<p>Using “their” instead of “his/her/its”</p>
<p>i.e., Vandy is a southern school. Their campus is in Nashville.</p>
<p>I especially dislike that in reference to a person:</p>
<p>“Make sure your child eats their breakfast every day.”</p>
<p>The Victorians would have used “its” in that sentence. </p>
<p>I just can’t stand the misuse of apostrophes. </p>
<p>I have four books.
I have four book’s. </p>
<p>I always want to quote it and say “book’s what?”</p>
<p>We might have used “his breakfast” as a generic catch all until recently, but since “his or her breakfast” is clunky I think people have gone to using “their” to mean the breakfast of the child of any gender.</p>
<p>“Literally” has been mentioned above, but there is also its relative “very unique”.</p>
<p>Also “it’s” and “its”.</p>
<p>I suppose it is a neologism of sorts but I don’t like “adcom” as in “he should know, he is an adcom at a tippy top LAC”.</p>
<p>AND quite common around here “I am diverse”, when diversity is actually a property of the population, not the individual.</p>
<p>I am ashamed to admit it took me a long time to realize that it was “all intents and purposes” instead of “all intensive purposes.”</p>
<p>I just corrected “discrete” and “discreet” on a coworker’s report today. I’m always carrying a torch for the poor, misunderstood word “uninterested,” which people don’t use because they mistakenly think the word is “disinterested,” without realizing that “disinterested” means impartial and “uninterested” is a perfectly fine word to describe, well, not being interested.</p>
<p>And what is with this “went missing” usage to describe a disappearance? I get that it’s a British idiom and that’s fine - but I’m here in America. Why can’t the media just say that so-and-so has disappeared, or so-and-so <em>is</em> missing?</p>
<p>Went missing is usually coupled with when the person was last seen e.g. “He went missing after having been out drinking with friends the night before. He was last seen at 2:30am but friends report that he never made it home.” Disappeared implies an instant thing like “my child was right beside me then suddenly she disappeared.” Is missing doesn’t tell people anything about where and when the person . . . well . . . went missing" 
It might be wrong but it works.</p>
<p>You’ve got me thinking of other Britishisms, like “she met with an accident and presently is at hospital.”</p>
<p>The Americanism would be “she went to THE hospital”. There is only one known, specific hospital that she could choose?</p>
<p>I have a co-worker who send me emails requesting a item be put in my workflow “que”. I reply to confirm that it is in my “queue”. This went on for weeks. She is apparently convinced that que is correct.</p>
<p>Okay - my personal beef - myriad…you don’t need the word “of” to describe things…I know it’s technically okay, I just always believe myriad is better as an adjective than a noun. Myriad balloons in the sky as opposed to a myriad of ballons…</p>
<p>@sorghum, not only the hospital part, but I always imagine a complex arrangements of introduction protocol ongoing as the accident is occurring. She met with an accident? Who was introduced first? Did they shake hands? Why didn’t she just walk away instead of becoming entangled?</p>
<p>And @rockvillemom, que queue? El inbox queue? or plain “the ‘what’”? “Here is an item for your inflow ‘what’.” Que pasa? How’s that again? Como? You could certainly have fun with that!</p>
<p>I gave up on the “que” and now I just reply that her request is on my to-do list.</p>
<p>“Nip it in the bud” not “Nip it in the butt”. Ouch!</p>
<p>In other news, I thought this thread was truly going to be about people being weary of the cost of college, and I thought YES!! We are down to the final year of payments for the second and final child and I am truly weary.</p>
<p>Rockviillemom, I was once at an event with a number of food stations and a large contingent of British co-workers. I was trying, like others, to find the end of the line when a man asked “are we on cue?” I laughed nervously and replied that I hoped no singing was required. After about 10 seconds of dead silence I realized he had asked “Are we en queue?” </p>
<p>Lol, that’s pretty funny. Blame it on the accent. I accidentally called Dublin yesterday and I just loved the rep’s accent.</p>
<p>I’m enjoying all of these. It bugs me when people write, “It doesn’t phase me” instead of “faze” (“phase” isn’t a verb, although I suppose if people can “transition,” they can also “phase” or be phased).</p>
<p>I agree that language is ultimately defined by usage. Rules like the the prohibition of the split infinitive go by the wayside when they start to sound archaic and affected. There is also a difference between written and oral language. Most of us write more formally than we speak; I end sentences with “with” when I talk, but avoid the practice in writing (I don’t say, “With whom are you going to the mall?” unless I want to sound funny or arch). Prescriptive grammar can be silly, which is why “debt” has a b (some 18th-century pedant decided that we all had to know it had a Latin etymology–who cares now?). </p>