Completely unimportant language misuses that bug you

[Jay R]

In general it only really doesn't work with words that are already plural but their singular form is so uncommon as to be relatively obscure. Nobody says "datums" or "criterions", but it would still sound wrong if people talked about "datas" or "criterias".

I wish I could find the post I got this from, and give proper credit to the originator.

Spoiler: Proper Use of Data Explained

Show

Singular Data:


Plural Data:


Data as a Collective:

[2D8HP]

Ive for sure heard people say "my achilles" referring to the aforementioned tendon and not their own personal greek hero

My Achilles Matchmaking
"When you want a warrior"

Also:
My Atalanta Dating
"When you need a huntress"


There may be a market!

[Fiery Diamond]

When at work and a customer is going to pay for their goods.
"Do you have the chip?"

No, we do not. The chip is on your card. You have the chip. Our terminal utilizes chip and pin features on credit and debit cards, yes, but we do not provide you with the chip. That is the exact opposite of what needs to occur in this transaction. You provide us with the chip. That's how the chip works. That's the point of the chip. The chip lets your bank know that you're there in person. If we had the chip, we would be you. And, of course, since I'm in a place that's slow to adopt supporting these features, the most direct response that gets the customer taken care of and happy?

"Yes."

Over. And over. Again.

Oh gosh yes. This annoys me to no end.

I assume what they're asking is "can your terminal read the chip on my card"?

Yes, this is what they mean, but it is not what they are saying.

[Rockphed]

When at work and a customer is going to pay for their goods.
"Do you have the chip?"

No, we do not. The chip is on your card. You have the chip. Our terminal utilizes chip and pin features on credit and debit cards, yes, but we do not provide you with the chip. That is the exact opposite of what needs to occur in this transaction. You provide us with the chip. That's how the chip works. That's the point of the chip. The chip lets your bank know that you're there in person. If we had the chip, we would be you. And, of course, since I'm in a place that's slow to adopt supporting these features, the most direct response that gets the customer taken care of and happy?

"Yes."

Over. And over. Again.

I think I always phrase it "do you have the chip-readers?" or "does your chip-reader work?" I think. I might have said "do you chip?" once. I hate those things (though I understand that they are supposed to make things more secure).

[Lissou]

I love chip cards. I was flabbergasted when I moved to the US and people were using swipe-and-sign cards. I'm so happy that chip cards are starting to be used here as well, anything else just feels weird (I grew up when chip cards were already in common use, though, so I'm sure habit has a lot to do with it).

[factotum]

In general it only really doesn't work with words that are already plural but their singular form is so uncommon as to be relatively obscure. Nobody says "datums" or "criterions", but it would still sound wrong if people talked about "datas" or "criterias".

Similarly, how often do you ever hear people correctly refer to a single random-number rolling cube as a "die"? It's almost invariably referred to as "a dice" or "many dice", despite the latter technically being correct and the former not.

[Vinyadan]

How about millennium - millennia? That one also has millennia used as a singular, although it's wrong.

[GolemsVoice]

Dice IS actually the singular, too. It's become common usage: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/dice

[Jormengand]

Similarly, how often do you ever hear people correctly refer to a single random-number rolling cube as a "die"?

I hear it often because it's the standard in British English.

[Aedilred]

I love chip cards. I was flabbergasted when I moved to the US and people were using swipe-and-sign cards. I'm so happy that chip cards are starting to be used here as well, anything else just feels weird (I grew up when chip cards were already in common use, though, so I'm sure habit has a lot to do with it).

When chip and pin first came in, I had been using my card for a couple of years and was instinctively sceptical. Within a relatively short time, I had got to the point where if a retailer didn't have chip and pin (adoption was rapid, so this remained rare) it seemed incomprehensibly primitive. Like with many things, it rapidly reached the point where I had stopped muttering about newfangled nonsense and struggled to remember how we'd coped beforehand.

Similarly, remember paying for stuff in a shop by cheque? I think some shops still take them, but they're the exception and it wouldn't occur to me to do so. I get my chequebook out about once a year these days.

The US can be surprisingly backward and conservative about such things, though, considering that in many respects it's a technological world leader. When I left school in the UK pretty much everyone of my age that I knew had a mobile phone. When I got to my American school a few months later, almost nobody did. A lot of people were still using pagers; I don't think I'd ever actually seen one before and I was baffled by how useless they seemed.

