I know there was already a thread created on the pet peeves many of us have regarding forum posters misuse of words and improper spelling.
But after reading, Chris Shugart’s cool tip of the day regarding the use of “loose” vs “lose” I feel compelled to reiterate the one that drives me up the wall the most.
People, it’s spelled “ridiculous” with an i dammit. It’s not “rediculous”. When you spell the word that way (e.g. "rediculous) you sound “ridiculous”. God, that gets under my skin. Learn how to spell. You come across much more intelligent by doing a simple spell check before posting. Rant over.
The internet and cell phone texting and blackberries and the like have really lent themselves to bastardising the way we write.
I try not to get too worked up about it, but people just don’t seem to realise how important it is to be able to communicate effectively and accurately.
Typos and other innocent mistakes aside, people need to sharpen up.
randman, if you want to get REALLY technical, you don’t even need the “re” on the front of “reiterate.” It should just be “iterate.” How’s that for grammar nazism?
[quote]skaaaaaaaaaah wrote:
iterate:
To say or perform again; repeat.
randman, if you want to get REALLY technical, you don’t even need the “re” on the front of “reiterate.” It should just be “iterate.” How’s that for grammar nazism?[/quote]
Good one. I never thought of that. Why does everyone say reiterate?
[quote]Adamsson wrote:
what about us norwegians that doesen’t know better?:)[/quote]
The way I see it, your English is better than my Norwegian, so I really can’t criticize.
Actually, I’ve read posts on here from people for whom English was a second language and their grammar and spelling was better than some of the stuff I’ve read from native speakers.
[quote]skaaaaaaaaaah wrote:
iterate:
To say or perform again; repeat.
randman, if you want to get REALLY technical, you don’t even need the “re” on the front of “reiterate.” It should just be “iterate.” How’s that for grammar nazism?[/quote]
Repeat, the most general term, means “say, do, perform, or experience something or express oneself again in the same way or with the same words as before.” (Repeat can also mean “recite something from memory or tell it to another.”)
Iterate is more formal; it can also refer to a computational process for arriving at a specific result by repeating a set of operations through a series of increasingly close approximations.
Nowadays, iterate tends to be used for repeated actions, especially in
mathematical functions, and reiterate is far more common (it must just
sound right to us) and tends to be used for things one says, especially
when repeated–er, over and over again.
“Reiterate,” which was first recorded in 1526, does sometimes convey the idea of many repetitions, but more often it is distinguished from such common verbs as “repeat” and “restate” by connotations of forcefulness and emphasis.
Considering the nuances behind the meaning of iterate and reiterate as it is and should be used in every day language, I believe I correctly used the word “reiterate” to forcefully state and emphasize my utter disdain for the misspelling of the word “ridiculous”
About the iterate/reiterate debate, one thing about English, you can’t count on all the rules being followed. Consider the prefix “in,” which usually means “not” as in “inconsistent.” However, “invaluable” means essentially the same thing as “valuable.” Same with flammable/inflammable.
Usage, fortunately or unfortunately, also has bearing on a word’s meaning. Consider the word “decimate.” Technically it refers to killing or destroying every tenth person or thing. Common usage has now made it a synonym of obliterate. How you change a wor’d meaning from destroying 10% of something to destroying practically everything I don’t know. Somewhere along the way, common usage added the additional 89.9% of destructive power.
As for reiterate, it’s technically a synomym of repeat. I’ve always used it as repeating something for emphasis. I may have actually read that as one of the definitions somewhere. So, if I reiterate something, I don’t think of it as being simply repetitive but as being repetitive to emphasize something important. Perhaps my usage has been wrong all these years.
[quote]kung_fu_king wrote:
The internet and cell phone texting and blackberries and the like have really lent themselves to bastardising the way we write.
I try not to get too worked up about it, but people just don’t seem to realise how important it is to be able to communicate effectively and accurately.
Typos and other innocent mistakes aside, people need to sharpen up.
Mart.[/quote]
Yes, you need to sharpen up also, since your not allowed to use a preposition at the end of a sentence.
If you can’t figure out which word you used incorrectly, it is up, up is one a preposition. So, it is really ironic that you talk about him not using his grammar correctly, when you don’t either.
[quote]Hill Top Man wrote:
If you can’t figure out which word you used incorrectly, it is up, up is one a preposition. So, it is really ironic that you talk about him not using his grammar correctly, when you don’t either.[/quote]
Unless we want to consider “sharpen up” as a common idiom. In this case, the word “up” is an integral part of the “sharpen up” idiom, and as such, is not necessarily subject to the tsk-tsking we do when finding a sentence ended with a preposition.
“What do I have to sharpen up for?”
Now that’s ending a sentence with a preposition… and bad form.
