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Heh, I spelled it 'beastiary' for the longest time because that made sense to me. "BEAST-e-airy" is how I pronounced it. the way it's spelled, it looks like it's pronounced 'BEST-e-airy'It can be.
It's even the first pronunciation listed. Honestly, I'm more surprised to see "BEAST-e-airy" listed as an alternative, as I always assumed it was incorrect.
Well Beastiary sounds right, book of beasts.
actually, a beastiary is a book of BEASTIES! ;-)
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People who live in the United States, but call college 'uni' because they want to sound British / European / cultured / pretentious.
Similarly, pluralizing math. 'I'm not good at maths.' Math *is* the plural of math.
And adding a silent 'g' to the word whine, to make whinge. And, even more comically, I've heard American speakers pronounce the g and say that someone is 'winn-jing.' Good grief, are we speaking Old English here?
Whinging only makes sense if the rest of your sentence includes; "whanne that april with his shoores soote, the draught of march hath perced to the roote."
That weird accent that causes a grown person to call Wal-Mart, wallmarks; and a creek a crick. A router a rooter and Linksys lin-skees. It is firefox folks not foxfire!
That's West Virginian; my dad talks like that. Also, tiger=tagger, milk=malk, cassette=cash-ette, Arkansas=Arkysaw, catfish=catfeesh, and condom=conundrum (?!?! WTF? Yes, really).
My mom is from Arkansas, and they raised all us kids in SW FL. Yet none of us kids seem to have any regional accent.
(And don't get me started on the pulled-out-of-his-butt answers Dad would give us kids when we asked questions. See also, Calvin's dad from Calvin & Hobbes.)
I saw a TV ad for Farmer's Insurance the other day which included the disclaimer "not available in all areas."
I could imagine their offer being not available in *some* areas, but if it's really not available in *all* areas, why are they even advertising it?
"Not available in all areas" is different from "unavailable in all areas." There's some inherent ambiguity in putting a negative before a phrase, but the context is pretty clear there.
Rosencrantz: Do you think Death could possibly be a boat?
Guildenstern: No, no, no... Death is "not." Death isn't. Take my meaning? Death is the ultimate negative. Not-being. You can't not be on a boat.
Rosencrantz: I've frequently not been on boats.
Guildenstern: No, no... What you've been is not on boats.
Late to the party, but need to vent: it's a pet peeve, but I really hate it when people confuse "less" and "fewer."
I wish I had less clutter on my desk.
I should eat fewer M&Ms.
Not
I wish I had fewer clutter on my desk. (No one would say that, but it's to counter the following, which people do all the damn time):
I should eat less M&Ms.
Set,
Whinge is a perfectly acceptable word in the English language. As shown here, or in the popular Australian word for the British, "pom" which stands for "whinging Pommie bastard".
The fact that your debased, corrupted version of our Queen's noble language doesn't include it is your problem not one for those who speak the language correctly.
Carry on.
What do you mean I got pre-selected to receive this awesome doohickey thingamabobber? What happens when I finally get selected to pre-qualify for it? Will you pre-approve me? How about you pre-shove-it-up-your-ass.
Thank you.
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That weird accent that causes a grown person to call Wal-Mart, wallmarks; and a creek a crick. A router a rooter and Linksys lin-skees. It is firefox folks not foxfire!That's West Virginian; my dad talks like that. Also, tiger=tagger, milk=malk, cassette=cash-ette, Arkansas=Arkysaw, catfish=catfeesh, and condom=conundrum (?!?! WTF? Yes, really).
My mom is from Arkansas, and they raised all us kids in SW FL. Yet none of us kids seem to have any regional accent.
(And don't get me started on the pulled-out-of-his-butt answers Dad would give us kids when we asked questions. See also, Calvin's dad from Calvin & Hobbes.)
Northwest Arkansas actually and some more rural areas of Kansas as well. Drive me bat-shovel nuts.
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The NY Times helps the linguistically challenged
I think this is more to help themselves better perform to the actually mental level of their readers. I just hope it does not mean they will dumb it down at all since looking up strange words helps a persons vocabulary.
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I also hate seeing "loose" in place of "lose". ugh.
You must not have gotten the memo about the "Loose Change". 'Loose' has replaced 'lose' in financial, governmental, business and other official documents, probably now legally representing an official change in the English language.
When it comes to spelling/misspelling, all it takes is one uncorrected official document to set a precedent.
"Then", when it should have been "than"
GRU
...
What the hell's a proc?
A doctor for *very* private parts...
GRU
Overuse of abbreviations is a great source of annoyance to me.
My own tendency to write overly long sentences with a much too complex structure because I think of some minor detail which I'll put inside commas, only to think of something else which is put in-between parantheses (or is it parentheses, I always forget which is which), and pretty soon what started out as a simple sentence looks more like the start of a novel by someone who can't see the point(button).
And a Swedish example: compound words that's been written as separate words. It's Swedish, unless the word is made up of a person's full name you write it as one long word for chrissakes! It's hovmästarsås (sauce maitre'd would be the best English translation I think - never mind, it's ghastly), not hov mästare sås (hoof master sauce).
"Sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"i z sumtihms mizpewl'd.
Renown is not spelled reknown, people.
teh.....I hate teh