Misused words in the office - propogating bad word use!

[WillyNilly]

We have a particularly obnoxious young woman in my office who likes to boss people around despite not being above anyone in rank or title and who uses a very nasty condescending tone with people very often.  This morning she was berating a co-worker who was asking (legitimate, work related) questions.  Annoying co-workers looks over to inquisitive co-workers personal notes and starts in "well first off you need to spell the patient's name correct.  It screws everyone up when you don't spell correct."

Right, 'cause its ok to use terrible grammar to complain about someone's spelling 

[GrammarNerd]

Just thought of this one.  It doesn't really concern anything in the workplace, but I suppose it could.

I read fanfiction (and write some) and one thing I see a lot is that writers use the word 'defiantly' in place of the word 'definitely', as in "You are defiantly the right person for the job."  Huh?  I mean, really, sound it out.  If you do that you can see that it's the wrong word!

[Elfmama]

Just thought of this one.  It doesn't really concern anything in the workplace, but I suppose it could.

I read fanfiction (and write some) and one thing I see a lot is that writers use the word 'defiantly' in place of the word 'definitely', as in "You are defiantly the right person for the job."  Huh?  I mean, really, sound it out.  If you do that you can see that it's the wrong word!

That's what happens when you trust spell-check.  Type "definately" (sic) into your word-processor and see what happens. 

For a very long example of why you don't trust spell-check, google for "Ladle Rat Rotting Hut." 

[crella]

'Eck-cetera' drives me nuts, and lately it's my brother's pet phrase, so 50 times a day I hear 'and clean out the garage, eck-cetera, eck-cetera' ARGH!

[Diane AKA Traska]

Just thought of this one.  It doesn't really concern anything in the workplace, but I suppose it could.

I read fanfiction (and write some) and one thing I see a lot is that writers use the word 'defiantly' in place of the word 'definitely', as in "You are defiantly the right person for the job."  Huh?  I mean, really, sound it out.  If you do that you can see that it's the wrong word!

That's what happens when you trust spell-check.  Type "definately" (sic) into your word-processor and see what happens. 

For a very long example of why you don't trust spell-check, google for "Ladle Rat Rotting Hut."

How said it is that I knew what the was supposed to be the instant I read it?

[AmysAuntie]

Pet peeve?  "Prolly" in place of "probably".

[GrammarNerd]

In honor of football season (in the US):

For the love of all that is football, please do not pronounce the Jacksonville team as the "Jag-wires".

There is no wire. They are not made of wire.  There is not even the letter 'I' anywhere in the word.

Jag-wahr.  It's not hard.

(And no, the Jaguars are not 'my' team, but it still bugs me when I hear this.)

[WillyNilly]

A lot of people here really are criticizing pronunciation not bad usage or grammar.  That seems rather unfair - who's to say the way any one person pronounces a word is the right way and others are wrong?  Unless its your personal name, pronunciation is going to vary and several variations are correct in different places and with different accents.

[MrTango]

In honor of football season (in the US):

For the love of all that is football, please do not pronounce the Jacksonville team as the "Jag-wires".

There is no wire. They are not made of wire.  There is not even the letter 'I' anywhere in the word.

Jag-wahr.  It's not hard.

(And no, the Jaguars are not 'my' team, but it still bugs me when I hear this.)

Or the car company that pronounces it "Jag-you-are"

[girlysprite]

My boss does this often. For example, when he talks about tooltips he calls them 'hoover statements'. This caused quite some confusion when he discussed 'hoover statement design' with an interface designer. The designer thought he was talking about the hoover states from the buttons (where the color changes when you mouse over it, or click on it) and proceeded to redesign the buttons in that interface.

But my boss gets a lot of things wrong - an 'overlayer' can mean a tooltip, a popup or an actual overlayer. A header & footer means stuff that is on the top of an interface and bottom of an interface (header and footer are usually used on the context of text makeup). He says roadmap instead of backlog, upscaling means 'improve the quality', clickpaths mean links, 'the road is ending' means that something is a dead end.

Conversations with him are quite tiring because he keeps making up new words on the spot or use words in an incorrect manner. I keep correcting him, or play clueless and ask him what he means. I tried to be nice about it first but now every time 'hoover statement' crosses his lips, I immediately say 'tooltip'. He is hurting his own business by confusing the people who work for him, but is very resistant to learning...anything.

[Miss Misha]

This thread has brought up memories of my childhood! My mother would pronounce things wrong and absolutely *insist* she was right.  Think oregano pronounced like the state with an o at the end:  Or-ee-gon-o or the city of Kiev pronounced as one syllable: Keev.  To this day, I always ask for the correct pronounciation of something if I'm not sure.

[Carpathia]

Not the office, but my husband uses 'nonplussed' to mean 'really angry' which drives me up the wall. Also leads to some confusing conversations.

[Bookgirl]

We have someone here who uses advice for advise.  As in, "advice me when that is done."  It hurts my brain.

[Petticoats]

One thing that drives me up the wall is the use of 'enormity' when describing something of very large size. 

'Enormity' is used to describe something horrible, not something big. 

Another that drove me nuts in the office was the the head librarian's  insistence on pronouncing 'obelisk' as 'oh-bee-lesk'. When we were working together on a show about Ancient Egypt, this problem came up a lot because we would both be giving tours of the show.

According to Dictionary.com - something big would be the 3rd meaning of it.  Not the most common, but not wrong, either.

1.
outrageous or heinous character; atrociousness: the enormity of war crimes.
2.
something outrageous or heinous, as an offense: The bombing of the defenseless population was an enormity beyond belief.
3.
greatness of size, scope, extent, or influence; immensity: The enormity of such an act of generosity is staggering.

One of the great griefs of my life (I'm an editor) is that dictionaries are descriptive rather than prescriptive--but most people believe they're prescriptive. I believed it myself for years. But wrong usages and wrong definitions are often included if they are commonly used.

[AmysAuntie]

A lot of people here really are criticizing pronunciation not bad usage or grammar.  That seems rather unfair - who's to say the way any one person pronounces a word is the right way and others are wrong?  Unless its your personal name, pronunciation is going to vary and several variations are correct in different places and with different accents.

My example of "prolly" is not a criticism of pronunciation--I see it written that way fairly often.  I don't know if you were specifically addressing this one or not, though.