Please forgive me in advance for being obnoxious and don't be offended . . . . But there are certain words that get misspelled or misused over and over and drive me crazy.

The word that is bothering me today is "canon."

Everybody knows the word, but they don't understand why it is spelled this way, and they often misspell it.

I don't have the exact dictionary definition, but its most common use in the English language is in reference to canon law--that is, church law, especially in the Roman Catholic church.

In fanfic, it means something like "the official set of facts, as created by the show's writers."

I love word origins, and I get a huge smile when I see the created word "fanon," roughly meaning "an accepted set of facts, as created by multiple fanfic writers."

In contrast, a "cannon" is a piece of artillery used in warfare--although I guess some writers might figuratively use it to hurl insults at each other, or you might use one to blast me for this post.

Please feel free to post your own spelling or usage pet peeves in this thread.

And sometimes you just have to be OLD like me to know this stuff. I once had to explain to a very bright co-worker why email uses the terms "cc:" and "bcc:", because she had never made a carbon copy of a letter, or sent anyone a blind carbon copy (a letter that doesn't show the name of the person(s) getting a copy).

"Carbon Copy"? Huh, did not know that. When I was a kid, I assumed it was a bizarre way of abbreviating "Copy To" and left it at that.

Ok, spellings: It's funny that you bring up Canon vs. Cannon, because the last time I edited the FoLC wiki, I was sweating bullets over that very thing. "OMG, is it one N or two? I CAN'T REMEMBER! Ack, my categories!" Believe me, as difficult as it is being a grammar nazi, it's even worse being a grammar nazi who can't spell. :rolleyes:

personally, I tend to blame English. Why do we have so many silent letters, double letters, and homophones? WHHYYYYYY????!!!

Okay, I have to get mine in.

How about pore vs. pour?

I was exchanging some mail with Corrina (Female Hawk) when I saw a phrase that was something like "...to pore over records..."
I had to be helpful and suggest that "...to pour over records..." would be correct. My thinking was, of course, that "pore" refers to those things on your skin.

To which she replied with an excerpt from a dictionary definition proving that I should never attempt to correct English or spelling without checking first.

So now that word will always remind me to check definitions before correcting others.

Bob

hey, I'm a Canadian so we have lots of different spellings - has always bugged my 'true north' soul when spellcheck flags 'neighbour' etc.

c.

Hee. That's why I love the "add to dictionary" option. There's a lot of words that I use for work that's not in normal dictionaries, even computer ones. Such as DSL.

Misused homophones do annoy me at times, like the where/were, its/it's, and there/their/they're. I did see an amusing one today, made more amusing by the response. This started off as a facetious (love that word, aeiou) response to an article against Halloween.

Original comment: It is people Like you that had good people like me burned at the steak because you do not understand us.

Response: Do witches come with A-1 Sauce now? Cause that would be fantastic.

Online, I'm a bit more lenient. Certain word usages make me go o_O, like a comment from my mom, "keep thinking its friday and i have the day off ..but agast its only thursday and work bah!!!!" I was a good daughter and didn't suggest alas would be better than aghast.

Written word typos annoy the heck out of me. I read a book once that had so many typos that I was tempted to apply for a copy-editing job with the publishing company. A friend has warned me about the typos in the latest Wheel of Time book, so I'm going to have to try to get past those.

YES!!!

My pet peeve of this sort is "discrete" and "discreet".

"She was very discrete about her trysts." Wait, her trysts were individually distinct? I certainly *hope* so. But I think what you meant is that she was subtle about them.

Drives me bonkers!

(And as a result, whenever I see discrete used correctly...I get irrationally and excessively excited. :p )

Bethy

I have to agree on this one. I think this is one of my biggest pet peeves. And a little off topic, but I can't stand to see people shorten words on message boards. I don't see this here (maybe because it is a writing community,) but I've seen people on other message boards type wut for what, wud for would, and u, for you...I think you get the picture. This annoys the heck out of me. I don't, however, have an issue with abbreviations (OMG, IMO, BTW...)

And speaking of BTW...



Thanks for the laugh, I needed it!

I must have had some great English teachers in school because we actually learned how to spell! <g>

As a second language speaker it drives me nuts when I see there/they're/their misused. I actually cringe every time I see that.

Now for the silent letters, English is much easier than French. But somebody please explain to me the whole 'dessert' and 'desert' pronunciation!

Natascha

You have DEE-surt after dinner.

The de-sert is the hot place with the cactus.

[okay someone else could probably spell it better...]

Carol, thanks.

I do know how to pronounce them but why isn't dessert pronounced like desert and the other way around, simply because of the number of 's' in it??

Would make a lot more sense!!

Natascha

Oh yeah - that I've not got a clue .

I KNEW IT!!!! And people laugh at me when I say I'm afraid to learn French because of all those silent x's and n's and whatnot.

Carol, do you actually pronounce it DEE-sert? Because I always call my cake des-SERT. o_O

...and now I want cake. Thanks a *lot*, Carol. :rolleyes:

Hey - I didn't start the dessert/desert thing...

And I say it with a long e... Maybe it's dees-sert?

Dunno...

Another precinct heard from:
The food: de ZERT;
the dry place : DE zert;
the verb: de ZERT;

For me, there's a slight difference in the de in both words, but it's really really hard to get across in text. The best I can think of is dessert is deeh-zert, and desert is deh-zert.

The one error that throws me out of a story is lose/loose.

He was afraid he'd loose his life if he didn't set the wild badger lose.

I think des-sert is more of a French pronunciation (although you wouldn't actually pronounce the t at the end), but the vowels sure match. Or maybe it's one of those British vs. American things. I was inclined to pronounce it like you until I heard it DEE-sert on the show, so...

BTW, don't be afraid of learning French. It's not that difficult to know which silent letter goes where once you get the hang of it. The n's aren't usually all that silent (since they turn the preceding vowel into a nasal), and there are some other things like common endings (-au; -aux...) that will give you a clue, too. Even the accents on vowels (´ ` ^) aren't all that bad. Just - beware the grammar.

"The one error that throws me out of a story is lose/loose.

He was afraid he'd loose his life if he didn't set the wild badger lose."

This is definitely one of my pet peeves, as well. It drives me crazy when I see things like "I'm afraid I'll loose the evidence." Arrgh!

Also peek, peak and pique. I peek through the knothole.
The climbers scaled the high mountain peak.

She indulged in a fit of pique.
The circumstances pique my curiosity.

Nan

The whole 'words that sound the same but are spelled differently' thing is one I really struggle with. But after hours of reflecting on the subject, I realize that it isn't really my fault. No. Not at all. It's the fault of those computer guys who can't come up with a computer program that catches misused homonyms. (Nice going, guys!!!!!)

Now, this one I can answer! The reason for one 's' in desert is would you really want more than one desert? And the reason for the double 's' in dessert is that I can always handle a second dessert. (This was my mom's way of trying to teach her dyslexic daughter how to spell )

ML

ML,

I love it!!!!

Certainly explains the spelling but still not the pronunciation.

Natascha

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