I also despise the "could care less" phrase...

Grammar wise I inevitably get bombarded with people's innate inability to differentiate between "there", "they're", and "their". I particularly enjoy being told "your a idiot" while playing a game online...

I'd say the other big phrase that annoys the hell out of me when we're talking about "spoken English" is when the news uses "decimated" for everything. For example: "Oh no! The Joplin tornado decimated the town!" I always shudder and tell everyone around me that only 10% of the town is gone, so it must not be that bad...

Yeah decimated is a particular funny one, always misused except in a specific minor historic context.

That's not grammar- that may be what's known as hyperbole. Idiomatic expressions which are misstated aren't necessarily related to grammar, either.

Comedian George Carlin once attacked the phrase " near miss" as in, the incident involving aircraft in the sky was a near miss. Carlin insinuated that this common understanding is logically absurd if the aircraft don't actually collide.

This isn't a grammar issue, and in reality, language can be constructed from sentences which follow all the rules of grammar but make no discernible sense (as was the point of Carroll's Alice in Wonderland), and on the other hand, all kinds of everyday use of language is understood although do not consistently follow the correct rules.

These kinds of threads are inevitably ironic, since they always contain criticism and ideas that themselves contain the 'fallacies' of language, but that shows that language and understanding happen on a very complicated, non-literal consciousness.

I see you failed to pick up on the bit where I wrote that I was switching back to "spoken English", not grammar, for the second half of the post.

No, I know what you're saying, but really it may be more a matter of hyperbolic phrases, triteness, glibness, hackneyed phrases, whether spoken or written. There's nothing about it which breaks the rules whether spoken or written, however, it's more to convey a certain sense that you have a problem with.

I always chuckled when my college basic chemistry prof. would say "Al-eww-min-ee-umm". He was a Limey Battle of Britain Hurri guy. With a little effort, we could get him off of chem. and get him talking about his flying days.

Tl;dr

That's not too hard considering how much more interesting it would be to hear about the air war during the Battle of Britain than listening about some boring formulas and elements.

Thats funny, the first time i heard Aloooooominum on some movie i was like what the hell is he talking about

I am pretty comfortable with differences between British and American "English", but one that still jars my ears is that Americans "go to the hospital", while the English "go to hospital".

?

We also say, "I went to school," as opposed to "I went to the school," or, "I went to jail," not, "I went to the jail," "I went to court," and so on. So there's something more implied than just going to the location, like the purpose of going there is what's important; at the same time, we don't say "I went to beach," "I went to store," "I went to kitchen." English is probably one of the most logically difficult if not inconsistent languages there are, on top of it, its wide proliferation adds all kinds of regional distinctions.

You all can't beat the real French speaking English words...
"Th" are "ss" ex: Bluetooth=bluetooss
"ah" are "oh" ex: Shaw= Show

Each time I want to throw my Tv in the street

This thread needs fixed.

We should start a eubonics thread.

For some odd reason...when someone says "brought" instead of 'bought" (purchased) it bugs the crap out of me. Many a SimHQ member is guilty of this one. Not sure if it's a typing only thing or if they actually speak it like that.

"I brought GTA 5 at Best Buy yesterday"


AAAARRRGGGHHHHH!!

The word "grammar" is still misspelled in the title of this thread.

Miss Jugs wrote:

Subtle difference here LJ.
"go to the hospital" means a specific know establishment,
"go to hospital" means unknown or not any particular hospital
"I'll send ye tae the hospital" is what they say in Glasgow

I think it tends to imply a more purposeful visit.

Consider the difference between "I left school," and "I left the school," the former suggests someone leaving, completing, finishing or dropping out of school, the latter seems something more temporal or less purposeful than that.

"I went to jail," vs, "I went to the jail" have different sense attached to them, just like the glass is half empty and the glass is half full have different sense. The phrases all denote or refer to the same thing, but there is a different sense to them. So, 'I went to jail' sounds as though I was or am an inmate, 'I went to the jail' could mean that I went there briefly or not for the purpose of being interned there.

Likewise, 'I went to hospital' seems to refer to my needing to go there for medical attention. 'I went to the hospital'- I could be going to the same hospital as before, but not for that purpose.