What are your pet peeves re English usage?

According to that same dictionary, Letty, principle can be used only as a noun. Principal can be an adjective or noun, depending on usage.

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Merry Andrew wrote:

On a recent radio program, someone brought up the subject of using "loan" as a verb, a practice which has become so common we hardly notice it. This person insisted that "loan" can be used only as a noun. You take out a loan, but the bank doesn't loan it to you, it lends you the money. "Did Shakespeare write 'Friends, Romans, countrymen, loan me your ears'?" this speaker asked rhetorically.

I'm interested in what you all think. (I'm not entirely sure what I think. I have mixed feelings about this.)

We think of it as an Americanism. Loan is not used here in that way.

However here in the NW of this country, "borrow" and "lend" are often interchanged!

I mean, "borrow" is used instead of "lend", as if the word did not exist, in a constuction like, e.g.

"Could you borrow me a fiver till Friday?"

Unbelievable. But thankfully localised.

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Funny, loan doesn't seem wrong as a verb to me, just less common than lend. But I see that it is labelled AmE in the latest Longman dictionary. Children often seem to confuse borrow and lend, I remember it well when I taught 6 year olds; if they aren't put right, it probably stays 'wrong'!

Rent and lease and let are all kind of synonymous but used differently in UK and US, I think.

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Dear Clary, you are much more forgiving and reasonable than any pedagogue I know.

Smile

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glow - but reasonable doesn't usually cut it on this thread!

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Hey, come to the British Thread....but put on your tin hat first!

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Sort of apropos... A Scottish farmer was in his field digging up his potatoes.
An American farmer looked over the fence and said
"In Texas we grow potatoes 5 times larger than that!"
The Scotsman replied " Ah but we just grow them for our own mouths son!"

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The use of 'borrow' for 'lend' is not unknown in the US. But, just as in the UK, it is considered a regionalism, largely confined to the hill country of the Southeast part of the States. (Either that, or a sign of gross ignorance. Smile

)

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I've never heard borrow and lend mixed up..very strange

I think I can just about stomach loan as a verb

But my pet peeve of the day (ppod) is was.

as in

We was going to the hospital

You was doing what?

People here say was instead of were constantly...I struggle to avoid it myself.

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Steve, that's not uncommon here, either. But it seems to be on the wane. I used to hear it a lot more when I was a kid than I do now. It brands one as woefully uneducated and is avoided by the majority of native E-speakers.

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Andy, I had forgotten about principal as an adjective, i.e. the principal parts of a verb, but I still am unconvinced that principle can only be used as a noun. Ah, well. I do appreciate the challenge, buddy.

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Forget borrow me five dollars, 'K? What about "that'll learn ya?"

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Letty wrote:

Andy, I had forgotten about principal as an adjective, i.e. the principal parts of a verb, but I still am unconvinced that principle can only be used as a noun. Ah, well. I do appreciate the challenge, buddy.

'principle' > from Latin principium (beginning),

'principal' > from Latin principalis first AND 'principal' > from princip- (princeps first person) chief + -alis

(Ages ago since I passed my advanced Latin proficiency exam [Great Latinum]. :wink: )

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Walter, I took Latin in high school and made an A. The teacher liked me and I was good at memorizing. I didn't earn the A, however. Razz

Thank you for the word origins.

edited for too many "howevers"

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I have a new peeve, and it's STOOD or SAT. Time was, we said "I was standing at the back", "There he was, sitting in the mud." Nowadays everyone says they were stood at the back, or sat in the mud. Sounds as though someone had put them there. I dislike it.

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I thought that was purely a northern thing. Shocked

We pub pedants here in the north are fond of putting people right about that.

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I've heard this expression, and wonder about the why of it.

"of a Sunday". I suppose that grammatically it's acceptable, but it sounds odd to me.

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One thing that drives me nuts is when someone will say "I graduated college"!

How can anyone "graduate" a college?

It should be "I graduated from college"...

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I thought that was an American aberration.

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This is more a ranting about the use of foreign words (here: German) in other (here: English) languages.

"Brown made a blitz visit in Berlin" wouldn't sound good, I suppose, because 'blitz' generally is connected with 'war'.

But the German prefix 'Blitz-' (= flash/lightning) indicates something fast (including the most common tautology: "blitzschnell" = as quick as a flash).

So a Blitzbesuch is a very short visit. Blitzgespräch is a very short phonecall. A Blitzkarriere is a surprisingly fast carreer ...

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What are your pet peeves re English usage?

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