My head asplodes. Apologies in advance.
*attaches [sic] to the entire post*
I have been collecting, for sometime, a list of phrases and words (and usages thereof) that range from amusing me, to irritating me, to making my hands curl into claws, seeking to choke the person whom (mis-)used the words. I've been waiting for a chance to get enough of them to try to put together, and viola! I have finally done so. I won't leave you on tenderhooks for much longer, so here, for you're viewing pleasure:
Oftentimes, people misunderstand the roll of the apostrophe in words. They're apostrophes suffer from severe abuse, and alot of the time, you can find them being used arbitrarily to mark plurals in cases were they definitely should not be. Their are also "other" cases where "punctuation" is misused.
Irregardless of the fact that some words don't really exist, people continue to use them. What determines a 'real word', though? If enough people use, or misuse a word, can we say that it is now a real word? Or that an existing word has undergone semantic shift and, whatever it used to mean, it now means something else? I think it's a mute point. Back to the topic, though, of mis-used words, just quickly pouring over forums for awhile will yield some excellent examples.
Actually, forums are a great breeding ground for this, and excellent places to find more material. i.e. the World of Warcraft forum, in which there is much complaining about the overpowdered rouge class. Most common mistakes would be alleviated, I believe, if some people just used tools available to them (AKA spellcheckers). These tools aren't full proof, but they do help.
I understand that English is a crazy language. It is inconsistent, comprising a myriad of quirks from different languages. And I kinda like it like that. But it isn't just the mistakes that people make, per say, its there wilful refusal to put in token effort to make theirselves understood. Not everyone can have perfect spelling, and typos happen. They don't necessarily irritate me. I can tell when it's just a simple mistake. By enlarge, I tend to accept, and am often amused by, particular intentional mistakes. Certain idiomatic, joking expressions, ect. that intentionally break rules are usually okay, I guess. I don't mean to suddenly do a 360 here with what I'm saying, though..
Actually, now that I'm writing, I'm not sure what separates the ones that irritate me from the ones that don't. Huh. Just some things I'll completely happily ignore or disregard, while others will get under my skin and peak me, literally making my head explode.
Also, I know to improve the affect, I should of written this all as one large wall of text with no paragraphs, but I just couldn't do that. This is probably already painful enough to read, and removal of all formatting would only exasperate things even more. Asides, walls of text tend to be ignored right off the bat, and people don't even get to start looking at the mistakes hidden within.
I'm sure there are many other things that I've missed, or that might irk you more then they do me. If we pulled our resources, I'm certain we'd end up with a massive list. I think there are probably more than irk me, but not writing them down when I thought of them resulted in me loosing them.
Got any suggestions on other phrases or how to improve (further degrade) these paragraphs? Or comments, or flames? I'd welcome them all, and so await with baited breath.
edit: I totally forgot to add this highly appropriate quote from Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass":
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less."
The question is," said Alice, "Whether you can make words mean different things."
I have been collecting, for sometime, a list of phrases and words (and usages thereof) that range from amusing me, to irritating me, to making my hands curl into claws, seeking to choke the person whom (mis-)used the words. I've been waiting for a chance to get enough of them to try to put together, and viola! I have finally done so. I won't leave you on tenderhooks for much longer, so here, for you're viewing pleasure:
Oftentimes, people misunderstand the roll of the apostrophe in words. They're apostrophes suffer from severe abuse, and alot of the time, you can find them being used arbitrarily to mark plurals in cases were they definitely should not be. Their are also "other" cases where "punctuation" is misused.
Irregardless of the fact that some words don't really exist, people continue to use them. What determines a 'real word', though? If enough people use, or misuse a word, can we say that it is now a real word? Or that an existing word has undergone semantic shift and, whatever it used to mean, it now means something else? I think it's a mute point. Back to the topic, though, of mis-used words, just quickly pouring over forums for awhile will yield some excellent examples.
Actually, forums are a great breeding ground for this, and excellent places to find more material. i.e. the World of Warcraft forum, in which there is much complaining about the overpowdered rouge class. Most common mistakes would be alleviated, I believe, if some people just used tools available to them (AKA spellcheckers). These tools aren't full proof, but they do help.
I understand that English is a crazy language. It is inconsistent, comprising a myriad of quirks from different languages. And I kinda like it like that. But it isn't just the mistakes that people make, per say, its there wilful refusal to put in token effort to make theirselves understood. Not everyone can have perfect spelling, and typos happen. They don't necessarily irritate me. I can tell when it's just a simple mistake. By enlarge, I tend to accept, and am often amused by, particular intentional mistakes. Certain idiomatic, joking expressions, ect. that intentionally break rules are usually okay, I guess. I don't mean to suddenly do a 360 here with what I'm saying, though..
Actually, now that I'm writing, I'm not sure what separates the ones that irritate me from the ones that don't. Huh. Just some things I'll completely happily ignore or disregard, while others will get under my skin and peak me, literally making my head explode.
Also, I know to improve the affect, I should of written this all as one large wall of text with no paragraphs, but I just couldn't do that. This is probably already painful enough to read, and removal of all formatting would only exasperate things even more. Asides, walls of text tend to be ignored right off the bat, and people don't even get to start looking at the mistakes hidden within.
I'm sure there are many other things that I've missed, or that might irk you more then they do me. If we pulled our resources, I'm certain we'd end up with a massive list. I think there are probably more than irk me, but not writing them down when I thought of them resulted in me loosing them.
Got any suggestions on other phrases or how to improve (further degrade) these paragraphs? Or comments, or flames? I'd welcome them all, and so await with baited breath.
edit: I totally forgot to add this highly appropriate quote from Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass":
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less."
The question is," said Alice, "Whether you can make words mean different things."