What language mistakes bug you most?

English is an ever-evolving language. Just because “fort” used to be the only correct pronunciation of “forte” does not mean it still is. Indeed, at least one dictionary flat out contradicts you:

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Pronunciation note
In the sense of a person’s strong suit ( He draws well, but sculpture is his real forte ), the older and historical pronunciation of forte is the one-syllable  /fɔrt/ Show Spelled[fawrt] Show IPA or  /foʊrt/[fohrt], pronounced as the English word fort. The word is derived from the French word fort, meaning “strong.” A two-syllable pronunciation  /ˈfɔrteɪ/[fawr-tey] is increasingly heard, especially from younger educated speakers, perhaps owing to confusion with the musical term forte, pronounced in English as  /ˈfɔrteɪ/[fawr-tey] and in Italian as  /ˈfɔrtɛ/[fawr-te]. Both the one- and two-syllable pronunciations of forte are now considered standard.

To answer your actual question, the mistakes that bug me the most are the simple homonyms: to/two/too, it’s/its, they’re/there/their. These are words that should have been learned in first grade. For teenagers and adults to screw them up is inexcusable.

Honorable mention to:
* “text speak” (ie, cud u brng me 2 the store?)
* Misuse of “literally” to mean an emphasis rather than something actually as described
* “I could care less” when one means that they don’t care at all, which should obviously be “I could not care less”

Language issues bug me when they are my own… or when I can’t understand someone who is talking to me. Other than that, I don’t really mind them that much.

I’m not perfect when it comes to writing skills and spelling myself. The one thing that bothers me the most I would have to admit would be the poor writing standards that I see on sites like Yahoo Answers, Youtube, etc. When I read ‘sentences’ such as, “He do make me dun it”, “Wy dunt you shut mouth up and get over their”, etc I guess it makes me wonder a bit. I mean some of those posts are horrific on those sites. Not only are basic words spelled wrong and the proper use of basic words are wrong but you can’t even understand the sentences have of the time.

I would challenge you on the primary (preferred) pronunciation of forte. It’s taken from the Italian musical lexicon and means LOUD.

_fôrˌtā,

The secondary pronunciation is fort. No one I know pronounces it that way.

@Paradox25 “half”. :-P

@gailcalled no, it’s not. Check the citation I gave above. The word comes from the French “fort”, meaning strong. It’s confusion with the musical word “forte” that has led to the two-syllable pronunciation coming into play and prominance.

@MrItty: Aha. Dueling dictionaries at dawn. Milo wil be my second.

In spoken language ‘y’know’ and ‘like’ thrown 2 or 3 times into every sentence. In written language, incorrect pronouns: him and me went; I got it for her and I. Your for you’re. Y’know, the usual stuff.

@gailcalled :-)

I hate it when people put an “s” on something that is already considered plural.

Not a fan of people pronouncing “poinsettia” as “pointsetta” (nice to see Safari’s autocorrect won’t even let me type that abomination).

Confusing coincidence with irony, saying “could of”, hypercorrection (“He gave the gift to my friend and I”), “excape”, “expresso”, “exspecially”, “excetera”, eTc.

My pet peeve of today (I have a long list) is the use of the artistic apostrophe.

Piano’s on sale today only.

Lands’ End

Land’s’s End

Lands End

Its not fair to have rules that insist that “it’s” means “it is.”

I have four case’s of beer in my cella.

The random addition of apostrophe’s to thing’s that are simple plural’s.

Not an expert in English, so I don’t even know if my peeve is right or not. Still bugs me for some reason, though. It isn’t quite what you’re asking, but I feel the need to voice it anyways.
The name Marie/Mary. I’m not even sure which pronunciation is correct; ’‘merry’’, or ’‘mer ee’’. Or if it depends on which Marie it is. Marie or Mary.

@gailcalled which one is right lol?