I suspect that it's a form of cultural nationalism. Where tech-innovations are American, they're great and often catch on quickly. When they come from foreign, they're weird and not to be trusted even when they're obviously superior to anyone who's given the new one a go. We're the same here, I guess - but it's funny to watch when it's not happening to you.

Similarly, how often do you ever hear people correctly refer to a single random-number rolling cube as a "die"? It's almost invariably referred to as "a dice" or "many dice", despite the latter technically being correct and the former not.

I hear it reasonably frequently, but then I spend a lot of time around nerds.

[Lissou]

I do hear "die". I sometimes forget which is the singular and which is plural and ask, and people all know the answer. But again, that's when I'm surrounded by nerds.

I like that you mentioned cheques. At my previous place, the only way to pay the rent was by cheque. This was so weird, it must have meant they got the money later, especially since we mailed the cheques. It wasn't that way when we moved it, we could pay online back then, but then the managing company changed and apparently the new one didn't do technology. That was very impractical, I'm glad this is over, I'm back to rent being paid without my having to remember it.

[goto124]

This is a forum full of tabletop nerds, of course many of us will know the difference between 'die' and 'dice'

[Knaight]

This is a forum full of tabletop nerds, of course many of us will know the difference between 'die' and 'dice'

A surprising amount of board game and RPG nerds don't, and hearing "dice" for a singular is surprisingly irritating.

[Rockphed]

A surprising amount of board game and RPG nerds don't, and hearing "dice" for a singular is surprisingly irritating.

I think I have actually said "hand me that 'd-whatever'" when asking for a die. What would it take to convince the rest of the world to refer to them as "d6"/"d6es"?

[Yuki Akuma]

I think I have actually said "hand me that 'd-whatever'" when asking for a die. What would it take to convince the rest of the world to refer to them as "d6"/"d6es"?

I constantly refer to standard cube dice as "d-sixes", much to the confusion of my non-RPG acquaintances. But, honestly, I have little need to talk about them outside of my D&D and GURPS campaigns.

[dehro]

oh.. cheques... I got a cheques book when I opened my account some 20 years ago.
I just bumped into it today, looking for other things. It's still new, albeit covered in 20 years of dust.

[Bounty Hunter]

"The proof is in the pudding.", "The exception that proves the rule.", Actually, anything where "proof" actually means "test" but isn't used as such.

This was probably responded to at some point among the pages long ago but I've just wandered into the thread and figured I'd chime while I read through things.

"The exception that proves the rule" simply refers to a situation where because there is a noted exception it proves an unnoted rule most exist.

You arrive at a college campus you have never visited. As you get out of your car in the parking lot you see a picnic table, a cigarette butt can, and a sign that reads "Designated Smoking Area". You can now safely assume a no smoking rule is in effect for the rest of the campus because if there wasn't there would be no reason to designate a specific spot where it is allowed. This exception to the rule proves there must be a rule in place despite that you haven't encountered the rule.

[kyoryu]

"The exception that proves the rule" simply refers to a situation where because there is a noted exception it proves an unnoted rule most exist.

Yeah, that's a peeve of mine too.

[AuthorGirl]

I constantly refer to standard cube dice as "d-sixes", much to the confusion of my non-RPG acquaintances. But, honestly, I have little need to talk about them outside of my D&D and GURPS campaigns.

Yup. It's never just "a die" except when I'm correcting someone who asked for "a dice." It is a d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, or d20. Because, if I need a d20 for an Initiative roll, a d8 isn't going to work.

That said, both "could you pass me a percentile die?" and "could you pass me a percentile dice?" really get on my nerves. I cannot pass anyone a percentile die, because we don't have any hundred-sided dice; the person is asking for a pair of d10s, one of which happens to have an extra zero on every side. Those are dice. "A percentile dice" is still wrong, because "a" does not go together with "dice." (Almost everyone in my gamer group says "a percentile dice.")

"The percentile dice" is a bit better, but still wrong because we have more than one set of percentile dice. What I would like to hear is "could you pass me a pair [or a set] of percentile dice?"

Of course, my reaction would still be "I could . . ."

[georgie_leech]

Of course, my reaction would still be "I could . . ."

That reminds me, what exactly are people looking for in this circumstance? A flat imperative? Are polite questions really so terrible when there's 0 confusion about what is meant?

[Knaight]

Yup. It's never just "a die" except when I'm correcting someone who asked for "a dice." It is a d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, or d20. Because, if I need a d20 for an Initiative roll, a d8 isn't going to work.

