Yes yes, language changes over time. I've heard that mantra for decades and I know it. That doesn't mean there aren't language changes that aren't grating when they become fashionable (and hopefully temporary).

For me, "morals" being used as a crude catch-all application of "morality," "ethics," "integrity" or related concepts bothers me. Sentence example: "Maybe if society had morals there wouldn't be so many minorities in prison." lmayo us-foreign-policy

An even more annoying otherwise-fluent-speaker modification I see is when "conscious" is used to mean "consciousness" and "conscience" interchangeably. Sentence example: "Single mothers on welfare that steal baby formula have no conscious." It sounds like they're saying the shoplifter is not mentally aware of their own actions, not that they're lacking sufficient "morals" to let their baby starve for the sake of Rules-Based Order(tm).

There's others, but those two come up enough recently, with sufficient newness, for me to bring them up here. Some old classic language quirks are so established and entrenched that even though I hate them, bringing them up would likely invite some hatemail and maybe some mystery alt accounts also sending hatemail after that. You know, because they "could care less(sic)" about what I think. janet-wink

  • ChaosMaterialist [he/him]
    ·
    10 months ago

    English had a big French spelling phase, so a bunch of our words have entirely different phonetic sounds vs their spelling. I constantly mess this up. Go ahead, make me spell bourgoise or bureacracy the first time. Nope failed again! Conscious/Conscience are definitely in that category.

    For me I'm not sure if Math or Maths are correct ohnoes

      • UlyssesT [he/him]
        hexagon
        ·
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        Use a Kuh-nife when you do it, you bold Kuh-night of Time! knifecat

    • Gucci_Minh [he/him]
      ·
      10 months ago

      You're not a real leftist if you can spell bourgeiouiuiouiise on the first try

    • UlyssesT [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      10 months ago

      "Grey/gray" trips me the fuck up and I'm an English teacher. stalin-stressed

    • UlyssesT [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      10 months ago

      English had a big French spelling phase

      Laughs in William the Conqueror you-are-a-serf

    • temptest [any]
      ·
      10 months ago

      Fun page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences

      North Americans contract 'mathematics' to 'math', most other places shorten it to 'maths'. I don't even know if one is more "correct" or if the entire word 'mathematics' was a mistake. Honestly, the North Americans might be right about this one.

  • BeamBrain [he/him]
    ·
    10 months ago

    "Maybe if society had morals there wouldn't be so many minorities in prison."

    Funny enough, that's correct, just not in the way the person probably intended. The carceral state and institutional racism are indeed signs of a deeply immoral society.

    • FourteenEyes [he/him]
      ·
      10 months ago

      There is almost no scenario in which using the Oxford comma fails to improve sentence clarity.

      People are just too lazy to use punctuation for its intended purpose, I guess.

    • SerLava [he/him]
      ·
      10 months ago

      both the oxford comma and the lack of an oxford comma can introduce ambiguity in different situations.

      • JuneFall [none/use name]
        ·
        10 months ago

        both, the, oxford, comma, and, the, lack, of, an, oxford, comma, can, introduce, ambiguity, in, different, situations,.,

  • WoofWoof91 [comrade/them]
    ·
    10 months ago

    "could care less"

    THIS

    "it means the same thing!" they say

    IF COULD CARE LESS MEANS THE SAME AS COULD NOT CARE LESS THEN THE WORD "NOT" IS ENTIRELY MEANINGLESS

    dog-scremAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

    • UlyssesT [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      10 months ago

      The people that usually say "could care less" tend to "care less" about saying it correctly because apathy is super cool just like based atrocity enjoying stoner drunk science man Rick Sanchez said it was.

  • Lochat [none/use name]
    ·
    10 months ago

    The fact 99% of people use the word "logical" to mean "reasonable" because they literally don't know what logic is.

    • UlyssesT [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      10 months ago

      Logic means you feel very strongly about your opinion and you want to imply that those who disagree with you are illogical. expert-shapiro

  • nat_turner_overdrive [he/him]
    ·
    10 months ago

    I am irrationally irritated when people describe something as "addicting" rather than "addictive". I'm not even sure it's technically incorrect, and language is a fluid thing so this shouldn't irritate me. But I still have to consciously tell myself to not be annoyed by it.

    • RION [she/her]
      ·
      10 months ago

      In this house the only thing we call addicting is addictinggames.com 😤

    • UlyssesT [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      10 months ago

      That counts; the quirk doesn't even necessarily have to be "wrong" to be annoying to an individual.

      • nat_turner_overdrive [he/him]
        ·
        10 months ago

        In my defense I don't think I've ever actually corrected anybody, I just stew inside my own skull

        • UlyssesT [he/him]
          hexagon
          ·
          10 months ago

          I've given up on trying to correct people for the most part because language does change over time and new norms are established whether or not I'm comfortable with them. Sure, some of them are clumsy and staggeringly incorrect (like "conscious" being used in place of "conscience") but if it's done enough times, it'll become the expected way to communicate. angery

    • keepcarrot [she/her]
      ·
      10 months ago

      It feels like an Americanism to me. I pretty much only see it on the internet

  • PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS [he/him, they/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    I really hate the misuse of the word "pretentious." A lot of people use it to mean something like "pompous" when it's root is "pretense." It's only pretentious if someone is dissembling about how much they know about something. If someone actually knows as much about a subject as the appear to then it doesn't matter how annoying they are, it's still not pretentious.

