word that, etymologically, means the exact opposite of what it is used to express,...".

Another is decimate. "Latin decimātus, past participle of decimāre to punish every tenth man chosen by lot,". When I see "Storm decimates crop" I have no clue if it destroyed a tenth, all, or some other fraction of it!

Language matters, and the English language is structured in such a way as to enable us to express ourselves precisely. If any word can be substituted for any other, and meaning is mutable, then we'd may as well just grunt at each other.

Charlie

[Dirk McLargeHuge]

The one that makes me cringe is irregardless. It seems to be a contraction of regardless and irrespective, and is "an erroneous word that, etymologically, means the exact opposite of what it is used to express,...".

Another is decimate. "Latin decimātus, past participle of decimāre to punish every tenth man chosen by lot,". When I see "Storm decimates crop" I have no clue if it destroyed a tenth, all, or some other fraction of it!

Language matters, and the English language is structured in such a way as to enable us to express ourselves precisely. If any word can be substituted for any other, and meaning is mutable, then we'd may as well just grunt at each other.

Charlie

According to my Webster's, decimate means "to kill or destroy a large part of". So while the Latin root means destruction of a tenth, in current usage the word means something else.

Words Shakespeare used, for example, have not only shifted pronunciation, but some have shifted meanings so much that we have footnotes in the texts. At what point do we say, "This in English?" 1650? 1776? 1965? 2000? The date of your graduation?

For some time, I have pictured language as a reflection of the culture. As our daily lives have become less formal, so has our language. In the 30s, for instance, most men wore suits and ties when they left the house, even if only going to the barbershop. People dressed up. They used a slightly more formal language. Now most people only wear ties at funerals (like me), and our language is correspondingly more casual. Whether or not that is a good thing is a subject to debate.

[spiderwrangler]

For any of you who are into origins of words, Russian accents and big tits...
http://www.youtube.com/user/hotforwords