{"id":5600,"date":"2016-04-27T06:30:58","date_gmt":"2016-04-27T10:30:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5600"},"modified":"2016-04-27T06:30:58","modified_gmt":"2016-04-27T10:30:58","slug":"words-that-make-people-grumpy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5600","title":{"rendered":"Words That Make People Grumpy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"fingernails,

photo (cropped): redpangolins, creative commons license<\/p><\/div>\n

Every reader\u2014writers, too\u2014have certain words that sound to them like fingernails on a blackboard. I have a thing against \u201chopefully,\u201d though that\u2019s a losing battle. I don\u2019t like alright\u2014the phrase is \u201call right already\u201d\u2014and I\u2019m not a fan of the singular \u201cthey.\u201d Most times making the antecedent plural fixes it:<\/p>\n

NOT: The patient should fill out their own forms.
\nBUT: Patients should fill out their own forms.<\/p>\n

That is to say, if you find \u201chis\/her\u201d and \u201cs\/he\u201d and their spawn hopelessly awkward, I agree.<\/p>\n

Rebecca Gowers<\/a> in The Guardian<\/em> has compiled \u201cAn A-Z of horrible words,\u201d and I\u2019m happy to find both alright and hopefully in it. On my own mental list of horribles, I can usually identify which grammar zealot burdened me with carrying their torch. Some examples: \u201cunder way\u201d is two words, not one; don\u2019t use \u201cover\u201d when you mean \u201cmore than\u201d; \u201cpresently\u201d means \u201csoon,\u201d not \u201cat present\u201d; use \u201cwhether\u201d not \u201cif\u201d when \u201cwhether\u201d is meant. And so many, many more.<\/p>\n

Gowers\u2019s article isn\u2019t just another listsicle. She explains her prejudices, how the words came to be, and provides amusing sidelights (that would be a \u201ccompound\u201d). The entry for \u201ceuphemisms\u201d is especially enlightening.<\/p>\n

Under \u201cfinally,\u201d I discovered I ran afoul of this one just yesterday, using it to mean \u201cat last,\u201d rather than \u201cfor the last time.\u201d Oops. Fingernails and a screeching blackboard for some irritated reader. Fixed.<\/p>\n

Take a peek at Gowers\u2019s list and tell me what Really Important pet word peeves of yours she overlooked!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every reader\u2014writers, too\u2014have certain words that sound to them like fingernails on a blackboard. I have a thing against \u201chopefully,\u201d though that\u2019s a losing battle. I don\u2019t like alright\u2014the phrase is \u201call right already\u201d\u2014and I\u2019m not a fan of the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Words That Make People Grumpy - \"\"An A to Z of Horrible Words\"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[174,185,51],"tags":[414],"class_list":["post-5600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-draft-blog","category-language","category-words","tag-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1sk","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5600"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5602,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5600\/revisions\/5602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}