What are your pet peeves re English usage?

Watched Good Will Hunting again last night,

"Once more INTO the breech"

I'll brooch no equivocation when it breaches quotation netiquette.

1 minute 52 seconds

Once more into the breeches. I have to change out of my pyjamas, and prepare to face the day.

Ms L: Because it's unpopular.

Anymore so than tomato or tomato?

Unpopular doesn't mean impossible, Ms Toad.

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AHD
http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/whence

Usage Note
The construction from whence has been criticized as redundant since the 18th century. It is true that whence incorporates the sense of from: a remote village, whence little news reached the wider world. But from whence has been used steadily by reputable writers since the 14th century, most notably in the King James Bible: "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help" (Psalms). Such a respectable precedent makes it difficult to label the construction as incorrect. Still, it may be observed that whence (like thence) is most often used nowadays to impart an archaic or highly formal tone to a passage, and that this effect is probably better realized if the archaic syntax of the word without from is preserved as well.

Is it just me, or is JTT really a pretentious dog dropping.

Nahh, it's not just you, glitter.

Thanks Lustig, sometimes I wonder if I'm too hard on people.

On people, well, maybe, sometimes. . .

Do you and merry have something against reputable sources, gb? You really get quite indignant when you are faced with the truth.

Darn, I meant on pretentious doggie doo doo.

How have you been, Merry "**** fair, I have no intention of being fair" Andrew?

Shhhhhhhhh, I think we woke up Quasimodo, we need to be very, very quiet.

All this thence and whence reminds me of "get thee hence portentous harridan" and other muckly mistaken obloquy.

http://www.shakespeareswords.com/hence-thence-and-whence



I compleatly concur. There is no linguistic error in that tomb. Although, one might be tempted to describe some of the words as unfashionable even today.

I also quite enjoyed,

" Thou and my bosom henceforth shall be twain " and

" Sent from my brother Worcester whencesoever",

as exemplars.


As to the tomatoes, I'd never say pure eh.

I am presuming that your post is a joke?

Bah-low-knee.
Paow-knee.

"Off of".

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is this phrase fairly new?

To me, you are either off, or on.

I don't know, but it's certainly peeve worthy.

We even have people saying they bought something off of ebay.

I walked into a small-town mom-and-pop once that had a small deli. The handwritten sign read "Bloney sandwiches." If only I'd had a camera at the time.

Yeah, I've been shown examples where the use of "off of" is legitimate English, but it seems to be getting dragged out all over the shop these days.