I’ve read the list, but I’m not seeing it. They certainly don’t rise to the frequency of the misspelling of lose and loose.
Bunch of loosers.
- Adverse: Unfavorable or harmful; commonly confused with “averse,” which means disinclined.
- Begs the question: Implies a conclusion that isn’t supported by evidence; commonly confused with “raises the question.”
- Bemused: Bewildered; commonly confused with “amused,” which means entertained.
- Depreciate: To decrease in value; commonly confused with “deprecate,” which means to disapprove of.
- Enervate: To cause someone to feel drained; commonly misused to mean “to energize.”
- Flaunt: To show off; commonly confused with “flout,” which means “to openly disregard.”
- Flounder: To struggle helplessly; commonly confused with “founder,” which means to fill with water and sink.
- Fortuitous: To happen by chance; commonly confused with “fortunate.”
- Homogeneous: Pronounced “home-genius.” The word is commonly misspelled as “homogenous.”
- Hone: Sharpen or refine; commonly misused in the phrase “home in on,” which means to move toward a goal or target.
- Hot button: An emotionally or politically charged issue; commonly confused with “hot topic.”
- Mitigate: Alleviate; commonly confused with “militate,” which means to be “a powerful or conclusive factor in preventing.”
- New Age: Spiritualistic and holistic; commonly misused to mean modern or futuristic.
- Nonplussed: Surprised or confused; commonly misused to mean bored.
- Opportunism: Exploiting opportunities; commonly misused to mean creating opportunities.
- Proscribe: To condemn; commonly confused with “prescribe,” which means to recommend.
- Protagonist: An active or lead character; commonly confused with “proponent.”
- Refute: To prove something false; commonly misused to mean “to allege to be false.”
- Tortuous: Twisting; commonly confused with “torturous.”
- Unexceptionable: Not open to objection; commonly confused with “unexceptional,” which means ordinary.
- Untenable: Not sustainable; commonly misused to mean painful or unbearable.
- An effect: An influence. To effect: To put something into effect. To affect: To influence or fake.
So much for the snooty list.
Now let’s get to the list for people that don’t even know the words that are listed above.
- It’s ASK, not axe.
- Conversate is not a word. Communicate is the word you’re struggling to find.
- Don’t order an Expresso. It’s Espresso.
- Supposably. Stop saying that. It’s supposedly.
- Pacifically. It’s specifically.
- Anyways. Lose the S.
- Compliment/Complement – Look it up.
- No one is ever ascared.
Oh, I get it. Slam Bad_Brad on the first day of the new year. You guys are loosing it.
The misuse of the word, “decimate” always tics me off for some reason.
A Story to Illustrate
The Accident
The pastor asked if anyone in the congregation would like to express praise for answered prayers.
Suzie Smith stood and walked to the podium. She said, “Two months ago, my husband Bob, had a terrible bicycle wreck and his scrotum was completely crushed. The pain was excruciating and the doctors didn’t know if they could help him.
You could hear a muffled gasp from the men in the congregation as they imagined the pain that poor Bob must have experienced.
“Bob was unable to hold me or the children,” she went on, “and every move caused him terrible pain. The doctors performed a delicate operation, and it turned out they were able to piece together the crushed remnants of Bob’s scrotum, and wrap wire around it to hold it in place.”
Again, the men in the congregation cringed and squirmed uncomfortably as they imagined the horrible surgery performed on Bob.
“Now,” she announced in a quivering voice, “thankfully, Bob is out of the hospital and the doctors say that with time, his scrotum should recover completely.”
All the men sighed with unified relief.
The pastor rose and tentatively asked if anyone else had something to say.
A man stood up and walked slowly to the podium.
He said, “Hi, I’m Bob.” The entire congregation held its breath. “I just want to tell my wife; the word is sternum.”
It’s used no use
It’s our not are
It’s magazine not clip
I’ve never used the word Untenable in my life. Have no idea what it means.
JS, I’ s used it. I didn’t know what it meant either. LOL
Niggardly means stingy, not the “N-word”
“Couldn’t” care less, not “could” care less.
Could care less means you care, at least to some degree.
incidences
When I was young the kid next door was about 5 years older than I was. He was considered a genius. He eventually had 3 PhDs. I was depressed that I wasn’t ever going to make the money he was making. So he told me how dumb he really was.
He had no idea how to work on his car so he paid someone like me to work on it for him.
He couldn’t do electrical work, nor did he want to so he hired someone like me to do it.
The list went on and on of things he did not know how to do or want to do.
That’s where people like me came in.
He said if it wasn’t for people like me he couldn’t be who he was
a guy with 3 Ph.Ds working for DuPont as a chemical engineer
It’s “God”, not “Got”.
It’s “bedroom”, not “betroom”.
It’s “birthday”, not “birfday”.
It’s “struggle” not “shtruggle”.
We have an Auntie who completely mangles words, putting extra, random letter sounds into them: “Vengtable”, “Schwrimp”, for example. No one else in the family does this.
In Texas we use words that not in any dictionary.
Strength, not strenth.
that are not
For the Jesus, Mary, and T. F. Joseph, please do not use forever at the end of a sentence instead of period.
The rain in Spain falls mainly on Ze plane
aight, I gives up.
