It bugs me when people say “the thing is is that” (if you listen for it, you’ll start hearing it… or maybe that’s something that people only do in my area.) (“What the thing is is that…” is fine. But “the thing is is that…” bugs me.)
Also, “just because <blank> doesn’t mean <blank>.” That sentence structure invites one to take “just because <blank>” as a noun phrase which my brain really doesn’t want to do. Just doesn’t seem right. But that sentence structure is very common.
And I’m not saying there’s anything objectively wrong with either of these. Language is weird and complex and beautiful. It’s just fascinating that some commonly-used linguistic constructions just hit some people wrong sometimes.
Edit: I thought of another one. “As best as I can.” “The best I can” is fine, “as well as I can” is good, and “as best I can” is even fine. But “as best as” hurts.
I’m driven insane by the use of “itch” as a verb in place of scratch. ‘He itched his leg.’ Bleh!
One thing I try to avoid when I’m writing is when two words repeat. Kind of like your example “the thing is is that.” If I catch myself writing it, I try to rearrange the sentence.
Although a pretty extreme example tickles me: “The cookie he had had had had no effect on his appetite.”
Misusing words like “setup” vs “set up”, or “login” vs “log in”. “Anytime” vs “any time” also steams my clams.
I saw “I literally could careless” and almost had a stroke.
I hate that punctuation is “supposed” to go inside quotation marks. If you doing anything more complex than a simple statement of a quote, you run into cases where it doesn’t make sense to me.
Did he say “I had pancakes for supper?”andDid he say “I had pancakes for supper”?mean different things to me.Similarly:
That jerk called me a “tomato!”andThat jerk called me a “tomato”!It feels to me that the first examples add emphasis to the quotes that did not exist when originally spoken, whereas the second examples isolate the quote, which is the whole point of putting it in quotation marks.
I go out of my way to rephrase sentences due to this. That jerk called me a “tomato” for some reason!
Yeah but I shouldn’t have to restructure a sentence because some dipshit centuries ago made an objectively stupid grammatical rule that generally increases ambiguity.
Sure, but we don’t control what happened centuries ago.
Yeah but we can react to said change to either entrench or undermine it. I choose the latter.
Oh yeah 100%. This is a grammatical rule that I specifically refuse to follow. Writing it the “correct” way can and does meaningfully obscure the semantics of the quoted utterance in some circumstances.
“On accident”… That doesn’t even make sense. You do something “by accident”.
I mean, to me it doesn’t really make that much sense one way or the other. Genuine question, how is “by” being used here? What are other examples of it being used this way?
my peeve is the chopped infinitive, like “it needs fixed” instead of “it needs to be fixed”
I’m guilty of this, and for some reason “the dishes need doing” in particular tickles my brain. That one doesn’t even make sense with an infinitive!
that one doesn’t bother me at all. “needs fixing”, “needs to be fixed”, same thing. but “needs fixed” can fuck right off.
“Next weekend” “Next Friday” etc. Wherein they use “Next” to mean “the one after” rather than “the soonest interval in which it will reoccur”
If it is Wednesday and you say “Next Friday” I will immediately think of two days from now, not 9 days. I also especially dislike it because if feels like on a whim that it’ll change. for some “next weekend” will be in 5 days if it’s Monday, or 10 days if it’s Wednesday! What the heck people??
On a Wednesday I would use “This Friday” or just “Friday” to describe 2 days away. Using “next” in the context you’re describing seems weird to me.
If it’s Wednesday, “Friday” or “this Friday” would describe the day in 2 days. “Next Friday” would be 9 days away. I think it’s clear and have never had an issue with people not knowing which day is being discussed. Maybe people around here are more consistent about it than other areas?
“Would of”, “could of”, and “should of” infuriate me for some reason.
Because they’re wrong. And not in a “these kids and their new-fangled language” way, but in a “this is literally improper English” way.
Yet “would’ve”, “could’ve”, and “should’ve” are fine, if a touch informal, and sound literally identical in most dialects and accents. View it as your own personal window into how your conversation partner engages with language.
It’s not about sound. Would’ve is a contraction of “would have” not “would of.”
Would of is not a different way to interact with English because the meaning of “have” and “of” are completely different.
LOL, all I really meant is you get to learn that they don’t really engage with the language beyond translating sounds into letters. No real thought is given to why they say or write the things they do. It’s useful information.
