add this word to the increasingly stupid lazy americans' vocabulary!

Discussion in 'The Red Room' started by oldfella1962, Dec 11, 2016.

  1. oldfella1962

    oldfella1962 the only real finish line

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    FUCK! :shakefist: Okay we all know the typical laundry-list of words that make us weep for our nation: :weep:

    TO=TOO
    THREW=THROUGH
    THEN=THAN

    you know the drill - it's not a "spelling" thing. None of these words are difficult - they are just incessantly, criminally misused. :brood: But now I am noticing a new word I've seen FUBAR on a different forum board that I frequent:

    SEWN=SOWN as in "now that my crops are sewn I sure hope we get some rain." :facepalm: So help me out here - I'm old fashioned. Is it some kind of spell-check thing that isn't catching the differences when people write & post messages or are people just getting that much more lazy/complacent? Are people posting from devices that automatically switch what they wrote without the input of the writer? What is it folks?
  2. Mrs. Albert

    Mrs. Albert demented estrogen monster

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    Lose/loose and affect/effect are my triggers.:confuzzle:

    For some reason, to/too/two and their/there/they're are not as bothersome to me.
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  3. Mrs. Albert

    Mrs. Albert demented estrogen monster

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    Damn - I can't remember the code for the little twitchy guy smilie.
  4. Forbin

    Forbin Do you feel fluffy, punk?

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    It's especially crazy-making when someone gets it wrong on one-sentence a Facebook meme. You're typing ONE sentence for all the world to see, you can at least proof-read it. One I saw recently was only 5 words, and it used "their" and "there" incorrectly both times. :bang:
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  5. oldfella1962

    oldfella1962 the only real finish line

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    yes loose=lose is one of the more common but infuriating words. :shakefist: They don't even sound the same - maybe people don't read what they wrote back to themselves these days because we are all in a hurry or something. But you would think when somebody is writing "That guy is such a looser I don't think he'll ever get his shit together."
    how could that ever sound right? :unsure: "I hope Jim doesn't loose that bet he has on the football game tomorrow."
    DAMN WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY? :whaa:
  6. Asyncritus

    Asyncritus Expert on everything

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    Whatever it is, so many people voting for Trump is a much more alarming symptom of it than spelling errors on message boards and social media.
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  7. oldfella1962

    oldfella1962 the only real finish line

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    Wait I just remembered this - not spelling or grammar but something even more telling on our state of written communication across our fruited plane. HA HA see what I did there? If you didn't catch PLANE you suck.

    Anyway, about two weeks ago there was a sign posted at the entrance to our subdivision and the subdivision behind us (two subdivisions share one entrance/exit to a major road):
    GARAGE SALE 7 - 11 :unsure: Yep, that's it! No fucking address! I guess you just have to drive on every fucking street (about 500 homes totaled) until you see shit for sale in a driveway. :brood: I guess you have from 7:00 to 11:00 to get this done. Wait, it gets better. Apparently their first garage sale wasn't a success. :chris: So earlier this week there was a different sign saying GARAGE SALE SATURDAY :lol: So what's next for these people (assuming they are the same people) in their diminishing advertising efforts? How about a sign saying STUFF and be done with it?

    It might have been cute if the signs had backward letters or something like The Little Rascals made the sign. But no, just some idiot who can't convey basic information because they pay ZERO attention to detail.
  8. shootER

    shootER Insubordinate...and churlish Administrator

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    :what:

    : what :
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  9. oldfella1962

    oldfella1962 the only real finish line

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    I disagree - spelling errors (not really and I explain in a bit) are a personal responsibility that requires very little research, investigation or personal reflection. You don't have to know jack shit about politics to know the difference in meaning between THREW and THROUGH. Again, it's not just spelling! It's all about context! :bang:
    Most people know how to spell each of these words. For example if there were a spelling bee and you were asked to spell "through" you would ask for that word to be used in a sentence, because there are different ways to say it/spell it/use it depending on context. If I cannot spell deoxyribonucleic acid you still know I'm not talking about an umbrella at that point.
  10. ed629

    ed629 Morally Inept Banned

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    One that is see somewhat often on a local BBS is the words sale and sell being used incorrectly. Far too many inbred morons will have something like this in a post, "Does anyone know of a good cheap car for sell?". Or something like this "I want to sale my lawnmower, anyone interested?" Stupid fucks.
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  11. K.