But mer ee bugs the piss out of me. Most people say it as merry, like when you talk about the Virgin Mary. But I’ve heard mer ee before. To be fair though, this is usually English speakers pronouncing the French version, Marie. I guess it makes sense, but eh, still.
It’s not a mistake or anything, but in my head mer ee is a mistake lol.

Random silly fact; I used to think that supremacy was pronounced as ’‘super mercy’’. I just thought of something. Super Mary. Lawl.

I believe fortay is the correct pronounciation.

Pronounciations bother me less than bad grammar and bad conjugation. Many words are pronounced various ways around the US, there are only a few that really bug me. Eye-talian would be one.

Lack of the use of adverbs is another. I take it personal just grates on me. In my opinion it should be I take it personally.

Another one is when people say, I was bit by the mosquito. Bitten, he was bitten,

Saying axed instead of asked. What is wrong with those people?

@Symbeline In the south amd midwest Mary and Merry are pronounced the same, like the name. Marie is mah-ree everywhere as far as I know.

In the northeast, especially NY, Mary, merry, and marry are all pronounced differently. Mary, is mare-ee, Merry is mer-ree (like very vs. vary) and marry I do not even know how to write out, but it is an exaggerated a, longerl asting. NY especially drags out the a sounds compared to other parts of the country in general.

“Hold down the fort”

You do not need to hold down the fort, because the fort is not filled with helium. When I leave the fort, I am asking you to hold it, you need to keep it secure without the defences breaking down and letting people in. I am not asking you to try and hold down a magical floating fort. If I come back and find that the fort has been sacked because you were too busy making sure that my fort didn’t float up into the sky, I will kill you.

“I could care less”

Oh you could? That means that you do care. If it’s possible for you to care less, then you care at least a certain amount. If you want to tell me that you don’t care, tell me that you could not care less. Then the caring is zero, as it’s impossible for you to care any less than you already do.

The abuse of the word “literally” also pisses me off. You literally flipped the shit, did you? You’re literally the best cook in the world? The events of today literally made your head spin?

Then, there’s simple things like there/their/they’re and your/you’re. If you’re a native speaker of English and you’re older than 10, you have no excuse for not knowing these words and how they should be used. A slip-up is one thing, but I cannot stand it when a person consistently misuses these words.

@MrItty I set myself up for that one.

All mistakes bother me.

Mispronounced words. Except when I’m mispronouncing them and they sound better my way.

I don’t care what you say Nevadans. I’m not saying it like that. Same goes for people that think there’s an “o” in “possum”. And @DominicX, I’m not saying “poinsettia” either.

I am open to debate on the best way to say ”scone” though.

The past tense of “to lead” is led. I led, you led, she led, etc. People seem to be unlearning this at an alarming rate.

@dappled_leaves What do they say instead of “led”?

@dappled_leaves What do they write instead of led?

Jinx.

@JLeslie dammit!

@fundevogel You squeezed yours in first…no need for you to be upset.

but you beat me to jinx!

lol @fundevogel and @JLeslie. I’m seeing more and more people writing “I lead” as if that is past tense. I see it on Fluther quite a bit, actually.

@dappled_leaves Might be a typo, I no I’m susceptible to screwing up my homophones when I type. Apparently I type phonetically so theirs been many a time I catch my errors to late too save face.

@dappled_leaves I actually just looked that up a few months ago for my husband, because I was not sure. Read makes it confusing.

I don’t know why, but when I read “I dunno” it makes my skin crawl. I can’t help it.

@jonsblond I am very intentional with my use of “don’t know” and “dunno”. Most the time use the “correct” form, but for queries regarding information I neither have nor consider particularly worth investigating I use “dunno”.

What’s the capital of Luxembourg?
I don’t know.

How many times has Donald Trump been married?
Dunno.

@fundevogel I’m guilty of using “gonna” now and then. I’m a hypocrite. I know. ;)

None. People only come together to agree that something defines something else. So if I get 2 others to agree that the word “yellow” now means “mustards” it is our language and it works fine. Words aren’t real, only the actual thing of what it stands for is real. We merely only agree that words work with an object or not.

