All of us have pet peeves of language: common mistakes of spelling or grammar that grate on our ears line nails scratching along a blackboard.

Two of my pet peeves are "ath-u-lete" and "He feels badly," (instead of "ath-lete" and "He feels bad").

What are some of yours?

I hate feel badly, too--though there are some sexy connotations there!!!!

Why say "orientate", when you can say, "orient"?
I do believe they both exist as words, but why? I imagine "orientate" developed when people began to use it wrong.

My pet peeve is "If I was" or "I wish I was.

I remember my teacher saying...."When Iffing and wishing, use were."

Ahhh, another of mine is when people use "less" when they should use "fewer". Oftentimes people say "there are less people shopping in the mall today", when it should be "fewer people".

I'd imagine any of us could find half a dozen grating mispronunciations just by spending an hour listening to a sportscaster.

Any newscaster is annoying, especially when prounouncing numbers. Nothing grates on me more than hearing someone say one hundred and fifty or some such number!

US usage is to say "one hundred fifty", whereas the rest of the English-speaking world says "one hundred and fifty".

I can see that this phrase might grate on American ears when Americans use it, in the same way that other "Britishisms" would; however, when used by someone from outside of the USA, the construction is correct.

arnie notes >> US usage is to say "one hundred fifty", whereas the rest of the English-speaking world says "one hundred and fifty".

This here US'n hadn't known that.

I was taught that in as careful usage, use the and to indicate the decimal point. Thus, so say 80.2 as eighty and two-tenths.

"I was taught that in as careful usage, use the and to indicate the decimal point. Thus, so say 80.2 as eighty and two-tenths."

As was I! and is only used to indicate a decimal point. Think I learned this in forth grade!

Yet, when I think of money, I would say $1.32 is "a dollar, thirty-two" without an "and", but $2.32 would be "two dollars and thirty-two cents"

HMMMM....very strange!

A pet peeve of mine is "nuculer" instead of "nuclear." Some people's tongues just don't wrap around atoms adroitly, just as we US of Amercians can't say "aluminium!" We say, "aluminum," and my ex-father-in-law said "aloonyum!" Maybe he knew something we didn't... After all, some say it was the lead pipes that made the Romans feeble-minded, and made the empire go down the drain!

Just for the record Asa, I say it the way my dictionary shows it..."Aluminum"!

OK, my pet peeve here is someone at work who constantly says he goes to the lie-bare-ee instead of the lie-brare-ee!

The American spelling is in fact the earlier version of the word. In 1808 Sir Humphrey Davy proposed the name ALUMIUM. This was soon replaced by ALUMINUM and later the word ALUMINIUM was adopted by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemists in order to conform with the "ium" ending of most elements. By the mid-1800s both spellings were in use, and Charles Dickens commented at the time that he felt both names were too difficult for the masses to pronounce!

In 1925 the American Chemical Society decided to use the name ALUMINUM in their official publications. The rest of the world have kept the I in ALUMINIUM.

Nicely done, arnie.

Of the metallic elements were discovered and named in modern times, and most but not all of them were given names ending in -ium;[i] some are [i]-um names. (Compare: chromium, barium, osmium; but also platinum).

Of course, that doesn't apply to the metalic elements that were known and named in ancient times. There are seven of those "oldtimers". It's an interesting light challenge to see how many of the seven you can name off the top of your head, without looking it up.

"It's an interesting light challenge to see how many of the seven you can name off the top of your head, without looking it up."

Well, since I'm bald, there's nothing on the top of my head, but I'd guess they would be lead, copper, gold, silver, iron, mercury, and tin. How'd I do? (I didn't look it up - all from the bottom of my head, where all the litter resides!)

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lead, copper, gold, silver, iron, mercury, and tin

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They look about right to me. I did sleep through most chemistry lessons at school, though.

However, if we consider these elements were all known to the Romans, and use their words, we are back with our old friend the -um ending.

Viz:

• lead = plumbum;
• copper = aes or orichalcum;
• gold = aurum;
• silver = argentum;
• iron = ferrum;
• mercury = hydrargyrum;
• tin = stannum

Their atomic symbols (e.g. Pb for lead, Au for gold, etc) show their Latin history. The exception here is copper, whose symbol is Cu, which stands for Cuprum, meaning the island of Cyprus, where much copper was mined in ancient times.

I'm sure you all wanted to know that.

