What are your grammar bugbears?
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The apostrophe thing really grinds my gears. Especially “it’s” vs “its”. It’s not very hard, “it’s” is a contraction meaning “it is”. Otherwise, it’s possessive. This homonym is its own worst enemy.
I hate that “jealousy” has devoured “envy”. “Language is fluid”, they always say, but those two words have very different meanings!
wrote on last edited by [email protected]I hate that “jealousy” has devoured “envy”. “Language is fluid”, they always say, but those two words have very different meanings!
You'll have to hate the Greeks for that then, because the usage of Ancient Greek ζῆλος (zêlos, from which we get both of the doublets "jealous" and "zealous") already overlapped with what we now call "envy", and this overlap was borrowed into Latin as zelosus (which still overlapped with the native Latin word invidiosus that became envy), and thence into Old French jalous, which continued to overlap with envie.
That is to say, as far back as we can trace, jealous has always also meant envious, and they've coexisted in that manner since at least Classical Latin.
As with most of the obnoxiously pedantic "facts" about language in threads like this one, this supposed "distinction" is recent, artificial, and only exists to give those in the know a false sense of superiority over those without the "secret knowledge". The secret knowledge is usually (as it is in this case) literally wrong, but all that matters to them, of course, is that they have a reason to think of themselves as better than other people.
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Abberant apostrophes (and missing ones).
Sentences that miss out words for no reason: e.g. "A couple things" vs. "A couple of things".
Confusing envy and jealousy.
The above is a personal list; I don't get judgemental about others' grammar but I do cringe internally.
See my comment here about why there is no such thing as confusing envy and jealousy, because "jealousy" has always included the meaning of envy for at least the past 2500 years.
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Are you jealous people who aren;t bothered by those errors?
Well done on that semi-colon: really pushing my buttons!
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I hate that “jealousy” has devoured “envy”. “Language is fluid”, they always say, but those two words have very different meanings!
You'll have to hate the Greeks for that then, because the usage of Ancient Greek ζῆλος (zêlos, from which we get both of the doublets "jealous" and "zealous") already overlapped with what we now call "envy", and this overlap was borrowed into Latin as zelosus (which still overlapped with the native Latin word invidiosus that became envy), and thence into Old French jalous, which continued to overlap with envie.
That is to say, as far back as we can trace, jealous has always also meant envious, and they've coexisted in that manner since at least Classical Latin.
As with most of the obnoxiously pedantic "facts" about language in threads like this one, this supposed "distinction" is recent, artificial, and only exists to give those in the know a false sense of superiority over those without the "secret knowledge". The secret knowledge is usually (as it is in this case) literally wrong, but all that matters to them, of course, is that they have a reason to think of themselves as better than other people.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]That's a bit harsh. When I say someone is envious as opposed to jealous, I am trying to convey a particular meaning. It doesn't bother me if someone uses the terms interchangeably as I can usually work out what they mean, but I do like my communication to be as clear as possible.
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I hate that “jealousy” has devoured “envy”. “Language is fluid”, they always say, but those two words have very different meanings!
You'll have to hate the Greeks for that then, because the usage of Ancient Greek ζῆλος (zêlos, from which we get both of the doublets "jealous" and "zealous") already overlapped with what we now call "envy", and this overlap was borrowed into Latin as zelosus (which still overlapped with the native Latin word invidiosus that became envy), and thence into Old French jalous, which continued to overlap with envie.
That is to say, as far back as we can trace, jealous has always also meant envious, and they've coexisted in that manner since at least Classical Latin.
As with most of the obnoxiously pedantic "facts" about language in threads like this one, this supposed "distinction" is recent, artificial, and only exists to give those in the know a false sense of superiority over those without the "secret knowledge". The secret knowledge is usually (as it is in this case) literally wrong, but all that matters to them, of course, is that they have a reason to think of themselves as better than other people.
Ah, there you are.
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That's a bit harsh. When I say someone is envious as opposed to jealous, I am trying to convey a particular meaning. It doesn't bother me if someone uses the terms interchangeably as I can usually work out what they mean, but I do like my communication to be as clear as possible.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]I wasn't trying to say that you necessarily were trying to feel superior - just that that's why those so-called "distinctions" exist in the first place.
The reality is that natural human languages are always and inevitably unclear, redundant, etc., and there's literally no way to change that. Even if you taught babies a logical conlang (constructed language) like lojban as their first language, within a single generation you'd begin to see ambiguity introduced into the system, because that's just how humans are wired.
Language only has to be clear enough, which is borne out by the fact that every human has a different grammar, and yet we are all still able to communicate satisfactorily. There is no clarity to be gained from a pedantic differentiation between "jealousy" and "envy", since in the vast majority of cases the intended meaning is immediately clear from context, and in the tiny minority of cases where it isn't, an extra word or two will do the trick perfectly well, and that extra word or two will usually come naturally and unconsciously on the part of the speaker.
