Words

[flexibeast]

Like many people, there are certain words and phrases that drive me batty (whether justifiably or no):

• "irregardless". This neologism has rapidly gained currency over the last few years as people confuse the words 'irrespective' and 'regardless'. i'm sure it's going to end up in standard English, irregardless of my feelings. :-P


• "woman bus driver / mechanic / cricketer etc.". Not only do these phrases perpetuate gender stereotypes by implying that their unmarked forms - driver, mechanic, cricketer, etc. - necessarily involve males, but they just sound ugly to me; if gender must be specified, i think the adjectival form sounds far better (e.g. "female mechanic"). It's not like this doesn't happen elsewhere in English: i've never heard anyone talk about a "man nurse", but i've often heard "male nurse"; and in fact, i'm intrigued as to the origin of this pattern of "[modifying noun] [noun]" when women are involved and "[modifiying adjective] [noun]" when men are involved.


• "to pimp [a website, book etc.] / to pimp out [a car, house etc.]". i strongly suspect these phrases have gained currency as a result of 'gangsta' bullshit, and its legitimisation of the exploitation of women, becoming trendy. naked_wrat recently wrote a rant in feminist_rage about these phrases, as a result of a guy suggesting that people should "feel free to pimp" a feminist group for queer men. Predictably, this guy claimed that it was okay for him to use this phrase because he wasn't using it in a context of sex work. Yet i would suggest that if he had been doing so (e.g. "This guy was pimping"), its mere descriptiveness would have been been fine; but, given that i'm 99% sure that the new meanings of the word are connected to the 'exploitation' meaning of the word, i feel that using the word in a positive way is Not A Good Thing.


• "cunt" as an insult. In my experience, it's most often used by straight guys who can't stand their heterosexuality being questioned; so it's good fun to say to them something like "Hmm, you don't like cunts? i'm hot for them, myself." :-)

Perhaps oddly, the pronunciation of 'ask' as "arks" doesn't really annoy me that much. i seem to recall reading that this pronunciation dates back several centuries, so perhaps i've resigned myself to its presence. :-)

i'm sure there are other words and phrases that should be on this list, but i can't think of them right now; i'll add them as they come to mind. :-)

Update, 2007.06.14:

• The 'troll' / 'trawl' confusion. On the 'net, 'trolling' is where one says things deliberately designed to provoke a strong response; 'trawling' is methodically (tediously?) searching through something in order to find something else. Saying something like "I was trolling through the bisexual e-lists" probably isn't what you mean, unless you were posting a comment along the lines of "Bisexuals are confused disease vectors!" to the lists in question.

Update, 2007.06.17:

• The use of 'literally' where 'figuratively' is what's actually called for, as per zhasper's comment in the thread for this post.

Comments

[superbbluewren.livejournal.com]

I had not realised that it was so long ago, in the fifties or sixties, that the Americans destroyed the meaning of infer and made it mean the same as imply.

[flexibeast.livejournal.com]

Interesting . . . . in my head, 'infer' means something similar to 'deduce', whereas 'imply' means something similar to 'suggest'. Is that broadly correct?

[superbbluewren.livejournal.com]

Yes, you are quite right. The roots are interesting. I imply (fold in) something in what I say but you infer (bring in) something from what I said.

[zhasper.livejournal.com]

misuse of "inflammable" to mean "non-flammable".
Using "literally" to mean "figuratively" (or anything except "literally").
Dropped rs in words such as library and February

These are some things on my list. Obviously, erratic capitalisation and punctuation aren't on the list.

I was going to disagree with you about troll/trawl, based on them having similar meanings in an angling sense - but I ended up convincing myself I was wrong and you're right. Dammit. I don't think your update was really made on 2006/06/14 though...

[flexibeast.livejournal.com]

Ah! Yes, the use of 'literally' you describe, where people seem inclined to regard it as some form of 'strengthener', so to speak, was definitely something i meant to include on my own list. :-)

i wasn't aware of 'troll' in the angling sense - thanks for bringing it to my attention. i've also discovered that 'trolling' has also been used to mean something similar to 'cruising' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_%28gay%29) - do you know if that usage is common here in Australia?

[zhasper.livejournal.com]

I've never heard it being used that way. I've only heard troll in a scene context used in sentences like "that troll in the corner" - a derogatory term, indicating that the 'troll' is old, ugly, or both, or otherwise undesireable...

[flexibeast.livejournal.com]

Ah, okay - yeah, i've heard that meaning too, albeit not that often . . . .

[flexibeast.livejournal.com]

Oh, and thanks for pointing out my date error - now corrected. :-)