What are your pet peeves re English usage?

I absolutely hate the term "friendly fire"- what on Earth is that!

"At this moment in time"- what else is it in?

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I know a guy who is always turning round and saying something.

He also is fond of saying "I'll tell you something...." And "Tell you what...." just before he tells you something, or tells you what. It is very wearing.

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I heard Katherine Whitehorn lamenting that she was 'the only person in England' who knew the difference between further and farther. Apparently further comes from going forth, so is movement, but farther comes from far and is static... must remember to have that as a peeve...

Another panellist on the 'Quote ... Unquote' quiz said he hated 'PIN number' - since the N in PIN stands for number.

And someone just now has been beefing about the cliche of the 'elephant in the room'.

Peeves are alive and well and living in middle-class Britain!

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Futher, I'll take that farther to the pub, to entertain the peasantry therein.

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You go that far as bringing them fodder for thought?

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No, my fodder doesn't drink any more.

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A merkin is too too incensing when one means to say American. How utterly ineffable.

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Clary wrote:

I heard Katherine Whitehorn lamenting that she was 'the only person in England' who knew the difference between further and farther. Apparently further comes from going forth, so is movement, but farther comes from far and is static... must remember to have that as a peeve...

Another panellist on the 'Quote ... Unquote' quiz said he hated 'PIN number' - since the N in PIN stands for number.

And someone just now has been beefing about the cliche of the 'elephant in the room'.

Peeves are alive and well and living in middle-class Britain!

Odd. I'd heard the opposite. But your reasoning bests me.

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Hmmm. Perhaps I am being redundant, but I have always thought that "further" meant delving into a mental process such as "further into the matter", while farther meant distance, etc.

I never liked collateral damage, either; talk about understatement.

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A military man on our TV news this morning said they were going to fire a missile at a malfunctioning spy satellite to bring it down and to "off-gas" it.

Offgas. That's a new one to me. Come to think of it, I can use that. :wink:

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A policeman on the news said that they were keeping a 'weathered' eye on something or other.

http://www.cbm.org/en/general/images/1863010_c418373ed2.jpg

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I wonder whether weathered eyes are jaundiced eyes--without the symbolic yellow?

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merkin

solipsister wrote:

A merkin is too too incensing when one means to say American. How utterly ineffable.

Years ago, when I was a librarian in Kansas City, I worked at the information desk where people could call in for definitions of words, spelling, etc. A very deaf woman called one day to ask the meaning of the word "merkin." I looked it up in the OED and read that it meant "artificial pubic hair." I tried to convey this to the woman, and by the time I was finished, I was shouting "ARTIFICIAL PUBIC HAIR" across the lobby of the library.

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Speaking of shouting things out in a quiet place, every year in September the hospitals round here get their influx of new junior doctors, and the nurses like to play practical jokes on them.

On young doctor, calling for his next patient from a crowded waiting room, was given the following name to call out, which he did:

"NORMA STITZ!"

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From a post on A2K today:

Baseball, the great American pass-time.

Wouldn't that be football?

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Do you wile away the hours, or while them away? Both work, logically, kind of.
You see both nowadays.

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I'm one to wile away the hours--but then I'd read the expression over and over before I heard someone actually say it.

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I'm a "while" person myself.

Oh they while away the hours
In their ivory towers
Till they're covered up with flowers
In the back of a black limousine

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On that topic, this is quite interesting:

http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-whi3.htm

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McTag--

Very interesting. Thank you.

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What are your pet peeves re English usage?

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