Comments on: Pet peeves: misspelled words “excedera” ??

By: CBJ Smith

CBJ Smith — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 22:30:49 +0000

Funny you should mention misspellings—I have never heard of “Excederin” but “Excedrin” (one letter and one syllable fewer) is a popular headache remedy. I had just finished reading one of your previous entries (I don’t remember which one, but it had a gay theme, if you need to track it down and correct it) where you substituted “effected” for “affected”, which is one of MY pet peeves, and I almost registered just to point it out to you, as I think misspellings weakens your message. Anyway, having you blog about it pushed me over the edge, and now I am registered and you now will be getting regular complaints from me about language and spelling.

By: Brad Wood

Brad Wood — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 17:16:01 +0000

Yow—”Excedra”! I’m getting a headache already. Maybe an espresso would help.

Two of my favorites to hate: Flaccid pronouced flass-id, and mauve pronounced mahve. I’ve gotten arguments out of people on those, and they don’t usually want to be shown a dictionary entry.

Others: quixotic pronounced kee-ho-tick, and harbinger pronounced har-bing-ur.

Damn thing of it is, if enough people keep it up the lexicographers have to let the “dynamic” language change and duly note the variants. I say Harumph

Note added in proof: I see by my Shorter Oxford 5th Ed. that the flaccid variant is already listed as a second pronunciation. So it goes.

By: Roger Bourland

Roger Bourland — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 14:59:58 +0000

Cath! You took my next peeve right out of my mouth! “Expresso” — sheesh. I also have trouble with young composers with the same problem. An Italian word used commmonly in music scores is “espressivo” which, yes, gets turned into “expressivo.”

Black vernacular in America embraces “aks” as “I wanna aks you a question” instead of “ask.” So I presume that “arks” is your version of that.

Shall we start on the death of the adverb next?

By: cath

cath — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 08:07:49 +0000

Annoying indeed, Roger, and somewhat akin to people asking for “expresso” coffee instead of espresso.

A commonly mispronounced word in my part of North London is “ask”! Half the children in my school “arks” questions instead - very irritating!

Keep up the campaign!