View Full Version : language pet peeve
I am not sure this is the correct place, oh dear. I have a pet peeve with language, the phrase "I seen". I am ready to start leaving the room!!! I work at a school so maybe it is not so judgmental to notice this from the people working with our children. I understand 2nd language learners, and even facilities staff who do not work directly with children. The teachers use correct language as well. It is mostly the para-professionals but even staff in my position (a supervisor of after school activities including child care and homework help).
Okay done with my break and letting go of it,... lalala
Simpler at Fifty
8-22-13, 4:20pm
Correct them.
I was a caregiver for a 96 yr old retired English teacher. When the CNAs would ask if she wanted to lay down she would say, 'no but I would like to lie down'. They didn't make the same mistake twice. That was all it took. She would smile through the dementia. She still remembered her English but not much else.
People say the same sorts of things here. I think it's regional. "I seen", "I've went, "We've did" etc. Very irrtating! People also enjoy the ol' double superlative here as well, e.g. "more better"... ugh.
My SIL, an articulate and educated person with an advanced engineering degree routinely said "I seen". It drove me up a wall. I corrected him every time for about five years and now I never hear him say it. Guess you could say he seen the light.
Goodness! I will be careful how I speak here!
Living here in the Midwest - we do tend to speak like hicks at times, no matter how well educated we are...
I seriously doubt there is anyone from any region of the USA that doesn't make a grammar mistake at times, based on where you grew up and how everyone spoke there...
Living with MS, I just don't care about any of this kind of stuff anymore - just being able to get from the bed to the toilet is the kind of thing that bothers me on a daily basis... not how someone words something. I'm just grateful to talk to someone, anyone these days, since I no longer can work and have little interaction with others. Who cares how they speak....petty stuff.
Maybe this is not the place for me.
Oh Yarrow, please don't think that. It is a pet peeve of mine so that means I know it is my irritation not something that I actually feel I should be judging on. However when we assist children in learning it is a little different to me, like the one para who didn't know where Michigan was. Just that as educators we need to keep working on our own learning all the time (myself included). I think maybe it is the area I live as well, I do not hear this in other areas as often (I am in the city in Denver now).
So welcome, we will not correct your spelling or grammar!
I have a lot of peeves when it comes to spelling, punctuation, and grammar. I'm an editor so I see errors everywhere. I'm not talking about these boards - I don't expect or look for perfection here. I'm talking about printed matter - ads in magazines and newspapers are particularly bad when it comes to use of apostrophes. But I do understand that there are many local speechisms that are accepted in areas around the country, and having lived in different regions, I've heard many examples.
I agree, Rosemary, about the apostrophes. It's like the entire country got amnesia about 10-15 years ago about when to use them or not use them. I've seen professional signs advertising things like "Bagel's" and "Chair's" - what the heck happened?
iris lilies
8-22-13, 11:52pm
I agree, Rosemary, about the apostrophes. It's like the entire country got amnesia about 10-15 years ago about when to use them or not use them. I've seen professional signs advertising things like "Bagel's" and "Chair's" - what the heck happened?
You know, I'm begining to think there WAS an alien invasion and they knocked the rules for using apostophes out of our heads and inserted "always use an apostophe" into our brains. Your explanation makes the most sense for why I always knew it's and its but in recent years have to say the rule out loud. And then, there are the times when I just add random apostrophes everywhere. WTF. I once knew better. Blame the aliens.
Something I've noticed that could potentially cause real problems is the use of "Do you mind?" with the answer "Yes" being taken to mean No, I don't mind go ahead. It's as if they asked May I. It's not being used literally anymore. So if I ask Do you mind and they say No, they could be meaning No I don't want you to do that. Potentially messy.
goldensmom
8-23-13, 7:21am
I have a lot of peeves when it comes to spelling, punctuation, and grammar.
Me too and made up words. Did people not learn grammar in elementary school? My husband always (yes, always) says 'irregardless' and I respond, 'really? regardless, regardless?'. I know 'irregardless' is commonly used but that doesn't make it correct by 1960's elementary school standards.
Improper capitaliztion is another pet peeve, for example on Facebook, I see so many people capitalize 'Mom and Dad' incorrectly. Mom and/or dad is is only capitalized at the beginning of a sentence or when used in place of a proper name. Oh well, life goes on.
I don't know if it is a regional thing, but natives here use the descriptive "small, little" and it always gets my attention. Ex. He lives in a small, little house.
Improper capitaliztion is another pet peeve, for example on Facebook, I see so many people capitalize 'Mom and Dad' incorrectly. Mom and/or dad is is only capitalized at the beginning of a sentence or when used in place of a proper name.
I do that a lot with full knowledge that it is wrong every time. It is just my way of paying a little homage to Moms and Dads everywhere. I'm not sure why anyone else does it.
...ads in magazines and newspapers are particularly bad when it comes to use of apostrophes.
