Ask Lemmy

Also: ATM machine. So...the machine machine? Not just the machine?

I assume I'm unusual because whenever I say an acronym I think the entire phrase. So repetition like this grates on my nerves.

People do this with other acronyms...can't think of other examples now.

"Anyways". Don't fucking add the s to the end, it adds literally nothing but costs you more effort. Say or type "anyway".

The most grating to me right now has to be the comma splice (run-on sentence). For example: "Every one of our talented art students will have artwork represented in the show, it is always an impressive event."

I see it everywhere lately! Even in official business/marketing emails. Someone got a college degree and got hired to write that email ffs. Use a damn period or semicolon.

I still don't end sentences with a preposition. Even aloud.

"Also too" drives me up a wall.

"In terms of" when it relates to nothing in the discussion. It's just a fluffy pile of nothing to either make you sound smarter, make your idea sound smarter, or fill in space like "um".

"In terms of the design, we're choosing blue."

Sometimes it really annoys me if a perfect spot for a proper "whom" is missed. Even worse though is a misplaced "whom". Both instances are easy for me to spot because we decline pronouns quite a lot in German.

Edit: Sorry that's not a construction, so much as just an error. For constructions one thing that gets on my nerves is if you try to tell someone about your previous state of mind to clear up a misunderstanding like "I thought the water had boiled already" and then they say "no" to tell you that your assumption was incorrect. This is annoying because first of all the information they are conveing is already known to you by the time of this discussion and secondly in the grammatical sense they are actually disagreeing with your state of mind, not the content. I always have the urge to say: "Yes, actually, I'm telling you that's what I thought, you can't disagree with me about what I was thinking."

OP, thanks for asking. I feel seen.

1. Using the past tense instead of the subjunctive mood. "What if she was gone?" Nope. It should be "what if she were gone." People (in the US) seem to get this wrong most of the time, except for a few common phrases like "If I were you, ...".
2. The words "whilst," "amongst," and "amidst." I get that there is a certain history to these words, but I personally never use them as they seem like meaningless alterations. When I hear them, I roll my eyes, but I try not to judge too quickly.
3. "Irregardless". It's not a word.
4. "Could care less". An oldie but a goodie?
5. Overuse of commas. I don't like seeing them as strictly a way to introduce a pause in speech. Commas have specific grammatical purposes, and using them without such a purpose breaks my expectations as a reader.
6. Confusing "nauseous" and "nauseated".

Homogeneous, meaning having a uniform composition. Hoe-moe-jee-nee-us (or hoe-muh- and/or -jee-nyus; point is, there's an ee sound before the last syllable). Saying homogenous (huh-mah-jeh-nus) in that sense is not only wrong but also means something else.

Just because thing, [that] doesn't mean other thing.

You can't even prove that it's grammatically incorrect!

But it sounds awful. And I can't even come up with an alternative.

The letter w. Absolutely unjustified existence vhen v can be used instead. Also referring to people as pupil. Nothing else in English sounds as bad. Like, there isn't even anything fundamentally vrong with it. It's just bad.

I say "A part of me thinks [...]" (or "wishes" or "wants", etc) so often that it has started to seriously annoy me.