Ask Lemmy

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

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.

"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.

"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."

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!

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.

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

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.

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.

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