DRUNKEN RANTS WITH SLURRED SPEECH IS ALWAYS ACCEPTABLE:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pus6XF_qh38
I guess misusing words is not as bad as leaving them out, like I just did.
Your toaster isn’t broke. It’s BROKEN!
The one about goofballs that say “ascared” is correct. Here in the south, we might be skeered or maybe even afeared, but we ain’t never “ascared”.
You can always increase your vocabular and confuse the hell out of everyone… such as:
Snollygoster A person who can’t be trusted. ( See Obama ).
Gobbledygook Nonsense, balderdash.
Batrachomyomachy Making a mountain out of a molehill.
Anencephalous Lacking a brain.
faineant one who does nothing; an idler
Dammit, I spelled vocabulary wrong.. I’ll just blame the dead batteries in the mouse.. that always works.. (Laughing!)
@Hambone – like me, my toaster is broke (neither of us have any money). It might be broken too though.
Apparently there are a lot of ‘broke’ buildings in Europe. I was listening to a travelogue
of Europe and I thought maybe it was all the wars.
My bad it’s Baroque not broke
Ax me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies.
Oh, so It’s not, I’ll sell you no ties? Damn.
Being who I am, my wife and I chose sitters for our children that were Montessori educated.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education
And speech therapy is great for spelling and annunciation. Just saying.
And btw, ain’t ain’t a word.
HELLO.
Around here, weans say;
Fur=distance
Far=what you start to stay warm.
Yount= want
yerstee= yesterday
tar= there
I got a million of em but I ain’tah goin bore you’ins with em.
Moot, not Mute
My Noose Year Revolution is not to misuse words.
“Ain’t” always gets the school marm’s knickers in a twist.
@inigo And speech therapy is great for spelling and annunciation. Just saying.
an·nun·ci·a·tion (ə-nŭn′sē-ā′shən)
n.
1. The act of announcing.
2. An announcement; a proclamation.
3. Annunciation Christianity The angel Gabriel’s announcement to the Virgin Mary of the Incarnation, observed as a feast on March 25.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Just asking…shouldn’t the word be enunciation?
e·nun·ci·ate (ĭ-nŭn′sē-āt′)
v. e·nun·ci·at·ed, e·nun·ci·at·ing, e·nun·ci·ates
v.tr.
1. To pronounce; articulate.
2. To state or set forth precisely or systematically: enunciate a doctrine.
3. To announce; proclaim.
v.intr.
To pronounce words; speak aloud.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Again, just asking…
Oh man, don’t get me started.
A state doesn’t threaten to succeed from the Union.
There is another one that also drives me nuts but I must not have heard it in awhile, as I can’t remember it.
Impacted refers to dental conditions or meteor strikes, not delays in the commute.
Saying Warshington instead of Washington. I’m a native of Washington state and it drives me nuts when I hear that. Spokane is also not pronounced Spo cain. My wife’s grandfather was from Kentucky, his name was Gonzaga (he was a Catholic) but it was pronounced Gonz a guh, go figure.
“penultimate” is used incorrectly 99.999% of the time by morons trying to sound smart. also, why do people use “invite” as a noun?
Then, than …
Who, that …
There, their
Aaaaughh!!
Obama instead of POS.
It is ignition, not nition
It is transmission, not tramission
It is frustration, not fustration
It is spirituality, not sperchality
It is wretched, not rachet
It is fifty cents, not fiddy cent
It is business, not bidness
It is misunderstanding, not misconfused
It is whole other, not whole nother
It is profusely, not pofoosly
It is with, not wit
And then of course there is anything with an ST followed by a R that somehow turns into Schtr, like schtreet or schtruggle.
“Of” in place of “have”, as in “I should of said…”, and “tenant” in place of “tenet” both drive me nuts.
That dint learn me nuffin !
Irregardless is not a word.
I still bemoan the death of the adverb. Ya know, words that end with ‘ly’.
I feel badly. Not I feel bad.
You behaved terribly.
Bring back the adverb.
Ebonics is it’s own language where no rules of grammar apply. Din’t ya know dat, you honkie mofo. We be spechull and don’t need to ack like a white boy.
@The-Mamomma, “could of” comes from the contraction “could’ve”. To the ear, the ‘ve sounds like “of”, but that doesn’t make sense. They don’t understand that when you write out the two words that make the contraction that the ‘ve stands for “have”. students that write could of are marked down in grammar.
especially, not expecially
toward, not towards
You usually need tools when you are fixing something.
Correct – I am fixing the broken chain on my bike.
Wrong – I am fixing to ride my bike into town.
My absolute favorite low IQ phrase is not to terribly uncommon here in the south– referring to your body as “my ass”. This gives us the reply of an acquaintance who had just gotten out of the hospital. When asked what happened, he said, “My wife done shot my ass in the leg.” HUH?
In the ’80s, Lewis Grizzard wrote of hearing essentially the same statement. I have heard it twice in slightly different forms since I read LG’s comments on it years ago.
i lost all faith in our public school system when we were informed that our firstborn “needs retested” before he could be admitted to kindergarten……
said firstborn has recently confessed to having become a “grammar nazi” at work – he works in the oil industry, where grammar nazis are few and far between……but he knows the difference between a past participle and a gerund, no thanks to our tax dollars…….
“LITERALLY” should be at the top of the list. Word abuse.