What opinions do you have that you consider (shallow && pedantic)?
On accident
I kind of can't take people seriously when they say On accident, I don't know or care if its more or less grammatical, it sounds like a child sputtering in my mind. It should be By accident or accidentally
Tummy
Any adult has zero business saying this lol
Socks and slides is only acceptable footwear for taking the bin to the kerb or checking the mailbox. If you're wearing them in public I immediately assume you are a classless dumbass and your opinion on anything is irrelevant.
I choose socks and sandals over proper footwear in order to demonstrate this. It keeps people's expectations lower and makes life easier.
Sometimes I just wanna wear an outfit that makes people laugh and smile...
This is fair.
I feel attacked
Agree, same with wearing sweatpants, if you are not doing actual sporting activities
I've never seen the word 'slide' used like that here. I was debating over whether it was something more sock-like or more like a slip-on shoe or sandal before googling it.
This is shallow, but not pedantic.
Also how i feel about UGG boots in public, but if you wear socks and sandals anywhere i will judge you.
A power supply, the thing that gets plugged into AC mains power and outputs some sort of DC (usually USB now) to power electronics is not a "charger". It (usually) doesn't know anything about charging batteries, and connecting its output directly to a Li-ion battery would lead to an explosion. The charger is integrated into the device receiving that power.
"Portable battery" is a terrible term to describe a USB powerbank. Thousands of battery types are portable, but don't have USB ports or output exactly the right voltage. Some powerbanks are sold without batteries.
My kid calls USB cables “chargers”. My sister witnessed this for the first time, turned to me (known techie and pedant) and was like “You’re okay with this?”
More like pet peeves, and not something I'd lose my sleep over, but they're hilariously pedantic. I'll focus on Latin because I'd rather not pick on existing linguistic communities.
⟨V⟩ and ⟨U⟩ are not different letters in Latin. Deal with it. The "right" way to use them is like this:
People fāiling to follow the əbove ɑre æs ənnoying æs someone insistently respelling English ⟨A⟩ with rændom junk bāsed on the sound. Like I æm doing now.
Same deal with ⟨I⟩ vs. ⟨J⟩. J'm not gojng to stop you from dojng so, but you can almost hear my "tsk, tsk, tsk" from a djstance.
There's one way to pronounce Latin ⟨C⟩. It's /k/ (as in "skill"). If you use /tʃ/ (as in "chimp"), /ʃ/ (as in "shampoo"), /ts/ (as in "cats"), /s/ (as in "silly"), you're doing it wrong. Unless you're handling Late Latin, but then follow some consistent set of rules dammit, not just "I use Latin like the Church does".
"Veni, uidi, uici" is supposed to be pronounced ['we:ni: 'wi:di: wi:ki:]; or roughly "WAY-nee WEE-dee WEE-kee". Once you pronounce it with random stuff like "vany VD vaitchy", you're wrecking all its alliterative appeal.
Speaking on that, Brutus is an unsung hero for going all stab-stabby against the guy who said the above. A shame that nobody did it against his adoptive child.
How did you get the pointy brackets?
⟨Like this⟩? I edited my .XCompose file to include shortcuts for those. Here are the relevant lines:
<dead_acute> <h> : "⟨"
<dead_acute> <j> : "⟩"
So I type acute+h/j and get them.
Here's the full file if interested. Be warned that it's biased towards Linguistics stuff.
The way most people in my region pronounce the words "jewelry" and "realtor" really annoys me. I'm in the tiny minority who pronounces them the way I do, so I never say anything. But the locals almost all add a "LUH" to the middle. It's an extra syllable that just isn't in the spelling.
They say jew-LUH-ree and ree-LUH-ter. I pronounce these jewel-ree and reel-ter. I'm absolutely delighted when I hear someone say them the "correct" way, like I do.
Similar thing for how most around here say the year. When people say "two thousand and twenty-four" it grinds my gears. Just say "twenty twenty-four", FFS.
Do you consider your reeltor more correct than re-ul-tor?
Ree-ul-tor is fine. It's people who say "rea-LUH-tor" that sound wrong to my ears. They put the "L" in the wrong place.