    And that's my very specific pet peeve. And having this opinion is itself extremely annoying, but it's still not pretentious goddamnit

    • SootySootySoot [any]
      ·
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      A pretense doesn't have to be in relation to knowledge that someone holds. A pretense could be someone acting as if they're more dignified or esteemed than they are, which is practically the definition of pompous.

      • DroneRights [it/its]
        ·
        10 months ago

        I believe everyone should have the right to dignity no matter who they are

        • SootySootySoot [any]
          ·
          10 months ago

          As do I, but I'm using 'more dignified' in the sense of claiming to have a higher social status.

    • UlyssesT [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      10 months ago

      I dance that line a fair bit and while I usually mean the correct version, the one involving pretense and implications of some bigger grander something that isn't actually there, I may have annoyed you in the past by being too fast and loose with how I used it in the past. Sorry! sweat

  • Findom_DeLuise [she/her, they/them]
    ·
    10 months ago

    Corpo-speak e-mails from bloviating, self-important middle managers who regurgitate such turns of phrase as "at this time" and/or "in a timely manor [sic]" make my eye twitch. I can overlook a lot of the "synergizing our thought leaders with operational tempo" jargon salad, but the aforementioned phrases trigger my fight-or-flight response, probably because they reek of petty tyrant small business night manager mentality and bring me back to the headspace of dealing with bosses like that when I was a kid.

    I also once had to work with an IT project manager who insisted on pronouncing the word "processes" as if it had a long-E vowel sound in the plural ("pro-cess-eez"). It would derail my train of thought every fucking time.

    Also also once had a direct supervisor who would throw around "irregardless" almost daily.

    • UlyssesT [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      10 months ago

      AT THE END OF THE DAY

      LOOKING AHEAD

      ALL HANDS ON DECK

      TIGHTEN OUR BELTS

      capitalist-laugh

      Also also once had a direct supervisor who would throw around "irregardless" almost daily.

      I HATE THAT NON-WORD

      I HATE THAT NON-WORD

  • UlyssesT [he/him]
    hexagon
    ·
    10 months ago

    When Enlightened Centrists whine about someone having an agenda or a narrative. disgost

    • Egon [they/them]
      ·
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      Their regime.
      Our government.
      Their hand-picked successor.
      Our vice president.
      Their totalitarian authoritarianism.
      Our rules-based law and order.
      Their suppressed political dissidents receiving brutal crackdowns.
      Our protestors rioting without a permit, being shut down by the police.
      Their secret police.
      Our civilian police officers

  • muddi [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    "_ and I" hypercorrection, or maybe reanalysis if we're being more descriptivist.

    It's an interesting subject, and I'm kind of split on it as an amateur linguist, but as an English speaker it sticks out like a sore thumb to me. I think English prescriptivism has pushed the order of pronouns in collective noun/pronoun phrases too much (eg. he and I, not I and him), and people have started to reanalyze the phrase as a noun phrase in itself, but not everyone so it sounds weird to a slice of the population. Then there's disjunctive pronouns that throws a wrench in the works.

    Note: asterisk means it sounds ungrammatical to speakers of the language in linguistics (me in this case), no asterisk means okay to say. Also later correct reformulation means it's less common but still correct:

    Alice, Bob and I are going.

    *I are going.

    I am going.

    Me, Alice, and Bob are going.

    *Me are going.

    *Me am going.

    Want to join me?

    *Want to join I?

    *Want to join Alice, Bob and I? <-- this is the one that annoys me, but you might think it's fine

    Want to join Alice, Bob and me?

    Alice and Bob aren't going probably, but me, I'm going for sure

    Alice and Bob aren't going probably, but I, I'm going for sure

    It's me who is going

    It's me who am going <-- this is pushing it

    It's I who is going

    It's I who am going <-- actually acceptable, but I still do a double take

    Alice and Bob like to go more than me

    Alice and Bob like to go more than I

    • UlyssesT [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      10 months ago

      Sometimes I can be tricked into overthinking something that I had taken as an unexamined given until it no longer makes sense to me.

      And you just did that to me. angery

      • muddi [he/him]
        ·
        10 months ago

        I was interviewed by a linguist about my other native language once and it broke my ability to say stuff in that language for a day or two. It's only fair I get to do that to an Anglophone too joker-troll

  • Zezzy [she/her]
    ·
    10 months ago

    I hate linguistic prescriptionism and believe all English is fine if people understand what you mean, so things like this just gives me ammo to bother others in the future.

    I could care less about conscious vs conscious before, but now that I know it slightly annoys others I'll never spell it with the e ever again stalin-garrison

    • UlyssesT [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      10 months ago

      I know contrarianism is pretty hip so you do you I guess. yea

    • dolphin
      ·
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      deleted by creator

    • DroneRights [it/its]
      ·
      10 months ago

      What's your opinion on the movement to reintroduce singular they into public awareness? Do you hate it for being prescriptivist?