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Ah, there you are.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Here I am, calling out pedants for being literally and demonstrably wrong about language for two (and a half thousand, under the sloppy reading) years and counting!
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Here I am, calling out pedants for being literally and demonstrably wrong about language for two (and a half thousand, under the sloppy reading) years and counting!
“I see your pedantry, and raise you triple-dog pedantry!”
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I sign this as well. It’s literally a character difference and there is no ambiguity at all. There is no downside.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]The downside is that with appositive phrases present the Oxford comma can introduce ambiguity:
"Thanks to my mother, Mother Teresa, and the pope."
In the Oxford comma system this is ambiguous between three people (1. my mother 2. Mother Teresa 3. the pope), and two people (1. my mother, who is Mother Teresa 2. the pope). Without the Oxford comma it's immediately clear that ", Mother Teresa," is an appositive phrase.
The opposite happens as well, where Oxford commas allow true appositives to be unintentionally read as lists:
"They went to Oregon with Betty, a maid, and a cook", where Betty is the maid mentioned.
This ambiguity is easily fixed, of course, but then again so is any ambiguity from not using an Oxford comma as well.
Note that I use the Oxford comma myself, but it's still worth mentioning that both systems are ambiguous, just in different ways.
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“I see your pedantry, and raise you triple-dog pedantry!”
wrote on last edited by [email protected]The difference being that my "pedantry" is informed by history and linguistic theory, and is intended to stop linguistic prejudice, as opposed to the pedantry threads like this are magnets for: perpetuating linguistic prejudice while being completely wrong in the process.
Edit: Typo
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A wall of text with no punctuation.
It's getting (or has been for some time) terrible on Reddit. Kids just narrating into their phones without taking a breath and clicking post without reading back over that text wall. I find this primarily in the paranormal subs that I read when I can't fall asleep at night.
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The difference being that my "pedantry" is informed by history and linguistic theory, and is intended to stop linguistic prejudice, as opposed to the pedantry threads like this are magnets for: perpetuating linguistic prejudice while being completely wrong in the process.
Edit: Typo
You have an unnecessary comma in there.
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You have an unnecessary comma in there.
wrote on last edited by [email protected]Not with the inflection I intended that sentence to be pronounced with, illustrating quite nicely how writing is not language.
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I absolutely detest the practice of saying the "the proper nouns of the world," i.e the Tom Brady's of the world. Or the Empire State buildings of the world. First off, it's a proper noun. The implication of a proper noun is there is only one specific instance. Second, that's diminishing to the proper noun used by lowering that status to the mean. Last, it's usually used in a sports context to unnecessarily group up a bunch of players even though we already know the context of why they're being grouped up for comparison. It's just fucking dumb. It really grinds my gears.
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I absolutely detest the practice of saying the "the proper nouns of the world," i.e the Tom Brady's of the world. Or the Empire State buildings of the world. First off, it's a proper noun. The implication of a proper noun is there is only one specific instance. Second, that's diminishing to the proper noun used by lowering that status to the mean. Last, it's usually used in a sports context to unnecessarily group up a bunch of players even though we already know the context of why they're being grouped up for comparison. It's just fucking dumb. It really grinds my gears.
Oh, great, now I’m going to notice this one too. Thanks for causing me more consternation.
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People who use "can" to mean either "can" OR "can't" and expect you to work out what they mean from context.
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"What" and "which" being used interchangeably.
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"What" and "which" being used interchangeably.
Oh that's a good one. I can feel my blood pressure rising.
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Some of mine in no particular order:
- Comma splices.
- Using apostrophes to make abbreviations plural. It's UFOs, not UFO's. This goes for decades, too. It's 1920s, not 1920's.
- Putting punctuation in the wrong place when parentheticals are involved (like this.) (Or like this).
- Same for quotations. Programmers in particular seem averse to putting punctuation on the inside where it usually belongs.
- Mixing up insure, ensure, and assure.
- Using 'that' where 'who' is more appropriate. For example, "People that don't use their blinkers are annoying."
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The downside is that with appositive phrases present the Oxford comma can introduce ambiguity:
"Thanks to my mother, Mother Teresa, and the pope."
In the Oxford comma system this is ambiguous between three people (1. my mother 2. Mother Teresa 3. the pope), and two people (1. my mother, who is Mother Teresa 2. the pope). Without the Oxford comma it's immediately clear that ", Mother Teresa," is an appositive phrase.
The opposite happens as well, where Oxford commas allow true appositives to be unintentionally read as lists:
"They went to Oregon with Betty, a maid, and a cook", where Betty is the maid mentioned.
This ambiguity is easily fixed, of course, but then again so is any ambiguity from not using an Oxford comma as well.
Note that I use the Oxford comma myself, but it's still worth mentioning that both systems are ambiguous, just in different ways.
Interesting. I never thought of that before. Thanks!
