What linguistic constructions do you hate that no one else seems to mind? (lemmy.world)

submitted 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) by TootSweet@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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It bugs me when people say "the thing is is that" (if you listen for it, you'll start hearing it... or maybe that's something that people only do in my area.) ("What the thing is is that..." is fine. But "the thing is is that..." bugs me.)

Also, "just because doesn't mean ." That sentence structure invites one to take "just because " as a noun phrase which my brain really doesn't want to do. Just doesn't seem right. But that sentence structure is very common.

And I'm not saying there's anything objectively wrong with either of these. Language is weird and complex and beautiful. It's just fascinating that some commonly-used linguistic constructions just hit some people wrong sometimes.

Edit: I thought of another one. "As best as I can." "The best I can" is fine, "as well as I can" is good, and "as best I can" is even fine. But "as best as" hurts.

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[-] morphballganon@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

I go out of my way to rephrase sentences due to this. That jerk called me a "tomato" for some reason!

[-] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 months ago

Yeah but I shouldn’t have to restructure a sentence because some dipshit centuries ago made an objectively stupid grammatical rule that generally increases ambiguity.

[-] morphballganon@lemmy.world 1 points 6 months ago

Sure, but we don't control what happened centuries ago.

[-] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 0 points 6 months ago

Yeah but we can react to said change to either entrench or undermine it. I choose the latter.

this post was submitted on 05 May 2024

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