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Re: Modern manglings of the English language
Posted By: codeman38, on host 205.188.200.56
Date: Thursday, May 4, 2000, at 12:32:01
In Reply To: Re: Modern manglings of the English language posted by Grishny on Wednesday, May 3, 2000, at 14:28:39:

> One thing that grates on my nerves is when someone has a habit of saying the same phrase repeatedly in their speech. I don't mean slang such as "I'm like..." but simply normal phrases repeatedly used in their conversation.
>
> The example is a man who taught a sunday school class I attended several years ago. His pet phrase was "at that point in time." Over and over again in his lessons and in his regular conversation he would say this. I'm sure he still does it to this day. Any time I heard this man speak for any extended length of time (which was usually any time he spoke; he was long-winded) I was sure to hear "at this/that point in time" several times.

Reminds me of a speaker who visited my school a while back, and who constantly used the phrase "if you will". Also reminds me of a band festival clinician who constantly repeated "D'ya see what I'm gettin' at?"; some of us band members actually started keeping a tally of the number of times the man used the phrase...

> Another thing that only mildly annoys me is mispronunciations. Such as saying "accreate" instead of "accurate." Or "Massa-too-setts" instead of Massachusetts. But actually I only know one person that is guilty of this, and I have a lot of respect for the man, so I'm like, It only bugs me a l'il bit.

Heh. And while we're on the topic of mispronunciations, I'll mention some of the common ones that annoy me: "supposably", rather than "supposedly"; syllables inserted where there aren't even any letters, such as "ath-a-lete", "aer-e-ate", and "real-a-tor"; and, of course, the infamous "nucular"...

-- codeman"wow, I never thought I'd reply so much to my own thread"38

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