Misused words in the office - propogating bad word use!

[Miss Understood]

I used to have a boss who'd tell us he needed something ASP instead of ASAP.  This stopped when my co-worker, who had an excellent relationship with the boss, asked him if we should find Cleopatra to get that asp.  Boss thought about it for a second and laughed and (mostly) started using the right term after that.

Back when I was in grad school, as a TA I read a student's paper that referred to "vast suppositories of power."  (I think he meant "repositories.")  I just circled the word and wrote him a note suggesting he look it up before using it again.

I have to admit this one has me LOL. 

I used to have a colleague who would confuse "incredulous" with "incredible" as in "he thought such-and-such situation was incredulous."

[wonderfullyanonymous]

Drives me crazy when people pronounce Illinois with the S. The end S is silent in Illinois.

[Diane AKA Traska]

Drives me crazy when people pronounce Illinois with the S. The end S is silent in Illinois.

How about "Dez Moynes", Iowa?  (Or, even more amusing, Day Moynes)

[bansidhe]

Back when I was in grad school, as a TA I read a student's paper that referred to "vast suppositories of power."  (I think he meant "repositories.")  I just circled the word and wrote him a note suggesting he look it up before using it again.

Pretty sure I would have burst some blood vessels laughing if I'd seen that. 

A few of my pet peeves:

Two jobs ago, I worked for a great company and really enjoyed my time there - except for the widespread use of the word "timely." No clue why nearly everyone did it, but they all said things like "Be sure you get that report to me timely" and "We need to perform this task timely."

Utilize. Substituting that word for "use" does not make anyone sound smarter. 

One former boss used to say "flustrated" instead of "frustrated" and another repeatedly talked about handling touchy situations with "kit" gloves.

Not a pet peeve, but amusing: The head of HR at a former job came from the East Coast (US) somewhere and didn't know a word of Spanish. I'm in southern Arizona and my place of work at the time hired a lot of Spanish speakers to handle international calls. We were planning a big party for the employees at one point and decided to have a Mexican fiesta theme. At a center meeting, the head of HR asked brightly, "So how is planning going for the big Mexican fiasco?"

[baglady]

"Jag-you-are" is the British pronunciation of "jaguar." Personally I prefer the Winnie-the-Pooh version: "Jagular." 

The modeling method is a nice polite, understated way to "correct" someone's word usage. Don't come out and say, "That's wrong!" Just say it right. Parents have been using it forever.

Little kid: "Look, Mommy, I drawed you a picture!"
Mom: "You drew this all by yourself? It's beautiful! Honey, come see this picture Susie drew!"

Mrs. Malaprop: "We have a magnanimous work load this week."
Co-worker: "Yes, and since it is such an enormous work load, I suggest we divide it up/work in teams/hire a temp/whatever."

[violinp]

Back when I was in grad school, as a TA I read a student's paper that referred to "vast suppositories of power."  (I think he meant "repositories.")  I just circled the word and wrote him a note suggesting he look it up before using it again.

Pretty sure I would have burst some blood vessels laughing if I'd seen that. 

A few of my pet peeves:

Two jobs ago, I worked for a great company and really enjoyed my time there - except for the widespread use of the word "timely." No clue why nearly everyone did it, but they all said things like "Be sure you get that report to me timely" and "We need to perform this task timely."

Utilize. Substituting that word for "use" does not make anyone sound smarter. 

One former boss used to say "flustrated" instead of "frustrated" and another repeatedly talked about handling touchy situations with "kit" gloves.

Not a pet peeve, but amusing: The head of HR at a former job came from the East Coast (US) somewhere and didn't know a word of Spanish. I'm in southern Arizona and my place of work at the time hired a lot of Spanish speakers to handle international calls. We were planning a big party for the employees at one point and decided to have a Mexican fiesta theme. At a center meeting, the head of HR asked brightly, "So how is planning going for the big Mexican fiasco?"

I see you've met the cousins of my parents' co - worker. He pronounces chaos as "chowse" and Copernicus as "Coh - purr - NICK - us."

[lowspark]

Just thought of another one: myself.
As in, "Please contact Susan or myself if you have any questions."

"Myself" is reflexive. Only I can do something to myself.
I hurt myself. I sent myself a letter.
You hurt me. You sent me a letter.

But I have seen "myself" misused when "me" should have been used in countless emails.

[RingTailedLemur]

Drives me crazy when people pronounce Illinois with the S. The end S is silent in Illinois.

