Thursday, October 9, 2008

WTF is... I.

an advocado? There's an advert for IGA on the teev now and they're talking about advocados. That's a spoken one, along with mischievious and grievious. ARRGH

Then there's the written ones
hypocricy, hypocracy

discusted, discussed

rediculous

complaisent
these can't be typos.

And I can't forget walla. WTF is walla? These people doing school in the last 30 years have no idea of language. It's voila. It's french. Fer cryin' out loud!

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

dispicable.

Anonymous said...

And why can't people get 'seperate' right?

(Hi kae)

Anonymous said...

Mispellers rarely realize how distracting their bad habit is. It's like listening to someone with a speech impediment.

Worse, actually. Mispellings make the reader doubt the writer's attention to detail, and therefore the soundness of his ideas.

Which is just my way of saying, "Hi kae, how ya doin'?"

Anonymous said...

(I know it's 'misspell'. Just screwing around.)

kae said...

Hullo Lyle.
Thanks, now I'm gonna get paranoid about what I write... seperate, separate?

Lose, loose. That's another one. Doubling the letters changes the sound of the vowel, don't ask me the technical term. Lost. Lose. That's how I remember. Goose. Loose. Too easy.

Have you finished your book? What about the musings of lyle for a title of the limericks etc? Hm? Potted Lyle? Terse Verse? Huh?
C'mon. You can do it, you know you can.

Wand, I think there should be a collection of incorrect spellings, as well as the oxymorons.

kae said...

and especially doubling the consonants changes the sound of the vowel.

kae said...

dispationately

Egg said...

"And why can't people get 'seperate' right?"

Salient point, Lyle.

Dunno if it's a left/right brain thing, but I've found that many in my industry (Engineering), who have a *reasonable* mathematical aptitude, oft misspell that word: they can't 'separate' math from diction?

Anonymous said...

I saw that ad last night and had almost convinced myself that I was mishearing aDvocado. Cringe.

Another one is "renown", when the writer means "renownED". We see, for example, "X is renown for his views on...". Drives me nuts!

And why, oh why, do people reverse the meanings of "borrow" and "loan"? I've heard a lot (there's another one - "alot") of school kids do it, but last week at work a woman of 40+ asked a colleague, "Can you borrow me your pen"?

Agh! Don't get me going.

SandiM

Anonymous said...

Kae,

I'm embarrassed to admit that I got about halfway through, then stalled. I wanted it to be funny but was constrained by the rhyme scheme.

And sometimes I have to paint - which is what I'm avoiding at the moment, by the way. When I finish this painting in December, I'll leave Brooklyn for Rhode Island.

Then I'll look out the office window at the beach in winter, and I'll try to finish The Animals' Treasure.

kae said...

don't forget:

hone in on (it's home in on, dipshit)

pacific (instead of specific)

bias (instead of biased)


Oh crumbs, lyle's back... quick, kc - hide.

Lyle, just read your not about the book. Can't rush it!
Anyway, why don't you come out here, while it's cheap (our dollar is dropping like an ACME anvil!), and paint some stuff here. I'm sure you could get some good contacts from Blair and others about the place!

Skeeter said...

This very morning I received an email from a young (born 1961) nephew. I've always admired this bloke. He has had a very successful life and has worked himself up from an apprentice tradesman to managing director of a group of companies.
This morning's email was the first time I have ever seen anything written by him, so I was very surprised to learn about his language problems.
In five short lines, the message had the following six errors (correct word in brackets):
I (I'd or I would)
hollow (hello)
shore (sure)
mums (mum's)
their (they're)
write (right).
I've been thinking, maybe he dictated it to his PA and she has the language problems, not the managing director.

Boy on a bike said...

were vs where - drives me nuts.

your and you're - sends me ballistic

yoke vs yolk - obvious brain fart

Paco said...

I believe an advocado is an avocado shaped like a lawyer.

Anonymous said...

There is a poster on Bolt that persists in using "an" where "a" is required, e.g. "an band". He/she does it ALL the time.

Other peeves: bias as in "the media is bias:

and

"then" when what is meant is "than".

SandiM

kae said...

Hi SandiM
Hmm. Yes.
I've been thinking about this post and the comments. It's not that I don't think someone who has problems spelling or using the correct word is dumb, a lot of smart people can't spell, just can't, or were never corrected on it (and some just make dumb typos, or have words which trip them up all the time), but it's just that the way to learn is to be corrected. It's not really having a go, it just helps broaden the knowledge.

Know what I mean?

Anonymous said...

I think it goes back to the late 70s when so called teachers began to ignore incorrect spelling. If they 'knew' (there's another one new = knew, and another one no = know)what the writer 'meant', then that was good enough. Couldn't risk damaging the little darlings' self esteem by actually t-e-a-c-h-i-n-g them by correction.

So, can see why I wasn't even slightly shocked to see the response to the OCCUPATION line on an insurance claim form - "teecher".

kae said...

Arrgh, another one.

allot

instead of a lot

grrr.