What linguistic constructions do you hate that no one else seems to mind?

I hate that punctuation is “supposed” to go inside quotation marks. If you doing anything more complex than a simple statement of a quote, you run into cases where it doesn’t make sense to me.

Did he say “I had pancakes for supper?” and Did he say “I had pancakes for supper”? mean different things to me.

Similarly: That jerk called me a “tomato!” and That jerk called me a “tomato”!

It feels to me that the first examples add emphasis to the quotes that did not exist when originally spoken, whereas the second examples isolate the quote, which is the whole point of putting it in quotation marks.

I’m driven insane by the use of “itch” as a verb in place of scratch. ‘He itched his leg.’ Bleh!

"Would of", "could of", and "should of" infuriate me for some reason.

I really can't stand when someone says something happened, or they did something, "on accident".

No. You do something on purpose or by accident.

"On accident"..... That doesn't even make sense. You do something "by accident".

When discussion leads to another question, it raises the question.

To beg the question is to invoke a presumptive, circular argument.

And yet, now it's to beg the question, even on the US Senate floor by boomers who should know better.

I hate the confusion that "do you mind" questions cause.

"Do you mind if I turn off the light?"

What is meant in response: "No (I don't mind)"

What's said instead: "Yes"

I feel like two people never really know how the other will interpret it, so you almost always have to say something like "yes, go ahead" or "no, I don't mind" (or "no, go ahead"). If they do respond just "yes" or "no", I feel like I have to ask for clarification.

Also can we get the meaning of "semi-" and "bi-" figured out? I generally love the oddities of evolving language so long as we can all still be understood, but these two always require clarification.

Bi-annual: Every two years.
Semi-annual: Twice a year

Make it a law!

my peeve is the chopped infinitive, like “it needs fixed” instead of “it needs to be fixed”

One thing I try to avoid when I'm writing is when two words repeat. Kind of like your example "the thing is is that." If I catch myself writing it, I try to rearrange the sentence.

Although a pretty extreme example tickles me: "The cookie he had had had had no effect on his appetite."

Using "basis" to mean "based on".

"Basis our discussion, please go ahead and..." "We decided on a price point basis our market research."

It makes me uncomfortable.

Misusing words like "setup" vs "set up", or "login" vs "log in". "Anytime" vs "any time" also steams my clams.

I hate the recent trend of using "onboarding". It sounds clunky to me and as if you're trying to sound all cool and up to date.

What really gets me agitated is when people don't use the helper verb "to be." Examples include, "The tea needs strained," or "The car needs washed." No, you miserable cunts. The tea needs TO BE strained. The car needs TO BE washed. Nothing presently needs the past tense of an action. I know there's parts of the US where this sentence construction is common but those entire regions can honestly fuck off. People say it's a dialect or something. I don't buy it. Not knowing basic rules of your native language isn't a dialect. It's just you being dumb. I hate it so much!

You know what else I hate? "It is what it is." Of course it is, you dense motherfucker! If it wasn't what it was, it would be something else, which would then be what it is! It's the most nonsensical phrase I've ever heard and it pretty much exists so you have something to say when you have nothing even remotely worth hearing to say.

"Next weekend" "Next Friday" etc. Wherein they use "Next" to mean "the one after" rather than "the soonest interval in which it will reoccur"

If it is Wednesday and you say "Next Friday" I will immediately think of two days from now, not 9 days. I also especially dislike it because if feels like on a whim that it'll change. for some "next weekend" will be in 5 days if it's Monday, or 10 days if it's Wednesday! What the heck people??

This might be due to the fact that I'm not a native speaker and I encountered this phrase at a later date, but people saying "it's all but xyz" to mean "it's xyz" really gets on my nerves. I get it, "it's all but complete" means that virtually all the conditions are met for it to be complete, but I find it so annoying for some reason.

"The task is all but impossible" registers as 'it's not impossible, it's everything else: possible', so the fact that it means the opposite of that makes my brain twitch.

"Aren't I", as in "I'm still going with you, aren't I?", which, when uncontracted, becomes "are I not?" It should be "ain't I" since "ain't" is a proper contraction for "amn't", but there's been an irrational suppression of "ain't".

The thing is is that it's just a phrase to hold space while you collect your thoughts before you speak. You know you have something worth saying, but may not have organized it into a cohesive sentence/words just yet

Turning words like"competence" and "resilience" into "competency" and "resiliency" because more syllables is moar smartr

"Going forward" bothers me so much and I have no idea why. It wasn't used when I was younger, but that's true for lots of things.

Also "cringe" is pretty annoying.

I hate it when people call the product of a company the name of the company; like "let's go get some Taco Bell" instead of "let's go get some tacos from Taco Bell" or "Let's go eat at Taco Bell".

Myself, where a reflexive pronoun wouldn't normally be used, typically near a conjunction where it is less obvious whether an objective or subjective pronoun is appropriate. eg "Jane and myself ate Bob's donuts." or "Bob brought donuts for Jane and myself."

