Virago:
One thing I cannot stand to hear is someone using "rech" (pronounced the same as wretch) for the past tense of reach. "I rech for the jar." I actually asked someone once if he wanted to have it in his hand, or if he wanted to throw up on it.
The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language:
" ... English is a global language with something like 400 million native speakers pronouncing the language in
many different ways: pronunciation differs across the world more than any other aspect of language."
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Virago:
Another thing I don't like to hear is
temperature in place of
fever. "I'm feeling sick. I think I have a temperature." Well, I should hope that you have a temperature. Perhaps you also have a fever!
JTT: I think you've been reading too much Richard Lederer, Bill Safire, or some of the other language entertainers, Virago. They write some cute books and columns about language but they are sorely lacking in substance.
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Virago:
This one is a bit nit picky, but I prefer not to hear the phrase "Have your cake and eat it too." This is supposed to mean having it both ways or having it all! To have your cake and eat it is no big deal. People do it all the time. Try
eating your cake and
having it too. Now that's having it all.
JTT: This is nit-picky and pedantic, too. Why? Because you know full well what the meaning is. Idioms and language have their own logic. Clearly the 'have' refers to a time after the cake has been consumed. It does not refer to the time before the cake has been eaten.
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Virago:
This one really bugs me. "I could care less." This implies that you do care some. If you could care less then you do care a little bit. It should read "I couldn't care less."
JTT: Both are correct, Virago, and both mean, more or less, the same thing. While this might seem odd at first blush, you have to remember that language says what people intend, not what some wag believes.
Here's one such wag, Paul Brians. He's quite good at making errors himself.
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Common Errors in English - Paul Brians
http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/care.html
Cliches are especially prone to scrambling because they become meaningless through overuse. In this case an expression which originally meant "it would be impossible for me to care less than I do because I do not care at all" is rendered senseless by being transformed into the now-common "I could care less." Think about it: if you could care less, that means you care some. The original already drips sarcasm, so it's pointless to argue that the newer version is "ironic." People who misuse this phrase are just being careless.
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JTT: Read his first sentence, above, an oft repeated canard. {Why can't these prescriptivists think for themselves?}
How is it possible for an idiom to become meaningless through overuse? There are of course countless idioms that have become meaningless to speakers of modern English through underuse.
It is of course, ludicrous to suggest that the original phrase has been "rendered senseless". If it had been "rendered senseless" Professor Brians could never have made the connection and he wouldn't be speaking about it.
Next, 'caring some' is not what those who seek solace want. "I could care less, but your problem doesn't rate very high at all on my list" hardly marks one as a caring person.
If we were to look at all the idioms/idiomatic phrases of English and test them for their logic, many would fail. But language has its own logic.
Paul Brians is out to lunch on his analysis. In point of fact, it is no analysis at all. "I could care less" is perfectly grammatical and it has full meaning within language. There's nothing more that's required.
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Virago:
And finally, my biggest peeve, the overuse of the word "literally". People incorrectly use "literally" when they are trying to impress upon you the degree to which they are affected by something. Literal means that something is exactly as stated. So, when someone says to me "It literally made my skin crawl" or "My eyes literally popped out of my head" I get a mental picture that I just don't want to have.
JTT: Virago, as you may have gathered by now, when we look into pet peeves, we often find that they have no substance themselves. Once again, you have to remember that language is determined by the people who use it.
Any word can acquire a new nuance, even a different meaning. When we check a dictionary, in this case, M-W online, we see that 'literally' is being used perfectly.
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M-W online:
literally
Function: adverb
1 : in a literal sense or manner : ACTUALLY <took the remark literally> <was literally insane>
2 : in effect : VIRTUALLY <will literally turn the world upside down to combat cruelty or injustice -- Norman Cousins>
usage Since some people take sense 2 to be the opposite of sense 1, it has been frequently criticized as a misuse. Instead, the use is pure hyperbole intended to gain emphasis, but it often appears in contexts where no additional emphasis is necessary.
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Next time, you hear or read some wag's comments on language, don't just swallow the tripe, hook, line and sinker, think about it a bit.
