Yes yes, language changes over time. I’ve heard that mantra for decades and I know it. That doesn’t mean there aren’t language changes that aren’t grating when they become fashionable (and hopefully temporary).
For me, “morals” being used as a crude catch-all application of “morality,” “ethics,” “integrity” or related concepts bothers me. Sentence example: “Maybe if society had morals there wouldn’t be so many minorities in prison.”
An even more annoying otherwise-fluent-speaker modification I see is when “conscious” is used to mean “consciousness” and “conscience” interchangeably. Sentence example: “Single mothers on welfare that steal baby formula have no conscious.” It sounds like they’re saying the shoplifter is not mentally aware of their own actions, not that they’re lacking sufficient “morals” to let their baby starve for the sake of Rules-Based Order™.
There’s others, but those two come up enough recently, with sufficient newness, for me to bring them up here. Some old classic language quirks are so established and entrenched that even though I hate them, bringing them up would likely invite some hatemail and maybe some mystery alt accounts also sending hatemail after that. You know, because they “could care less(sic)” about what I think.
English had a big French spelling phase, so a bunch of our words have entirely different phonetic sounds vs their spelling. I constantly mess this up. Go ahead, make me spell bourgoise or bureacracy the first time. Nope failed again! Conscious/Conscience are definitely in that category.
For me I’m not sure if Math or Maths are correct
Me with a time machine: going back and shooting William the Bastard in the head to save the English language
You’re not a real leftist if you can spell bourgeiouiuiouiise on the first try
First off, amazing username.
Anyway, a tip to spell bourgeoisie that someone here recommended was to sing it to the tune of the Mickey Mouse song. Which, embarrassingly, is the only way I can spell it.
B O U … R G E … O I S I E! Bourgeoisie! Bourgeoisie! Who steals the surplus value from you and me? B O U R G E O I S I E!
And then yeah if you need bourgeois just lop off the final I E
Intellectuals are haram. Ask Gramsci.
Fun page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences
North Americans contract ‘mathematics’ to ‘math’, most other places shorten it to ‘maths’. I don’t even know if one is more “correct” or if the entire word ‘mathematics’ was a mistake. Honestly, the North Americans might be right about this one.
use the fucking oxford comma you godforsaken cretins
There is almost no scenario in which using the Oxford comma fails to improve sentence clarity.
People are just too lazy to use punctuation for its intended purpose, I guess.
both the oxford comma and the lack of an oxford comma can introduce ambiguity in different situations.
“could care less”
THIS
“it means the same thing!” they say
IF COULD CARE LESS MEANS THE SAME AS COULD NOT CARE LESS THEN THE WORD “NOT” IS ENTIRELY MEANINGLESS
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
The fact 99% of people use the word “logical” to mean “reasonable” because they literally don’t know what logic is.
I am irrationally irritated when people describe something as “addicting” rather than “addictive”. I’m not even sure it’s technically incorrect, and language is a fluid thing so this shouldn’t irritate me. But I still have to consciously tell myself to not be annoyed by it.
That counts; the quirk doesn’t even necessarily have to be “wrong” to be annoying to an individual.
In my defense I don’t think I’ve ever actually corrected anybody, I just stew inside my own skull
I’ve given up on trying to correct people for the most part because language does change over time and new norms are established whether or not I’m comfortable with them. Sure, some of them are clumsy and staggeringly incorrect (like “conscious” being used in place of “conscience”) but if it’s done enough times, it’ll become the expected way to communicate.
It feels like an Americanism to me. I pretty much only see it on the internet