For arnie. As I understand the sources:

Tin was a particular valuable metal to the ancient civilizations of the Middle East. The reason is simple: the copper/tin alloy we call bronze is a much harder than either metal alone -- a copper sword would be of little use, for example -- and while copper is reasonably common in that region, tin is quite rare there.

Thus a source of tin was of great commercial value. The Phoenicians, a sea-faring people, had such a source and were circumspect about specifying the the exact location, indicating only that it was far to the west, at a place they called it the tin isles.

The source was Great Britain -- or more exactly, Cornwall.

From the web: In his 'History of England' Sir Edward Creasy writes that 'the British mines mainly supplied the glorious adornment of Solomon's Temple.' In those days the mines of south-western Britain were the source of the world's supply of tin, and its export to Phoenicia provided the most suitable outlet for its use in the civilised Greek world.

Yes indeed. The region was the prime source of tin for centuries. The tin-mining districts of Devon and Cornwall were known as The Stannaries. The workers in these areas had an ancient right to sue and be sued, except in cases of land, life, and limb, in their own courts. The privilege was confirmed by Edward I in a charter of 1305. The Stannary Court was not abolished until 1897. A so-called Stannaries parliament was unofficially established by Cornish nationalists in 1974.

Alas, I think no tin is mined there nowadays; the mines gradually became unprofitable and were closed, mostly in the last century. I say "I think" because every now and then someone reopens a mine for a while then closes it down after losing their money. I haven't heard of anyone doing this lately, but I could easily have missed the announcement.

This made me curious whether the boy's name Stanley might perhaps trace back to the latin stannus for tin. Apparenly not:

Stanley - Transferred use of an English surname given to people who lived in villages in England called Stanley e.g. in Derby and Durham. The name Stanley derives from the words stan meaning stone and leah[/i] meaning clearing.[/i]


But I found surprisingly little on the web. The source does not state in what language stan meant "stone", but it seems rather like the german stein for "stone".

"it seems rather like the german stein for 'stone'."

So, Einstein is someone with just one stone?

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So, Einstein is someone with just one stone?

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Wasn't that Hitler?

One of my pet peeves is the misspelling of there/ their/ they're and your/ you're, especially when people write 'your welcome'. It makes my hair stand on end! I mean, how difficult is it really to comprehend that 'you're' is a contracted verb form and 'your' is a possessive pronoun??

i once had an elementary school teacher who would call out test question answers as in regards to: "number b, number c,....."etc.

i said out loud " b isn't a number" and "c isn't a number" and etc. until i found myself in the principal's office. did anyone else receive such a poor education since copperfield and steerforth?

sorry, i forgot him.

People who write "ect".

People who say, "I'll aks him."

It's like, I had this neighbor, she like, always talked alot about like, things. Like, one day, she like, told me about her son, and like, she must have like, told me the story, like, ten times already.

(By the way, she was in her 70's.)

You know, I've got this, you know, friend, you know, and like he's always going, "you know," like all the time, you know.

I hereby suggest that we convince a word- friendly nuclear power to bomb Southern California before they spread any more toxic verbiage around the world.

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i said out loud " b isn't a number" and "c isn't a number" and etc. until i found myself in the principal's office.

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Edward Anthony:
It is the duty of the student
Without exception to be prudent.
If smarter than his teacher, tact
Demands that he conceal the fact.

Personally, wildflowerchild, I'm like you in that regard.

>> "did anyone else receive such a poor education?"
You seem to have come out of it pretty well.

i agree. i have gotten better. people wear stupidity like a badge here in dogpatch, it's their status symbol along with dixie and pbr. so, in order to keep living, i can't point out everything. or even one tenth of everything. it's a good way to get your sideview mirror ripped out apparently.

i think i got squeers wrong. i think the dumb teacher of copperfield and steerforth was wackford squeers. and the other boy who was teased was twaddles.ê

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people wear stupidity like a badge here in dogpatch, it's their status symbol along with dixie and pbr.

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OK...I'll bite...what is pbr? All I can think of is peanutbutter!

pabst blue ribbon beer a.k.a. dog p*ss.

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pbr

pabst blue ribbon beer a.k.a. dog p*ss.

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AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

Um...when I come to visit you, I hope that's not what you offer guests!

Hey, wildflowerchild, do you ever hang out with a good ol' boy named Milo? They seems to be a family resemblance.

i don't hang out with good old boys. who is milo? ancient milo?¨

Heard on the radio today: "Just call the ______ man, he gets there quick."

