ChatterBank12 mins ago
Pacific, disoriented and communial!!!!
Pacific being used instead of specific is my pet hate. The Pacific is an ocean so putting it into sentences such as 'I can't give a pacific time' makes no sense whatever!!!! Does nobody know that or have the rules changed when I wasn't looking?
Another one that gets me is disoriented in place of disorientated. Did that word get officially shorted?
There's a case of extra letters in the new word 'communial'. Was the word communal not long enough?
I know I'm a pedant but these things really bother me. I won't even get started on apostrophes.
Answers
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For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.Disoriented - Confused: having lost your bearings; confused as to time or place or personal identity; "I frequently find myself disoriented when I come up out of the subway"; "the anesthetic left her completely disoriented"
Disorientated - To make someone lose all sense of position, direction or time. Verb or adjective...
Similar, agreed, but valid... unlike very unique or my favorite of all time... irregardless... like fingernails on a blackboard...
The classic example is probably "inflammable." In some contexts, it means "something which can easily be set aflame," like kindling. In other contexts, it means, "something which cannot easily be set aflame." Example: "Those pajamas are inflammable". Not to be confused with imflammable, which does mean a readiness to burst into flames... ahhh, English...
I have to disagree with Clanad, my Chambers 20th Century give "disorient" first, then "Also disorientate". I prefer "disorientate" myself, but I wonder which is older, and therefore, to most of us pedeants, has greater authority?
I can't find a dictionary that gives 'imflammable' as a word, or gives 'inflammable' an alternate meaning. 'Flammable' and 'inflammable' both mean the same. The opposite is 'non-flammable'. My pet hates are 'we was' for 'we were' and the almost universal pronunciation of the letter 'H' as 'haitch' - formerly only found in comedy 'cockney' accents. I also find the use of 'I was like...' for 'I said...' quite odd, but I suppose that as long as we understand each other it doesn't really matter much.
secretspirit - I think the word for doing what you have mentioned is a malapropism - so name after a women in a play 'mrs malaprop' who continually made these verbal errors for comic affect. I forget the details of the play though. One I have heard is 'what are you incinerating?' for insinuating.
other mispronounced words - particularly by americans -that I hate are -
1 warrior � pronounced war yer
2 mirror � pronounced mee orr
3 vase � pronounced vayce
4 aluminium � pronounced aloominum
5 nuclear � pronounced nuc-u-lar
6 leisure � pronounced leeshure
7 wardrobe � pronounced closet (not strictly the same but a good one I think!)
8 laboratory � pronounced lab-rat-ory
9 library � pronounced ly-berry
10 cellulite � pronounced cell-u-leet
11 camomile pronounced camom-eel
12 mature � matoor
13 buoy � booey
14 lever � lev- ver
15 crematorium � cream-atorium
16 anti � an-tie
(Most of) you are pedants after my own heart! I can't bear the language to be mangled, and no, Ladyboyg1, it's not a sign of class or intellectual snobbery. I've no objection to dialect - in some regions 'we was' or 'I done' is perfectly valid - rather, it is sloppy, idle, can't-be-botheredness that irritates those of us who were made to learn properly! And if you think it doesn't matter any more, ask the 'vile capitalist pigs' who still hire most of us (whether we like it or not) whether they'd like to look over every document that goes out, or leave it to someone who can be trusted to use language correctly.
I have a friend who watches too many films. He will quite often tell me that he will be with me 'momentarily', and I always imagine him sticking his head round the door, then going away again, rather than being with me 'in a moment', as he really means.
Bert - I've heard 'artic weather' too. Weather suitable only for heavy goods vehicles? And what are these 'tempachurs' beloved of forecasters? Presumably the low ones we encounter in 'Feb'ry'. 'Spits and spots of rain' also gets on my nerves - hardly meteorology, is it? Rant over - looks as though I'm the worst pedant on the block!
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