I don't care so much when I'm just listening to people talk, but there's something about seeing people use needs washed constructs in otherwise normally composed and edited messages that drives me absolutely mad, for some reason. Stuff like "I need paid more to afford to live there." I first started seeing it on reddit a few years ago, but it seems as though I'm seeing it more and more now, all over the place. It's not something that is used anywhere I've lived, and it's just jarring to see sentences constantly missing a couple of words. I suppose I expect more variance in spoken language, especially in less formal contexts, but seeing it written is something else.

I’m not certain if this is what you were getting at, but these are mine:

An historical - It doesn’t follow the general way of using a or an with consonants and vowels. Nor does it change the meaning if I said a historical (event) instead an historical (event).

Fewer and less. I understand that there is a rule, but the rule is fucking dumb. If I say there are less people or if I say there are fewer people - the end result is the same that there isn’t as much as there was before.

Language is fluid. As long as we understand the meaning of what is being said then who cares?

I really hate R's in the middle of familiar.

It's not feR-mill-yer.

People who say "nucular" strike me as being completely brain damaged.

"As a ________, this is my opinion about a related topic to the field in which I'm in...."

It's the Internet. No one needs your credentials. People lie about credentials all the time anyways. People cheat through college. It's a humble brag, nothing more. Just give us your thoughts, not your resume.

I hate when people use the transitive “going to be” to describe “is.”

“Hey, what’s your phone number?” “It’s going to be 911-551-0911.”

Her phone number is 911-551-0911 and has been such for a while now. Why does she feel the need to use a transitive verb structure to describe that it will change to that in the future?

I see people using this “it’s going to be” structure for ordering food (they are ordering food now, saying “spaghetti, please” is much less weird than saying “it’s going to be spaghetti”), as part of my job when someone is reporting current or past statistics, and events that aren’t coming up or aren’t scheduled, and are in the past.

Well I don't think there's any in English I mind, but I cringe about a ton of things in my native language.

However you did make me think of one expression.

You'll never hear "it did didn't it?" the same way again.

I still don't end sentences with a preposition. Even aloud.

I work in IT and the one that kills me is when someone says or writes "On premise" when they mean "On premises". I have worked for cloud companies and even the official literature is wrong. It has gotten to the point where so many people get it wrong that the official meaning is going to be changed because people are dumb and we can't have nice things.

Words have meaning, stop fucking them up!

I hate the word "cleanse" because it means the same thing a "clean" but uses two extra letters. Fuck the word "cleanse."

I've recently started hearing people say "It needs cleaned." Meaning it needs cleaning or it needs to be cleaned, and it just shifts to the wrong gear.

I also hate the word "leverage" in the bullshit business lingo sense of the word. Just makes me think "Your business leverages solutions, and uses people." Tell me, when did your brain die?

OP, thanks for asking. I feel seen.

1. Using the past tense instead of the subjunctive mood. "What if she was gone?" Nope. It should be "what if she were gone." People (in the US) seem to get this wrong most of the time, except for a few common phrases like "If I were you, ...".
2. The words "whilst," "amongst," and "amidst." I get that there is a certain history to these words, but I personally never use them as they seem like meaningless alterations. When I hear them, I roll my eyes, but I try not to judge too quickly.
3. "Irregardless". It's not a word.
4. "Could care less". An oldie but a goodie?
5. Overuse of commas. I don't like seeing them as strictly a way to introduce a pause in speech. Commas have specific grammatical purposes, and using them without such a purpose breaks my expectations as a reader.
6. Confusing "nauseous" and "nauseated".

Also: ATM machine. So...the machine machine? Not just the machine?

I assume I'm unusual because whenever I say an acronym I think the entire phrase. So repetition like this grates on my nerves.

People do this with other acronyms...can't think of other examples now.

"Anyways". Don't fucking add the s to the end, it adds literally nothing but costs you more effort. Say or type "anyway".

"In terms of" when it relates to nothing in the discussion. It's just a fluffy pile of nothing to either make you sound smarter, make your idea sound smarter, or fill in space like "um".

"In terms of the design, we're choosing blue."

"Also too" drives me up a wall.

The most grating to me right now has to be the comma splice (run-on sentence). For example: "Every one of our talented art students will have artwork represented in the show, it is always an impressive event."

I see it everywhere lately! Even in official business/marketing emails. Someone got a college degree and got hired to write that email ffs. Use a damn period or semicolon.

I say "A part of me thinks [...]" (or "wishes" or "wants", etc) so often that it has started to seriously annoy me.

Homogeneous, meaning having a uniform composition. Hoe-moe-jee-nee-us (or hoe-muh- and/or -jee-nyus; point is, there's an ee sound before the last syllable). Saying homogenous (huh-mah-jeh-nus) in that sense is not only wrong but also means something else.

Sometimes it really annoys me if a perfect spot for a proper "whom" is missed. Even worse though is a misplaced "whom". Both instances are easy for me to spot because we decline pronouns quite a lot in German.

