Glenn
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I was recently thinking about a few words and phrases in English that we use strangely or just wrongly. For instance, we often say, "I personally don't care." Then how do you care, as a group? Obviously it's personal, because you're stating your opinion. I think that there may be some uses that are valid, though. For instance, "I'm worried about his marijuana use on a bussiness level, but personally I don't care if he uses it." Even that sounds a bit odd to me, though, because of the use of it as a sort of marker to show who the one with the opinion is, even though it's explicitly stated in the sentence.
Here is one from sports that's a bit redundant: "scoreless tie." Well if it's scoreless, then it's obviously a tie. There is no possible way that in a game with no score it won't be tied. Another bit of sports-speak that bothers me is the use of gerunds as the subject when no one actually speaks that way. I'm talking specifically about this type of sentence: "Running down the ball is Williams." What's wrong with "Williams runs down the ball."?
Here's one that I thought about right after I said it: "overexaggerate." That's a bit redundant. First of all, "exaggerate" means to overstate or overemphasize. For something to be "overexaggerated" it must really be something, like saying that you could get frostbite during winter on the equator. Or maybe that's just counterfactual.
Anyone else have any oddball sayings or usages that they care to contribute?
Here is one from sports that's a bit redundant: "scoreless tie." Well if it's scoreless, then it's obviously a tie. There is no possible way that in a game with no score it won't be tied. Another bit of sports-speak that bothers me is the use of gerunds as the subject when no one actually speaks that way. I'm talking specifically about this type of sentence: "Running down the ball is Williams." What's wrong with "Williams runs down the ball."?
Here's one that I thought about right after I said it: "overexaggerate." That's a bit redundant. First of all, "exaggerate" means to overstate or overemphasize. For something to be "overexaggerated" it must really be something, like saying that you could get frostbite during winter on the equator. Or maybe that's just counterfactual.
Anyone else have any oddball sayings or usages that they care to contribute?