What are your pet peeves re English usage?

Let's hope that in the interim you will learn to spell simple words such as program without unnecessary and frenchified elaboration . . .

We use "programme" in England because it is too easy to confuse "program" with "pogrom" which means to wreak havoc.

(see article on the Harvard Business School on ID thread.)

Ha! It must really pain you to write mayonnaise, lazarette, bouillabaisse, or other such words redolent of style and sophistication.

Cigaret looks incomplete too. Get with the programme.

Is it too late for the USA to learn from its horrible lingustic mistakes? I fear it may be.

:wink:

I cannot recall any occasion in my entire life in which i was called upon to write mayonnaise, lazarette or bouillabaisse--and although i consider them to be redolent, it is not sophistication of which they reek.

Tell, me, oh Great Poobah of Briticisms, do you still write musick and magick, or have you adopted Mr. Webster's more sensible spellings?

Look who's talking! The gentleman from shoppe-dwelling America.

Sensible pah! When the sabots of Mr Webster had done their work, a nation was doomed to receive an impoverished birthright.

I am not responsible for the affectations of silly shop keepers in New Jersey, no more than i am for the imperfect comprehension of the use of the American language by German immigrants.

When driving in my automobile today (French word- and it's a Peugeot too!) I was singing along with Little Deuce Coupe by Les Garcons de la Plage

In fact, i saw a 1932 Ford coupe just a few weeks ago.

Thinking of coops and coupes:

I phoned a Continental Airlines helpdesk last week, and the (US) desk person informed me "we don't fly that routey"

That is, she said route to rhyme with pouty.

That's a new one on me.

(btw I say it like "root", not "rout" )

Why you still be axeing dis queshon? We be done wid it.

Yeah--they should study Mencken. That's as proportionally boring as the number of words it has in it to this topic.

A propos of routey, have you seen pouffé? And en revanche, I was told on the phone by a caterer that they did canapes (to rhyme with drapes).

Have you really got a four-poster bed Clary? With curtains and smoky-sticks?

No kidding?

Ratiocinately obfuscatory idiolect.

I do mostly agree with Set re: spelling. The 'que' spellings and the proliferation of vowels are, to my eye, just silly. However, in defense of the Brits (yes, I prefer 'defense' to 'defence' inasmuch as that's how it's pronounced), there are at least two words which they spell more sensibly than the Yanks -- kerb and whisky. The former can leave absolutely no doubt as to proper pronunciation; the latter, quite sensibly, does away with the superfluous 'e'.

OK. I can count. If you include 'defense', that's three words. (However, I abhor 'tyre.' That's a place name and should be capitalized.)

On the other hand, tire is what happens to me when I read these arguments.

I may visit Albukerky soon, btw.

I really think Webster did you guys a big disservice, all kidding aside.

We've got checks and cheques, checkers and chequers. You haven't.

The distinctions are useful. They mean different things.

While some letters may have disappeared, McTag, the distinctions haven't necessarily. They may have gone, of course if the word was no longer useful.

'get' has but one spelling and some, what is it, ..., 150 different meanings. Lots of words have multiple meanings. Consider how many different meanings the word **** has.

Here's an example where even with the "wrong" choice, most people unconsciously inserted the "right" meaning.

British "UFO" Hacker Faces 70 Years In US Prison For Military Breeches

Yeah, okay, the military really has some weird clothing but isn't 70 years a bit much. Given this 99% of fashion designers should get life.

Oh--I don't know about that JTT.

Trying to make a raw-boned, predatory hunk of flesh look good is rather a caring and compassionate vocation.