“Forte” is of French descent so that is why most people say “FOR TAY”

“Sally and I” is proper English. High class people use this.

One must remember language is also a sociable phenomenon. There are three registers as well. #1 Proper (usually used in business e-mail, political addressing, class of old money, the highly educated) #2 Common Language (usually held by the commoners, store clerks, “normal people” talking amongst each other) #3 Intimate Language (slang with your friends, lingo with your family)

I shan’t say, but I will tell.

According to an expert on the use of “shall” and “will,” the proper distinction is clarified thusly:

A favorite example to clarify the two: “I shall drown, no one will save me!” is a cry of despair, simply predicting imminent death — both are simple futures. “I will drown, no one shall save me!” is a suicide vow, a declaration that no one had better try to stop me.

OED:

forte, n.

(ˈfɔːti, ˈfɔːteɪ, formerly fɔːt)

Also 7–8 fort.

[a. F. fort, absolute use of fort strong: see fort a. As in many other adoptions of Fr. adjs. used as ns., the fem. form has been ignorantly substituted for the masc.; cf. locale, morale (of an army), etc.]

1.1 The strong point (of a person), that in which he excels.

1682 Shadwell Medal Epil. A b, His Fort is, that he is an indifferent good Versificator.    1768 Goldsm. Good-n. Man Epil., Those things are not our forte at Covent Garden.    1805 W. Irving in Life & Lett. (1864) I. 158 The artful designing hypocrite is his forte, and in Iago he is admirable.    1870 M. Bridgman R. Lynne II. xii. 244 Mr. Selwyn had a forte for horse-racing.

I hate when people say “I seen…..” instead of “I’ve seen….” or “I saw…..” it may just be the area I live in because many people, my generation and below, where I live say it (or type it) and, to me, it makes them sound really dumb.

I don’t know about anyone else but responding to this Q makes me slightly nervous about my own use of language/grammar. I hope my response was grammatically correct.

@whitetigress Sally and I is not proper, high class, or educated if it is the object of a preposition. Prepositions are words like of, from, between, on, in, around. The dog walked between Sally and me. The card is from my husband and me. Take out Sally or husband and it becomes more clear. The card is from me.

Another way to think about it is if you would use we it is I, if you would use us it is me. The card is from us. The dog walked between us.

If you took a foreign language like Spanish in school you learned 1st, 2nd, 3rd singular and also in the plural. Probably it is true in other languages too.

I, you, her, he, we, they.

Me, you, him, her, us, them.

@JLeslie I read a magazine article just yesterday in which the author wrote something like “Kate joined John and I on a walk…” Where are their editors?

@whitetigress; Words are never of French (or any other national) descent.

People are of Hungarian (or any other national) descent.

Words have derivations. The word “man” is derived from the Sanskrit “manu.”

French fort has a silent t. The feminine version, forte, is not used in English but is also pronounced differently from the Italian.(ForT vs. fortaY).

“Mustard” is a member of the yellow family. Is there a place for “mustards”? (plural) Aha. There are several superior French mustards.

@Symbeline: None of the above. It’s “the end of the land;” “Land’s End.”

I have a cousin who uses the word seen incorrectly. She’ll say “I seen that dress at the mall yesterday.” instead of “I saw that dress at the mall yesterday.”

My aunt has the wrong definition for the word mortified. She thinks it means horrified. So she’ll say, “That car came out of nowhere! I was mortified that it was going to hit us.”

My brother will some times tease her (although she’s never figured it out yet) and he will say to her, “Why were you embarrassed about the other car?”

@Kardamom I am so glad I am not the only one who witnesses the misuse of “seen”. It bugs the piss out of me!

@Leanne1986 That word actually makes my eye start to twitch when I hear it LOL!