What words annoy you when used wrong or people don't know the meaning of?

Trend instead of tend.
You just cannot trust these Spell Checkers nowadays.

Mixing up to, too, and two.

Saying was when you should say were.

Wrong use of there and their

What really irks me is when 'professionals' fail on simple grammar rules and the real bugbear is when a therapist of whatever kind writes things like "I practice in a holistic way" instead of "I practise in a holistic way". At school I was taught that in words like practice - practise, advice - advise, licence - license - the noun of the pair was written with a c and the verb of the pair was written with an s - and the easy way to learn this was to think that c+ n, and s + v and that c came before s in the alphabet, and n came before v.

My English grammar mistress who of course must now be long-since dead would be delighted to know that I'm passing her rules on all those years later!

One I seem to have seen frequently in recent days is “rest bite” instead of respite. I suppose it does explain what the word means

Sekertry instead of secretary.

Math instead of maths

There is a car advertisement on the television. The voice over, a woman , says docu men ary.Gets me every time

Advice and advise

Unindated instead of inundated
Quite unique or rather unique - it’s unique or it isn’t!

Using amount of…….

Instead of number of……

I hear it time and time again even on the BBC news and written in the broadsheets.

'Underestimated' instead of 'overestimated'. E.g. "The importance of keeping cool in hot weather cannot be underestimated.' I see and hear loads of examples of this misuse by supposedly educated people...

Should of, instead of should have.

I haven't read all six pages so apologies if this has already been mentioned:

Advise and advice.

I'm sure we've already had would of, could of and should of.

I was celebrating today when a columnist in the newspaper wrote "none of them is..." The word 'none' being a contraction of 'not one'. (Sorry Grandma, if you already know how to suck eggs! Tee hee 😂)

LaCrepescule

Pacific instead of specific.

I used to have a colleague who would always do this, and it annoyed me back then.

Five or so years after we had both left, I went to a multi-agency meeting and she was there, now as a senior manger, and she still said 'we need to be very pacific about this.

I felt the silent embarrassment the whole meeting suffered.

Buddleja

People say 'literally' when they mean figuratively. Like 'I literally died of shock'. This happens so often that I think that the meaning of the word must be changing. This seems to be how languages evolve.

I was in a café last week and a woman customer exclaimed 'My head is literally going to explode'

I thought I should move to a different seat.

TwiceAsNice

Mixing up to, too, and two.

Saying was when you should say were.

Wrong use of there and their

Also they're.

GoldenAge

What really irks me is when 'professionals' fail on simple grammar rules and the real bugbear is when a therapist of whatever kind writes things like "I practice in a holistic way" instead of "I practise in a holistic way". At school I was taught that in words like practice - practise, advice - advise, licence - license - the noun of the pair was written with a c and the verb of the pair was written with an s - and the easy way to learn this was to think that c+ n, and s + v and that c came before s in the alphabet, and n came before v.

My English grammar mistress who of course must now be long-since dead would be delighted to know that I'm passing her rules on all those years later!

I know so very little about grammatical rules and it honestly is a sadness to me. I was out of school at 15 and although reading is one of the biggest joys to me, I find studying very hard.
I've no proper idea or concept of how to research, catagorise or evaluate info and would love to have learnt how to do this along with grammar, spelling ect.
I feel very lacking when I read these threads.

The main thing is to communicate effectively.
If we pedants notice what our long-dead teachers would have considered errors of syntax or lexicon, that's our problem.

Would of instead of would have . For example - I would of gone with you .instead of I would have gone with you. Just laziness imo

BlueBelle

To my ears the title should be what words annoy you when said wrongly not what words annoy you when said wrong
Now maybe that s being pedantic 🤣

Nearly wrote the same, but hesitated in case it would be too rude… but glad someone did.. 🤓

Well, Greciangirl I took my eye off this thread a few hours ago and just saw your comments about northern accents. I don't know what your accent is, but perhaps someone might not like the way you talk. However, seeing as they don't know what your accent is it's good that they can't make comments!

Can I get, instead of may I have
Should of, instead of should have

Often upset at the use of ‘who’ where it should be ‘whom’ … but it’s an Americanism that has taken over, and those I argued for it’s with my son who was translating a novel, he disagreed as almost everyone uses it now, including the UK Publisher.
My other bugbear is the use of ‘fit’ instead of ‘fitted’ . ie:
“It fit her beautifully” instead of “ It fitted her beautifully”.
Another Americanism that filtered in and took over.

Use instead of used, as in "I use to enjoy that years ago."
Boarders instead of borders.
Do instead of does - "Do anybody know what's happening?"

Decimate as actually means only 10% killed, but used incorrectly now.