| Improper | WHY it's improper |
| "I could care less...." | This simply proves that you DO care. If you don't care at all, you certainly COULDN'T care less. |
| "Tri-an-tu-la." | The large hairy spider is a tar-an-tu-la. It has more than three (tri) legs! |
| "Press the Ex-cape key." | Please notice that the Es-cape key is abbreviated, spelled and otherwise pronounced with an "S" as the second letter, NOT an "X." Unless, of course you are referring to a cape that is no longer a cape.... |
| "Asteriks or asterik." | Again, please note the spelling and the phonics. It's as-ter-isk. Plural is as-ter-isks." |
| "Pat-ri-ar-ti-cal." | It's pat-ri-arch-al. A description of father figure, not the father of a small piece of literature. |
| "Nu-cu-lar." | The word is nuCLEAR. That's nu-cle-ar. |
| "The Book of Revelations." | It was only one book, and only one revelation, thus it is The Book of REVELATION. Singular. |
| "Go-ver-ment." | Hard as it is to believe, there is an "N" in the word go-verN-ment." You don't talk to the goveror. You talk to the governor. |
| "Foil-age." | It's FOLIage. That's fo-li-age. It refers to plantlife, NOT a measure of aluminum skin you put on leftovers containers. |
| "Ir-re-gard-less." | It's a double negative, people. |
| "All's I'm trying to say is...." | This becomes "All is I'm trying to say is..." A bit redundant, wouldn't you say? |
| "To whom am I speaking to?" | If you can't, don't. |
| "Li-ter-ture." | Properly known as li-ter-A-ture. It refers to that which those who use the word improperly probably don't understand. |
| "Ar-tic." | It's arc-tic. Hooked on Phonics comes highly recommended in this case.... |
| "Pun-kin." | The squash is not related to plays on words. It's pump-kin. Rather like a family of air compressors. |
| "...have your cake and eat it too..." | That's not the hard part. Eating your cake and having it remain in your possession is what's impossible. |
| "Jew-ler-y." | I know we're belaboring the phonics issue, but really.... It's je-wel-ry. |
| "Wea-pon-dry." | How is the word spelled again...? Oh, yeah. Wea-pon-ry. No "D" in there! |
| "...and it was, like, so scary..." | So what was it? Scary, or just something similar? We have a hard enough time with the English language. Must we force the listener to think of synonyms for adjectives? |
| "Hold the line taunt!" | Stop teasing the line, and hold it TAUT! |
| "Lethicin." | You mean those darned label makers spelled the word incorrectly? THEY seem to think it's spelled lec-i-thin. |
| "Sup-pose-a-bly." | Isn't it weird that it's spelled sup-pos-ed-ly, and pronounced with a "B"? Maybe because it's not SUPPOSED to be pronounced that way! |
| "Ig-nernt." | Mispronunciation: It's ignorant. Notice the syllables: Ig-nor-ant. |
| "Ig-nernt," as in "You're so ig-nernt." | Because I'm rude to somebody, there's no need to insult my intelligence! |
| "Over and out." | Redundant! If you're done talking, you say "over." If you're done transmitting, the term is "out." If you're done transmitting, you're done talking, so you don't need the redundant "over." |
| "She's very dex-ter-i-ous." | The word is dex-trous. Let's not make the word any clumsier than it is. |
| "Or-i-en-ta-ted." | Does this refer to asian potatoes? Or is it or-i-ent-ed? |
| "...a extreme situation..." | An word that starts with an vowel sound is ALWAYS preceded with "an." An word that starts with an consonant sound is preceded with "a." |
| "Expecially" | This one is especially irksome. |
| "ATM Machine", "PIN Number", "VIN Number", "10:00 AM in the morning" | Redundant, repetitive, and tautological! |
Training an associate in the use of a computer is always fun. Especially when you are giving a list of instructions that they follow literally. "Okay. Type CD, backslash, directory name." So they type "CD/directory name." have the same side scraped clean
"Press F7." They type the individual keys F and 7.
"Okay, the key strokes are Escape, C, D." In their notes, they write, "Exc, C, D." AAARGH!
Three years into their career, I say, "Put the cursor on this line."
Blank stare. "What's a cursor?"
Sigh. "Push this button until this line is a different color."
"Does 'Return' mean the same thing as 'Enter'?"
"Reboot the machine."
Blank stare.
"Press Control-Alt-Delete."
In sequence, they press Control, then Alt, then Delete.