Bad Metaphors and Cliches, and Other Writing Blunders

groisamomma ↓

Mon, Jun 25 2012, 12:34 am

the world's best mom wrote:

My 7 year old is great at using non-existant words. Like last week, she said, "It was like the country there, because it was very treezy." (There were a lot of trees.)

She also eats cobbage corn (corn on the cob).

These made me laugh out loud. The first one reminds me of the time I was talking to my then-5-yr.-old dd from the car and the connection was choppy so I told her there's too many trees so the line keeps cutting off and I'll talk to her later. She hung up and told dh, "Mommy can't talk now, she's cutting down trees."

effect/effect

insure/ensure

"He did it by purpose."

"I did it on accident."

"What am I meant to do now?"

"Who is?" when answering the doorbell. Ugh.

"What's not tznius about saying your pregnant?" Does the pregnancy belong to you???

"All of the sudden..."

"I'd rather have this then the other."

agreer

Mon, Jun 25 2012, 2:59 am

I "could of" or "should of" done something... Argh!

MominJerusalem ↓

Mon, Jun 25 2012, 7:34 am

"If she's single, maybe she's seriously considering a shidduch with someone who's mother shares her first name."
Why who's? It's whose. As an editor, these errors just pop off the page and hurt my eyes.

Forgive me, writer of this post (you know you who are), for posting this publicly!

zaq ↓

Mon, Jun 25 2012, 11:21 am

For all intensive purposes.

You can tell a book will not be worth reading when it's set in 18-something and has characters using 20th-Century terms like "support group" "networking" and "consciousness-raising". Last crummy book I didn't bother finishing had a soldier in the War of 1812 putting a lid on his "id"--a term coined by Freud in the 1930--and an orchestra playing the Blue Danube Waltz--quite a neat trick considering the Blue Danube was composed in 1866.

But then those hacks are in good company. Old Will Shake-a-Spear himself had Julius Caesar's ex-pal Brutus say "Count the clock" many centuries before clocks were invented--and that's only one of Wllie's time-travel goofs.

Hashem_Yaazor ↓

Mon, Jun 25 2012, 11:42 am

My husband wants to start a business serving as a chineslish translator to proper English...price of items would go up though Wink

Sherri ↓

Mon, Jun 25 2012, 11:49 am

zaq wrote:

For all intensive purposes.

Love it!

↑ zaq ↓

Mon, Jun 25 2012, 11:50 am

MominJerusalem wrote:

As an editor, these errors just pop off the page and hurt my eyes.

These errors are an editor?
Shame on you!

↑ Sherri

Mon, Jun 25 2012, 11:52 am

zaq wrote:

MominJerusalem wrote:

As an editor, these errors just pop off the page and hurt my eyes.

These errors are an editor?
Shame on you!

↑ MominJerusalem

Mon, Jun 25 2012, 12:01 pm

Yes, that was my error.

"Shame on you!"
That was harsh!

↑ Hashem_Yaazor ↓

Mon, Jun 25 2012, 12:03 pm

zaq wrote:

But then those hacks are in good company. Old Will Shake-a-Spear himself had Julius Caesar's ex-pal Brutus say "Count the clock" many centuries before clocks were invented--and that's only one of Wllie's time-travel goofs.

To be fair, there was no google back in his time nor Encyclopedia Britannica and so researching such things was a lot harder. These days, there is no excuse for an author not to research that which he or she is writing about.

↑ zaq ↓

Mon, Jun 25 2012, 12:33 pm

Hashem_Yaazor wrote:

True, though I still think Willie should have known that mechanical chiming clocks did not exist in Caesar's Rome.

Most of the truly egregious blunders I find are in disposable mass-produced genre fiction that doesn't pretend to be "literature". Good, big-name career writers usually have research assistants whose job is to verify whether or not clothing had zippers in 1865 or when the term "phony" entered the language, but even they do slip up on occasion.

↑ the world's best mom ↓

Mon, Jun 25 2012, 1:32 pm

This is a very typical conversation between ds and me:

DS: Too lot!
Me: Oh, that's too much water?
DS: TOO LOT! TOO LOT!

Now can someone explain to me (and him) why too lot should be incorrect grammar if lot and much mean the same thing?

↑ Hashem_Yaazor ↓

Mon, Jun 25 2012, 1:54 pm

A lot makes "lot" seem like a noun.
Too is an adverb describing the "much" adjective/adverb? (Much appreciated would be an adverb, would it not? But too much food would be an adjective?)

