At some point yesterday I came across the expression in the title of this post. I can’t remember where exactly, but it’s a pretty common phrase. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen or heard it, but this time, something seemed strange. Then I realised what it was: the most unkindest cut!? Continue reading
What? I already told you, remember!?
I’m usually pretty understanding when it comes to commonly-confused words, but this one annoys me, simply because of how I often I see people get it wrong (almost always using disinterested when they mean uninterested).
OK, so explaining the difference between the two words is pretty straightforward, but why does one begin with dis-, and one with un-? Continue reading
This evening I was at my parents’ house, watching a little TV after Sunday dinner. I don’t really watch much TV anymore, at least not in the conventional broadcast sense, apart from Sunday afternoons at home. Gaelic football matches are the usual background noise to Sunday-afternoon dinner, but we had it a bit later today, so I found myself watching an interesting nature programme.
That’s right. Not renumeration: remuneration.
This is probably among the most-commonly misspelled words in English, and it’s easy to understand why.
I think it’s only fair, after looking at the way the French language uses pseudo-anglicisms (a lovely term I came across earlier), it’s only fair that I take a corresponding look at foreign words we use in English, and how their use is different from in their original language. Unsurprisingly, we use a lot of foreign terms, and with most English speakers being monolingual, we don’t always use them as they were originally intended.
I’ve still been thinking about common mispronunciations since Saturday. While doing a little casual googling to confirm what I suspected about which mispronunciations annoyed people, I came across a post which featured some of the more common language errors that bedevil Americans in particular. They were all there: supposably, libary, literally, irregardless, aks et al. And I can understand why they might be annoying. If you say one thing, and someone else says another, that’s annoying. Even more so if the dictionary agrees with you. Getting annoyed is ok, but are such errors really a sign of the death of the English language?
Continuing the themes of the last two days, pronunciation and names, I want to shift focus slightly from issues with pronunciation in a second language, to those native English speakers have with their own tongue. If you search for something like “most annoying mispronunciations,” you’ll find plenty of people venting their frustration. Sometimes, it’s understandable. As I’ve mentioned before, we seem to have an inbuilt resistance to anyone using language differently from us, regardless of which one of us, if either is correct. Other times though, it says more about the person complaining. Here are some of the more common complaints: Continue reading
English-Language Thoughts 