Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Spelling pet peeves

I have too words for you: Read my lips.

That is just to much, don't you think?

It is now time for me two go. Buy.

One that really bothers me is all right misspelled as alright. Television advertising is written by illiterates who don't understand that all right is the opposite of all wrong and alright doesn't exist, already.

And then there is cavalry/calvary. Not only can't people spell them correctly, they can't pronounce them correctly. They are not pronounced the same, although many don't seem to know that. It's CAV alry and CAL vary. They are not interchangeable. The Seattle Times recently printed a review of a book about a Confederate Cavalry officer, and the word Cavalry was in the title. The headline for the review identified the person as a Calvary officer. Then in the body of the story, the complete title of the book was given with Cavalry spelled correctly. Then that reviewer spoke of the Calvary unit led by the officer. A-a-a-a-a-r-g-h!

Jude

Then there's "NOO-klee-ur" (correct pronunciation of nuclear) versus "NOO-kue-lar" (argh!). Drove me crazy when President Bush said it. And it's even worse when I hear in Discovery and History Channel shows. You'd think a physicist would know how to pronounce that word, but apparently not all of them do.

And there's that TV network which promises "more movie, less commercials" when they should say "more movie, fewer commercials." My wife laughs when I yell at the TV to correct them, as if they're going to hear and respond to my grammatical outrages.

Terry, we yell corrections at the TV in our house, too. In fact, I have both of my kids trained to call out, "Well!", whenever they hear "You did so good" (or the like) on television. And we hear it constantly!

(Of course, the amusing if slightly awkward part is since they are so used to correcting it on TV, they'll automatically correct adults in person who do the same. Heh.)

Spelling-wise, though, I'd have to say my number one pet peeve is the it's/its distinction. I tell my kids that if they learn to properly use "its" as a possessive, they are up on 99% of adults in this country. My favorite (not) is when people will actually argue with you that "it's" must be the possessive because it has an apostrophe. To that, I just remind them that "his" and "hers" don't have apostrophes and they are, in fact, possessives.

Kathy

I am amazed at the number of people who mess up their/there/they're, too.

But the one that bugs me the most is the past tense of lead (as in 'you can lead a horse to water...'). It is LED. I understand why people confuse them; after all, the past tense of read is read (you can read a book today but you've very likely read other books before).

But 'lead' (pronounced 'led') is a heavy metal; the past tense of 'lead' (pronounced 'leed') is led. I read a lot of news online, and even the places that should be able to afford good copy editors simply cannot get this one right.

'Toc

The one that gets me (besides the theres & wheres and its) is faze and phase.
"It didn't phase Lois that Clark was Superman."
That curls my toes. It makes me want to take my phaser and stun the author. The correct word is faze.
faze=disturb, worry, bother
phase = changing states or stages of a thing. "The phases of the moon." Not "the fazes of the moon."
As to dessert and desert. I live in a desert and I like to eat dessert. I'm glad they're pronounced differently, or I would be really confused.

Artemis

Vise and vice. It takes me right out of what I'm reading when I see "Clark felt like he was caught in a vice."

A vise is something you use to hold an object still while you work on it. A vice is something immoral. Although, after further reflection, I wouldn't mind reading a story where Clark really was caught in some kind of vice.

Actually, vice is BE, vise is AE, so it depends on which spelling the author used in the story

And on topic: they're/their always pulls me out of the story.

Michael

PS: Thanks for pointing it out, this is one difference between AE and BE I wouldn't have guessed in a million years. And to make matters worse, it's one of the few words Word's spell checker won't highlight.

PPS: The series title 'Miami Vice' now makes so much more sense

Michael, let me understand this. In British English, if you are gripped in a vice-like grip by an assailant, it has nothing to do with illegal drugs or alcohol? These are two distinct words in America. What is the British equivalent of vice, as in drugs or alcohol?

Artemis

Good question about having a different word for vice (AE) in BE. I did a quick check and nothing BE-specific came up. The one thing I did find out was that vice is used for both in BE.

Maybe one of our BE-native speakers has an idea?

Michael

Hi,

Just thought I'd weigh in!! Over here, both meanings of 'vice' are spelled the same. So yes, a 'vice-like grip', means a tight grip, nothing to do with sex & drugs! The 'vice squad' in the police deals with prostitution etc.

We just don't use the 'vise' spelling. I don't think I can remember seeing it used, not even in fanfic. If I had, it would have looked really wrong. It wasn't a difference I was aware of.

These boards are always informative!

Em

While on a gut level I agree with you, alright has been an accepted spelling since the late 1800s . It's probably too late for us to object much.

I remember being taught during an English class here in Sweden that "all right" is spelt with a double-l if you write it as two words, but with a single-l if you write it as one word, "alright".

I certainly learnt something in this thread, namely the American pronunciation of "dessert". What??? You say DEEE-surt? I have always been taught that the proper (British? French?) pronunciation of the word is di-SURT!

Ann

Ann, the proper pronunciation of dessert *is* dee-SURT. In TV shows, like "Green Acres", if the want to sound hillbilly, they say DEE-surt, with loud emphasis on the DEE. If you say it fast, it comes out about even - de-sert, but never des-sert.

Artemis

Sorry Rivka, but your citation is not quite accurate. Try this quote from the book, "100 words Almost Everyone Confuses and Misuses" from the authors of The American Heritage Dictionaries:

"Despite the appearance of the form alright in works of such well known writers as Langston Hughes and James Joyce, the single word spelling has never been accepted as standard. This is peculiar, since similar fusions such as already and altogether became words back in the Middle Ages, whereas alright has only been around for little more than a century and was called out by language critics as a misspelling. Consequently, if you use alright, especially in formal writing, you run the risk that readers may view it as an error or a deliberate breaking of convention."

Alright does not even appear in "The Oxford Large Print Dictionary, Thesaurus and Wordpower Guide, 2005 edition"
.
Jude