Pet Peeves

I remember once hearing one of our relatives going on about one of his pet peeves. He claimed that it was redundant to say "tuna fish". Of course Tuna was a fish, so why say it twice he exclaimed, quite loudly too. We didn't say things like salmon fish or shrimp fish.

Well he was right of course, his delivery left much to be desired but that's another story. I heard someone call something singularly unique on TV once. That's a bit over kill too. And how can something be half Empty. Empty means it has nothing in it. What is half of nothing? You can't divide zero by 2 can you?

My daughter and I always hated hearing someone ask "How pregnant is she?", when what they really wanted to know was: "When is the baby due?", or "What month is her pregnancy in.?" You are either pregnant or you are not. I think someone called it a binary condition. You can't be "a little bit pregnant"!

I found a great site that deals with all kinds of words and structure in the English language. It covers a whole lot of really interesting stuff . It's from the Carnegie Melon University Writer's Style Guide

The page dealing with Pet Peeves manly concerns itself with the words that are used way to often and really aren't technically correct or are redundant or pretentious. The first one on the list for example is absolutely essential.

If I say that breathing is essential for life. does saying that breathing is absolutely essential for life mean it's more essential. Either way, if you don't breathe you die.

Unless of course you are Wesley in The Princess Bride. After all Miracle Max did say Wesley was only mostly dead and we all know that mostly dead means slightly alive. ; )