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.
I don’t care so much when I’m just listening to people talk, but there’s something about seeing people use needs washed constructs in otherwise normally composed and edited messages that drives me absolutely mad, for some reason. Stuff like “I need paid more to afford to live there.” I first started seeing it on reddit a few years ago, but it seems as though I’m seeing it more and more now, all over the place. It’s not something that is used anywhere I’ve lived, and it’s just jarring to see sentences constantly missing a couple of words. I suppose I expect more variance in spoken language, especially in less formal contexts, but seeing it written is something else.
I’ve only heard this said by Indian people, so I’ve been assuming that when I see it written online it’s Indians. Per that link it looks like all over the US it’s at least occasionally used. That’s crazy, and I can’t stand it; hopefully this doesn’t become standard.
Agreed, it’s pure laziness, leaving out the prepositional phrase
I don’t think it’s necessarily actually laziness, but rather a failure to change register as appropriate for the medium and context. The Yale link does show that the construct has its own grammatical structure that is followed, so to me, it’s more an error akin to writing, “Yeah, so check this: World War I was started because many countries said ‘You with me, bro?’ and others replied, ‘Yeah, you know it, boy’ but then shit got real when this guy ran up on Archduke Franz Ferdinand and blasted him.” when writing an essay.
That said, it’s painful to read.
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.
Like Alan Turing?
Not gonna lie, I thought about your comment multiple times today trying to make sense of it, and only just now did I realize what you meant by it.
Yes, like Alan Turing. Ugh.
I hate the word “cleanse” because it means the same thing a “clean” but uses two extra letters. Fuck the word “cleanse.”
I’ve recently started hearing people say “It needs cleaned.” Meaning it needs cleaning or it needs to be cleaned, and it just shifts to the wrong gear.
I also hate the word “leverage” in the bullshit business lingo sense of the word. Just makes me think “Your business leverages solutions, and uses people.” Tell me, when did your brain die?
I think cleanse and clean are not quite interchangeable. Cleanse has a gravitas that clean. For example, growing up, I heard a lot of things like “be cleansed of your sins”. “Be cleaned of your sins” makes me vaguely uncomfortable.
Hard agree on business lingo, though.
The only time I see “cleanse” used is either on women’s cosmetics or religious drivel as your example. So “cleanse” is 100% marketing bullshit.
“Cleansing” connotes inside and out. “Cleaning” is surface. Same as “impurity” vs. “dirt.”
See? Nothing but emotional bongwater.
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.”
Its not even an error. The majority of english speakers wont use “whom” in that spot, so its not an error anymore.
Whatever
#Reason being is
wtf is that
That actually ended up evolving over the last 75 or so years. Reason being is that I’m just playing, just wanted to use it.
Using “basis” to mean “based on”.
“Basis our discussion, please go ahead and…” “We decided on a price point basis our market research.”
It makes me uncomfortable.
I haven’t encountered that and it’s upsetting and dumb.
The thing is is that it’s just a phrase to hold space while you collect your thoughts before you speak. You know you have something worth saying, but may not have organized it into a cohesive sentence/words just yet
The context in which it is used makes sense, but the extra “is” is just there. By all rights it should be ungrammatical, but people pretty frequently have that extra “is”, and I do find it absolutely bizarre how pervasive it is.
“Anyways”. Don’t fucking add the s to the end, it adds literally nothing but costs you more effort. Say or type “anyway”.
I think this is just a vestige of the original form “anywise” still popping up, so at least I can understand this one.
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.
“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.”
Lay lie, ffs why differentiate Who whom, it serves no great purpose Words like recie||eive, do I need to explain? Must not should be must’n
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.
“Correlation is not causation” is the phrase I use in that situation.
“Going forward” bothers me so much and I have no idea why. It wasn’t used when I was younger, but that’s true for lots of things.
Also “cringe” is pretty annoying.
”Going forward”
Because it’s a management phrase meant for discussions in directing a group that’s been co-opted by peers to make them sound more authoritative than their relative position actually is.
Had a co-worker say this to me the other day about something and I realized that I don’t like being spoken to as a subordinate by my peers.
Going forward is the worst of corporate-speak. I refuse to use this phrase.
I work in IT and the one that kills me is when someone says or writes “On premise” when they mean “On premises”. I have worked for cloud companies and even the official literature is wrong. It has gotten to the point where so many people get it wrong that the official meaning is going to be changed because people are dumb and we can’t have nice things.
Words have meaning, stop fucking them up!
I hate the recent trend of using “onboarding”. It sounds clunky to me and as if you’re trying to sound all cool and up to date.
Is there a replacement that you’re fond of? We use it all the time at work - onboarding free users, onboarding paid users, onboarding employees.
