Words that get on your nerves

I need to go and calm down now, I'm furious!

 

Over use of the word "perfect" is my current bugbear. Specsavers staff seem to be particularly bad for this.

Me: I've got an appointment at 4 o'clock.
Staff member: Perfect. What's your name?
Me: Gives name.
Staff member: Perfect.
Etc.

Then
Staff member: Which is the lowest line you can read?
Me: The fourth line down.
Staff member: Perfect.

No. It's not Perfect. If it was Perfect I'd be able to read the bottom line!

 

The pee thing came in with decimalisation. Before then there were 240 d (pennies or pence) to a pound. Then they became 100 p/pennies/pence.

Have to agree on "super" and "like" used all over the place but a pet hate, for different reasons, is "can't" from people who won't try.

 

This isn't about something that gets in my nerves but I thought bit might be a good place to ask a question that popped into my head ( this often happens whilst carrying out mindless gardening jobs)
Non- binary grammar
If a person wishes to be referred to as 'they', how do you use it in the following sentence referring to one person:
They like gardening
Or
They likes gardening?

 

A very good question @BB3 ! In written format I have mostly seen the plural form "they like", and in the rare occasions of spoken situations, the singular one. "Andy is nice and they's a big fan of...! "

I think it will take time to get used to the terminology and even more time until "proper" grammatical rules are drawn up. Rules follow established practises.

As an easy alternative, may I suggest that Finnish is declared as the universal language? We only have one third singular pronoun which is of course very inclusive but causes rather interesting issues when translating from the old school languages which still have gendered pronouns.

"She left the room and he poured himself a glass of wine" takes several lines of subtitles to make it clear who did what.

Back to the topic, "boast" is my latest pet hate.

"The house boasts of central heating" "the first floor boasts of two double bedrooms, offering an ample space for a..."

For goodness sake, it sounds like houses are meeting on the village green to bo... show off about things like double glazing (throughout the ground floor!) or Fitted Kitchen Units or "low maintenance outdoor space"

 

A lot depends on regional accent @BB3. i can just imagine Wurzel Gummidge saying "Oi likes gardening, you likes gardening, he, she, it, we, they likes gardening.

Other than that They is always going to take the plural form for me.

As for grammatical rules adapting @Selleri do they even teach them now?

I was at Grammar school till 1971 and we had lots of formal English grammar which meant we knew how to parse a sentence. Maybe not an obvious skill to appreciate but very helpful when learning other languages. I made British friends in Belgium when we moved there in 1991 - 2 or 3 years younger than me and who really struggled because they had not been taught grammar and would not know a subject, a direct object, an indirect object or a complementay clause if it bit them on the behind.

They never did learn to speak or read French.

 

I think I'm becoming more tolerant of "haitch" since hearing it a lot in Ireland. After all, it makes sense, since it begins with the sound of the letter. And nobody writes it down, except to complain about it...

Shortly after arriving here in 2019 my husband and I were greeted by the builder. "Hello lads", he said. We were surprised, even my husband, who - in his 70s - would scarcely describe himself as a lad. But now it just sounds friendly, perhaps as "guys" might if we were in America.

 

“Winner winner chicken dinner”

 

We should start using 'Thy', 'Thee' and 'Thine' again to be absolutely correct, somewhere in Lancashire they've never stopped.

 

Spoonfuls or Spoons full??

 

@shiney I'm not opening that! Earworms stick with me for days. I might have even caught that one already

 

Or maybe spoonsful definitely no double L

 

I used to work in a bank back in the 70s and our sub manager referred to all the staff as "lads". There were two males and eight females working there ...

 

I've always used the singular they, it was useful when growing up to disguise identity, gender and number of people an adult was quizzing you about.