I thought for a long time it was actually spelled jewelery, just because I'd only ever heard people pronounce it wrong and i guess never saw it written down.
I think it's mostly that particularly poor common grammar drives me nuts. Like, there's no excuse to not know the difference between you're and your. Once could be a mistake or a typo, but if it's a pattern of behavior you're just not trying. Get your shit together. :)
Ha! How much time have you got?
Shallow and pedantic is my speciality.
But for the sake of brevity I'll simply say that hearing (or reading) less in cases where fewer would be more appropriate is like driving an ice pick into my brain.
Yes...both are technically correct, but I have to fight the urge to be that guy whenever I hear it.
They’re not interchangeable.
They're not interchangeable. 'Fewer' is for countable nouns and 'less' is for aggregate nouns, just like 'how many' and 'how much'.
E.g:
Aggregate:
"How much sand? Less sand."
Countable:
"How many grains of sand? Fewer grains of sand."
Along with that, I'll add in "number" vs "amount":
Oh believe me, I know. I agree.
but the argument nowadays is that common usage dictates that both are now "acceptable", similar to how apparently "literally" now effectively means "figuratively" because everyone uses it.
My stupid mental trick for keeping these straight: fewer potatoes means less mashed potatoes.
Less could historically be used in any case and still can today. The distinction was first suggested by a guy a couple hundred years ago.
I reject your reality and substitute my own.
Unless you have a health condition that causes it, morbid obesity is gross. I don't mean being fat. I'm talking the mom in What's Eating Gilbert Grape. Also, you shouldn't need a rascal scooter to shop in Wal-Mart unless you have such a health condition.
The worst part is understanding the medical definition of morbid obesity. Those of us you’re excusing as “just fat” also clear that bar
Even health conditions. Yeah some people have issues where they struggle to lose weight, but that alone does not make you 500 pounds.
Semi-related, people who buy 8 2-liters of diet soda at a time at the grocery store. You just KNOW they don't touch water.
Proper usage of ‘s.
Guy joined my team a few years ago and uses ‘s for literally everything, and now most of the team does it too.
It bothers me every time, and I’ve typed corrections into the message box so many times but never hit send.
uses ‘s for literally everything
literally everything
literally
I've got news for you.
Okay, honestly, I do have a choice each day about which tickets I work in which order, and 'literally' isn't the only reason a ticket will be the Very Last one I schedule. There's also 'emails', 'the ask', 'the spend', and a list of other pathetic Used Car Salesman words.
And I don't want to stand in the way of people's success; especially when they don't know their nouns from their verbs and are just trying to get through the day before their crayons run out. But people who can use words property will get a bonus of being first.
People who think anyone uses literally to mean figuratively are annoying and too caught up in their crusade to realize their take is idiotic. No one uses it to mean figuratively. People use it to emphasize regardless of the figurative nature of language. It's semantic drift that happens to most words that mean something similar to "in actuality" (e.g. really, actually). Even in other languages.
I think the definition has even been updated to reflect this.
Yeah. Dictionaries reflect popular usage. And I think literally has probably been in use in that sense nearly as long as it's been used to mean something really did happen that way.
I find if more confusing than annoying, at times. If the emphasizing is getting on the way of being clear, you should maybe use some other way to emphasize it.
"I'm literally broke" shouldn't be a statement open to interpretation, in my person opinion. The internet and lack of familiarity with strangers just aggravates the problem.
That's a valid opinion. That they're using it to mean "figuratively" is not.
Excusing folks with dyscalculia, those of you who speak proudly and openly about how bad you are at math can die in a fire.
Functioning adults are expected to read. You should also be able to calculate reasonable numbers and percentages without needing the calculator on your phone to know what 20% is; Or what one half of 3/8 is.
If someone is speaking proudly of how bad they are at math they most likely didn't have dyscalculia. Most of us that do have it speak angrily or resignedly about how bad we are at math. What really gets me is when people proudly blame their "dyslexia" for why they are bad at math.
