What linguistic constructions do you hate that no one else seems to mind?

It bugs me when people say "the thing is is that" (if you listen for it, you'll start hearing it... or maybe that's something that people only do in my area.) ("What the thing is is that..." is fine. But "the thing is is that..." bugs me.)

Also, "just because <blank> doesn't mean <blank>." That sentence structure invites one to take "just because <blank>" as a noun phrase which my brain really doesn't want to do. Just doesn't seem right. But that sentence structure is very common.

And I'm not saying there's anything objectively wrong with either of these. Language is weird and complex and beautiful. It's just fascinating that some commonly-used linguistic constructions just hit some people wrong sometimes.

Edit: I thought of another one. "As best as I can." "The best I can" is fine, "as well as I can" is good, and "as best I can" is even fine. But "as best as" hurts.

wolfpack86 ,

The over usage of "that" on news broadcasts.

"It's that time of ___!" (Insert day, week, year, fall, spring, summer, etc)

There are many countless examples. It's like nails on a chalkboard every time I hear it

loaExMachina , (edited )

In English, I hate both "from where" and the rarer "from whence". I first found out about the words "whence", "whither", "thence" and "thither" (respectively meaning "from where, "towards where", "from there" and "towards there") while reading the Lord of the Rings in English. I found these were powerful words that could make many sentences shorter and clearer and that it was a shame they went out of popular use...

But then, I also heard "from whence", which struck me as far worse because it was redundant and stripped the word of its power. I first thought it was a mistake, but after seing it several times I looked up how it was meant to be used to see if I wasn't in the wrong and saw that while it had started as a mistake, it came into use several hundred years ago and was used by many famous classic authors, making it acceptable.

Imo, that's probably what killed these words. I guess it had the merit of being less easily misheard, but when "from whence" and "from where" mean the exact same thing, why bother remembering "whence"?

In my native language, French, I kinda dislike "C'est quoi ?" (Litt. "It's what ?", pronounced [sekwa] meaning "What is it ?).
It's a vernacular expression often found incorrect... But I also kinda understand why it exists. The most correct way to ask "what is it" is "Qu'est-ce ?" ([kɛsə] or [kɛs]). It works well when written, but I guess being too short, it can be easily misheard. For example, "caisse" (a large box) is pronounced the exact same way.
The other alternative, more common in oral speech is "Qu'est-ce que c'est ?" (litt. "What is it that it is ?"). It might seem too long, but it's pronounced [kɛskəse], which has the same number of syllables as "What is it". It is redundant tho, so I understand why "C'est quoi ?", which doesn't sound like anything else, rolls off the tongue and has two syllables is winning over, and will probably be the correct way in the future, but it still kinda sounds wrong to me.

FunnyUsername ,
@FunnyUsername@lemmy.world avatar

"As a ________, this is my opinion about a related topic to the field in which I'm in...."

It's the Internet. No one needs your credentials. People lie about credentials all the time anyways. People cheat through college. It's a humble brag, nothing more. Just give us your thoughts, not your resume.

shasta ,

It's a lot harder to cheat through a career

FunnyUsername ,
@FunnyUsername@lemmy.world avatar

Every single career is literally filled with under performing unqualified workers. The Peter Principle will always be around

Edit: i had to fire a licensed physician that wanted to attempt cranial sacral therapy on me a couple months ago. The odds people are incompetent is a lot higher than people think, even among professionals.

yyyesss ,

"In terms of" when it relates to nothing in the discussion. It's just a fluffy pile of nothing to either make you sound smarter, make your idea sound smarter, or fill in space like "um".

"In terms of the design, we're choosing blue."

Bob_Robertson_IX ,

I work in IT and the one that kills me is when someone says or writes "On premise" when they mean "On premises". I have worked for cloud companies and even the official literature is wrong. It has gotten to the point where so many people get it wrong that the official meaning is going to be changed because people are dumb and we can't have nice things.

Words have meaning, stop fucking them up!

KammicRelief ,

The most grating to me right now has to be the comma splice (run-on sentence). For example:
"Every one of our talented art students will have artwork represented in the show, it is always an impressive event."

I see it everywhere lately! Even in official business/marketing emails. Someone got a college degree and got hired to write that email ffs. Use a damn period or semicolon.

Belastend ,

ITT: people who understood the question and people who hate certain pronounciations for no reason.

KestrelAlex ,

One that bugs me a lot that I noticed just in the last 5 years or so is over pronouncing the T in words like celebrity and community - yes it's spelled with a T but it's not fully voiced like you're saying the word Tea. I noticed it first on YouTube and now in some audiobooks and even the occasional coworker.

SeabassDan ,

Don't you mean youdube?

mrunicornman ,

Using "basis" to mean "based on".

"Basis our discussion, please go ahead and..."
"We decided on a price point basis our market research."

It makes me uncomfortable.

5wim ,

I haven't encountered that and it's upsetting and dumb.

Rhynoplaz ,

I really hate R's in the middle of familiar.

It's not feR-mill-yer.

___ ,

Lay lie, ffs why differentiate
Who whom, it serves no great purpose
Words like recie||eive, do I need to explain?
Must not should be must’n

blazeknave ,

I still don't end sentences with a preposition. Even aloud.

Hildegarde ,

I still don't know what a preposition even is. What are they even for?

Gimpydude ,

Magnets. How do they even work?

blazeknave ,

Hahahahahaha I wish I knew... I just watched that Matt Damon great wall movie.. they explain......

blazeknave ,

Lmao to make your life harder apparently

Reddfugee42 ,

being is

wtf is that

SeabassDan ,

That actually ended up evolving over the last 75 or so years. Reason being is that I'm just playing, just wanted to use it.

ornery_chemist ,

Homogeneous, meaning having a uniform composition. Hoe-moe-jee-nee-us (or hoe-muh- and/or -jee-nyus; point is, there's an ee sound before the last syllable). Saying homogenous (huh-mah-jeh-nus) in that sense is not only wrong but also means something else.

Numenor ,

Like Alan Turing?

ornery_chemist ,

Not gonna lie, I thought about your comment multiple times today trying to make sense of it, and only just now did I realize what you meant by it.

Yes, like Alan Turing. Ugh.

Kazumara , (edited )

Sometimes it really annoys me if a perfect spot for a proper "whom" is missed. Even worse though is a misplaced "whom". Both instances are easy for me to spot because we decline pronouns quite a lot in German.

Edit: Sorry that's not a construction, so much as just an error. For constructions one thing that gets on my nerves is if you try to tell someone about your previous state of mind to clear up a misunderstanding like "I thought the water had boiled already" and then they say "no" to tell you that your assumption was incorrect. This is annoying because first of all the information they are conveing is already known to you by the time of this discussion and secondly in the grammatical sense they are actually disagreeing with your state of mind, not the content. I always have the urge to say: "Yes, actually, I'm telling you that's what I thought, you can't disagree with me about what I was thinking."

Belastend ,

Its not even an error. The majority of english speakers wont use "whom" in that spot, so its not an error anymore.

Kazumara ,

Whatever

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