I'm sorry, is it so difficult to have radio and tv announcers, especially on pre-recorded commercials for top products, speak correctly?

we have an idiot running again here for senator. he's a conservative who is a thorn in the side of reasonable humanity named bob barr. his ad is some weird muscle head talking at an old man in overalls on a farm intermingled with shots of a plow horse rolling his eyes. then the muscle head asks the old man if he likes barr or the opponent. the old man says "---is awright, but bob barr iz just gooder". if that doesn't make you want to rip your hair out. they should make a "dumber than dirt v chip".

Aside from Yankees slaughtering proper Tex-mex dinner orders, my number one pet peeve is the use of "impact" as a verb. It's even made the new dictionary as such- when in fact THE ONLY THING THAT SHOULD BE 'IMPACTED' IS A TOOTH!
My sister, an educated girl, mispronounces 'pronunciation'. She adds the extraneous 'O', effectively making it 'pronounce' with a prefix and suffixes. Drives me batty. What makes it particularly vexing is she can SPELL it just fine. Baffling.
TC.

"It's a damn fool who can only spell a word ONE way." : Twain.

I would remark only that, in English, "there are no nouns that cannot be verbed".

Whether or not such constructions are desirable or attractive is obviously a debatable point; however, grammatically they are accurate.

Richard English

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I would remark only that, in English, "there are no nouns that cannot be verbed"

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Touché!

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Originally posted by wildflowerchild:
pabst blue ribbon beer a.k.a. dog p*ss.

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From my (admittedly limited) knowledge of American beers I'd have to say that pabst blue ribbon isn't actually the worst. While it might well be dog p*ss have you ever been unlucky enough to drink Old Milwaukee ?

Habent Abdenda Omnes Praeter Me ac Simiam Meam

Read all about my travels around the world here.

Until recently this expression was almost oxyomoronic (although, thanks to the valiant efforts of San Francisco's Bay Area Brewery and its Steam Beer, never entirely so).

Now, however, many Americans, forced for so long to drink the flavourless, overchilled, understrength and highly profitable concotions that have sullied the name "beer" have discovered that there are some beers that have taste, aroma and strength.

Indeed, those who have visited our sceptred isle will have had the chance to sample a few (or maybe even many) of the 5,500 different types brewed here.

It is, of course, largely due to the efforts of CAMRA, arguably the world's most successful consumer organisation, that the USA, along with many other countries, has stopped its headlong flight into the slough of mediocrity that is the products of most of the world's manufacturers (I do not grace them with the name "brewers") of beer.

There are now many small brewers in the USA (often known as craft brewers) who are brewing beers every bit as good as those brewed in the UK, Belgium and Germany (and a few other countries). It's up to you, US beer lovers, to eschew the rubbish that comes from the beer manufacturers and support the products of your brewers of real beer!

Remember, the reason why most people drink rubbish beer is simply the power of the marketing. When did you last see any promotion for an independent brewer?

Richard English

Damn, to think of all the years I've wasted! But what can you expect of a country that lacks the tradition of neighborhood pubs? For beer is convivial, and cannot be fully savored in solitude.

5500 brews? [sigh] ars longa, vita brevis.

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Originally posted by shufitz:
5500 brews? [sigh] _ars longa, vita brevis._

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I have a friend (more of an acquaintance really) who is an obsessive 'ticker'. When I first met him about ten years ago it was in a pub where he was with his girlfriend whom I already knew. He had with him a computer printed list of every ale ever brewed in the British Isles with the ones he had sampled highlighted in yellow. Two years ago he passed his seven thousandth different beer.

He no longer has the girlfriend though.

Habent Abdenda Omnes Praeter Me ac Simiam Meam

Read all about my travels around the world here.

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Two years ago he passed his seven thousandth different beer.

He no longer has the girlfriend though.

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Did she tire of his beer drinking, or just tired of playing second fiddle to his tasting experiences?

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Two years ago he passed his seven thousandth different beer.

He no longer has the girlfriend though

With approximately 30 million women in the UK, and presently only 5,500 beers, one must look at the logics of availability and make one's choices on that basis!

Richard English

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Damn, to think of all the years I've wasted! But what can you expect of a country that lacks the tradition of neighborhood pubs? For beer is convivial, and cannot be fully savored in solitude.

In my experience there are very few countries outside of the UK (and esepcially England) that have good pubs. Bars, yes; cafes, by the thousand; drinking dens; uncountable. But pubs, no.

Those who have never had the pleasure of drinking in a good English pub cannot understand what it is that makes them so good and those that have, find it hard to explain.

