As college instructors, Kelly and I find lots of word
abuse and misuse from students, but we see a lot of homophones in other places,
as well. A billboard that used capital when they meant capitol, for example, or
food going to waist. Those always makes us laugh.
My Swagbucks Daily Poll this morning asked: “Which best
describes how you wake up in the morning?” As always, the choices were in
descending order, with the second through sixth picks being:
“Where’s my coffee?”
“Hit the snooze button multiple times.”
“Oscar the Grouch.”
“Another day, another dollar.”
“I wake up closer to the evening.”
At the top of the list: “Ready to cease the day!”
While that’s not exactly
what the author meant, I’m sure, it’s probably closer to the truth for most of
us, most days.Have a good weekend.
I live in an urban area where slang is the norm and certain words are widely used, understood and accepted. However ...
ReplyDeleteWords NOT in the urban dictionary: garadge (garage) sale, no truss passing (trespassing), skrimp (shrimp) and my personal word peeve - larnex (larynx).
Hi Sharon V. Thanks for writing. My pet peeve word of the day: insure, when ensure obviously is intended. Not that I'm a word snob or anything....
DeleteAs a founding member of the St. Francois County Grammar Police, I am an avowed word snob. It is my duty to point out others' mistakes, thus humiliating them into corrective action. The worst offenders gravitate to Facebook, where your, you're, there, they're and their are used in every way but the right way, and the apostrophe s ('s)is most often used (incorrectly) to show more than one of something. I try to think of it all as job security. As in, "the girl's walked across the corner of the yard on there way to school." You could probably solve that problem with proper placement of signage saying, "Warning: Land Mines!"
ReplyDeletePAWG: Now, now. The noble purpose of a word snob is not, as you might suggest, to humiliate the less well versed. It is merely a perk.
DeleteWhat you say is exactly right. We see it constantly in our students, who mostly have never learned any better, and they just don't see the point. And the way they use exclamation points - oh my.
Of course, I once had an English teacher mark off on a paper because I spelled "indite" as it is here. She wrote "indict" in red. Well. Had I meant to say indict rather than indite, I assured her, I would have said indict. "Look at the context, woman...." I didn't say.
I've always told my girls, never marry a man who says "your welcome."