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English, US English twice as often, is a language that likes to borrow words from other countries and adopt them without changes. Some purist philologers decry this but other accept it as a good thing. But why, oh why some guys can not be bothered to learn the damn word?

It´s Voila from the French Voilà meaning to express satisfaction with the job done, Lo!, There it is. Viola it´s a string instrument bigger than a violin

It´s Guerrilla from the Spanish Guerrilla meaning an irregular party or group fighting a war. Also a non-official war carried out by small independent groups. Gorilla is the largest ape living in the World.

It´s Rogue A scoundrel, rascal or unprincipled, deceitful, and unreliable person. Rouge is a shade of red.

Given how this words have very different pronunciations it´s not so difficult

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M.

The simple reason is that many people are not as intelligent as you. Other examples are the 'specific' ocean - you know? That big one between the UK and the US. Also, my own personal bugbear is the wrongful use of the word Unique. Unique means a one of a kind thing. Something cannot be 'very unique' or 'more unique', something either is unique or it is not. End of discussion. In the same way that an animal is dead or it isn't. No animal can be very dead, or more dead than another.

Im afraid Im with InyokaMadoda on this one. Most people I know dont take the time to actually read things properly, & as a result, they either use the wrong word altogether or an incorrect pronunciation.

The golden example being a fellow I know who pronounces 'resident evil' as 'resinton evil'

Surreal is the one that gets me. It means something that is like a dream, that feels unreal. People use it all the time to mean odd or slightly unusual.

I know its a living language and we should look at meaning over form, but some misuses of phrases just get to you, yeah?

For me its...

Teh: An internet slang neologism most frequently used as an English article, based on a common misspelling of the.

Not because I'm leet, but because I've become incapable of typing THE.

I find your rant about words too wordy...

Texans! That´s what you get when you go and allow a republic full with ingrates

M.

Miguelsan wrote:Texans! That´s what you get when you go and allow a republic full with arrogant ers with too much tequila and too many guns who know how to have a good time

M.

Corrected your statement.

Yeh the natural development of language is so annoying isn't it. :S

The guerilla rogue's rouge gorilla, Viola, exclaimed "Voila!"

My biggest gripe is the total lack of the subjunctive clause in all Black Library publications, as in "If I were king..." (proper but archaic) or "If I was king..." (improper but commonly used). It drives me crazy. THE CRAZY!

I am so tired of people incorrectly declaiming "Space marines hurr!" The proper spelling and usage, of course, is "SPAZZ MARINEZ HURR!"

whatwhat wrote:Yeh the natural development of language is so annoying isn't it. :S

This isn't about the natural development of language. I'm all for new words being used within language. This is about people being plebs. If you can't read a word properly, or pronounce it, ask someone. It's not that hard. If you think it's perfectly fine for someone to pronounce RESIDENT as RESINTON, then how will you ever know what somebody is saying if they use a complete sentence of mispronounced and misused words? Word meaning change and evolve all the time and this is a good time, but you should still have the sense to be able to use the words with some slight semblance of accuracy.

Another word I am beginning to hate is "LIKE", as in "I was like so annoyed". What does that even mean?

Of course, you do realize that English Bob from 1650 would say your pronunciation and spelling is completely wack...

InyokaMadoda wrote:

whatwhat wrote:Yeh the natural development of language is so annoying isn't it. :S

This isn't about the natural development of language.

Did you know the english word for wall used to be spelt and pronounced vall? Yes, this is an example of natural development of language.

As for the internet slang, thats could be considered a different issue, however that wasn't mentioned in the op's post.

Miguelsan wrote:
English, US English twice as often, is a language that likes to borrow words from other countries...

English doesn't borrow from other languages. It follows them down dark alleyways and mugs them for loose grammar.

And whats with all the double ss's? Don't you naves know you're suppoFed to use an F?

I hate the modern uses of literally and random. It makes me so angry when someone says 'I'm literally starving' or 'It was literally ten minutes ago' when what they are saying is figurative in each case. Even when it is literally correct, it ust doesn't need saying in most cases, 'It was literally red'. WHAT???