It's not just the beer, albeit that's important; it's not the layout or decor since there are as many variations in this as there are pubs; it's not the standard of service since this can also vary from the excellent to the mundane.

It is, I believe, a unique combination of intangibles which give rise to that ability to go into a good pub and feel immediately like a member of a family - not simply a customer - not even a guest, but as someone who belongs there.

Possibly the only other place I have experienced this is in the beer shop in Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka. This is the only outlet I found where the local (and excellent) beers are sold on draught - straight from the brewery just a few hundred yards away.

With air fares as low as they have ever been, I strongly recommend that beer drinkers visit England right now!

Richard English

Richard,
I may do that! Though in America, the sophisticates only drink wine, I must admit I love a good beer. Now please don't laugh at me, but I like Harp beer. For you beer connoisseurs, (ohhh, a good French word during French word week!) is that considered a bad beer?

Richard English is right about Americans and their craft beer. My mother is from Milwaukee, the beer capital, and the last time I was there, my relatives took me to some great bars that each had it's own delicious, thick, frothy brew. Many people brew their own beer in their basements too. Here in Greece, bars with 'gourmet' beers are becoming quite popular of late. Some of my favorites are Desert Wind, with a delicate herby aftertaste, Paulaner Weiss, light yet slighty bitter and of course Guinness, esp. with a shamrock! Do you know the trick of tapping the side of mug of beer with a coin to see if your pint of Guinness is ready for consumption?

yes, you tap the coin three times, and the guinness turns into a corned beef sandwich.

is kolsch. made in koeln, germany. to me, it tastes like licking cold dew off of dry, sweet strawgrass.o

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Though in America, the sophisticates only drink wine, I must admit I love a good beer. Now please don't laugh at me, but I like Harp beer. For you beer connoisseurs, (ohhh, a good French word during French word week!) is that considered a bad beer?

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It's a strange thing but wine receives so much more attention in the media than beer although it is, in truth, a far less complex drink. To make wine it is necessary simply to crush grapes (no yeast needs to be added as it's on the grapes - that's the bloom you see on the skins) and then, when the fermentation has died down to put the result into a container and wait until it tastes OK. (Yes, I know that production is usually more complex than this nowadays, but wine can be, and in some places still is, made this way)

To brew beer it is necessary first to germinate barley, killing the grain at the right time by heating and then roasting to produce malt of the right colour (very black for stouts like guinness, very light for paler beers). Then start the fermentation with added yeast and balance the liquor (the must) by adjusting the proportions of malt and water. When the fermentation has nearly finished then hops (maybe several varieties) and maybe other falvourings are added and then the beer is run into a barrel or bottle where it confinues to mature until it's ready for drinking.

That's the real stuff, anyway (and in Bavaria and the Isle of Man it is illegal to brew beer using any ingredients other than malt, hops and water - oh were it to be so everywhere!).

Most American manufacturers, though, add up to 40% of such cheap things as rice to the must and, when the fermentation has finished, pasteurise the beer to kill it. They then filter it, leaving a still, clear liquid. To give it fizz they add commercially produced corbon dioxide and various chemicals, including a heading compound to make it froth. It is always served ice-cold to disguise its lack of character and chemical flavour. Whether it's served from a bottle or from a keg, the drink is the same.

Real beer can be any colour from black to white; any strength from under 3% to around 20%; it can be drunk at any time and on any occasion; it can be just about any flavour at all. It is without any doubt at all the world's most interesting drink. There are probably a hundred times as many beer varieties as there are wine varieties. You wouldn't of course, know this if you relied on the reports in the media and neither would your taste buds if your tasting experiences were gained only in the USA or those other countries where real beer has been killed off by the products of the chemical factories.

In England Harp was a lager produced by the Guinness company. It is no longer available and was a poor drink by UK beer standards, although better than most American beers.

One of the interesting things about real beer is that it doesn't usually give you a hangover. Six pints of real ale in an evening will see you walking home in a mood of goodwill to all and, when you wake the next morning, you will have a clear head. Six pints of chemical beer will probably make you sick and even if it doesn't will ensure that your head feels like the inside of Big Ben when it strikes twelve and your mouth like the bed of the Thames at Wapping when the tide's out!

Tapping the side of a Guinness glass is a genuine technique. Guinness is a heavy beer and it takes a long time for the carbon dioxide bubbles to rise to the top to form the head. As they do this the liquid becomes less gassy and the sound more solid. Drinking it before it's properly settled will mean that your first mouthfull may be gassy and unsatisfying (rather like every mouthfull of the products of the chemical factories!)

Richard English