Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Another I thought of yesterday:

"taking it for granite"

Cue and Queue (also que)
A Cue is a signal. Also a stick used for playing certain table/ball games.
A Queue is a lineup of people. Also a ponytail.

You queue up in a line or join a queue. I suppose you could take your cue to join that queue of people who are holding cues whilst getting queues, though.
Context is the key. If you don't understand which word is supposed to be where, then you've got no chance of getting that right.

The other one, is Spanish for "huh?", "What?", etc. Commonly used by people thinking it's how "Cue" is spelled.

I blame the English language for the issues, though. It's stolen words from just about every other language throughout the world - and shoehorned them into it - regardless of whether or not they fit.

 chromedog wrote:
Cue and Queue (also que)
A Cue is a signal. Also a stick used for playing certain table/ball games.
A Queue is a lineup of people. Also a ponytail.

You queue up in a line or join a queue. I suppose you could take your cue to join that queue of people who are holding cues whilst getting queues, though.
Context is the key. If you don't understand which word is supposed to be where, then you've got no chance of getting that right.

The other one, is Spanish for "huh?", "What?", etc. Commonly used by people thinking it's how "Cue" is spelled.

I blame the English language for the issues, though. It's stolen words from just about every other language throughout the world - and shoehorned them into it - regardless of whether or not they fit.

Que?

I agree with the first paragraph in the article. Short of a professional or academic capacity, if the other person gets what you mean then stop complaining.

 insaniak wrote:

My current bugbear is 'versed'... as in 'I versed him at 40K'.

Ok, I don't get it. If someone says this, what do they mean?

 Magos Explorator wrote:

 insaniak wrote:

My current bugbear is 'versed'... as in 'I versed him at 40K'.

Ok, I don't get it. If someone says this, what do they mean?

I could be wrong, but I think its an idiotic way of saying "versus"

Oh, huh. I don't think that would have come into my mind for a while.

Yup, it's a butchering of 'Vs'.

If Bill Vs Bob, then Bill 'versed' Bob.

It's a nasty abuse of the English language, and people should lose fingernails for using it.

It's been mentioned once already but "must of" instead of "must have" is a real anger inducer for me...

 chromedog wrote:

I blame the English language for the issues, though. It's stolen words from just about every other language throughout the world - and shoehorned them into it - regardless of whether or not they fit.

That isn't something unique to the English language though. It's true of basically every language that doesn't exist in a completely isolated location.

I heard a 4th year college student use "pacifically" in an educational video in class earlier. I probably wouldn't have noticed it had I not seen this.

"You want some coffee?"
"I'll have an expresso please."

FFFFFFUUUUUUUU-

 Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:
I heard a 4th year college student use "pacifically" in an educational video in class earlier. I probably wouldn't have noticed it had I not seen this.

Yes, people, on occasion, fail to pronounce words correctly.

I'm sure this article would have been more timely in the 1940s and 50s.

 Avatar 720 wrote:
"You want some coffee?"
"I'll have an expresso please."

FFFFFFUUUUUUUU-

Sir, I'll axe you again, would you like some coffee?

"Supernanny" (off of the telly) uses Pacific instead of Specific. It always gets a giggle in my house.

I think "Write me" comes from "Call me". "Write to me" got mangled along the way.

Literally means "as written" (Being literal...), so cannot be used as virtually. It pretty much means the opposite thing.

One that gets me when I hear it in songs in "wrorld". Like "All around the wrorld".

I can't read the work "super" without reading it as "sooper". It should be "souper", with a "syoo" sound. Just like "new" and "tune" (Arrgg, that song), which should sound like "few".

Oh, you poor mangled language...

I just wish people could go back to spelling the word, "definitely" correctly. The past few years I see a huge proliferation of the misspelling, "definatly" or "definately". I see it constantly here on Dakkadakka. Most of the errors come from people who use English as their first language (or who try to use it anyway).

The root word of "definitely", is "finite", which has many related words and forms such as "definite", "infinite", "infinitely", "infinity", etc.

There is no letter "a" in any of that. I can't even imagine where people came up with that one.

 BrassScorpion wrote:
I just wish people could go back to spelling the word, "definitely" correctly. The past few years I see a huge proliferation of the misspelling, "definatly" or "definately". I see it constantly here on Dakkadakka. Most of the errors come from people who use English as their first language (or who try to use it anyway).

The root word of "definitely", is "finite", which has many related words and forms such as "definite", "infinite", "infinitely", "infinity", etc.

There is no letter "a" in any of that. I can't even imagine where people came up with that one.

Seriously? You can't imagine how someone who says "definitely" couldn't mistake the 'nat' part of deff-in-nat-lee for an 'a' when writing it? It's wrong, yes, but it's clear where the mistake originates. I've also never heard of anyone saying deff-eye-nite-lee or deff-in-nite-ly.

It's up there with a few other words that suffer the same fate, for example "necessery" when they actually mean "necessary".

I sat on a very comfortable couch the other day.

