Nuances and Idiosyncrasies of the English Language

[Danimal506]

I live in Texas and we have the city of Houston, pronounced “Hews-ton”
In New York City they have a “Houston Street”, pronounced “House-ton”.

I don’t know why

New England’s also tend to say “standing on line” vs “standing in line”.

[tody]

@mclaincausey one of the things i, as a non native speaker, don‘t get. how can you get this wrong?

[Tago Mago]

@tody Have you seen some people write in German?

[mclaincausey]

@tody I think perhaps being a native speaker you fall prey to phonetics, and “would’ve” sounds somewhat like a lazy “would of.”

That and a lot of Americans are really, really dumb, so it never occurs to them that “would of” doesn’t make any kind of sense. You’re taking about people who forced the language to have the word “literally “ indicate its polar opposite, which rendered the word meaningless but unfortunately fell short of creating a species-ending rift in the space time continuum.

Another common one is “I could care less.” Oh? How much less could you care? (The turn of phrase is supposed to be “I couldn’t care less”).

[pechelman]

Irregardless of people being really dumb, for all intensive purposes, they just don't care.

And yes, I'm using the above sentence to share two other words/phrases that make me cringe when I hear them.

In some respects, I'm fine with the lexicon evolving, even if it breaks rules that were once considered standard like not breaking infinitives or ending phrases with prepositions; both of which seem to be fully accepted practice today.

[Giles]

@mclaincausey said in Nuances and Idiosyncrasies of the English Language:

I couldn’t care less

Which is all we know in UK

[Matt]

I could not care less than how much I currently care.

A little clunky I guess but grammatically sound.

[popvulture]

I feel like the Oxford Comma argument is just extremely frustrating, because in my head at least, both options have ways of making sense. I'd actually argue that the inclusion of the comma feels less conversational, adding a sort of unnecessary pause that could feel almost theatrical. That said, using it when writing ultimately just came to make sense to me.

Writing conversationally is a big thing, though — I do that a lot and see no problem with it. I think you can be that way and also be a stickler for grammar in other situations. It's just preference.

"Should of" is just unforgivable in my eyes, like I take a person down several intelligence rungs in my mind if I see them write it. I also had a coworker that said "makes since" instead of "sense" and man... I get irritable just thinking about it.

Had an ex who said "I feel badly" constantly and I was so happy to say goodbye to that (and other things) when our relationship ended.

"Between you and I" UGH.

The obscure one that makes me nuts is "chomping at the bit." Sounds weird, but it's "champing."

[mclaincausey]

Like I said above, that third comma is spoken as a pause when you’re listing more than two items. Try to not pause before the last list item in that scenario: “I have pen and pencil ready” (no pause) versus “I have pen, pencil, and eraser ready” (pauses at each comma). I really should have made that the primary argument because it’s even more sound than the syntactic arguments; my background in computer science and studying linguistics in that as well as English academic contexts kind of weighted my arguments towards logic and syntax where really it’s as simple as mirroring the spoken word correctly.

[Matt]

All these thing make me cringe (particularly improper usage of I and me) but I’ll be damned if I’m going to actively preach the gospel by correcting people. Except my kids for whom I’m responsible and my wife just so I can piss her off.

[popvulture]

Oh yeah I don't correct people — my dad screwed me up enough doing that shit to me. Luckily I've come to know better than to make other people feel responsible for my own neuroses.

Note: I edited this post enough to be like "hm probably should schedule a therapy appointment"

[Tago Mago]

Solution: add Weird Al to the curriculum:

[mclaincausey]

My mom corrected me ceaselessly. I’m at least grateful that I have good posture and a healthy back from the prohibition of slouching, but yeah, someone else is welcome to have my neuroses

There are even trivia like saying “lay down!” to the dog that bug me, though I dare not correct my wife when she says it. I just always say “lie down!” and hope she notices one day

[Matt]

Keep hoping.

[mclaincausey]

The only practical thing to do would be to let go…

…but if that were possible it wouldn’t be a neurosis.

[EdH]

@Matt @popvulture @mclaincausey

[popvulture]

@EdH Well that changes things for me

[mclaincausey]

I’d say, that he just, shits out commas, with the rest of his verbal, diarrhea and isn’t, doing it with, intent

[SKT]

@mclaincausey YOU FORGOT, ALL CAPS

[Matt]

I’m rest my case.