Phrases Often Said Incorrectly
Submitted by frenzee on Tue, 08/16/2005 - 07:58
Tags:
- "What goes around comes around" not "What comes around goes around" = What you send out comes back to you. Apparently there are too many people out there still listening to their old RATT albums.
- "Nip it in the bud" not "Nip it in the butt" = Stop it before it FLOWERS. But if you want to bite it in the ass, go right ahead.
- "I couldn't care less" not "I could care less" = You can't possibly care less than you do right now. If you could care less, then you care.
- "Toe the line" not "Tow the line" = You better not cross the line. Keep your TOES on this side. This has nothing to do with pulling things.
- "Should HAVE" not "Should OF"
- "BEAR with me"/"BEAR in mind" not "BARE with me" = Bear means to put up with, as in a heavy load. NOT "get naked with me".
- "Music has charms to soothe a savage breast" not "Music soothes the savage beast" = a quote from playwright William Congreve indicating a fast-beating heart, not some monster in the jungle.
Author Comments:
I know there are tons of these driving me out of my mind constantly, but these were the first few I could come up with at the moment. Suggestions, please!
"Should've" not "should of"; as in "I should have gone to work". D'oh!
Yes! That's another big mistake.
I recently heard someone being interviewed on tv say "...a hard road to hoe..."
Then there are the misquotations of Shakespeare. For example: "...one foul swoop..." (It's "...one fell swoop...", fell meaning cruel. See Macbeth, IV, II, 71). Another example: "Alas! poor Yorick - I knew him well." (It's "Alas! poor Yorick - I knew him, Horatio." See Hamlet, V, I, 60-61).
My favorite Shakespeare misquote is when people mistake the "wherefore art thou" in Romeo & Juliet for meaning "WHERE ARE YOU" rather than "WHY ARE YOU" meaning why does he have to be a Montague. WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU, ROMEO??
Technically that's not a misquote if the line is correctly delivered. I dare say you are right, however, if you suppose it is one of The Bard's most misunderstood famous lines. But no one should misunderstand it who is paying any attention at all to its context. See my paraphrase of the Balcony Scene.
As long as we're getting all literary, may I suggest a phrase oft-quoted from Rime of the Ancient Mariner ? The phrase is in fact:
"Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink."
NOT "Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink."
Or from film, Humphrey Bogart never says "Play it again, Sam." It's actually, "Play it, Sam!" along with some other lines I don't remember at the moment.
And may I also point out that where the "should OF" stems from is the shortened form: "should've". That doesn't make it any less wrong, and it still irks me when I see it wrong in print.
One more: "orientated" and its relative "disorientated". Why the extra syllable? It's "oriented" and "disoriented".
Ooh, that's a good one for my "Words Frequently Mispronounced List" though!
"Music has charms to soothe a savage breast" not a "savage beast"
I forgot about that one! My mom's always harping on how people always get that wrong. ;)
just a bit of nitpicking:
"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned" not "Hell has no fury like a woman scorned" = a quote from playwright William Congreve in The mourning bride, 1697.
Didn't they use the savage beast line in King Kong? Or maybe it was Mighty Joe Young... ah...nevermind.
"I'll try and ..." not "I'll try to" I can't believe how many smart, public-speaking, well-educated people do this. It wouldn't bother me except that I hear it several times a day.
haha... that doesn't sound wrong to me...
anyway, not sure how many of these fit but some things that bug me...
it's 'I like the cut of his chimb' not jib, or bib, or jip, or chip, I once had a guy explain to me that it was refering to someone's 'chip' on their shoulder and that they were commenting that they liked the cut of it... sad thing is that was the closest of all the wrong word substitutions. For anyone who cares and doesn't know a chimb is the edge of a barrel or cask.
Conference is NOT a verb and can never correctly be used as such... I hear 'I'd like to conference with him' more than I hear 'I'd like to have a conference with him'... The verb form is confer, this and the 'could care less' ridiculousness are the only two things I hear said wrong more than I hear said correctly.
What's wrong with this? In conversation, anything after the 'to' would be redundant, as there's an implied reference to whatever the subject is.
"Luke, will you wash my car this afternoon."
"I'll try to."
It seems silly to say:
"I'll try to do it."
The latter might be more proper, I guess, but it's unnecessary.
If you're complaining about the use of 'to' over 'and', I don't see the problem there either. Unless you hate infinitives. This site (see #32) says "I'll try and ..." is incorrect. (Maybe I'm reading your post wrong, but it seems you're arguing for 'and' over 'to'.)
I'm in computer science though, so I have no business talking English.
i agree... simple 'I'll try to' is ridiculously redundant and not needed, but 'I'll try to swim' and 'I'll try and swim'... seem pretty even to me.
I think Luke just got confused and meant to say that "try and" annoys him while "try to" is correct.
Gosh. Proofread, Luke, proofread. Yes, I meant that "I'll try and..." is incorrect and "I'll try to..." is correct.
now that makes sense.
A lot of people don't know what 'disinterested' means. They will show this by saying something like, "It was obvious she was completely disinterested in what I was saying". The word used in such cases should be 'uninterested'. To be distinterested in something means you stand neither to gain nor lose from that thing.
Nip it in the butt haha i hear people saying, i always wanna correct them or laugh out loud.
"irregardless" is often used when regardless works just fine.