      • Zezzy [she/her]
        ·
        10 months ago

        Chauncer and Shakespeare use singular they, while the push for gender neutral "he" was much later, in the 1700s and 1800s. So from this view singular they is descriptive of how language has been used for hundreds of years, while arguing that it's a mistake or wrong would be prescriptive. And this is just anecdotal, but everyone where I live uses singular they (at least for unspecified gender people), even my grandma who uses old words and has heated elder moments.

        But even if singular they usage was brand new, I wouldn't consider advocacy as a form of prescriptivism. Prescriptivism usually comes from places of authority over language, like education and publishing, and states what's right and wrong to use. I don't see he-or-she being defined as incorrect by advocates of singular they, just clunky and exclusive. Not so much "this is wrong" as "we can do better than that". An appeal for niceness and understanding, rather than an accusation of improper language.

        People stop using words and phrases all the time, both intentionally or just picked up from their environment. Some words become offensive and others become disused, leading to them falling out of favor, and new words are coined all the time, sometimes as direct replacements. Just the inevitable evolution of language.

        Wikipedia does state that it may include politically correct language under the label, but I don't normally see that used in linguistic discussions in my experience. I would be hesitant to include that under it, since it seems to kinda stretch the definition to the point of not-super-usefulness where asking someone to stop saying slurs or correcting your name could be seen as prescriptivism. But of course, language is determined by its speakers, so if you would include those under it go ahead.

        Sorry that was pretty rambly, but basically I don't think its prescriptivist to ask someone to change their language to not hurt others.

  • wtypstanaccount04 [he/him]
    ·
    10 months ago

    Grammer is really quirky and I could literally talk about it for hours. The affect that grammer has on all of us is really something to behold, it really peaks my interest. Some people "go nucular" when talking about grammer but you and I are on the same page I think.

  • GaveUp [she/her]
    ·
    10 months ago

    People using "reactionary" instead of "reactive"

    • AlicePraxis [any]
      ·
      10 months ago

      and when you actually use "reactionary" correctly they think you mean reactive

  • RION [she/her]
    ·
    10 months ago

    Using "whilst" where "while" would work fine. Feels like the grammatical equivalent of plastic cutlery spray-painted chrome

      • RION [she/her]
        ·
        10 months ago

        so-true I'm just like a fancy British guy fr

        • UlyssesT [he/him]
          hexagon
          ·
          10 months ago

          That means they can say the c--t word because it's just chummy friendly slang even when they're using it to talk about feeeeeeemales that enrage them like Anita Sarkeesian! galaxy-brain

    • AssortedBiscuits [they/them]
      ·
      10 months ago

      Still weird to me how British people would use "whilst," but don't use "gotten." I suppose they would feel the same for USians since "gotten" was already considered old-fashioned before being picked up by USians again.

  • culpritus [any]
    ·
    10 months ago

    run the gambit

    when they mean

    run the gamut

    Maybe it's because I've been familiar with color gamut since like Photoshop 5 or something. And I know people that really likely know the gamut word but they just got the telephone version of the phrase at some point I guess.

    • culpritus [any]
      ·
      10 months ago

      There's quite a few of the 'telephoned' phrases, and it really grates on me. I don't normally interject though. Just a personal annoyance.

    • UlyssesT [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      10 months ago

      IF WE DONT CAPTURE THE TURRENT THEN WE LOOSE heated-gamer-moment

      • culpritus [any]
        ·
        edit-2
        10 months ago

        There's the saying about how if someone mispronounces a word, it likely means they learned it by reading.
        So I try not to get too uptight about this stuff. I remember when I first read 'clandestine' and my brain just assigned it 'candle-stine' as the pronunciation. And then there's just tons of accepted variations on some words as well.

        But ya, I think FF7 contributed significantly to 'run the gambit' becoming so common in use.

        • UlyssesT [he/him]
          hexagon
          ·
          10 months ago

          I admit I find "Rickyisms" funny. They get two birds stoned at once, though I doubt Ricky learned them from reading.

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3dYMQgopIY

          • NewLeaf
            ·
            10 months ago

            Water under the fridge

            Two turnips in heat

            Atoadaso

            • UlyssesT [he/him]
              hexagon
              ·
              edit-2
              10 months ago

              I know what the fuck a jah-lap-a-no is.

              Let's be friends with the Benedicts.

              volcel-judge "Shit clock's ticking, UlyssesT. We're watching you. Like a shithawk."

              • NewLeaf
                ·
                10 months ago

                Oh Mr Lahey, not another night of the shit abyss...

        • Outdoor_Catgirl [she/her, they/them]
          ·
          10 months ago

          Yeah making fun of people for mispronouncing words is silly because you are just making fun of someone for reading more than people around them.

        • RION [she/her]
          ·
          10 months ago

          That's me! Read way more than I talked and so sounded very strange trying to say the new words I learned