What are your pet peeves re English usage?

@laughoutlood,

The lady in Coronation Street used to refer to her "muriels"

Always refreshing to see minuscule spelled correctly. Little things mean a lot.

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On a BBC news report this week, about the murder of a family in France, we were told that the family car was "strewn" with bullet holes.

Odd usage, I thought.

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@McTag,

Odder still if the accuracy was of such a calibre that the car was unstrewn by bullets.

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@laughoutlood,

Calibre, ha! No wonder this is such a difficult language for learners.

but I was focussing on strew, strewn. Strewth!

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@McTag,

Strewth in gods we tryst, i hate intentional typos that i don't comprehend.

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@McTag,

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Always refreshing to see minuscule spelled correctly.

That's certainly one variant, McTag, as is miniscule. Why would a forward thinking person like yourself be peeved by such a commonplace word as miniscule?

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Little things mean a lot.

So now, all of a sudden, detail is important in language.

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@JTT,

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as is miniscule. Why would a forward thinking person like yourself be peeved by such a commonplace word as miniscule?

A variant, you say? One lives and learns. Round here, if you write miniscule, the children laugh and point at you in the street.

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@McTag,

Quote:

Round here, if you write miniscule, the children laugh and point at you in the street.

Yes, I've seen some of the stuff you folks have tried to teach children, McTag.

"It may be, in fact, that miniscule is now the more common form."

TMWDoEU, pg 637

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@McTag,

A use of strew in my work is a term "Strewn field" which has 2 meanings , each relating to an on-ground pattern made by incoming space rocks or melted spherules.
The use just sounds awkward and is a poor choice of words IMHO.

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@farmerman,

One might contend im<ho that,

"Literature is strewn with the wreckage of those who have minded beyond reason the opinion of others."

is an odd usage however I aint never seen a strewn I didn't like at least minuscularly as the great miniscus in the sky is my witness.

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@McTag,

While meeting my future in laws in Raleigh, North Carolina, I encountered many versions of strown.... It could be strown about, strewn about, and since it was 1979 I have forgotten all the variations of strow. It usually meant tossed about with little concern for ordinarily ordered placement. It's used differently in different parts of the country.

As far as the poor murdered family, I would have used riddled (but I'm in the US). BBC would use strewn, much like the old Southern States.

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@JTT,

TMWDoEU, pg 637

I bet MW stands for Merriam-Webster. Figures.

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@JTT,

Quote:

So now, all of a sudden, detail is important in language.

Detail? Detail?

This from the guy who writes "500,000 hits written on the Interweb, so it must be right"!

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@McTag,

What is it with your inability to face reality, McTag?

MW, like all good scientists uses facts, corpus studies and the like, to figure out how language works. You, on the other hand, seem to want to rely on mom and dad's admonitions, or some wag's book that because you have invested a few pounds you feel you have to believe all the crap you're fed.

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@McTag,

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Detail? Detail?

Caught out, so here comes the tangent.

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This from the guy who writes "500,000 hits written on the Interweb, so it must be right"!

Did you get a PM from Setanta? That was a favorite tangent of his.

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Not to change the subject, but all the references to "on the ground" are becoming more annoying by the day. Battles are not won because someone had more boots on the ground. Car makers don't fail because their product is thin on the ground.

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@JTT,

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What is it with your inability to face reality, McTag?

I hope you come soon to realise that your reality is not other people's reality, and that you can stick your reality up your arse.

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@roger,

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Not to change the subject, but all the references to "on the ground" are becoming more annoying by the day.

This would qualify as a pet peeve but I guess these peeves are so eminently clear that they don't even require any explanation, right, Rog?

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Battles are not won because someone had more boots on the ground. Car makers don't fail because their product is thin on the ground.

Are you sure you understand the meaning of the phrase?

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@McTag,

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I hope you come soon to realise that your reality is not other people's reality,

I have noticed that. This thread is as fine an example of that as one could possibly imagine. But that only strengthens this position I've put to you and severely weakens yours.

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and that you can stick your reality up your arse.

While that might make you feel momentarily better, I'm afraid that it doesn't in any manner advance your position.

And consider just how ludicrous your position is. Hundreds of spelling variations occur between dialects of English.

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@JTT,

Quote:

Hundreds of spelling variations occur between dialects of English.

And is that what we're discussing here? No, it isn't.

So please don't be disingenuous, nor dishonest.

1 Reply

What are your pet peeves re English usage?

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