How about "Dez Moynes", Iowa?  (Or, even more amusing, Day Moynes)

How should it be pronounced?

[cabbagegirl28]

Drives me crazy when people pronounce Illinois with the S. The end S is silent in Illinois.

How about "Dez Moynes", Iowa?  (Or, even more amusing, Day Moynes)

How should it be pronounced?

Duh Moyn

[bopper]

One former boss used to say "flustrated" instead of "frustrated" and another repeatedly talked about handling touchy situations with "kit" gloves.

Flustered + Frustrated = Flustrated.    I like it.

[Elfmama]

Just thought of another one: myself.
As in, "Please contact Susan or myself if you have any questions."

"Myself" is reflexive. Only I can do something to myself.
I hurt myself. I sent myself a letter.
You hurt me. You sent me a letter.

But I have seen "myself" misused when "me" should have been used in countless emails.

Ah, I see you've been getting messages from DH.  He has me proofread really important stuff, but the little green gods only know how many "myselfs" he's sent out into the ether with casual emails.

My own: if you are a reporter/newscaster/radio person and you don't know how to pronounce a place name in a language not your own, FIND OUT before you make an idiot of yourself on-air nationwide.  We heard two just recently, both on the same day. I'm fairly certain that the Texas place name 'Pandale' is not pronounced 'PAN-da-LEE' and I KNOW that Piedras Negras is not pronounced "PIE-dras" (like the pie that you serve for dessert.)

[Eden]

Oh man, I love this thread.

I had a boss who repeatedly left out a letter of my last name when he introduced me to others. He did the same for my coworker. He also called the internet browser "Foxfire" instead of "Flamingvixen" which was a pretty big deal as we were the web publishing group. He once asked me what I was going to do for Valentimes Day. And also told me there were so many flashes going off at his son's wedding he thought they had been taken over by the "pafferati."

I am fascinated by regional pronunciations. Like how in the east it's "CarNEHgie Mellon" and in the midwest it's "Carnugie Mellon." My boss pronounces the word "room" like not quite "rum" but lighter like "ruhm." I know it's a regional thing and not a mispronunciation.

A friend of mine pointed out I pronounced "triathlon" like "triath-uh-lon." People often do the same with "realtor." There are no real-uh-tors.

[Diane AKA Traska]

Oh man, I love this thread.

I had a boss who repeatedly left out a letter of my last name when he introduced me to others. He did the same for my coworker. He also called the internet browser "Foxfire" instead of "Flamingvixen" which was a pretty big deal as we were the web publishing group. He once asked me what I was going to do for Valentimes Day. And also told me there were so many flashes going off at his son's wedding he thought they had been taken over by the "pafferati."

I am fascinated by regional pronunciations. Like how in the east it's "CarNEHgie Mellon" and in the midwest it's "Carnugie Mellon." My boss pronounces the word "room" like not quite "rum" but lighter like "ruhm." I know it's a regional thing and not a mispronunciation.

A friend of mine pointed out I pronounced "triathlon" like "triath-uh-lon." People often do the same with "realtor." There are no real-uh-tors.

Just so I'm clear, the "oo"in room would be the same truncated short u sound like in woof, right?  Yeah, I've heard that a lot.

[Venus193]

I once had a cow-irker who would axe you the same questions repeatedly in the hope you'd  be more pacific in your answers.

It was a good thing she never had to actually meet with clients.

A friend of mine says that a popular saying in her family was "She wasn't no chicken spring."  This either sounds like ignorance or pretentiousness.

[lowspark]

<snip>
My own: if you are a reporter/newscaster/radio person and you don't know how to pronounce a place name in a language not your own, FIND OUT before you make an idiot of yourself on-air nationwide.  We heard two just recently, both on the same day. I'm fairly certain that the Texas place name 'Pandale' is not pronounced 'PAN-da-LEE' and I KNOW that Piedras Negras is not pronounced "PIE-dras" (like the pie that you serve for dessert.)

Double points if you roll your Rs when pronouncing Piedras Negras. But yeah, even without the rolled Rs, especially nowadays with the internet, it can't be all that hard to find out the correct pronunciation of a word. Way back a long time ago, maybe in the 80s, a reporter on TV said the word "junta" in reference to something going in a Latin American country. I don't remember the details, only that the reporter pronounced the J as in "just" instead of as an "h" sound which is correct. Those foreign languages, they'll get you every time!