Perhaps I was in school before the idea of different learning styles was a thing. I always asked why, or how, things works. I need to understand the why to understand the how…or the how for the why... if that makes sense.
No, the work sheet doesn’t help, nor the make up work sheet. “That’s just how it is” does not explain anything. I’m bad at math because, beyond basic arithmetic, it’s all gobbledygook to me. Now I get self conscious, freeze up and can’t add simple numbers if put on the spot. So I make self deprecating comments about myself because I have no self esteem. Not that I’m proud of my failure.
..... 1.5/8
"" #nailedit""
I say openly that I'm bad at math because I cannot, even with intense effort, intuit concepts that are laid out as pure mathematical expressions. Why do graphs have eigenvectors? What does that even look like?!
Graphs don't have vectors, spaces do. A space is just an n-dimensional "graph". Vectors written in columns next to each other are matrices. Matrices can describe transformation of space, and if the transformation is linear (straight lines stay straight) there will be some vectors that stay the same (unaffected by the transformation). These are called eigenvectors.
So, the way you have phrased this is blatantly ableist. It's like you're saying you hate people who are blind because they refuse to learn to read. You're annoyed with people who CHOOSE not to learn, and attacking other people who have a disability. Don't use the technical terms for actual disabilities when that's not what you are talking about. Your friend isn't "OCD" because they like when things match.
For some reason everyone in my city says seen where they should say saw, and I look down upon all of them.
Like “I had a dead tree I had to seen down”?
/s
I'm a stickler for grammar and speech as well. It's classist, I know. But even as a little kid, I picked up on terminology that other kids used that in retrospect reflected poverty (mee-maw, pop-pop, commode (for toilet), yeller (instead of yellow)). At the time, I couldn't explain why I disliked it, but I considered it deficient. I've come a long way in dismissing those views by myself, but I can't not notice.
Difference in temperature cannot be expressed in °C. It’s not 5 °C warmer today than yesterday. It’s 5 K warmer. You can say “five degrees warmer”, but not “five degrees Celsius warmer” or “five Celsius warmer”. “Five Celsius degrees warmer” is also correct, but who’d do that?
The reason is that the Celsius scale has a fixed offset. If your birthday is in a week, you wouldn’t say it’s “one seventh of January from today”.
The reason is that the Celsius scale has a fixed offset.
Can you explain more on this? I still don't get it.
As of now, although I am not a man of authority on this subject, I still think temperature difference can be expressed by using celcius simply because the celcius has the same equivalent difference as Kelvin. The difference of the two value of the same unit will still be the same unit.
First, from here
Since the standardization of the kelvin in the International System of Units, it has subsequently been redefined in terms of the equivalent fixing points on the Kelvin scale, so that a temperature increment of one degree Celsius is the same as an increment of one kelvin, though numerically the scales differ by an exact offset of 273.15.
Secondly from here
The degree Celsius (symbol: °C) can refer to a specific point on the Celsius temperature scale or to a difference or range between two temperatures.
I was not aware of this before and this is probably one of the most pedantic things I've heard for a while - great answer.
Glad you appreciate it for what it is.
TIL; January has 49 days.
I think this one wins the post guys.
this is just incorrect
You might not say one seventh (sic presumably quarter is meant) of January, but you'd still be correct in every sense (except, again, mathematically) if you did.
One more: Conservatives are mostly less likely to have a higher education, less likely to be financially successful, more likely to be racist, more likely to lack critical thinking skills, less emotionally developed. And then there are the highly educated and rich hate mongers who stir up the rest for their own gains.
Shallow, maybe. But accurate? Absolutely
That is not an opinion though. It is an hypothesis. One that you have enough evidence for to act as if it is true, but not enough evidence to consider it a clear fact.
Dark Souls PvP is for people who can't handle a real fighting game.
Spicy but I'll allow it
Germany did not invent döner kebap and it's insane that they claim that. Anyone who insists on it displays a tragic lack of understanding about what a kebab even is and should be ashamed of themselves.
