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I’ll tell you what grinds my gears

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  • Lead as past tense of, well, lead. Led probably looks wrong to many folk as they’ve never red a book (as it were (.

  • ) for ( !

  • kids nowadays drive me mental with their "gottens" and their unnecessary "ofs", as in "as good of a solution". And don't get me started on the cafe queue and "can I get a set breakfast"? Mercifully I'm not the proprietor and so can't ruin the business by shouting, "No and what's more you can't even HAVE a set breakfast, you ill-mannered little scrote!", whilst shooing them out of the door with a white hot fish slice.

    And then there's golf, obviously.

  • Starting a sentence or a reply with 'so.' Something my own generation seem to be guilty of a lot.

  • I refuse to get annoyed by anything anymore these days. WWLXD is my motto...

  • 'Vinyls' plural when talking about records.

  • Comparatives preceded by more shake my rigging - eg “he knows he should have done more better”. One which I think I have exclusive rights on is “we’ll help you as best we can”. There are no degrees of ‘best’. Should be “as well as we can”.

  • @floyd said:
    Starting a sentence or a reply with 'so.' Something my own generation seem to be guilty of a lot.

    So true.

  • @MindlessDrugHoover said:
    'Vinyls' plural when talking about records.

    I heard that the other day, but let him off as he was American.

    Dreadful scenes.

  • @micra said:
    Comparatives preceded by more shake my rigging - eg “he knows he should have done more better”. One which I think I have exclusive rights on is “we’ll help you as best we can”. There are no degrees of ‘best’. Should be “as well as we can”.

    Yep. Why say more better when a simple "betterly" does it more betterings.

  • @EwanHoosaami said:
    A poo free kick/corner that doesn't clear the 1st defender. It's a dead ball, a free & unimpeded kick at the ball for heavens sake. I can understand 1 in 10 for example where the planted foot slips a bit but when it's 5 in 10 it really gets my goat!!!!

    When players are just trying to float it into the box I agree 100%, but I'm not as fussed when JJ hits the first man or sightly over hits it when he's really trying to whip it in with lots of pace and curl because that's not actually that easy.

    How often have we scored when the ball is just generically put into the box? Definitely an argument to be made that it's worth the risk of getting it wrong more often if the balls that do make into the right area are that much more dangerous

  • @floyd said:
    As with most American English I have moved thru the stages of grief and found myself at acceptance.

    (Nods in sad agreement with @floyd)

  • One thing I find interesting is the differences in equivalent concepts. For example, where Brits say 'Joe Bloggs', Americans say 'John Doe' and I believe the Irish say 'Joe Soap'. It makes me wonder how they evolved.

  • Over estimate and under estimate used incorrectly

  • PBoPBo
    edited January 2021

    @our_frank said:
    kids nowadays drive me mental with their "gottens" and their unnecessary "ofs", as in "as good of a solution".

    well for the former, that was apparently reasonable UK English once upon a time...but we discarded it whereas the colonies kept thinking it was acceptable.

    I actually also hear it in people from the North East, presumably an area immune to passing linguistic trends.

    For the latter...Americans also have the reverse trend which is the lazy omission of "of"...as in "A couple things".

    Anyway.

    I find the insistence on using the word "football" a bit odd, although it's a bit strong to say it grinds my gears.

    As in - footballer being interviewed, "I'm proud to sign for this great football club".

    Or, on a programme about football, and nothing else, "Well Brian, (insert club name here) is in the lurch, I think they need to start winning football matches".

  • "Right now" winds me up a bit now I come to think of it.

  • edited January 2021

    @PBo - on that football note, if anyone has ever watched the NFL, they will be as amused as I am by the insistence on saying the full NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE instead of the acronym.

    "Well Tony, if you're gonna be a running back in the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE, you gotta practice like you belong. Otherwise you ain't gonna be in the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE for long."

    It's to the point where I am surprised they don't say "registered trademark" after each reference.

  • @Shev said:
    @PBo - on that football note, if anyone has ever watched the NFL, they will be as amused as I am by the insistence on saying the full NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE instead of the acronym.

    "Well Tony, if you're gonna be a running back in the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE, you gotta practice like you belong. Otherwise you ain't gonna be in the NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE for long."

    It's to the point where I am surprised they don't say "registered trademark" after each reference.

    I've always wondered about when companies sponsor matches or the match ball or some other gub.
    Does anyone think, "Oh, Dave's Kebabs sponsored today's ball, I'll check them out"

  • Anyone irritated by eg “the main consideration is is whether they should continue ....”. Verbal tic now almost as rife as Covid.

  • Golf has to be the worst sport for that. Any interview with a player will feature numerous references to a great 'golf shot' or a difficult 'golf course' or 'golf tournament', just incase they forget which sport they're playing

  • I'll offer the almost uniform misuse of "decimate". Don't think I've ever heard it used correctly.

  • TIL that the word most often misused in American politics in 2020 was, "unprecedented". First time ever, apparently.

  • The standard usage of decimate is correct despite it once meaning to reduce by a tenth. Would you have the same reservations about, say, egregious to mean very bad?

  • @Shev said:
    One thing I find interesting is the differences in equivalent concepts. For example, where Brits say 'Joe Bloggs', Americans say 'John Doe' and I believe the Irish say 'Joe Soap'. It makes me wonder how they evolved.

    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10541.Made_in_America

  • @HCblue said:
    I'll offer the almost uniform misuse of "decimate". Don't think I've ever heard it used correctly.

    Yes! I'm so glad i'm not the only one.

  • Decimate? Isn't that when we moved over to the metric system...?

  • Martin O’Neill used to say “The football club” a lot in the old season review videos. I quite liked it, myself. But then, he’s never yet actually managed to do anything wrong in my eyes.

  • @HCblue about 1 in 10 times I'd say?

  • When people say something is an acronym and it's not actually an acronym.

    Also people throwing in the word "at" for no reason whatsoever (grammatical or otherwise), eg. "where are we at?". Horrendous

  • How long have you lived here for.

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