I know some of you are engineers, and unlikely to be upset about overuse of "hopefully." But certainly you've come across some copy that refers to statistical changes in populations, and makes little/no sense. ("Incidence of blankety-blank dropped by 150% over two years." "Rates increased by two-thirds, to 120 over the previous 100.")
1
"The death toll is expected to rise."
As opposed to?
Posted by: buzz harsher at October 14, 2005 11:48 AM (10SNn)
2
How about describing something as "10 times smaller" when they mean to say "one-tenth as large"? Argggggggggh!
Posted by: Byron at October 14, 2005 12:12 PM (wOrpg)
3
Totally Destroyed.
It's either destroyed or damaged.
Posted by: Stephen Macklin at October 14, 2005 03:59 PM (ics4u)
4
--"Percent" when one means "percentage points" - eg., "unemployment has increased two percent from 5% to 7%."
--"In terms of..."
Although I have no business criticizing, really, since I love to amuse myself abusing the English language. Dangling my participles about, left and right. And such like that.
Posted by: k at October 14, 2005 04:13 PM (6krEN)
5
"Let me axe you a question."
Posted by: Watcher at October 14, 2005 06:59 PM (n9CJ/)
6
Well, now, I know "axe" doesn't connote a high level of education. OTOH, I grew up saying "warsh" for "wash" because my family is from the Lower Midwest, and I was 17 or so when someone pointed out to me that
there is no r
in that word.
So I try to be humane about regionalisms (including "nucular," which was apparently okay when Jimmy Carter was saying it, and then wasn't a few decades later).
Posted by: Attila Girl at October 14, 2005 10:39 PM (LNv50)
7
I teach ESL, so I hear painful abuse of the English language all the time. However, the one that really makes my teeth itch is:
"I ever (did something)"
They mean they "often did it", and it's traceable back to a bad translation in a popular Thai-English dictonary.
Posted by: Seth Williams at October 19, 2005 03:35 AM (gZ11W)
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