What they did invent is their own way of preparing and serving döner kebab, an existing dish that is itself a variation of other existing dishes that came before it. In the kebab world, that's not only allowed but also basically encouraged. Everyone is welcome to modify dishes to their heart's desire. There are countless kebab dishes in Turkish cuisine that are nothing more than slight variations on existing dishes. What you should do after creating your own variant, however, is to also give it your own name to mark the difference. That's what the Germans have not done. They're continuing to use the name of a dish they did not invent. That's a bit of a dick move. Seriously, look up Adana kebab and Urfa kebab. They're essentially the exact same thing except one is hot and the other is not. Yet they have different names, because that's how it's done.
The German döner kebab is a distinctly different thing than the "real" döner kebab. According to the long standing kebab traditions, it must be given its own name. Otherwise no, döner kebab was most certainly not invented in Germany. Name it something else and make a proper claim. It would even help enrich your exceptionally poor and boring cuisine a little bit.
By Germans you mean ethnic Turks who made it and marketed it as such to ethnic germans?
I mean I get your point but the naming here is part of marketing IMHO German Turks made it for local market while keep "exotic" name
Rebranding at this stage is futile lol this thing is more popular prolly than the Turkish original lol
It is true that it was a Turk that marketed it as such, but it's mostly the Germans that are so insistent on claiming it's a German invention. The only Turks I've seen that weren't largely indifferent were those who made and sold the stuff, but even the non-döner-worker Germans can be weirdly militant about it especially after a few drinks.
In any case, why it was named that is irrelevant to the point. Which is that we're being pedantic in this thread and, strictly speaking, the name is wrong. It is in gross violation of the unwritten döner naming conventions. But obviously I'm not holding my breath for any official rebranding.
They're called Lego pieces or just "Lego", not "Legos". It is the official way to say it, but more importantly I got used to it while growing up. I would always say "Lego ___", for instance Lego sets, Lego bricks, Lego pieces: "Pass me the Lego brick." The only time I would say "Lego" is as a group: "Bring the Lego upstairs." Everytime I hear "Legos" my eye twitches because it sounds so wrong. Not sure where I picked this up but I will die on this hill.
That's the official recommendation from LEGO as well. I found a piece of paper that mentions this in the box of one of my dad's old LEGO sets.
They don't want their brand to be turned into a generic word. It's for the same reason Google doesn't like it if you refer searching the internet as "googling" regardless of which search engine you use.
Lego my eggo
I have a personal grudge against a Portuguese grammar mistake. The mistake is so basic and heavily predominant that I often question myself if I'm the one writing it wrong. I already know I'm correct but I still google it from time to time. Drives me insane.
The mistake is something like "Open hours: 9 to 17". The "to" translates to "às" but a lot of businesses type "ás" or even "hás". Crazy.
In Sweden it’s getting increasingly common to write “Open between 9 to 17” which is so wrong it hurts.
Between 9 to 17 AND WHAT???
I personally despise people that use "mais" (more/plus) instead of "mas" (but/however) much more than those that don't know how to use the crase (à, às), though the overlap is huge
I always hated how most people don't pronounce the first R in "February". It just sounded kinda weird to me.
I propose we replace the word entirely to something easier to spell and pronounce, such as "Feby".
If you're going to fix the calendar, we should move SEPTember to position 7, OCTober to 8, NOvember to 9, and DECember to 10 where they belong (or just rename them all to be number-based instead of an arbitrary mish-mash of numbers, people (Julius, Augustus, etc.), and so on).
Yay. I like it.
Now you have me paying attention to how I pronounce it. And now either way feels weird. Thanks a lot.
I pronounce it "Febry". So which R am I skipping?
Likely the first one. But honestly, this should be the new spelling.
People using "was" when they mean "were".
And the classic "should of/could of".
Same but also add "less" and "fewer"
If you use the word 'hubby' to refer to your husband I'm assuming you're:
My childhood friend called her husband "hubby", shes late 30s, but not white and not overweight. But I do feel a bit weird calling husband "hubby", I won't call my wife "wifey"
Nah, it's cool. It's a wifey's world, after all. You should look it up.