There there's the its/it's debate. The trendsetters have apparently determined that "its" is ok in all but the possessive form meaning the contraction for "it is" no longer needs the apostrophe. I wonder what Strunk and White think about that? I tend to fight the continual contraction of the English language toward Newspeak, but I'm ok with that one. I see it more as if "its" has finally become a word in *it's* own right rather than a combination dreampt up by someone too lazy to say "it is". One less unnecessary apostrophe.
SteveinMN
8-23-13, 10:52am
One less unnecessary apostrophe.
One fewer apostrophe. ;)
leslieann
8-23-13, 11:06am
Hehehe...I love this thread. People here say "seen" as ZG reported for her site. I notice it but mostly consider it a regionalism. The one that bothers me is "Her and I" or generally using what I guess is the objective case (???Grammarians, please help) when they need the subjective case. I am sure I have those labels wrong. Anyway, well educated people say things like "Her and I" or perhaps worse, "Me and him."
I don't recall any of that being complicated. I was taught that you put others first so you say the other person before yourself (that is, the "I" comes after the other) but that you can tell which case to use if you drop the "I" out of it.....People would not say "Her went to the park," but they'll sure say "Her and I went to the park."
Or is that also a regional thing?
leslieann
8-23-13, 11:09am
I actually really love made-up words if I think the person knows that they were making up the word. We joke a lot about turning nouns into verbs and so forth. We are most certainly nerds, I guess, if this is the interesting content of our day. And it isn't about judging particularly, it is just about awareness of how quickly (and apparently randomly) language can change.
I am also with iris lilies on my own grasp of the rules. What once felt like second nature now requires a second think, perhaps because of seeing the rules broken so widely.
We joke a lot about turning nouns into verbs and so forth.
There is a line beyond which that action makes sense. Maybe it's just sufficient popular usage. I'm okay with TIVOing or Tebowing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tebowing#Tebowing). Yet somehow directing someone to "Escalator to the third floor" seems very awkward. And I grind my teeth every time I hear baselining or impacting.
Generally, I stick with Bill Watterson's view: "Verbing weirds language" (http://grammar.about.com/b/2009/10/14/verbing.htm). But sometimes the transgressors win. I think the difference for me is if the verbing offers a unique meaning. Tebowing is a specific physical action. I think TIVOing makes it because TIVO became somewhat generic for a digital video recorder and because that word as a gerund is simpler than DVRing. Impacting? Unless we're talking meteors, there probably is a more specific verb which should be used.
Oy, turning nouns into verbs - don't get me started! At work when a new employee is starting, the process is called "inboarding."
oh well, better than water-boarding, I guess!
Oh dear, we have an entire onboarding committee, I guess it is supposed to cover the hiring, required training, shadowing and follow up. On a side note, one of the sites in our department has 45 kids registered for after school care and not one staff person hired. That means supervisors are going over there until they hire people, and the wonderful plans of putting them through quality training instead of just putting them to work are definitely NOT going to work are they? So instead of onboarding are they skip boarding?
iris lilies
8-24-13, 11:06am
Something I've noticed that could potentially cause real problems is the use of "Do you mind?" with the answer "Yes" being taken to mean No, I don't mind go ahead. It's as if they asked May I. It's not being used literally anymore. So if I ask Do you mind and they say No, they could be meaning No I don't want you to do that. Potentially messy.
That's interesting, and true. Language is imprecise even in the best of circumstances when everyone is speaking the Queen's English and slang confuses it further.
Decades ago when I was in a job providing things to the public and when the "like" slang was just starting, a teen girl came in and said "I ah want, um ah, something, um uh, like, X"
...And I couldn't tell if she wanted X or something like-but-not X. Since we had both, which did she want?
Now my current verbal pet peeve is the phrase "I am the kind of person who..." I don't like it, it's unnecessarily word-filling. Just say "I like to do X" rather than "I am the kind of person who likes to do X."
But this is a minor peeve in the world of peeves.
I don't like hearing someone is or is not "comfortable" with something--especially when used for making decisions. The idea of comfort being a value is offensive to me.
Oh dear, we have an entire onboarding committee, I guess it is supposed to cover the hiring, required training, shadowing and follow up. On a side note, one of the sites in our department has 45 kids registered for after school care and not one staff person hired. That means supervisors are going over there until they hire people, and the wonderful plans of putting them through quality training instead of just putting them to work are definitely NOT going to work are they? So instead of onboarding are they skip boarding?
I think "overboarding" would work. Sink or swim.
I don't like hearing someone is or is not "comfortable" with something--especially when used for making decisions. The idea of comfort being a value is offensive to me.
Oh, comfort is most definitely a value to me!
iris lilies
8-28-13, 9:26pm
I don't like hearing someone is or is not "comfortable" with something--especially when used for making decisions. The idea of comfort being a value is offensive to me.
Oh LORD yes. It's been about 25 years now since that silly phrase came into being, that I noticed, anyway. I remember distinctly the first time someone who works for me used it. The situation was that she, a manager, had to address a behavior problem of one of her employees. She said "I am not comfortable [talking to that employee about that thing]" and I thought "chick, so what? It is a freaking uncomfortable event which is why you receive the big managerial bucks. Grow a pair."
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