What are your pet peeves re English usage?

That reminds me of a New Yorker cartoon, where two adults were looking at a child with a new construction toy.

Caption: "It's a new toy designed to teach them about life. Whichever way you put it together, it's wrong."

6) Using foreign phrases and mispronouncing them. I heard on the radio the other day someone attempt "pince-nez." He pronounced it as spelled.

This is so common and egregious that I'm sure it has already been said.
I am appalled by reference to "healthy food" when it is not meant that they are disease-free.
Grapes are healthful, not healthy; they help you remain healthy.

AHD:

healthy

SYLLABICATION: health·y

ADJECTIVE: Inflected forms: health·i·er, health·i·est

2. Conducive to good health; healthful: healthy air.


USAGE NOTE: The distinction in meaning between healthy ("possessing good health") and healthful ("conducive to good health") was ascribed to the two terms only as late as the 1880s. This distinction, though tenaciously supported by some critics, is belied by citational evidence?-healthy has been used to mean "healthful" since the 16th century. Use of healthy in this sense is to be found in the works of many distinguished writers, with this example from John Locke being typical: "Gardening . . . and working in wood, are fit and healthy recreations for a man of study or business." Therefore, both healthy and healthful are correct in these contexts: a healthy climate, a healthful climate; a healthful diet, a healthy diet.

http://www.bartleby.com/61/65/H0106500.html

JTT, the only situation in which a healthy diet may consist of healthy components is when we eat the meat of healthy animals. A plant may be lacking in nutrients (and is therefore not healthful) but it may be healthy (not suffering a plant disease) .
No, I had not seen this perspective in a manual. The only manual I have is The Elements of Style by Strunk and White, but it should obvious that I do not consult it.

coworker and coop housing

it's co-worker and co-op housing, please!

only for ease of understanding - it looks like a cow worker...
it's not necessary, of course, but...

Mame wrote:

only for ease of understanding - it looks like a cow worker...
it's not necessary, of course, but...

Okay.

To me it looks like a 'cow orker'. I wonder, does that describe somebody who 'orks' cows? I wonder if it's fun.

JTT wrote:

Mame wrote:

only for ease of understanding - it looks like a cow worker...
it's not necessary, of course, but...

Okay.

To me it looks like a 'cow orker'. I wonder, does that describe somebody who 'orks' cows? I wonder if it's fun.

Why not try it some time, JTT?