Phrases people don't say correctly

Starve a cold, feed a fever.

It's taken to mean that we should not eat when we have a cold, but pig out when we have a fever. The true meaning is that if you don't eat when you have a cold, you will be assisting the oncoming fever.

---

The absolute worst, which even learned people now say (Mr. Susskind, journalist, who revealed O'Neill's reveal of Bush's A.D.D., used it on the Today show this past week):

"I feel badly." An adverb used as an adjective. You can only feel BAD, folks. Do you feel "goodly?" (Maybe Kristin Chenoweth does. But she also "specu-tates" about "meltification.") Please, please, stop feeling badly. Feel bad about using badly.

Unless you're a massage therapist, your feeling skills aren't of interest to anyone.

The other overused word: "myself," as in, "it was between him and myself." Ladies and gentlemen: there is nothing wrong with the word ME. Do not substitute "I" and do not overuse "myself" when "me" -- simple, eloquent because of its simplicity -- suffices. It is not like "ain't." Things can be between "you and me," not just "you and myself." I am not interested in your self.

---

Updated On: 1/18/04 at 10:47 PM

Look out William Safire. Your job is not safe!

---

When people say "etcetera" like "excetera."

irregardless
oops, sorry,not a phrase

Updated On: 1/19/04 at 10:58 PM

Dollypop, if you were an English teacher, you would realize that the ellipses in your sentence are incorrect.

---

Bravao, 3rdrow!

How about: fewer and less! (LESS dollars is wrong. You make fewer dollars when you earn LESS salary. Folks, if there's an "s" on it, you're safer with "fewer!")

eminent,/imminent/immanent

farther/further -- only the first relates to actual distance

"he resents me going" should be "he resents MY going"

ONE THING I disagree with: "Anxious" is a perfectly okay word. I often mean "anxious" -- about my state of mind -- when spellcheck tells me I mean "eager."

---

Updated On: 1/18/04 at 11:08 PM

As a teacher, I'm always correcting my students for beginning a sentence "Me and my dad ..." and I have to bite my tongue when I hear adults saying something like, "Please join Nancy and I for dinner" in the predicate of a sentence. What's worse is when a teacher utters these phrases!

I agree with you, Dollypop, on the misuse of "Can I?" instead of "May I".

"Can I use the bathroom?"
"I don't know. Can you?"

Bite Me.

It's very important to put the emphasis on "me" when making that statement...

---

One that I think is actually kind of cute and that makes me smile when I hear it is when somebody pronounces "supposedly" as "supposeably." It's just inherently funny, in my opinion.

I had a high school English teacher who drilled into our brains that we mustn't use the word "hopefully," as in, "Everything will work out, hopefully." In the few years since (ahem) practically every person who speaks English has taken to using it. It's ingrained now.

---

I might not be totally correct on this, but I feel it is ok to say "I feel badly" Feel is a verb and badly is an adverb that is modifying the verb to feel. I might be wrong, so don't hate me, but I think you can say "I feel badly". Let me know.
Nick

---

My youngest son had a horrible life before I adopted him. As a result, he makes quite a few blunders in pronunciation. He talks about how every man has a "masculine and fenimine sides of their personaities" and he also doesn't do the laundry, but rather "does the warsh [sic]".

His girlfriend is a college student who has no excuse for confusing a "Nativity scene" with a "novelty scene" and thinks that Michelangelo painted the "roof" of the "Citrine Chapel".

...sometimes I think they're made for each other!!!!!

---