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#50223 12/19/01 02:40 PM
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Speaking of Public Radio and pet peeves, I was just going to post about this, but it fits in here so well. The meteorologist on Vermont Public Radio has the fingernails-across-a-chalkboard habit of pronouncing "across" with a slight "t" at the end of it, as in "snow and freezing rain spreading acrosst northern Vermont tonight." It tends to be elided when followed by a "t" sound, though ("across the Green Mountains"). He also says "so to say" instead of "so to speak." These are not common liguistic quirks here in Vermont, and I was wondering if one could pinpoint them to a regional dialect. He doesn't have an indentifiable accent (to me anyway), but that "acrosst" just drives me batty.

I also hate the it's/its thing and the rampant use of apostrophe's (but I still feel a little funny using CDs instead of CD's), but who doesnt.


#50224 12/19/01 03:40 PM
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and "regarding" the overuse of *odd* bits of emPHAsis, we never see "any" of that around *here!


#50225 12/19/01 05:13 PM
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pet peeves!? now you've got me started - in no particular order:

2. irregardless
3. wreck havoc [for wreak]
4. your/you're (its/it's, their/they're)
5. flustrated [conflating frustrated/flustered]
6. to/too/two
7. excessive anthimeria (i.e., verbing of nouns)
8. orientate
9. (see previous post)
10. "in no particular order"
11. unnecessary apostrophes (e.g., CD's :)
12. misuse of linguistic terms by supposed experts;
e.g., Lederer listing "cleave" as a contronym
13. excessive and pedantic sesquipedalian verbiage
14. verbage/verbiage
15. confusing 'i.e.' and 'e.g.'
.
.
17. mute/moot [it's a mute point]
.
.
.
37. excessive use of the ellipsis




#50226 12/19/01 05:22 PM
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OH! OH! OH! I remember another one.

The people who hold up two fingers with each hand as they say quote unquote. Even when quote unquote is not necessary which is pretty much all the time.

A former boss of mine used to do that. This guy could start bloviating at the drop of a paper clip. I searched and searched until I found an Energizer bunny that actually worked. It went around in circles banging on its pink drum.

Whenever Bill would start in one of us would start the damned bunny running around. I came to work one morning to find the bunny stomped into plastic shards at the entrance to my cubicle. Did I mention that Bill was a tad passive-aggressive?

Of course there was the time one of us got the batteries in backwards. That bunny kept coming and coming.



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#50227 12/19/01 06:16 PM
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#50228 12/19/01 06:24 PM
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max, you did note that I chose to leave off a number one(1.) at this point in time? (oops, there's number 16.)


#50229 12/19/01 06:41 PM
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13. excessive and pedantic sesquipedalian verbiage
honorificabilitudinity -- as in Lederer


#50230 12/19/01 11:25 PM
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Here's another one: *claiming...

...in no particular order:

...yet numbering the "list".


#50231 12/20/01 07:59 AM
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I loathe the lack of ability some people show in making verbs and nouns agree in terms of number, particularly in the third person.

A typical sense would be "Let the customer make his selection and then get them to choose their prize."

I also get driven insane by people who wilfully misuse "less" and "fewer". I'm driven even crazier by people who then spend considerable amounts of time trying to justify their misuse ...

Note that I got two peeves for one post here, stales old son!



The idiot also known as Capfka ...
#50232 12/20/01 01:01 PM
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Misquotation or things taken out of context tend to annoy me. As an example, the ubiquitous Money is the root of all evil for The love of money is the root of all evil.


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