Annoying things people say?

[Janszoon]

Since I don't hear much spoken english (except from the telly), I hope you'll forgive me for venturing into the world of writing.

In text, it annoys me when I read my old posts and see I've written "it's" when it should've been "its". It still happens, but now it's mostly due to autocorrect and not me being an imbecile.

I've been reading your posts for a decade and a half and I can confidently tell you that your written English is better than most Americans.

[Trollheart]

Oh don't get me started on incorrect use of apostrophes! Then there was the sign which said, and I am not kidding, "entrance at rere". I mean, come on! That's not even a real word! As for God Bless America, I do think it's more "may God bless America", or even a plea to God to bless America. Mind you, we use a shortened version here. When we say goodbye it's normal to say "God bless." We don't say "God bless you" but just "God bless." We also say "Safe home," which I always thought was a rather sweet sentiment.

Agree with Jansz, Tore: if we didn't know you were from Norway you would be taken as a native English speaker no problem. You talk near as good as wot I do, like, ya know wot I mean? Sweet.

[Guybrush]

Aww, thanks guys 😘 😁

It's funny (okay, maybe not), but when you're not a native English speaker, you kinda have to figure out what sort of English you wanna adopt for your own. In school, we were taught something closer to a proper english. We learned to spell words like colour with a "u" and English pronunciation.

I can still do an English accent and would do so if I was reading Harry Potter to my kids in english, but when I'm just talking, I've adopted some strange American accent. I find it's a little less demanding in terms of articulation it comes more naturally to me. This may have to do with me having had a GF from New York years and years ago (she'd moved to The Hague).

I sometimes wonder what people would think if they heard me. Where's that guy from, the Carpathian mountains? 🤔

[Janszoon]

@Guybrush Did you live in The Hague at some point? Do you also speak Dutch? It's funny that you mentioned it because I have an ex-girlfriend, who I'm still friends with, who is originally from the US but has now lived in The Hague for many years.

Not that I'm as fluent as you are with English, but I've had a similar versioning issue with Spanish. The Spanish I learned in high school was Mexican Spanish / some sort of semi-neutral Latin American Spanish. All the learning materials I've purchased were also this kind of Spanish. The Spanish language school I went to as an adult was run by Colombians, so again Latin American Spanish. But most of the times I've had to actually use Spanish a lot has been in Spain, where people outside of Andalucía have a harder time understanding my Latin American pronunciation on top of my heavy US accent. European Spanish pronunciation feels super awkward to me so I end up trying to do some sort of half and half accent that probably sounds ridiculous.

[Guybrush]

@Guybrush Did you live in The Hague at some point? Do you also speak Dutch? It's funny that you mentioned it because I have an ex-girlfriend, who I'm still friends with, who is originally from the US but has now lived in The Hague for many years.

Not that I'm as fluent as you are with English, but I've had a similar versioning issue with Spanish. The Spanish I learned in high school was Mexican Spanish / some sort of semi-neutral Latin American Spanish. All the learning materials I've purchased were also this kind of Spanish. The Spanish language school I went to as an adult was run by Colombians, so again Latin American Spanish. But most of the times I've had to actually use Spanish a lot has been in Spain, where people outside of Andalucía have a harder time understanding my Latin American pronunciation on top of my heavy US accent. European Spanish pronunciation feels super awkward to me so I end up trying to do some sort of half and half accent that probably sounds ridiculous.

I never lived there, but I spent quite a bit of time there between like.. 2003 to 2005 or so. My ex-GF's name is Rachel, just on the off-chance that the world can actually be so small.. 🙂

[Marie Monday]

British people saying 'have a good one' instead of 'have a nice day' or whatever

[Trollheart]

Don't see anything wrong with that to be honest. Ever heard anyone say "Soft day, thank God"?

[Janszoon]

British people saying 'have a good one' instead of 'have a nice day' or whatever

I feel like a lot of Americans say "have a good one" too, including me.

[Marie Monday]

ah I assumed it was a British thing. I can't really explain why I don't like it. I've never heard 'soft day, thank god' but that one sounds kinda funny. Also, a funny thing that this thread made me realise is that I have many more of these linguistical pet peeves in Dutch than in English

[robhr]

I've been known to say "have a good one." Like a lot. I can see it being annoying though, I mean have a good what?

[Lisnaholic]

ah I assumed it was a British thing. I can't really explain why I don't like it. I've never heard 'soft day, thank god' but that one sounds kinda funny. Also, a funny thing that this thread made me realise is that I have many more of these linguistical pet peeves in Dutch than in English

I wonder if that's similar to something I noticed about myself: I'm only really offended by swear words in English, not in Spanish. It's something I realised when I heard my son explain to his (Mexican) aunt, "My dad doesn't let me swear in English." It was true - but in Spanish he could say what he liked and I was like, "Yeah, not my problem!"

[Trollheart]

Soft day (apparently) is an annoyingly upbeat way of saying, as the rain pisses down, thank God for the rain. Mind you, I never knew anyone who said it, and it was only used in an advertisement for a beer (Harp) but it may be true. It sounds like the kind of thing old people would say in the West of Ireland.

[Janszoon]

Soft day (apparently) is an annoyingly upbeat way of saying, as the rain pisses down, thank God for the rain. Mind you, I never knew anyone who said it, and it was only used in an advertisement for a beer (Harp) but it may be true. It sounds like the kind of thing old people would say in the West of Ireland.

Sounds like it's just a play on "hard day", no?

[Trollheart]

Could be, but I don't think so. I think the idea is more, rain falling softly, aren't we lucky to have it, praise to God etc. Subtext: God made every type of weather so we don't complain about even the shittiest. Don't know, could be wrong, but that's the impression I get. Nobody here says hard day. We say crap day, awful day, shit day, miserable day etc. I've never heard anyone say hard day. Tough aul day would be the closest.

[Janszoon]

It's something people write rather than say, but the use of "ppl" drives me nuts. Why do people do this? It's not like "people" is a long word.