    K. Sober

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    That one offers itself for fun, though. :D
  12. oldfella1962

    oldfella1962 the only real finish line

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    DAMN! This shit must be spreading faster than I thought. I figured it was just the US.
  13. garamet

    garamet "The whole world is watching."

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    "Tow" the line is the one that sets me off. Unless you’re a barge-canal mule, you’re not “towing” anything. You’re being shown a line on the ground and being told to get your boot tips even with it (anyone who's ever been in the military, at least, should know this).

    Toe
    the line, fool!
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  14. K.

    K. Sober

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    That one is misspelled more often than it's spelled correctly. Which is why I used to think it referred to a tug of war, where a team member is told to pull as hard as they can, and in the direction of their team.
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  15. Bickendan

    Bickendan Custom Title Administrator Faceless Mook Writer

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    Shortening 'you' to 'u' and 'you're' AND 'your' to 'ur'.

    :beamcannon:
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  16. Order2Chaos

    Order2Chaos Ultimate... Immortal Administrator

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    'Your' gets shortened to 'yr', 'you're' gets shortened to 'ur'.
  17. garamet

    garamet "The whole world is watching."

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    Huh. Never thought of it that way, but that's where context comes in. "You're expected to toe the line" means "You're expected to be in sync with everyone else."

    And I just remembered another one that makes me :bang: : "I could care less." :doh:
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  18. Ten Lubak

    Ten Lubak Salty Dog

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    Why do your posts make it look like you're slowly turning into John Castle?
  19. Lanzman

    Lanzman Vast, Cool and Unsympathetic Formerly Important

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    There / they're / their, it's / its, and your / you're are my biggest pet peeves when it comes to this kind of stuff. But moving up fast is the increasing inability to use an apostrophe correctly. I just saw a Facebook meme that said "Monday's can be tough." Unless Monday owns something that's potentially tough, they mean "Mondays can be tough."
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  20. Minsc&Boo

    Minsc&Boo Fresh Meat

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  21. Bickendan

    Bickendan Custom Title Administrator Faceless Mook Writer

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    GrammarForge agree's!


    :ramen:
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  22. Nono

    Nono Fresh Meat

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    Oh, a thread on Language Peeves. I gotta shitload of 'em.

    One I really hate is using the subject pronoun in all cases. I was actually taught to do this in school, which is probably where most people learn it, then think they're being Perfectly Correct in their Usage. To wit: Bill gave the nachos to Fred and I, then Fred gave Bill and I a ride downtown.

    Of course there is no end to mizpelling u sea evry day. And Americans are not any worse than others, I think. Just more numerous.
    But English is a bitch of a language to spell. A minefield.
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  23. Shirogayne

    Shirogayne Gay™ Formerly Important

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    True enough about English. It's fortunate that most of us were native speakers of this clusterfuck conglomerate language. My hat is off to anyone that learned this as a second language and got fluent in it. :P
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  24. Asyncritus

    Asyncritus Expert on everything

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    Contrary to popular belief among English speakers, English is one of the easiest major languages there is to learn. Much simpler than French, incomparably simpler than German, and don't even think about Chinese.

    English is, however, one of the more difficult languages to spell...
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  25. markb

    markb Dirty Bastard

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  26. Nono

    Nono Fresh Meat

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    Hmmm... I never had to learn English as a foreign language, but I know a lot of insightful people who have. They say that since English has few hard rules (mostly exceptions ...), it's easy to start speaking a sort of pidgin version that can see you through simple situations. But expressing complex thought is another matter.

    I learned both German and French as an adult and no, it ain't no picnic. Each has its own particular difficulties. But really, the truly tough thing with any language (well, let's say most Indo-European languages anyway) is being able to discuss a challenging topic in them.