And random....'OMG I had such a random night, met these random people...[insert more drivel here]'. What should follow for the rest of the story is that they put all of the days of the week into a hat, pulled one out, and went out that night, to a club that had been determined by entering all possible nightclubs into a computer programme that selected one at random. Once there, you lined up six people and rolled a die to see which they talked to.

But maybe that's just me.

Frazzled wrote:And whats with all the double ss's? Don't you naves know you're suppoFed to use an F?

People who use double ses are nazis, pure and simple.

Greebynog wrote:
And random....'OMG I had such a random night, met these random people...[insert more drivel here]'. What should follow for the rest of the story is that they put all of the days of the week into a hat, pulled one out, and went out that night, to a club that had been determined by entering all possible nightclubs into a computer programme that selected one at random. Once there, you lined up six people and rolled a die to see which they talked to.

But maybe that's just me.

Excellent. I should start doing that. When I have enough money to go out.

Da Boss wrote:

Greebynog wrote:
And random....'OMG I had such a random night, met these random people...[insert more drivel here]'.

But maybe that's just me.

Excellent. I should start doing that. When I have enough money to go out.

What? Acquiring random STDs?

Of course.
I need to collect the whole set of Herpes viri. Currently I only have A. Then I can move onto forms of hepatitus, and then the awesome world of HIV viral classifications.

If you notice, I'm not saying that language doesn't or even shouldn't develop, but the original posters message was about laziness. I agree with that being a problem. No, I do not think we should be speaking in 16th Century English, but we should be trying to at least pronounce words correctly - Voila and Viola are pronounced completely differently. Simple.

Well I'm from the school of thought which says as long as you understand what they're trying to say, what is the problem? This is all a bit snoby and pretentious, I think even the op thought a bit of that himself when he titled the thread "A silly rant about words."

Redbeard wrote:
English doesn't borrow from other languages. It follows them down dark alleyways and mugs them for loose grammar.

Sigged.

I'm awestruck by my feckless students' misuse of capitalization. They will pepper their sentences with capital letters, often simply capitalizing every 'R', or using a capitalized word for emphasis. I finally had to tell them I would mark any paper replacing 'e' with '3' as a zero before they got over that bad habit. These errors can be attributed to text messaging and computer usage before a child is truly capable of communicating in a written language. These devices are crippling the literacy of our youth.

I love the robust nature of English. Wholesale word and grammar theft is essential to a living language's survival. The Japanese actually have an alphabet that they only use for their stolen words. Dialects are a fascinating thing to experience. When I first went to a college in Georgia, I was from the Miami area. Saying 'y'all' and 'ain't' merited the death sentence, according to my English teachers. Once in college, I quickly discovered that an intellect cloaked in a strong Southern drawl was just as sharp as any other, it just wasn't as visible at first glance.

I could care less about these abuses of language.

But I actually care more. I find the inaccurate, often inverse, use of words and phrases, usually with no understanding of them, to be most vexing.
Language is for communicating, and how are we meant to communicate properly if people use phrases as the opposite of what they mean?

I used to try and limit my use of 'difficult' words such as ameliorate when writing in forums.

Now I think, if someone doesn't understand a big word they can look it up on Google in about 10 seconds, so why should I dumb down?

Eye thinks it are literally to pretentiousness were peoples got angry wren ewe right worser then they.

Should one care to get particularly colonic canal point of termination about such things, one could always return to Victorian speech patterns.

GO ON YOUR GRACE! LAPIDATE HIM IN THE CEREBELUM!

And of course, one could theoretically use Ghoti as the word Fish. The Gh is pronounced as rough, to give the 'ph' sound, the o is pronounced as in...erm...summat I can't remember right now, and the ti as in Lotion, to give the 'shh' sound. Good huh?

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

And of course, one could theoretically use Ghoti as the word Fish. The Gh is pronounced as rough, to give the 'ph' sound, the o is pronounced as in...erm...summat I can't remember right now, and the ti as in Lotion, to give the 'shh' sound. Good huh?

"o" as in Women (pronounced "wimmin")

Bah! If you want to experience some really bad english, watch COPS.