What are your pet peeves re English usage?

dadpad wrote:

Are question marks redundant.

Not all of them -- but in the English spoken by California high school girls, most of them are. You know, these American mutants? The ones who always raise the pitch of their voice at the end of the sentence? To make every declarative sentence sound like a question?

Then you know what I'm talking about?

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"So I beg to differ from the learned committee's reported remark."

And I agree with you McTag so that settles it Smile

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Not quite.

Go on, tell me to bugger off......you know you want to.

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tempted, but then your erudite comments are always welcome. Did i say rude comments? Not quite Smile

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McTag wrote:

chichan wrote:
Most of the Usage Panel supports the traditional view. Eighty percent of the panelists disapprove of the sentence Her designs are quite unique in today's fashion.

http://www.bartleby.com/64/C003/0293.html

Then eighty percent of the panelists are unaware of the original meaning of "quite".

You have to understand the purpose of the panel. They are there to placate all the old prescriptivists. You can, for most intents and purposes, ignore their opinions for the panel consists of people who know their language well, they just don't know how it works.

They are like most people who tend to just unthinkingly repeat what their old school marm told them.

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My worst (as taught to me by my Dad) are:
-the its and it's one also
-incorrect use of "versus" as a verb and not a preposition (which it is)
-incorrect use of loan, lend an borrow, all over the advertising world. Loan is a noun.
-incorrect use of "can i" and "may i" but that is sort of just etiquette.

plenty more but ill probably get threats. bye and hey, this is my first real post.

Boephe

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Welcome to A2K and the Language Forum, Boephe!

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Yes, welcome here on the site!

(And thanks for posting your first response here as well :wink: )

However:

Boephe wrote:

-incorrect use of loan, lend an borrow, all over the advertising world. Loan is a noun.

Quote:

Main Entry: loan Pronunciation Guide
Pronunciation: "
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): -ed/-ing/-s
transitive verb
1 : to lend (money) at interest
2 : LEND 1a <loaned her the clothes to wear and primped her to looking nice -- Carson McCullers>
3 : LEND 1c <our pink-cheeked conducting officer ... who had been loaned by the Red Signal Corps for the trip -- E.P.Snow>
4 dialect : BORROW 1 <can I loan a ladder from you for a day or so>
intransitive verb : to lend money at interest <in times of distress, loan to good customers -- N.S.B.Gras>

source: "loan." Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com (24 Sep. 2005).

And Webster's Collegiate Dictionary explains:

Quote:

usage: The verb loan is one of the words English settlers brought to America and continued to use after it had died out in Britain. Its use was soon noticed by British visitors and somewhat later by the New England literati, who considered it a bit provincial. It was flatly declared wrong in 1870 by a popular commentator, who based his objection on etymology. A later scholar showed that the commentator was ignorant of Old English and thus unsound in his objection, but by then it was too late, as the condemnation had been picked up by many other commentators. Although a surprising number of critics still voice objections, loan is entirely standard as a verb. You should note that it is used only literally; lend is the verb used for figurative expressions, such as "lending a hand" or "lending enchantment."

Source

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I agree with your source, Walter, indicating that "loan" can, indeed, be used as a verb quite legitimately. However, note that your definition 4 indicates that the use of "borrow" as a synonim for "loan" is strictly dialect and not generally accepted as "standard" English. It is similar to using "learn" and "teach" interchangeably, another dialect construction (as in "I'll learn you some manners.")

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Referring to the Usage Panel chichan said-

Quote:

You have to understand the purpose of the panel. They are there to placate all the old prescriptivists. You can, for most intents and purposes, ignore their opinions for the panel consists of people who know their language well, they just don't know how it works.

They are like most people who tend to just unthinkingly repeat what their old school marm told them.

They do need to try to maintain a certain standard in the language for the legal profession and for drafting legislation and for research papers and such like.Allowing street usage,which has its own fascinations,would lead to all sorts of difficulties as it often does on these threads.It would take a Solomon to unwind some of Dylan's quadruple negatives for a jury but we all know what he means.

I would ban "quite unique" because it means nothing.It renders the sentence it's in into the quack of a duck.A judge would roll his eyes despairingly if counsel tried that on him.This fag I'm smoking is unique.I'd stop reading at a "quite unique".

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spendius wrote:

I would ban "quite unique" because it means nothing.It renders the sentence it's in into the quack of a duck.A judge would roll his eyes despairingly if counsel tried that on him.This fag I'm smoking is unique.I'd stop reading at a "quite unique".

I diasgree with this, for reasons already stated: "Quite" means "completely", as well as "moderately"

So it is fine to say, for example,

Today has been quite perfect
This jewel is quite flawless
He is quite the strongest man I've ever known

And so it is quite correct and quite logical to say "quite unique"

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You missed my point Mac.

I was banning the phrase "quite unique" because everything is unique and absolutely so.Its illogicality is in its pointlessness.Every fashion is both unique and quite unique as well.

Today has been quite perfect is a bit ridiculous.What day couldn't be improved by winning the pools and quite a number of other things.It's flannel.

Also,I would guess that all jewels could be improved if one were to examine them closely.Thus, just as moderately flawless is daft so also is completely flawless.And that's assuming we have an agreed position on flawless jewels.So,again,we have flannel.

And finalee-"quite the strongest man I've ever known" ought IMHO to read "quite the strongest man whose strength I have tested".

If I was charged with being quite pedantic would it mean moderately pedantic or a complete a$$ole?

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Well, I've said enough on this to make my point.

I've not missed the point you are making, Spendius, but note: nor am I trying to modify "unique".

I stand by the examples I have given, and my conclusion.

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This discussion has gotten quite out of hand. For A2K, it is almost unique.

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Our chairman is quite right.

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Completely.

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No Joe-only moderately.

I could have argued with him but it pays to suck up to the chairman a bit.It's quite a good policy in moderation.

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have you guys heard about the anguish languish. It's quite funny. Not seen it myself yet and don't know if i can post the URL but you can google it. My dad says its interesting.

anyhow, you guys are idiots and would have a field day with my Dad who loves twisting words and stuff. (i don't mean the idiots literally, just moderately.)

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Boephe wrote:

have you guys heard about the anguish languish.

Yes, I have: Marry hatter ladle limb .... Shocked

A moderate idiot sounds good for me. Most leave the prefix 'moderate', so I sometimes think, it's my prename :wink:

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cool. I tried reading out the whole "Ladle rat rotten hut" and got to about the third paragraph and had to go lie down. Some of it easily rolls off the tongue but others are so tricky to see what they are saying.

I wonder whne we'll get an anguish dictionary. I'll be first to buy one. anyhoo, have a nice life.

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What are your pet peeves re English usage?

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