What are your pet peeves re English usage?

I'm not sure you have understood my point, unless you completely disagree with it.

You can ask for a cash payment, a gift, inducement, or reward, or a "bung" (slang used here, maybe not elsewhere), but you can't ask for a "bribe".
Bribing is a one-way action.
imho.

LOL, are you calling me a poseur? What is that about?

Let me get this straight, McTag. Let's pretend it's you that I want to bribe.

I can ask you if you will accept something of value in order to confer upon me a benefit that it is within your power to confer, but you can't ask,

"Are you willing to pay me/bribe me with the sum of X pounds?"

I can ask you for a sum of money.

You can offer me a bribe.

To be bribing someone, you are making the offer in the absence of a request, strictly speaking.
That's what I'm saying.

Are you sure about this? I used to work for a financial/legal entity in the UK and as far as I am aware, a corrupt inducement (bribe) can be offered by the briber or asked for (solicited) by the bribed person. Either way, if the money changes hands (or bank accounts) then it's a bribe. It's like that in most branches of English. For example, In 1979, Alcee Hastings was appointed a federal judge for the Southern District of Florida by President Jimmy Carter. Two years later, Hastings was indicted on charges of conspiring to solicit a bribe from two defendants awaiting sentencing in his court. In Australia, too, it's an offence to solicit and/or receive a bribe.

That makes sense to me. I'd not previously heard of the concept that it's not a bribe if it was solicited.

I've not convinced everyone of this, not even my friends who know stuff.

But my dictionary says a bribe has to be offered. If you ask for it, it's not a bribe, it's simply a payment.

or a payoff.

Well, what, I've argued with dictionaries before...

but if some want to make that distinction, ok with me. I just don't.

Bribes is all there is, they make the world go round.
Bribes and only bribes, it can't be denied.
No matter what you say about them, you won't be able to do without them,
Take a tip from one who tried.

Is tipping like bribing?

Of course. It is the lower-middle-class version. To keep their hand in in case they ever rise higher.

No you are the poser, I am the poseur.

A cursory examination of the definition of 'bribe' reveals that it can be sought or solicted so the answer to your conundrum is no.

An examination of the definition in two decent dictionaries in my possession gives the opposite result. Just fancy that.

Still, you seem to be in a majority here.

I don't give a damn about the use of bribe, but i do wonder why McT is peeved about it . . .

My only dictionary agrees with you, but it's American and might not count.

The American language is certainly held in low esteem around here.

I can't countenance that happenstance. I shall therefore acquiesce to agree with you.

late 14c., "thing stolen," from O.Fr. bribe "bit, piece, hunk; morsel of bread given to beggars" (14c.), from briber, brimber "to beg," a general Romanic word (Gamillscheg marks it as Rotwelsch, i.e. "thieves' jargon"), of uncertain origin. Shift of meaning to "gift given to influence corruptly" is first attested 1530s. As a verb, from late 14c. Related: Bribed; bribing.

A word's etymology is not always a reliable guide to what it means in current English.

Indeed , it's a way to construe why some words originally meant something more constrained that alternative definitions.

New language always seems to enhance communication and its enjoyment.

Would you two guys stop talking sense about language? This here's the Pet Peeves thread.