I refuse to order takeout. People who eat takeout are not maximizing their enjoyment. Dine-in is the best way to appreciate fast food. Everything on location is part of a memorable eating experience - the music, the seating, waiting, the friendly workers who get to know you. You're better off experiencing everything that is exclusive to fast food.
Vigorously disagree, love eating my fave fast food at home watching my fave shows but I respect your position
I think there is a time period for this, like 20s and 30s. I'm too old to deal with that on a regular basis, let me eat in my comfort zone
Maybe it's just my corner of the world, but I don't think I've been in a fast food joint in the last ten years and found a single eating surface that wasn't covered in the trash of the previous person who sat there, sticky, or both. The employees just don't seem to be keeping the places clean and, to be honest, I don't blame them. Make the food, take the money, call it a day. Minimum wage gets minimum effort, and I dig it. But because I am autistic and can't stand sticky tables, I get it to go.
I can't get behind that for fast-food-tier food. In fact, the opposite is always true for me.
A whole lot of grammatical and/or punctuation-related things.
A particular bugbear is people using "disinterested" when the word they mean and should (IMO) use is "uninterested".
I appreciate that "disinterested" has come to mean "uninterested" but since it has another, already established meaning, I wish people would use them correctly.
For what it's worth:
Wow that IS pedantic lol
:-)
So I am uninterested in them, but we are disinterested in each other? Do I have that more or less right?
Those who always want to correct usage of the word 'ironic', much like those who use 'whom' as the subject of a sentence, are trying to signal intelligence but revealing stupidity, and can be dismissed pretty much entirely as people to take seriously.
Their hubris is ironic.
My feelings about Lois Griffin's meatloaf.
Hmm—...I agree as well...—.
A double negative should never remain negative.
I hate hearing "didn't do nothing", as in, they did not do anything. I hate it because it's inconsistent.
"Didn't do nothing" would typically be interpreted as "did not do something". However "I did not, in fact, do nothing" might be interpreted as doing something.
Now you have grey zones and misunderstandings where you have no idea what they are talking about because they keep stacking negatives, with different meanings in different contexts.
Historically, double-negatives were considered proper or required in some dialects of English (or what would become English depending upon where one might draw that line). Many other languages require some form of negative agreement in negative sentences.
O! Unsweet tea! There is no such thing as unsweet. Unsweet implies that the sugar has been removed from the tea as in it was sweetened at some point then through some mechanical process the sweetener was removed.
The correct terminology would be "unsweetened"
Unsweet drives me up the wall!
A disdain for nonfiction royalty, advertising, and movies with talking head montages.
I get annoyed at people who wait at pedestrian crossings but never push the button.
Are they waiting for someone else to push it because it’s beneath them? Do they think it has cooties? Do they secretly not want to reach their destination? Do they think the buttons are fake, and traffic engineers are waiting to laugh at them on hidden cameras?
I am sometimes guilty of this. I incorrectly assume the lights are looping and I just have to wait my turn.
Actually some crosswalk buttons are fake. For example:
In New York City, only about 100 of the 1,000 crosswalk buttons actually function
My current place is within one of those new '15 minute' areas. So I walk everywhere I can.
The new pushbuttons let you wave your hand in front of them to trigger them.
All too often the buttons are just placebos to keep you waiting until the walk sign comes on anyway
Expresso
It's not pendantic it's wrong, espresso was invented in Italy so its meant to be.... wait a minute!
I wonder if ex presso is latin for anything
If you insist on pronouncing "gif" as "gif" instead of "jif", you should pronounce "jpeg" as "jfeg".
I hate when people say "rezourceful" instead of "resourceful." Also I don't care if it's spelled "pronunciation", I will spell it "pronounciation" and say it the same way. You don't "pronunce" words, you "pronounce" them.
I don't like that in UK English, they say people are "at hospital" and "he went to ground." No, he's at "a/the hospital" and he went to "the ground." Pace is not something you have, it's something you set. Collective singular nouns take a singular verb. Manchester City is, not Manchester City are.
at hospital
At work, at school, etc. are doing the same thing in US English. People are generally not saying "at my/the/a school/work".
