English pet peeves

[Infidel]

@Tony, I've always found it odd that people use need for inanimate objects. The house must be washed sounds so much better to me than needs to be.. As if the house has needs.. lol

I don't see what being animate/inanimate has to do with need, and if need is bad, then must is maybe worse. How can something inanimate "must" anything? But the answer is in your phrasing. "The house must be washed." is a passive sentence. Someone else is doing the action, so really "must" is referring to this assumed doer.

A rock needs to be moved. Same thing.

[two_heads_talking]

@Tony, I've always found it odd that people use need for inanimate objects. The house must be washed sounds so much better to me than needs to be.. As if the house has needs.. lol

I don't see what being animate/inanimate has to do with need, and if need is bad, then must is maybe worse. How can something inanimate "must" anything? But the answer is in your phrasing. "The house must be washed." is a passive sentence. Someone else is doing the action, so really "must" is referring to this assumed doer.

A rock needs to be moved. Same thing.

It's not the same thing, as you said, it's a passive thing. My point, which obviously went over your head was, that something cannon need something unless it is animated enough to have needs.. It's an accurate sentence and quite frankly it's commonly used, but it's a pet peeve of mine. Your commentary doesn't change my opinion of it either..

[Infidel]

@Tony, I've always found it odd that people use need for inanimate objects. The house must be washed sounds so much better to me than needs to be.. As if the house has needs.. lol

I don't see what being animate/inanimate has to do with need, and if need is bad, then must is maybe worse. How can something inanimate "must" anything? But the answer is in your phrasing. "The house must be washed." is a passive sentence. Someone else is doing the action, so really "must" is referring to this assumed doer.

A rock needs to be moved. Same thing.

It's not the same thing, as you said, it's a passive thing. My point, which obviously went over your head was, that something cannon need something unless it is animated enough to have needs.. It's an accurate sentence and quite frankly it's commonly used, but it's a pet peeve of mine. Your commentary doesn't change my opinion of it either..

Nothing went over my head. Must is a synonym for need. So changing the word need to must doesn't change the sentence. Which was my point. If there is nothing that a house need do, then there is also nothing that a house must do. So you cannot be against one but for the other.

[two_heads_talking]

oh no it's not a synonym.. I can see how some people might find them similar enough to call a synonym, but nope, they aren't.

I'll just disagree with your assessment of my pet peeve and call it a day.. Thank you very much.

[spyder4]

There are a few things that annoy me.

One of the most common, is when people say;

I could care less

when they mean I COULDN'T care less.

Another one for me is when people say bet, instead of beat.

eg: I bet him in a race.

[AJBryant]

Another one for me is when people say bet, instead of beat.

eg: I bet him in a race.

You sure that's not just bad grammar for "I made a bet about a race with him"?

[Valatunda]

I felt it might be dialectal, perhaps Scottish?

[Yudan Taiteki]

I was wondering about that too -- I've never heard of anyone using "bet" for "beat" unless it's just a dialect pronunciation.

"I bet him that X" is normal, but "I bet him in X" is not something I've heard.

[AJBryant]

"I bet him that X" is normal, but "I bet him in X" is not something I've heard.

Ditto.

Now, "I bet him over X," yeah.

[hyperconjugated]

I felt it might be dialectal, perhaps Scottish?

Could be (warning: language)

[spyder4]

I hear a lot of people say it here (Australia). Maybe it is an Aussie thing, but people definitely say it as follows:

I bet him to the finish line

[shin1ro]

Hi. I'm an engineer. There are a lot of pet peeve English technical terms translated into katakana appear.

テフ
A typesetting program TeX for science papers etc. I believe if it is pronounced as in German (and Dutch?) "ch" sound, I strongly believe it should be katakana-ized to テッヘ. Otherwise, when you choose K sound, it should be テック (or テク maybe). I try to say テック but almost no one understand it.
I feel very embarrassed to have to speak of テフ in order to communicate with Japanese people. This drives me crazy
("tech" and "tek" are the pronunciations which the author accepts.)

アドバンスド : advanced
Most Japanese people don't know -ed comes after an s sound is pronounced as a t sound.

ポイントツーポイント : point-to-point
I hate to see ツー as "to". I prefer トゥ. I don't like トゥー for "to".

プラットホーム : platform
I prefer プラットフォーム. I should accept because this katakana already has a long history as in a railway station. But sometimes I see プラットフォーム in electronics/computer term.

-shin1ro

(I editded some for clarification)

[chikara]

I hear a lot of people say it here (Australia). Maybe it is an Aussie thing, but people definitely say it as follows:

I bet him to the finish line

I have never heard it used in this country. It is definietly not an Aussie thing.

....
アドバンスド
Most Japanese people don't know -ed comes after an s sound is pronounced as a t sound.
.....

It is? In what language?

[Oracle]

I hear a lot of people say it here (Australia). Maybe it is an Aussie thing, but people definitely say it as follows:

I bet him to the finish line

I have never heard it used in this country. It is definietly not an Aussie thing.

I agree. We Australians don't say "bet" instead of "beat". spyder4 probably just isn't used to the accent.

[phreadom]

....
アドバンスド
Most Japanese people don't know -ed comes after an s sound is pronounced as a t sound.
.....

It is? In what language?

It is here in America.

It's pronounced like Advanst.