Edit: Sorry that's not a construction, so much as just an error. For constructions one thing that gets on my nerves is if you try to tell someone about your previous state of mind to clear up a misunderstanding like "I thought the water had boiled already" and then they say "no" to tell you that your assumption was incorrect. This is annoying because first of all the information they are conveing is already known to you by the time of this discussion and secondly in the grammatical sense they are actually disagreeing with your state of mind, not the content. I always have the urge to say: "Yes, actually, I'm telling you that's what I thought, you can't disagree with me about what I was thinking."

The over usage of "that" on news broadcasts.

"It's that time of ___!" (Insert day, week, year, fall, spring, summer, etc)

There are many countless examples. It's like nails on a chalkboard every time I hear it

For a period of time on spezsite, people loved posting photos using the title "Just a (whatever the thing in the photo was)".

I don't know why, but that convention of using "just a..." started to get under my skin after a while. The fad kind of faded away, though you still see it occasionally.

It's not that there's anything wrong with titling a post in that manner. But over time, it felt like nonstop humblebragging.

I'm probably making zero sense. Pet peeves can be weird like that.

Just because thing, [that] doesn't mean other thing.

You can't even prove that it's grammatically incorrect!

But it sounds awful. And I can't even come up with an alternative.

The letter w. Absolutely unjustified existence vhen v can be used instead. Also referring to people as pupil. Nothing else in English sounds as bad. Like, there isn't even anything fundamentally vrong with it. It's just bad.

ITT: people who understood the question and people who hate certain pronounciations for no reason.

In English, I hate both "from where" and the rarer "from whence". I first found out about the words "whence", "whither", "thence" and "thither" (respectively meaning "from where, "towards where", "from there" and "towards there") while reading the Lord of the Rings in English. I found these were powerful words that could make many sentences shorter and clearer and that it was a shame they went out of popular use...

But then, I also heard "from whence", which struck me as far worse because it was redundant and stripped the word of its power. I first thought it was a mistake, but after seing it several times I looked up how it was meant to be used to see if I wasn't in the wrong and saw that while it had started as a mistake, it came into use several hundred years ago and was used by many famous classic authors, making it acceptable.

Imo, that's probably what killed these words. I guess it had the merit of being less easily misheard, but when "from whence" and "from where" mean the exact same thing, why bother remembering "whence"?

In my native language, French, I kinda dislike "C'est quoi ?" (Litt. "It's what ?", pronounced [sekwa] meaning "What is it ?). It's a vernacular expression often found incorrect... But I also kinda understand why it exists. The most correct way to ask "what is it" is "Qu'est-ce ?" ([kɛsə] or [kɛs]). It works well when written, but I guess being too short, it can be easily misheard. For example, "caisse" (a large box) is pronounced the exact same way. The other alternative, more common in oral speech is "Qu'est-ce que c'est ?" (litt. "What is it that it is ?"). It might seem too long, but it's pronounced [kɛskəse], which has the same number of syllables as "What is it". It is redundant tho, so I understand why "C'est quoi ?", which doesn't sound like anything else, rolls off the tongue and has two syllables is winning over, and will probably be the correct way in the future, but it still kinda sounds wrong to me.

Commonwealth vocabulary versus non-Commonwealth vocabulary. Despite being commonwealth in terms of my native culture, some of it sounds like we're trying too hard to be contrarian. Take chips and fries for example. The British call potato chips "crisps" and french fries "chips" and they'll have that discussion with you all night long, but they were patented as chips and fries respectively. Or how about "mom" versus "mum"? Despite interchanging them, I prefer "mom", especially in a world where "ma" and "mama" are common, which makes "mum" just sound like you're auditioning as Wednesday Addams. If you look in historical documents from the past, it's certainly never "mum". It all doesn't bother me so much as what bothers me is when those people (you know, the ones who call it the telly instead of a TV) say other people are the derivatives or must bend to them. If I visit London, I'm ordering french fries from McDonald's, not McChips.

It speaks to an ever-evolving world, culture and society. But nothing and nobody really speaks to me.

Generally these weird roundabout constructions used in English (not my native language). Like "I'm going forward to do X". There's always a bit of padding in language, but English seems to be very "paddy".

Oh, and very non-descriptive words for very specific things. Like washer. What is a washer? It doesn't do any washing. In German, we call these things Unterlegscheibe. A disk (Scheibe) to put (legen) under (unter) something. Says exactly what it's doing.

#Reason being is

wtf is that

Lay lie, ffs why differentiate Who whom, it serves no great purpose Words like recie||eive, do I need to explain? Must not should be must’n

"Didn't used to".

"This is key" (in business speak)

One that bugs me a lot that I noticed just in the last 5 years or so is over pronouncing the T in words like celebrity and community - yes it's spelled with a T but it's not fully voiced like you're saying the word Tea. I noticed it first on YouTube and now in some audiobooks and even the occasional coworker.

I loathe: "With that said...".

This is almost always meaningless words thrown in to make the listener(s) think you're more intelligent. I always think the opposite.

A before u

"A university" sounds fucking weird to me. It melds into a single syllable. University doesn't start with a consonant unless you have a strong accent.