I admitted that they're shallow and pedantic.
If I'm driving, and you throw a negative hand gesture at me, I'm going to follow you to see if you're willing to throw that hand gesture directly in my face.
That might be less shallow and shows that I might have some anger management issues. Certainly pedantic though
Sounds like you’re doing more damage to yourself than the stranger did.
Maybe... maybe not. I have a lot of rage built up in me that I haven't been able to release in a healthy manner. Generally I can push it down, but, just like everyone else, I have my triggers and will absolutely unleash my rage and chaos wins. Sorry for the corny wording. It's all I could think of haha
This response is literally road rage. (Given the discussion about literally vs figuratively elsewhere in the thread, I genuinely mean literally).
Road rage is dangerous for you, the other driver, and other bystanders on the road. Please reassess how you respond to perceived aggressions and slights while driving. The only time you should escalate is if another road user is actively putting others in harm's way (e.g. DUI) and even then the best course of action is probably calling your local authorities for them to handle the situation. If the situation is not severe enough to warrant a 911 call, your focus should be on de-escalation (before it turns into a situation that is).
Pretty sure I covered your whole comment with "I might have anger management issues"
And to me, no. It's not just road rage. It's the potential of belittling people because of what is most likely misunderstanding or miscommunication. Everyone is guilty of those daily, but if you treat people as a villian or a lesser because of what could be a misunderstanding, and physically express gestures, then how are you with expressing those gestures in person? To me, most people treat others like that because they think they're either infallible in the situation, infallible period, or they believe there are no repercussions to their actions. When I lose my temper, I go out of my way to prove them all wrong
Edit: Never play me in Mario kart
Just because you called it out and this is a thread about pedantry: road rage is an idiomatic phrase, which is a type of figurative language. So, you were using literally to emphasize figurative language rather than try to clarify you weren't using the idiomatic meaning of the phrase but rather a literal.
Maybe you should read up on stoicism.
Allowing someone else's action control your actions is a massive waste of time, let alone a great way to attract trouble.
Probably. And the biggest thing that convinces me to stand down is that they're random strangers and don't deserve my psychotic wrath. And me and the other people can thank my wife. She is the only one that can say something to bring me back to reality, but I don't know what will happen if she's not around
Not shallow or pedantic, just psychotic. I suck, please downvote me.
Edit: Much like you chasing down angry drivers for making you angry, my attempt to out-troll you was impulsive, misguided, and ineffectual. Sorry for calling you psychotic and a poison to society, obviously that was projection. Also sorry for shame-deleting my embarrassment, this one stays so I can be publicly humiliated as I should be. Time to pay the Troll Toll...
Sorry for the shitty, backhanded apology too, I really couldn't figure out a way to do it 100% earnestly without just deleting my whole profile. I figure even that would be a cop-out, and this way, I think, I'm bound to get downvoted to oblivion. As deserved.
Its always amazing to me that the middle finger means anything to anyone beyond playfulness. The only time it ever gets any kind of reaction from me is when its used jokingly/affably, which provokes only a smile and makes me fonder of the person cuz its like an inside joke
For me, my reaction can be a problem. If I keep it up, I'm probably going to get shot. However (and I'll call it intrusive thoughts) there are so many people that think they're protected by their armor (cars), but people never expect when other people strip their armor and go "Do it again". About 80% of my interactions like that have ended with them Either saying they didn't do that or they apologize. Both reactions tell me a lot about their character, but it also tells me a lot about my character...
The short and skinny of what has been proven to me, and what I can justify, people think they're untouchable until the very last second where they know they aren't untouchable. You treat everyone with courtesy and respect in ever aspect of your life, then there's no problem. You think you're more entitled than the next person, then you get what you deserve
Other people call that a hero complex, but me personally... I call that a hero complex haha
That's not really pedantic, though.
Ugh along the same lines, eXpresso drives me nuts.
I prefer ex chethera, exclaimed with a fluorish
Professor Professorson?
I've noticed this in a lot of words watching youtube lately. Excape instead of escape, expecially, etc.
Me when I say "et cetera" in normal conversation