American English

There are many words used in the United States which irritate me. Here are a few examples and why they annoy me so much.

1. Instinctual. This word is particularly irritating as it does not exist. I have heard this word used several times. English is a great language because it is continously evolving. New words get added to the lexicon all the time. This is particularly true of computer science. 25 years ago, we did have not the following words in the language: Web, internet, flashdrive, zipdrive, jumpdrive, .com, ipod, RAM, google, wikipedia, web browser, direct tv, cell phone, ATM, text message email, laptop, GPS. Viruses made you sick. Worms were creatures which burrowed into the earth. All of these words uniquely define an object. There are no other words that have the same meaning. I am continously chastised for being an old-fashioned curmudgeon who can't handle a growing language. This is not true. Instinctual is simply the wrong adjective for instinct. The correct adjective is instinctive. So there is already a correct word. Creating a similar word (incorrectly) with an identical meaning is redundant and actually anethema for growth.

2. Defense a play. Sports commentary is replete with cringeworthy howlers that massacre the English language. This however is particularly egregious because it has now been adopted by the general public. One hears it all the time, "The Ravens have just not been able to defense the running game...." Once again there is already a correct verb - defend. Using defense as a verb is simply wrong.

3. President Obama is a person that can bring change to the country. Since when is a person a "that". For a person, there is a specific interrogative pronoun -who.

4. Split infinitives. Sometimes the split infiitive is acceptable. For instance: These experiments were peformed to further investigate the relationship between..........
Although, there is a split infinitive because "to" was followed by an adverb, the meaning is very clear and cannot be stated in any other way without sounding clumsy. On the other hand, I found the following phrase in Newsweek: "During the Civil War, Lincoln was able to brilliantly manage his team of rivals". This is just clumsy and wrong. The correct way would be - "During the Civil War, Lincoln managed his team of rivals brilliantly." A mistake like this is inexcusable considering that Newsweek must have numerous editors who (not that!) should have caught this error.

5. "I could care less." No you couldn't. If you dont' care for something, then you couldn't care any less. If you CAN care less, that means you do care.

I am sure I will think of some more annoying misuse of the language. When I do, I will blog. Now, that word never existed even 10 years ago.