Language usage that annoys you

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Marais
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Language usage that annoys you

Postby Marais » Thu Oct 27, 2016 6:30 am

Come on, we all have them.

Mine is when people say 'I have a couple questions' without putting the 'of' in there. To me, it should be '...couple of questions'.

Another thing is English people overusing the word 'like' (which is definitely the most used word in the English language now) and French people saying 'bah', 'bon', 'voilà' or 'quoi' all the time.

I'm a Manchester United fan and i saw an interview with Eric Cantona and every other word was 'quoi'. Possibly the only thing in the world that can make me hate him haha. That and his rubbish acting.
Last edited by Marais on Fri Oct 28, 2016 11:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Language usage that annoys you

Postby tarvos » Thu Oct 27, 2016 7:23 am

"I should of" and d/t mistakes in Dutch.
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Re: Language usage that annoys you

Postby Ezy Ryder » Thu Oct 27, 2016 7:32 am

Hypercorrectness.
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Re: Language usage that annoys you

Postby Ari » Thu Oct 27, 2016 7:54 am

Spacing faults in Swedish (särskrivning) really get on my nerves. I'm normally very liberal when it comes to language usage and I'm never the prescriptivist in arguments, but this stuff just makes my skin crawl. Possibly it's because it's often blamed on English interference, since English doesn't compound words as much as Swedish does (personally, I blame Microsoft Word, though).

On the plus side, at least it's sometimes funny:
Kycklinglever (chicken liver) vs. kyckling lever (chicken is alive)
Brunstensbatterier (zinc–carbon batteries) vs. brunstens batterier (batteries of sexual heat)
Vår kassapersonal (our cashiers) vs. vår kassa personal (our crappy personnel)

(EDIT: Removed embarrassing typos.)
Last edited by Ari on Thu Oct 27, 2016 9:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Language usage that annoys you

Postby tarvos » Thu Oct 27, 2016 8:36 am

Ari wrote:Spacing faults in Swedish (särskrivning) really get on my nerves. I'm normally very liberal when it comes to language usage and I'm never the rpescriptivist in arguments, but thins stuff just makes my skin crawl. Possibly it's because it's often blamed on English interference, since English doesn't compound words as much as Swedish does (personally, I blame Microsoft Word, though).

On the plus side, at least it's sometimes funny:
Kycklinglever (chicken liver) vs. kyckling lever (chicken is alive)
Brunstensbatterier (zinc–carbon batteries) vs. brunstens batterier (batteries of sexual heat)
Vår kassapersonal (our cashiers) vs. vår kassa personal (our crappy personnel)


We have that problem in Dutch too and it really bothers me.
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Re: Language usage that annoys you

Postby tommus » Thu Oct 27, 2016 1:06 pm

Starting conversations and many sentences with "So". "So" is meant to introduce the consequence(s) of something, not introduce new topics.

Especially amongst people being interviewed, the massive overuse of "you know". It seems most prevalent amongst people who themselves seem to have very little of substance to say.

And my most favourite: the use of plural verbs after collective nouns. Very common in the UK, and especially amongst sports commentators. "The team are playing well today". "England are expected to score a lot of goals".

And we Canadians apparently use "Eh" all too often, although we don't really notice it ourselves.
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Re: Language usage that annoys you

Postby galaxyrocker » Thu Oct 27, 2016 1:54 pm

I wouldn't say it annoys me, but it always strikes me as unnatural when people try to avoid ending an English sentence with a preposition. Like, that's never been an actual rule in speech and was something invented by grammarians to make English more like Latin.

But just hearing "For whom is the gift" (as these people invariably use "whom") strikes me as really, really weird. Probably because my own speech doesn't use "whom" and I like leaving the preposition at the end.


But, it's whatever; just their idiolect.

Orthography mistakes don't bother me at all; writing != language, and some people learn the rules better than others, but it doesn't really hinder communication.
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Re: Language usage that annoys you

Postby Cainntear » Thu Oct 27, 2016 1:56 pm

tommus wrote:Especially amongst people being interviewed, the massive overuse of "you know". It seems most prevalent amongst people who themselves seem to have very little of substance to say.

Gee, you must be a hoot at parties. Public speaking is hard, and the hardest thing of all is trying not to say "um" and "ah" lots. So people say "you know" instead.

"So" as a marker of a new topic is pretty well established, and if you don't like it, I can understand why you're studying foreign languages -- you'll never be able to escape it in English speaking society.
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Re: Language usage that annoys you

Postby limey75 » Thu Oct 27, 2016 2:03 pm

You guys have already mentioned a number of them.

- should of etc.
- "like" every other word - in my experience Americans are by far the worst offenders
- starting a sentence with "so"
- ending every sentence with "fact!"
- "you know" is very common in UK English and is overused for sure

* the team ARE etc. - in my experience this is standard in UK English

- Sloppy editing/proofreading really bothers me too. The amount of profiles you see on social sites which say things like:
"I am a 40-year-old womEn"...
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Re: Language usage that annoys you

Postby iguanamon » Thu Oct 27, 2016 2:48 pm

One I see on the forum from some L2 speakers of English, sometimes is "noone". There's no such word as "noone" in the English language. We have "someone", "anyone" and "no one". Most browsers have a spell check add-on and they have several languages included, not just English. "Noone" will show up with a wavy red line under it if you type it and have the spell checker installed.
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