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Please state in which country your phrase tends to be used, what the phrase is, and what it should be.
Example:
In America, recently came across "back-petal", instead of back-pedal. Also, still hearing "for all intensive purposes" instead of "for all intents and purposes".
Americans saying "I could care less" instead of "I couldn't care less".
I’ve seen so many attempts at justification for that one online but I can’t help but think that those people just don’t want to admit that they’re wrong.
I also like the bonus "hold down the fort" at the end.
Because as you know, it's an inflatable hover fort and, once relieved of my weight, it might float off into the sky.
"Could of..."
It's "could have"!
Edit: I'm referring to text based things, like text and email. I can pretty much ignore the mispronouncing.
Please state what country your phrase tends to be used
Please state in which country your phrase tends to be used...
Casey Point
This reply deserves to be put on a peddle stool
Touché
English/US - seeing “would of” instead of “would’ve”or “would have”. This one bugs me the most.
"Chomping at the bit". It's champing at the bit. Horses champ.
"Get ahold of". It's "get hold of" or, if you must, "get a hold of"
"I'm doing good". No, Superman does good. You're doing well.
You do things on purpose or by accident, you don't do anything on accident.
This thread peaks my interest.
I hope my words piqued someone else’s interests more.
Idiots misspelling lose as loose drives me up the wall. Even had someone defend themselves claiming it's just the common spelling now and to accept it. There, their, and they're get honorable mention. Nip it in the butt as opposed to correctly nipping it in the bud.
Discreet vs Discrete used to crack me up on dating sites. All those guys looking for discrete hookups - which kind of makes sense but I am sure is not what they meant.
I literally ground my teeth today because I got an email from a customer service person saying "You're package was returned to us". Not a phishing email with an intentional misspelling, a legitimate email for a real order I made. If it is your JOB to send messages like this they ought not have misspellings.
So the context matters to me. I am more tolerant of spelling errors and mis-phrasing in everyday life than in a professional communication.
“Toe the party line” To align with the interests of a political party; to get in line with the agenda of the leader of a political party
“Tow the party line” Something to do with tugboats
"For all intensive porpoises" is the one that really annoys me.
They're dolphins, not porpoises. Fuck, get your cetaceans right.
affect vs effect.
the usual case for effect is as a noun, and for affect, as a verb.
Just to clarify the exceptions to the general rule:
effect as a verb: to cause or bring about
This policy effects change.
affect as a noun: a display of emotion
She greeted us with warm affect.
I ~~could~~ couldn't care less
Hold ~~down~~ the fort
The proof ~~is in the pudding~~ of the pudding is in the eating
~~elon musk~~ Twat
Also, the vanishing use of countable quantities: they are all amounts nowadays.
My pet peeve is when people use "then" but they actually meant to use "than". I think it might be mainly due to flaws in predictive text on phone keyboards though.
Aisle. As much as I would love to take a boat to the breakfast food isle (a.k.a. island), I'm pretty sure that I need to look in the breakfast aisle at the grocery store.
Using weary/wary interchangeably. I am tired of people not being aware of the difference.
Also, "decimated". The original usage is to reduce by one tenth. It didn't mean something was nearly or totally annihilated, but thanks to overuse, now it does.
Using "racking" instead of the correct "wracking" in "wracking my brain". Not very common, but it annoys me... But not as much as "could of"... That is the worst, just stop it!
This is online and in person in Canada.
This one never gets me anywhere, but “begging the question” is actually a logical fallacy where you assume the result and use that as the basis of your argument. Otherwise, it raises the question.
I don't generally correct people's spelling or pronunciation but something I've noticed occurring more and more lately is people using "loose" when they mean "lose" and it gets under my skin for unknown reasons
"You can't have your cake and eat it" The older form was flipped: "you can't eat your cake and have it" They both can mean about the same, but the older form makes it much clearer - if you've eaten your cake, you no longer have it. But you could have your cake, then eat it.
It's always going to be the "of" people. Its "would have", "should have" etc and not "would of".
To "step foot on". I don't care that millennial journalists are now sullying the literal NYT with this, it's WRONG. It's to set foot on. To SET foot on.
Those mis-stated phrases are called eggcorns. They’re a fascinating contributor to the evolution of language.
The term egg corn (later contracted into one word, eggcorn) was coined by professor of linguistics Geoffrey Pullum in September 2003 in response to an article by Mark Liberman on the website Language Log, a group blog for linguists.[5] In his article, Liberman discussed the case of a woman who had used the phrase egg corn for acorn, and he noted that this specific type of substitution lacked a name. Pullum suggested using egg corn itself as a label.[6]
On accident, it is by accident. 🤬
Idk if this counts as a phrase, but on the internet, people talk about their pets crossing the rainbow bridge when they die. That's not how the rainbow bridge poem goes. Pets go to a magnificent field when they die. They are healed of all injury and illness. When you die, they find you in the field and you cross the bridge together. It's much sweeter the way it was written than the way people use it.
It's "I didn't taste it, let alone finish it." not "I didn't finish it, let alone taste it.". Not those exact words, of course. People get it wrong more often than not IME. The wrong version never makes sense, and it always trips me up.
"If worse comes to worst..."
In British English, they often say the phrase as "if worst comes to worst," which is based on archaic grammar.
In the US, there's a mix of verb tenses. The only one that make sense in this day and age is "if what is worse comes to be the worst," or "if worse comes to worst."
This point can be argued, but I will be severely wounded (maybe not so much as dying) defending this hill.
"per se" (US) - people generally use it as "exactly" or "specifically", e g. "It's not circular, per se, more like a rounded rectangle". However, it actually means "in and of itself". I have a coworker that misuses this one constantly (and also spells it incorrectly) and it's become a huge pet peeve.
