Forever linguistically pet-peeved
Would anyone be terribly annoyed if I went on for a bit about some language pet peeves of mine? I've pent them up for months (some even for years) and they're about to drive me nuts. Might be a side effect of the pandemia.
Speaking of which: Instead of "pandemic" I use "pandemia" as the noun because the -ic suffix is for adjectives. There's this habit in English (might only be a North American thing) of using adjectives without their following nouns. Another example is "inaugural". Inaugural what?! Just say "inauguration", ugh!
That reminds me how I wondered why we call that one ocean "Pazifischer Ozean". What's "pazifisch"? For some reason I didn't make the connection to Latin, although I do know some words (Like "pacifist", ffs!). Possibly because I tend to encounter Latin much more in English than in German. And then I recently heard "Stiller Ozean" (Silent Ocean) in a documentary. Hadn't heard that name in years, so for a moment I tried to remember which ocean that was, and when I did, I made the connection to English (Pazifik/Pacific, same difference), which lead me to Latin and the lightbulb went on: "silent" → "pacific" as in "peaceful"! It's practically the same name, just translated. No idea how I hadn't realized the meaning before, but better late than never. 👍
Something at which I'm only very mildly annoyed: People like to verb their nouns.
Ha, I didn't mean for this entry to be this long. I wasn't planning to include examples, I just remembered them and had to vent. Well, now you know what you're in for if you don't object to further languange rants.
Speaking of which: Instead of "pandemic" I use "pandemia" as the noun because the -ic suffix is for adjectives. There's this habit in English (might only be a North American thing) of using adjectives without their following nouns. Another example is "inaugural". Inaugural what?! Just say "inauguration", ugh!
That reminds me how I wondered why we call that one ocean "Pazifischer Ozean". What's "pazifisch"? For some reason I didn't make the connection to Latin, although I do know some words (Like "pacifist", ffs!). Possibly because I tend to encounter Latin much more in English than in German. And then I recently heard "Stiller Ozean" (Silent Ocean) in a documentary. Hadn't heard that name in years, so for a moment I tried to remember which ocean that was, and when I did, I made the connection to English (Pazifik/Pacific, same difference), which lead me to Latin and the lightbulb went on: "silent" → "pacific" as in "peaceful"! It's practically the same name, just translated. No idea how I hadn't realized the meaning before, but better late than never. 👍
Something at which I'm only very mildly annoyed: People like to verb their nouns.
Ha, I didn't mean for this entry to be this long. I wasn't planning to include examples, I just remembered them and had to vent. Well, now you know what you're in for if you don't object to further languange rants.