Homonym abuse should be a crime

warpus said:
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
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Then on the flip side, there's what's called the grocer's apostrophe, which involves adding an apostrophe when all you're doing is making something plural.

I wouldn't be surprised if Tim Hortons sold a variety of beer's.
 
I constantly mess up bare vs bear as in bear with me, although bare with me is much more fun depending on the audience.

Homonyms don't bug me but messing phrasing does like when people say I could care less instead of I couldn't care less. Because it makes no sense whatsoever. If you could care less it implies that you care as least some amount since you could conceivably care less than you do now. We're not allowing you to go into negative on the care level here, zero is a minimum. Thus by saying you couldn't care less you state that you are already at a level of zero caring, thus you do not care at all. It drives me crazy.

Also using irregardless. Regardless will do just fine. I don't know how a double negative even became a word.
 
My pet peeve, which I find absolutely unbelievable : "have" and "of".
"He should of known".
Yes it's a thing. Worse, it's a VERY COMMON thing. And it makes me MAD.
 
Akka said:
My pet peeve, which I find absolutely unbelievable : "have" and "of".
"He should of known".
Yes it's a thing. Worse, it's a VERY COMMON thing. And it makes me MAD.
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You should not of let that be known.
 
Wouldn't, strictly speaking, the correct term be homophone?

And I blame the English language for having so many of them.
 
uppi said:
Wouldn't, strictly speaking, the correct term be homophone?

And I blame the English language for having so many of them.
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Clipped from the definition of homonym: a homophone.

Two words for the exact same thing! $%#@#$# English!!!! :mad:
 
you know what pisses me off? what really drives me over the edge? when people use the wrong apostrophe.

kevin´s tattoo studio

**** you, kevin. there is no need for an apostrophe in German. and even then.. it's still wrong. :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:

just leave it dude. is that so hard? even worse is when it enters colloqual language:

"wie geht´s dir?" grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:
 
Timsup2nothin said:
Clipped from the definition of homonym: a homophone.

Two words for the exact same thing! $%#@#$# English!!!! :mad:
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Not quite:

HOMONYMS are words that sound alike but have different meanings. Homophones are a type of homonym that also sound alike and have different meanings, but have different spellings. HOMOGRAPHS are words that are spelled the same but have different meanings.

I feel as though I once saw a nine-fold (or eight-fold?) schema of how things could sound, be spelled and mean, each with its own term.
 
Errrrrrrr....with all those angry faces I hesitate to say this, but that might be wrong in German but it's correct in English.
 
Silurian said:
I well not pick that one up from the library.
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Eye assume your just making a homonymous joke hear, but eye wood urge yew too try it.

Edward's right, though, the book can give you a headache. I'm a fairly ardent IMB fan, but the first time I tried to read Feersum Endjinn (in English), I actually gave up after a chapter or so (this rarely happens with books).

A couple of years later, I got annoyed with myself for giving up, so I tried again, and once I'd got got used to the protagonist's vocabulary it suddenly became pretty easy reading (though it did feel like a writer's exercise in cleverness for its own sake, kind of like that guy who wrote an entire book without using the letter 'e').

Third time was just for the fun, because the story is easily as good as any of his better SF (and better than e.g. Transitions, IMO).
The_J said:
Oh, I had that one (in German). I think I didn't get over page 4, or so.
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I'm left wondering how FE could translate into German, and still retain the gimmick? I mean, German's already a fairly phonetically consistent language...?
 
That was long time ago, I do not exactly remember, but a lot of numbers and signs like + were used in the text.
It was horrible.

yung.carl.jung said:
just leave it dude. is that so hard? even worse is when it enters colloqual language:

"wie geht´s dir?" grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad::mad:
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I think this is actually not wrong.
The apostrophe is in this case a sign that a letter has been left out. Should be correct, as far as I know (although there should be a space after the "geht", since these are 2 words).
 
The_J said:
I think this is actually not wrong.
The apostrophe is in this case a sign that a letter has been left out. Should be correct, as far as I know (although there should be a space after the "geht", since these are 2 words).
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Are we all aware that (switching back to English here) the apostrophe-s for a possessive is a contraction--of the word his. Kevin his tatoo parlor.
 
The_J said:
I think this is actually not wrong.
The apostrophe is in this case a sign that a letter has been left out. Should be correct, as far as I know (although there should be a space after the "geht", since these are 2 words).
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this here apostrophe ´ is actually from the french language and is used like this : frénch

this here apostrophe ' is from the english language and can actually be used in German, for example to indicate that a letter has been left out
 
Gori the Grey said:
Not quite:

HOMONYMS are words that sound alike but have different meanings. Homophones are a type of homonym that also sound alike and have different meanings, but have different spellings. HOMOGRAPHS are words that are spelled the same but have different meanings.

I feel as though I once saw a nine-fold (or eight-fold?) schema of how things could sound, be spelled and mean, each with its own term.
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It's a Euler diagram. I just found it. English is so screwed up that it takes a EULER DIAGRAM just to lay out enough words to try to describe all the ways that it is screwed up.
 
For me, these things are all a source of wordplay, so I like this feature of English
 
It looks like Chinese trumps English with homonyms/homophones:
In Chinese, romanised and in the vid spoken in Chinese with the translation in English.

Schermopname (2020).png
 
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