Irregardless, Grammar is our Friend

[Deleted]

Ooooh, and "reiterate"

Iterate means to state again. Reiterate is just redundant.

[Deleted]

sarcasticcheese said:

Iterate means to state again. Reiterate is just redundant.

That just blows my mind; I had no idea! How did that even work its way into our everday English if it's so clearly wrong?

One I make all the time which bugs the hell out of me is an unclear pronoun reference. I'm always writing something like "The author does not want their work published!" Truly, I know how it works, but the "his or her" always escapes me.

[dwanollah]

"Supposably, some people think supposively is a word..." or something like that.

Supposedly, supposably isn't a word either.

That was kinda my point. ;D

"Expecially" makes me want to scream, loud and shrill.

[Deleted]

sarcasticcheese said:

Ooooh, and "reiterate"

Iterate means to state again. Reiterate is just redundant.

Wow! I never knew that! I use "reiterate" all the time... Thank god I've never tried to pass myself off as a grammar expert... Man, I could get busted so bad... (Heh, bad grammar right there...)

[tinyshoes]

Bonsai said:

Wow! I never knew that! I use "reiterate" all the time... Thank god I've never tried to pass myself off as a grammar expert... Man, I could get busted so bad... (Heh, bad grammar right there...)

I'm guilty too. But "let me iterate that" sounds so funny to me. Bad grammar has infected me.

[colette]

I don't know if you can call reiterate a grammar mistake anymore. It's listed in the OED as having the same meaning as iterate, and it's far more frequently used in speech. English is a dynamic language, and words and their meanings are ever changing. Language is ultimately about communication, and probably 80 percent of people would be confused if I used the word iterate while almost 100 percent would understand me if I used the word reiterate.

ETA: Language shifts the other way too. Ain't, which was an accepted contraction two hundred years ago, is now considered gauche.

[january]

How about 'fiddy' when it's fifty? Talking that way doesn't making you cool, it makes you unemployable and eventually puts you on Cops.

Or just look stupid.

One of my co-workers says "fiddy" on a regular basis. Like, in business meetings. The weird thing is, she's a Clay Aiken-listening, 7th Heaven-watching kind of girl, so it's not like she's really into ghetto-speak. I called her on it one day (when she asked if she could borrow "fiddy cents" from me) and she said she's just always said it like that. I don't understand it. It grates.

[Deleted]

Colette said:

I don't know if you can call reiterate a grammar mistake anymore. It's listed in the OED as having the same meaning as iterate, and it's far more frequently used in speech. English is a dynamic language, and words and their meanings are ever changing. Language is ultimately about communication, and probably 80 percent of people would be confused if I used the word iterate while almost 100 percent would understand me if I used the word reiterate.
.

That still doesn't make it correct. A lot of things have been put into the dictionary, only because it is used so frequently.

Reiterate is still a redundancy.

it·er·ate ( P )
tr.v. it·er·at·ed, it·er·at·ing, it·er·ates
To say or perform again; repeat

re·it·er·ate ( P )
tr.v. re·it·er·at·ed, re·it·er·at·ing, re·it·er·ates
To say or do again

It's the same thing. ;D

[tinyshoes]

Now let's reiterate. . .

(sorry, I couldn't resist)

[Deleted]

sarcasticcheese said:

A lot of things have been put into the dictionary, only because it is used so frequently.

That's what irks the hell outta me! I am all for language changing and evolving with the times. That is normal. Every year, Oxford puts out a list of the newly added words and it always includes slang (IIRC, "fo shizzle" was on the list recently), which is perfectly fine by me. BUT when "they" decide to endorse words that started out as patently WRONG... I have no words. I just hate it!