What pointless little things annoy you? (yiffit.net)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by l_b_i@yiffit.net to c/casualconversation@lemm.ee

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I just got invited to a meeting for a time zone that doesn't exist this time of year. In the US EST does not stand for Eastern time, it stands for Eastern Standard Time (~November-~March), EST is not an active time zone, it is EDT Eastern Daylight Time. Its a pointless thing, most people probably don't notice, but its wrong.

Fake internet points to anyone who knows why DB-9 bothers me.

Edit: corrected a missing n in an eastern

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[-] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 23 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

People who refuse to change how they misuse or misspell words. To/too, could’ve/could of, brake/break, and all that. I know they’ve read the correct versions, they just refuse to change.

Followed by people trying to justify the misuse. We have dictionaries. There’s some kind of standard. Yes, language does drift. But unless we want to go back to the 1600’s or so where people just made up whatever looked right for spelling, there should be some effort in maintaining a standard and not just “I can’t be bothered to do it right so I’ll claim common usage or language drift.”

That, and people who drive with their hazard flashers on for no apparent reason whatsoever.

[-] lvxferre@mander.xyz 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I see this fairly often for other two languages*, but the reasoning is the same.

The "language drifts" argument is actually fallacious (is-ought fallacy). In my opinion the main reasons to be lenient towards deviations from the standard are:

Unless heavily overdone, they don't affect comprehension.
They reinforce the informal register, and the register itself helps to convey meaning.
They allow individual expression, doubly so when the misspelling has dialectal marks.
A standard is just a standard. It should be seen as a reference, not as encompassing everything that is allowed within a language and its spelling.

*and I use it, at least in my L1. In my case it's typically due to #3.

[-] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I’ll concede points for stylistic or deliberately informal language, I didn’t want to belabor anyone reading what I wrote to get into the weeds over deliberate “abuse” of the language to convey whatever the author wishes to. There’s certainly room for slang, too.

I’m much more pointing the finger at the more simple things that can be corrected easily, hence the minor irritation, not someone willfully knowing they’re using an informal register. IOW, “could have” to “could’ve” to “coulda” is decreasing formality order, and deliberate, vs “could of” which appears completely unaware of how the words actually work. Break/brake isn’t even comparable. Completely different words. Plenty of room on that one for autocorrect to mess it up though. IMO there’s a difference.

[-] jet@hackertalks.com 5 points 3 months ago

With voice to text becoming more common homonyms are going to become the de facto standard. All of the there there and their confusion, will be too too much, not to mention it's it's and it's.....

[-] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

You forgot “its”.

Should I add “people loudly using voice to text to SMS in public places” to my list of annoyances?

E: you conveniently fell into my second paragraph. Maybe we could improve voice to text contextual translation so that homonyms don’t happen so often rather than yet another “can’t be bothered to fix it” excuse.