Homonym abuse should be a crime

Timsup2nothin

Timsup2nothin

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Apr 2, 2013
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One of my favored posters recently mentioned "getting in a cue." I was severely disappointed. Another once drove me so crazy that I had to send him a PM and tell him that if he kept "pumping the breaks" I might have to "brake" something over his head. If things like these two bother you too this is the place to post your complaint. Anonymity of the abusers may be preserved, or not, as you see fit. I'm more interested in seeing what words are presenting such pitfalls more routinely as spell check reliance gets more prevalent, rather than the always entertaining public shaming aspects, but YMMV (your motives may vary).
 
Well I have been in a queue for a cue but I am not going to criticise anybody for mangling the language.:o
 
I will take this opportunity too decline you're dinner invite.....know thanks tim, i all ready eight...
 
On a serious note, people who can't tell the difference between lose and loose drive me up the wall. I know they aren't actually homonyms, but they are used like they are.

And they aren't! I tell you! They aren't! "Lose" is the act of getting an item misplaced or lost. e.g. "Don't lose your car keys." "Loose" is the opposite of tight. e.g. "My pants are loose."

Get it? Good!
 
Lemon Merchant said:
On a serious note, people who can't tell the difference between lose and loose drive me up the wall. I know they aren't actually homonyms, but they are used like they are.

And they aren't! I tell you! They aren't! "Lose" is the act of getting an item misplaced or lost. e.g. "Don't lose your car keys." "Loose" is the opposite of tight. e.g. "My pants are loose."

Get it? Good!
Click to expand...

I just say "noose rhymes with loose" when correcting someone's spelling. People rarely forget after that, I've found.
 
Tim.. I'll let you know what grinds my gears, so that we're even.

When I see a business establishment.. Let's say Tim Hortons. That's the name they're going with. I guess when I get there I expect to see a guy named Tim Hortons? Or a bunch of guys named Tim Horton?

Turns out there was one guy named Tim Horton, and this was his place. So, Tim Horton's. But now the apostrophe is gone, and that doesn't make any sense. And nobody seems to care. But if these people can't be trusted with punctuation, how could they be trusted with the food you eat and the beverages you consume?

I sure don't, I am taking my business to Mac's. Even McDonald's knows what's up.

I assume that any business that doesn't use an apostrophe when it should is administered by morons
 
Lemon Merchant said:
On a serious note, people who can't tell the difference between lose and loose drive me up the wall. I know they aren't actually homonyms, but they are used like they are.

And they aren't! I tell you! They aren't! "Lose" is the act of getting an item misplaced or lost. e.g. "Don't lose your car keys." "Loose" is the opposite of tight. e.g. "My pants are loose."

Get it? Good!
Click to expand...
:yup: like a "lose" woman, poor thing is just lost...would'nt be right to refer to her as "not tight"
 
lose has lost the loose o
 
warpus said:
Nice, that's yet another way to annoy Tim. And since English is my 3rd language, I can easily get away with: "Oh, so that's how you say it"
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In my experience, these types of mistakes are typically made by native speakers. For 2nd/3rd language english speakers it happens less since the two words sound different in their native tongue. That way they're less likely to mix them up. At least they're/their/there is a mistake I rarely see from people that are not native english speakers. Likewise dass/das or wider-/wieder are mistakes you typically see from native german speakers.

An exception being loser. somehow half switzerland seems to have decided that it's spelled looser.
 
warpus said:
And nobody seems to care.
Click to expand...

Some people care.

From Guardian

For more than a decade, an unknown corrector of poor English has been venturing out in the dead of night and tidying up the punctuation on Bristol’s shop fronts and street signs....

....
The man said he began by scratching out an extraneous apostrophe on a sign but had since become more sophisticated and has built an “apostrophiser” – a long-handled piece of kit that allows him to reach up to shop signs to add in, or cover up, offending punctuation marks. “This is a device that enables you to plant an apostrophe quite high up and get over any obstacles,” he said.
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https://www.theguardian.com/educati...unctuation-puts-full-stop-bad-grammar-bristol
 
I well not pick that one up from the library.
 
One of my favorite lines to quote from Django Unchained is when Dr. King Schultz sees the man he is hunting approaching the saloon they are in just as he is explaining to Django that he is a bounty hunter, and says "Aaaand as if on cue"

Funny thing is... until recently I'd been spelling it "queue" instead of "cue" :blush:

No one ever bothered to correct me... maybe no one noticed :mischief:
 
Sommerswerd said:
Funny thing is... until recently I'd been spelling it "queue" instead of "cue" :blush:

No one ever bothered to correct me... maybe no one noticed :mischief:
Click to expand...

I noticed but IIRC you weren't the only one making the mistake, and correcting everyone would have felt dickish
 
Silurian said:
Some people care.

From Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/educati...unctuation-puts-full-stop-bad-grammar-bristol
Click to expand...

Pretty sure this is my hero.

EnglishEdward said:
Tim, if you commit a crime, I will recomend the judge sentence you to reading the following book:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feersum_Endjinn

which hurt my brain a little.
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This was def an interesting read...

Grisu said:
In my experience, these types of mistakes are typically made by native speakers. For 2nd/3rd language english speakers it happens less since the two words sound different in their native tongue. That way they're less likely to mix them up. At least they're/their/there is a mistake I rarely see from people that are not native english speakers. Likewise dass/das or wider-/wieder are mistakes you typically see from native german speakers.

An exception being loser. somehow half switzerland seems to have decided that it's spelled looser.
Click to expand...

That's true for me when it comes to their/they're, etc. English is such a irregular language, for someone used to very regular and orderly languages, it can be a challenge to be good at the details of the language. So the common things that it's easy to mess up, I pounded that stuff into my head when I was learning English. That includes common things people get wrong. I'm sure I make these mistakes occasionally, but when I see one it really stands out to me
 
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