↑ Hashemlovesme

Mon, Jun 25 2012, 2:07 pm

(we've gone from written to spoken)
my dd is only 3.5 but already speaks English as translated from Hebrew (like her friends I guess)

"what he did"

"also I"

"watch on me"

bigsis144 ↓

Mon, Jun 25 2012, 2:18 pm

Not intending to contribute to the derailing, but here's one of DS (2.5yo)'s interesting grammar applications:

DS tries to turn adjectives into nouns. For example, if he's talking quietly, he'll say, "I'm softing." or if he's running, he'll say, "I'm fasting!" LOL

leomom ↓

Mon, Jun 25 2012, 3:03 pm

iluvy wrote:

Another thing frum publications ALWAYS do: "free reign" instead of "free rein." I see where they're coming from, but it's just wrong!

It's not just frum publications. It's absolutely everywhere. And it drives me CRAZY. This kind of mistake shows that the writer just does not understand the visual behind the expression.

Karnash

Mon, Jun 25 2012, 3:53 pm

My students enjoyed this:

English has acquired the largest vocabulary of all the world’s languages, perhaps as many as two million words, and has generated one of the noblest bodies of literature in the annals of the human race. Nonetheless, it is now time to face the fact that English is a crazy language.
In what other language do people drive in a parkway and park in a driveway?
Or do people play at a recital and recite in a play?
Or where night falls but never breaks, and day breaks but never falls?
Why is it that when we transport something by car we call it a shipment, but when we transport it by ship, it’s called cargo?
Why does a man get a hernia, and a woman a hysterectomy?
Why does your nose run but your feet smell?
Why is it that a woman can man a station but a man can’t woman one, that a man can father a movement, but a woman can’t mother one and that a king rules a kingdom but a queen doesn’t rule a queendom?

Sometimes you have to believe that all English speakers have to be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane:
In what other language do they call the third hand on the clock, the second hand?
Why do they call them apartments if they’re all together?
Why do we call them buildings if they’re already built?
Why is it called a TV set when you get only one?
Why is phonetic not spelled phonetically?
Why doesn’t onomatopoeia sound like what it is?
Why is the word abbreviation so long?
Why does the word monosyllabic consist of five syllables?
Why is there no synonym for synonym?
And why does lisp have an “s” in it?
If adults commit adultery, do infants commit infantry?
If olive oil is made from olives, what do they make baby oil from?
If a vegetarian consumes vegetables, what does a humanitarian consume?
If pro and con are opposites, is congress the opposite of progress?

A slim chance and a fat chance are the same, as are a caregiver and a caretaker, but a wise man and a wiseguy are opposites.
How can weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell the next?
If appropriate and inappropriate remarks and passable and impassable mountain trails are opposites, why are flammable and inflammable materials, heritable and inheritable property, passive and impassive people the same?
How can valuable objects be less valuable than invaluable ones? If uplift is the same as lift up, why are upset and set up opposite in meaning?

How can it be easier to assent that to dissent but harder to ascend than descend? How is it that a man with hair on his head has more hair than a man with hairs on his head; that if you choose to be bad forever you choose to be bad for good; and if you choose to wear only your left shoe, then your right one is left, right?

Why is it that when the sun or the moon or the stars are out they are visible, but when the lights are out they are invisible; when I clip a coupon from the paper I separate it, but when I clip a coupon to a paper I fasten it; when I wind up my watch I start it and when I wind up this essay I end it?

↑ enneamom ↓

Mon, Jun 25 2012, 3:58 pm

MominJerusalem wrote:

Yes, that was my error.

"Shame on you!"
That was harsh!

Taste of your own medicine! Tongue Out

(Thanks zaq & sherri, I was starting to feel pretty dumb...especially after spelling vociferous wrong the other day, and having it pointed out to me...that's what I get for starting a thread like this!)

I guess we're all only human... I never intended this thread to poke fun at other members, though. Everyone would become so self-conscious about posting, and this site would get very boring. Even for publications, let's keep it anonymous if it may be LH.

Great stuff, BTW. Keep them coming! Very Happy

edited for spelling LOL!

theoneandonly

Mon, Jun 25 2012, 6:19 pm

I've been seeing this one a lot lately, for some reason, and it really bothers me:
discreet/discrete

de_goldy ↓

Mon, Jun 25 2012, 9:08 pm

I see these ones everywhere and they drive me crazy:

loose weight

I could care less