The one that's been pissing me off recently is "real quick", as in "can I get a signature real quick" or "I need to check my email real quick before we leave". If you're going to do something, say you're going to do it, don't use some half-assed minimalizing language. Modifiers have a place, but I still feel they are way over-used. </RANT>
I agree on all counts. BUT (and this has been bugging me for a while): Shouldn't it be "Could've" rather than "Could of"? I might be wrong, but I always assumed it's short for "Could Have", especially since "Could of done this" makes no sense to me.
no, it's could have. You can't shorten could have. It doesn't work. Should can be shouldn't, etc, but not this from what i've read.
You can shorten Have. "I've a cat." is a perfectly good sentence in English, AFAIK. As for should, there's precedent for it being used in short forms as well. Example: "We shouldn't be doing this."
"I've a cat" is nasty nasty sounding i'd avoid it and go with "i have a cat" personally. I'll just leave this here
I used to be much more opinionated about such matters until I read mother tongue. Then I decided the reason English is one of, if not the finest language on the face of the earth is because it's a mongrel tongue. It is and has always been willing to take on new words, change the meaning of words, spellings, pronounciations. We can all see the advance of phonetic language, I even saw an actual journalistic piece that contained "Thru" the other day. Whilst yes, it beguiles me to see such flagrant use of text language, the truth of it is it's only going to become more and more common. How many of you can understand Chaucer? Hell, how many of you can understand Shakespeare! You only have to look at French to see how bad for a language a refusal to change can be, in any case the language is littered with anglicisms and will continue to be so dispite the best efforts of the Commission Générale de Terminologie et de Néologie. /rant.
One that has been grinding on my particularly recently is the use of superlative as a superlative, BT is guilty of this as are most online journalists. Say something is great or fabulous or awesome ( though this should really be reserved for things that do literally inspire awe) if you must but to describe something as superlative makes you sound like you have the intellect of an overcooked turnip. Moriquendi
As misplaced as my rant was this is kind of my point. The only thing I can genuinely recall as being awesome in the old sense in my entire life is watching a plane fly into the WTC. Let's put that into a sentance. Watching a plane fly into the WTC was awesome. And that's my point, language changes, awesome has little to do with its definition anymore, to me and the most other people it means something is pretty good.
I agree. Add to the list the repetition of the last word in an acronym, such as "PIN number" or "ATM machine." I also hate when people use "I" as an object, such as "He gave Bob and I a ride home."
Except that that's the correct usage; to say "He gave me and Bob a lift home" is incorrect. Thru is the US English spelling of through so depending on where the writer was from he may have thought he was correct. Moriquendi
"Could of" is definitely incorrect. "Could've" is correct (the apsotrophe replacing the dropped letters of the word have). Trouble is some people spell as they speak, "could've" sounds like "could of" when spoken.
I was always tought that it's correct if you remove the other people's names and it still sounds right; i.e. "He game me and Bob a lift home," would be right whereas "He gave I a lift home," sounds silly.