Comfortable. Where the hell did "cumf tur bul" come from? It may be mainly a southern thing, but it's all over songs too.

Oh, I forgot....

Burglarize.

The word is burgle.

 insaniak wrote:
Yup, it's a butchering of 'Vs'.

If Bill Vs Bob, then Bill 'versed' Bob.

It's a nasty abuse of the English language, and people should lose fingernails for using it.

Versed is a Medication... it's a brandname to Midazolam used for inducing sedation and amnesia before medical procedures.

 Skinnereal wrote:
Oh, I forgot....

Burglarize.

The word is burgle.

According to dictionary.com (I realize it's probably not the definitive source on etymology) the term "burglarize" is actually a bit older than "burgle." But either way, it seems they both originated around the same time.

Seriously? You can't imagine how someone who says "definitely" couldn't mistake the 'nat' part of deff-in-nat-lee for an 'a' when writing it? It's wrong, yes, but it's clear where the mistake originates. I've also never heard of anyone saying deff-eye-nite-lee or deff-in-nite-ly. It's up there with a few other words that suffer the same fate, for example "necessery" when they actually mean "necessary".

I'm well aware that the "shwa sound" (look it up) is confusing to some people and that is the likely source of the problem.

Yes, I suppose if you know absolutely nothing about the meaning of the word, "definitely", it's root, or never paid any attention to spelling in grade school whatsoever, then I can see how one might make that mistake. If English is your first language there's simply no excuse for this level of ignorance on something that should have been learned at a very early age. You don't exactly need to go to college to learn the basics of a word like, "definitely". And people making excuses for such illiteracy only makes it worse.

Now, I'm definitely done "conversating" on this issue. Another dumb mistake that's taken off recently, the word is "converse", as in the sentence, "We were conversing about the poor spelling of English language users." "Conversating" is definitely NOT a word.

I'm not sure if this relevant to the thread but if I hear another US law enforcement or government agent add the phrase "at this time" to the end of a sentence that could sit quite happily without it I will....tut or something.

"the assailant is still at large...at this time".

Just stop it, don't make me get on a plane and come and tut at you!

 BrassScorpion wrote:
If English is your first language there's simply no excuse for this level of ignorance on something that should have been learned at a very early age.

Sure there is. There's all sorts of stuff that people learn at an early age and forget later on.

When people are unsure of the correct spelling, they tend to just go with the way they hear the word rather than analysing its etymology.

 notprop wrote:
I'm not sure if this relevant to the thread but if I hear another US law enforcement or government agent add the phrase "at this time" to the end of a sentence that could sit quite happily without it I will....tut or something.

"the assailant is still at large...at this time".

Just stop it, don't make me get on a plane and come and tut at you!

Yeah, I also dislike it when they put 'right now' on the end of perfectly good sentences, as in "I am so angry right now". They seem to put a lot of extra words in sentences for no reason, which is how you end up with sentences like "I would like for you to understand that I'm gonna need you to go ahead and do that right now."

Jesus fething wept.

 BrassScorpion wrote:
Yes, I suppose if you know absolutely nothing about the meaning of the word, "definitely", it's root, or never paid any attention to spelling in grade school whatsoever, then I can see how one might make that mistake. If English is your first language there's simply no excuse for this level of ignorance on something that should have been learned at a very early age. You don't exactly need to go to college to learn the basics of a word like, "definitely".

Um, yeah, lots of people don't learn about the roots of words. It's one of those things that is nice to know, but completely flying rodent gak insane to insist people must know.

And yeah, lots of us got very good at spelling in grade school. Perfect marks and everything. But that was 10, 20, 30 years ago, or even more in some cases. Things slip from your mind. Other stuff becomes much more important.

And people making excuses for such illiteracy only makes it worse.

It isn't about making excuses, but about being a little bit sensible about what is, at the end of the day, a word spelled incorrectly.

I'm actually grateful about the little tip you gave (root word is finite, therefore spell it with two i), because it's a word that like many others, I used to be able spell easily, but which has somehow slipped from mind over the years.

 BrassScorpion wrote:
You don't exactly need to go to college to learn the basics of a word like, "definitely". And people making excuses for such illiteracy only makes it worse.

One does not "make" excuses, one merely excuses.

Another one that bugs me is the pronunciation of proven. It's supposed to be pro-ven not prue-vin.

 Hordini wrote:

 Skinnereal wrote:
Oh, I forgot....

Burglarize.

The word is burgle.

According to dictionary.com (I realize it's probably not the definitive source on etymology) the term "burglarize" is actually a bit older than "burgle." But either way, it seems they both originated around the same time.

Dictionaries only list the first written instance of a word, which might have been in use long before that.
english.oxforddictionaries.com/ lists it as a North American term.
Nothing against that, but when a perfectly good word gets stretched for no (known) reason....

Then again, a lot of original usages got kept outside the original area, like a silent "h" in herb. It's how Shakespeare would have known it, supposedly.