    Yes, English spelling is a horror-show. But mistakes by non-anglos are easily forgiven.

    Every educated person in any language has his/her own Language Peeves, things that grate (or is that great?). They're like taste differences in any realm, and readily fit into generational stereotypes: "Kids these days R jes stooopid the way they talk."
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  27. Asyncritus

    Asyncritus Expert on everything

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    Simply not true:

    1) English has no genders for nouns (other than in colloquial use such as sailors calling a ship "she"). There are no exceptions to this. It simply isn't part of the language structure.
    2) "The" has neither gender nor number (no singular and plural forms). There are no exceptions to this.
    3) Adjectives thus do not have to conform to the gender and number of the noun. There are no exceptions to this.
    3) English nouns do not have declensions. There are no exceptions to this; it simply isn't part of the language.
    4) Modern English does not require learning different verbal forms for singular and plural "you". That has disappeared from the language, in every English-speaking country in the world.
    5) Plurals of nouns in English are made by adding "s" or, in the case of a noun that already ends with "s", by adding "es". Though there are exceptions to this, they are by no means "mostly" the case.
    6) Verb tenses follow general rules that are much simpler than French, for example. Again, there are exceptions to those rules (every natural language has irregular verbs) but they do not come close to constituting "most" of the cases of congugation.
    7) Adverbs are most formed by adding "ly" to the cognate adjective. Here again, there are exceptions, but they aren't even close to being a majority.

    Those are just off the top of my head. The point is that English does not have "mostly" exceptions. No language does. But some of them come close. Do you know the rules for determining which form is masculine and which form is feminine when you have identical French nouns for two different things (such as feminine "livre" for a pound, and masculine "livre" for a book)? I don't think anyone does.
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  28. Nono

    Nono Fresh Meat

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    Your opinion. Free country.

    Yes, that simplifies English. But is it a big deal? No. You learn the gender at the same time as you learn the word itself. Easy. And if you make a mistake, big deal.

    Again, what's so eye-poppingly difficult about this in other languages? Not a whole lot.
    You've cited one of the things that makes English simple at a simple level.

    See above.

    Neither does French. Weren't you just saying how tough French is? Yet it has no declensions.

    I disagree. English verb tenses are as much of a minefield -- or more -- than any other language I know. Consider the difference between "Fred ate nachos" and "Fred has eaten nachos" and "Fred was eating nachos". These are effing hard to master.
    That's why I said that each language has its problem areas.
    Yes, English conjugation is mostly simple. Add that to the for-the-purpose-of-simple-communication list.

    Big deal. He goes. They go. There are some traps.
    Do you understand "Blues is rain' all over the world"? Yes, dialect. No barrier to communication. It's like that in other langauges too.
    My Lancashire grandmother used to say "It were a tough time". Did I misunderstand? No.

    French does the same thing with "ment". And German does the same thing with ...... nothing at all. Just uses the adjective as an adverb. So German -- which you ranked "incomparably" more difficult than English -- is, in this respect, far simpler.

    All of these languages -- including English -- are tough to learn for complex conversations. Which are the interesting ones in life.
  29. Asyncritus

    Asyncritus Expert on everything

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    ^ All that typing, and not one word to defend your statement that English has "mostly exceptions". All you did was move the goalposts so many times they must be getting dizzy by now...
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  30. Nono

    Nono Fresh Meat

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    LOL, my post was 50 words shorter than yours.

    If you ask any thoughtful person who has ever had to learn English as a second language (children don't count, since they learn languages without having to think everything through too much), naturally that person will complain about the spelling, but will probably tell you that otherwise the worst thing about English is that it has Too Few Rules and Too Many Exceptions.

    Rules are your friend. Nail them down and they're yours forever. (Yes, that's the hard part about learning German well ---- you have to master a framework of grammar rules before you can get going. But once you've learned them, they'll never let you down.)

    I'm not moving the goalposts, sonny. I'm just qualifying your rash statement that English is so damn easy. That claim is too uhh.. easy.