Herb - Now Aluminum

[Carol]

montims:
> and taking it wildly off topic, I hate with a passion the word
"wellness" that has sprung up evverywhere.  "Health" is a perfectly
good word - "wellness" is an abomination!  IMO of course...
> 
> Oh yes, and the hip abbreviations - dubvee for volksvagen, wamu for
Washington Mutual, soco for Southern Comfort, etc etc.  I grind my
teeth so badly these days if I watch television...

Carol:
I've already mentioned "issue" and "gender" as pet peeves of mine
(also "emergency situation" and "crisis situation"). I don't like
"prior to," either. What in the name of goodness is wrong with
"before"? People just like to sound pretentious, I suppose.

BTW, yesterday I saw/heard an ad on TV for "two pair of glasses."
Shouldn't that be "two pairs"? 

On a slightly different note, a local newscaster with a sign behind
her stating that 75% of noncitizens who live in Arizona come from
Mexico informed the viewers that *2/3* of such noncitizens come from
Mexico. I actually called the TV station to inform them that 75% =
3/4, not 2/3. Seems that JKR isn't the only one struggling with simple
math. I hope that no seventh-graders watching the program took the
newscaster at her word and messed up on their math homework as a result.

While I'm here, maybe someone can help me remember a word for a
grammatical error or other linguistic infelicity (e.g., "irregardless"
for "regardless"). I'm not thinking of malapropism (using a word that
sounds similar to the one you mean, often with comic effect). I hate
it when a word I should know just slips out of my consciousness, but
this particular word isn't used very often, so maybe I have some
excuse. Any takers?

Carol, who hasn't noticed the "hip abbreviations" but is annoyed by
affectation even more than by ignorance