The phrase "a dice" is very high on my list of completely unimportant language misuses that bug me.

[The Extinguisher]

That reminds me, what exactly are people looking for in this circumstance? A flat imperative? Are polite questions really so terrible when there's 0 confusion about what is meant?

I assume, like most pedantry, a smug sense of satisfaction

[archon_huskie]

Yup. It's never just "a die" except when I'm correcting someone who asked for "a dice." It is a d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, or d20. Because, if I need a d20 for an Initiative roll, a d8 isn't going to work.

That said, both "could you pass me a percentile die?" and "could you pass me a percentile dice?" really get on my nerves. I cannot pass anyone a percentile die, because we don't have any hundred-sided dice; the person is asking for a pair of d10s, one of which happens to have an extra zero on every side. Those are dice. "A percentile dice" is still wrong, because "a" does not go together with "dice." (Almost everyone in my gamer group says "a percentile dice.")

"The percentile dice" is a bit better, but still wrong because we have more than one set of percentile dice. What I would like to hear is "could you pass me a pair [or a set] of percentile dice?"

Of course, my reaction would still be "I could . . ."

I actually have encountered a d100. it had so many sides it was essentially a ball. and to get the numbers large enough to be legible on each side, it was also the size of a tennis ball.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I actually have encountered a d100. it had so many sides it was essentially a ball. and to get the numbers large enough to be legible on each side, it was also the size of a tennis ball.

I had one. It wasn't that much bigger than the other dice, and it was easy enough to read. This picture shows the scale (my one was not that fancy)



GW

[137beth]

Okay, here's one that bugs me to see in writing: having an exclamation mark in the middle of a sentence. Usually when people do it, it's because something has an exclamation mark in its title, and the title is used in the middle of a sentence. Like, "did you see the latest episode of TV Show With An Exclamatory Title! last night?" Maybe it's not really a misuse of language, but it still irritates me to read.

[2D8HP]

the person is asking for a pair of d10s

The very existence of "d10's" bugs me, as they are not platonic solids.

We used to have "d20's" that went 0 to 9 twice, as is right, good, true, proper, and beutiful.

Stop the madness!

[Vinyadan]

The very existence of "d10's" bugs me, as they are not platonic solids.

We used to have "d20's" that went 0 to 9 twice, as is right, good, true, proper, and beutiful.

Stop the madness!

Do you know the print by Albrecht Dürer, Melancholia I? It represents a number of fastidious things (or that become fastidious when already in a fastidious mood). Among them, a non-platonic solid. So I think you aren't the only one to find them bugging

[dehro]

my d100 was rather tiny,, maybe two times the diameter of a regular d20, but ultimately useless. It's not that it wouldn't work... I just never got to use it before it broke.
yes, it was made of two hollow halves, filled with something I can't remember.. possibly sand, or sand-like.. so when it fell harder than usual off a table, it split right down the middle, where the two parts were glued together.

[Velaryon]

my d100 was rather tiny,, maybe two times the diameter of a regular d20, but ultimately useless. It's not that it wouldn't work... I just never got to use it before it broke.
yes, it was made of two hollow halves, filled with something I can't remember.. possibly sand, or sand-like.. so when it fell harder than usual off a table, it split right down the middle, where the two parts were glued together.

A couple of my friends have owned d100's over the years, and all the ones that I've seen were made this way. Perhaps it keeps them from taking forever to stop rolling, I'm not sure. I've never seen one break though, that's unusual.

EDIT: Also, I don't know if I've mentioned this one yet (I'm sure someone has), but "libary." Hate. This. So. Much.

[Peelee]

A couple of my friends have owned d100's over the years, and all the ones that I've seen were made this way. Perhaps it keeps them from taking forever to stop rolling, I'm not sure. I've never seen one break though, that's unusual.

EDIT: Also, I don't know if I've mentioned this one yet (I'm sure someone has), but "libary." Hate. This. So. Much.

The best joke in Scrubs was the two coins that add up to 30 cents riddle. The lunch guy says to go to a libary, gets corrected to library. Then, when the answer is revealed, looks at the janitor and says, "your face is all red like a strawbrerry!" Gets me every time.

Also, friend had a d100. Die in water in exterior shell. Never broke, stopped alright, about the size of a golf ball. Just couldn't tell which number was actually on too. Percentile dice are just so much easier, I never understood why someone would waste their money on a d100.