American English has evolved extensively from the days of Columbus and the Pilgrims. This evolution has not always been in the right direction. Certain words and phrases tend to take the spotlight and become overused and outdated. Unfortunately some words skip the whole dying out phase and are still frequently used by the public, celebrities, and political figures.
According to a poll taken by the Marist Institute for the Public Opinion, the words “whatever” and “you know” ranked highest as the most annoying. Caroline Kennedy was put in the spotlight with her use of the phrase “you know” 142 times in one interview. Some runner-up annoying phrases and clichés were “it is what it is” and “at the end of the day”.
One my biggest issues with the English language are the people who speak it. From living in Pittsburgh, you can have many colorful pronunciations of words. Instead of “I’m going to go downtown”, you may get something like “I’m gunna go dahntahn”. My personal favorite is the mispronunciation of anything that is or rhymes with “special”. The following is a list of the correct words, followed by the obvious incorrect ones.
1. special - ‘space’ial
2. treasure – trayshure
3. measure – mayshure
4. flashlight – flaishlight
5. picture – paycture
I don’t think I will even give “yinz” more than one sentence of mention, it’s that bad.
How have you seen the English language tortured?
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Aw, man, how about the days of the week? Mondee, Tuesdee, Wensdee, etc. That makes me have uncomfortable bowel movements every time I hear it.
ReplyDeleteAlso, professors love to say "pro-suh-seez" instead of "pro-sess-es" for the word "processes." It's recently become acceptable according to authorities on the language, but it is etymologically incorrect and incredibly pretentious-sounding.