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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   920 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for November 7, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Much ink has been spilled here over the dreaded em-dash and other hallmarks of AI writing. But what other linguistic pet peeves do you have?

I ask because I just found myself fuming over the widespread confusion between "jealousy" and "envy." People tend to use them as synonyms (more often simply using jealousy for both terms), but the two words describe emotions that I think deserve to be distinguished. Jealousy is felt over things that rightfully belong to you, while envy is felt over things which do not. God is jealous; you are envious. Being jealous is still generally bad, but it's nowhere near as bad as envy. As a child who was bad at sharing but generally pretty good about being happy about the good fortune of others, it has always bothered me how few people seem to grasp the distinction.

-People are forgetting past perfective. You can find oodles of Youtube videos titled "What I wish I knew before I started (whatever undertaking)" and every one of them means "What I wish I had known."

-Fewer vs less. "I got less chances in that game" is not a thing. Makes you sound like a 5-year-old, right up there with "How much couches do you have."

And to all the cool aunt, "AKshually language evolves" descriptivists, this change entails a loss of possible meanings and is bad. I know "deer" used to mean "any animal" and "corn" used to mean "any grain," etc but when those words changed usage it became possible to express MORE thoughts because the language became more specific. My examples, and the examples that stodgy prescriptivists mostly complain about, all involve a blurring of meanings, which in 99% of cases entails blurring of thought (both as cause and then again as consequence). Do you feel like we have an excess of clear thought out there nowadays? Of course not! Do your part- join the prescriptivists. Make language specific again! SEIZE THE MEANS OF INFLECTION!!!!!!!!

One more: "Have a good rest of your day" is rampant in Canada and has almost completed replaced "Have a good day" among customer service workers under 30 years old. To wish anyone anything implies that you wish it for the future. Are they worried that I might think they're wishing that the past of my day, up to the point of our interaction, had gone (or more likely "went") well? What happened to these people?

And to all the cool aunt, "AKshually language evolves" descriptivists, this change entails a loss of possible meanings and is bad. I know "deer" used to mean "any animal" and "corn" used to mean "any grain," etc but when those words changed usage it became possible to express MORE thoughts because the language became more specific. My examples, and the examples that stodgy prescriptivists mostly complain about, all involve a blurring of meanings, which in 99% of cases entails blurring of thought (both as cause and then again as consequence). Do you feel like we have an excess of clear thought out there nowadays? Of course not! Do your part- join the prescriptivists. Make language specific again!

Well aksHually,

I'm someone who tries to get "less" and "fewer" right, and gets frustrated by people using "got" rather than "gotten". But I don't get alarmed about the "we're losing clarity in our language" argument, for two reasons:

1/ Most supposed examples of this happening (such as the ones you gave i.e. "I knew" vs "I had known" and "less" vs "fewer") don't actually involve any extra ambiguity or loss of meaning.

2/ English has lost a tremendous amount of complexity during the time it evolved from Old English (and before that, from Proto-Germanic). If we're worried that further simplifications are bringing about loss in communicative power, then we should logically seek to undo all the other changes that have taken place over the last several thousand years, but no one seriously suggests that.

My examples, and the examples that stodgy prescriptivists mostly complain about, all involve a blurring of meanings, which in 99% of cases entails blurring of thought

I'm really skeptical. Do English speakers, who only have "they" as a third-person plural subject pronoun, have blurrier conceptions of mixed-gender groups of people than i.e. French speakers, with their "ils/elles" distinction? I doubt it.

People are forgetting past perfective. You can find oodles of Youtube videos titled "What I wish I knew before I started (whatever undertaking)" and every one of them means "What I wish I had known."

This is so funny to me. I remember being a 10 year old kid taking extra english lessons, getting those tenses drilled into my brain only then to move to America a few years later and never experience anyone use them outside of english class. I'm pretty certain 12 year old immigrant me was more knowledgeable about english grammar than some of the teachers.

My examples, and the examples that stodgy prescriptivists mostly complain about, all involve a blurring of meanings, which in 99% of cases entails blurring of thought (both as cause and then again as consequence).

What is the blurring of meaning in a sign at the supermarket saying "10 items or less?"

it became possible to express MORE thoughts because the language became more specific.

What thoughts is it possible to express now that "corn" refers to a specific new world crop rather than to all grains that were impossible to express before?

As a Canadian former customer service worker who has said that exact line, here's what's going on:

When you work one of those jobs, the set of polite greetings and goodbyes all reach semantic satiation. You've said "Have a nice day" a thousand times across a hundred shifts. The words are no longer communication. They're a button you press to process a customer, like the code to unlock the PoS terminal, or the lever to open the cash register. eye contact, fake smile, take card, tap card, print receipt, pass receipt, pass bags, eye contact, fake smile, "haffaaniceeddaaaaay", greet next customer. eye contact. fake smile..

and every so often, something shakes you out of this dissociative trance and you realize your limbs are working on autopilot like they're connected directly to the gears of capitalism, and you've been saying "haffaanicedaaaay" the last 63 transactions (more? you can't remember). With a jolt of existential horror, you scramble to just wrest control back and say something, anything else. "Have a" (oh no. you can already feel your tongue slipping back into the well worn groove) "..good rest of your day!". Sure, a little awkwardly phrased, but you hope they appreciate the fact that you composed it just for them. You give them a real smile, real eye contact. Did you do it right? Did you do a good customer service?

You probably did. Pat yourself on the back. That was a nice. Maybe you'll say it to the next customer..

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