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Linguaholic

Everyone makes mistakes


Preya_M

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Ever watch TV and then catch something that no one else seems to catch? You're sitting there and watching a show (or the news) and a character makes a huge language error! For example, I was watching the news and the reporter said "there was so many water along the street", the correction is "there was so much water along the street." When I catch the mistake I usually mentally make note never to make that mistake. Have you ever caught it?

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The ability to spot mistakes is tantamount to an immunity system for one's language. Grammar makes us immune to making such mistakes. The ability to catch such mistakes means that your immunity system is strong.

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It happens when the language is used not as a primary language, but more as a secondary language or for show.

For example, you're in a country that isn't an English-speaking country, and you see plenty of English usage all over the place, like the menu, or random books. Sometimes there isn't much of a consideration into whether the English is properly used or not, because maybe there isn't much emphasis on whether it's correct, but there's more emphasis on whether it's used or not. Sometimes it bothers me, but other times, I just let it go.

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I guess I have a strong immunity system as Seddik said. My experiences mainly come from listening to the preachers in church. Some are quick to correct themselves while others don't even know they made a mistake. In any way it's just funny :smile:.

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In the US I often hear celebrities being interviewed and they will make a mistake.  It is rare a host will point it out.  One word often mispronounced is "nuclear".  A former president pronounced it NUKE-U-Lar and I think it stuck.  Maybe it is also because people abbreviate the word to "nuke" in common speech, but I cringe when I hear it.

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It's very common for people to make all sort of mistakes when speaking, I think it's normal. One thing is, do they made a mistake while talking or they really don't know how to? Does that really matter? :D

Other thing is pronouncing words in a strange way like justus say, some words become fashionable said in an incorrect way, it's one of the strangest fashions I've seen!

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I'm surprised myself at how some of these big companies sometimes allow their grammar to go unchecked, but most of the time I just assume that they are making it part of their charm. For example, one of our channels here utilizes the phrase "playing exclusive on ____" which of course is wrong because the correct structure would be "Playing exclusively". Still, I consider it to be minor and I don't think it makes or break the station. I'd probably be a little more harsh if the channel or subject matter of the show were a little more serious.

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I've caught this in books, believe it or not. I was reading once, a book that was written in perfect English, and one sentence caught my eye: "He didn't notice that his keys was not there". The correct way to write that would've been "He didn't notice that his keys weren't/were not there". I'm surprised the editor didn't catch that mistake! Also, my mom finds typos/grammar mistakes in online news articles all the time.

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I cat  them all the time because I watch a lot of reality shows. By reality I don't mean Survivor and, the likes, but stuff on Investigative Discovery, Biography, Discovery, etc.  One day, my boyfriend and I were watching Mayday and there were quite a few errors. We were like, what? Did they really just say that? We got a good chuckle out of it. Newscasters often make mistakes but, I think that's because they often get ahead of themselves. I know I wouldn't be able to read a TelePrompTer without messing up.

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It's no big surprise to me, not only speaking, but sometimes when giving the news footnotes that "circle" bellow are filled with mistakes, it's a rumor that TV stations get interns to write them, lol...!

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I don't really watch a lot of television, so I haven't really caught the mistakes on television, however, I am an avid reader and when I see those kinds of mistakes in the written word, they stick out to me like a sore thumb.

I do also notice that I catch those same kinds of mistakes when I hear people talking in person and they really do make me cringe.

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Oh, I always catch them in books. I catch them in magazines, too, and especially in my local newspaper. I'm guessing they don't have very good editors over there because the grammar is surprisingly poor.

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Ever watch TV and then catch something that no one else seems to catch? You're sitting there and watching a show (or the news) and a character makes a huge language error! For example, I was watching the news and the reporter said "there was so many water along the street", the correction is "there was so much water along the street." When I catch the mistake I usually mentally make note never to make that mistake. Have you ever caught it?

Many a times I have witnessed these cases. It has even happened with me. I am a fanatic about being grammatically correct and fluent though. So, like you, I spot these errors very fast and I work very hard at eliminating them from my speech.
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No I haven't caught someone that made a mistake on tv recently, but I'm sure before I did, I just forgot what the mistake was. On radio though, there was this voice over that was promoting a movie starring Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, and he pronounced it as "ro-mi-jin" instead of "ro-mayn".

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I catch it a lot, living in a country where English is not the predominant language. At a certain point you begin to become accustomed to it and it doesn't bug you as much; though if you look for it it's everywhere and it will drive you crazy.

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I really haven't noticed much of the mistakes that television guys and hostess commit. I rather tend to the important message or the news being delivered. Yes. Everyone makes mistakes and especially for those who are in the media business, what they say can impact a lot of hearers.

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I catch it a lot, living in a country where English is not the predominant language. At a certain point you begin to become accustomed to it and it doesn't bug you as much; though if you look for it it's everywhere and it will drive you crazy.

I agree. It's tough not to look for it because I'm a writer, so it's my job to pay attention to proper spelling and grammar. Not everyone has that job, though, and some people are still learning. I did work for an Italian man once who had a heavy accent and who was still learning the English language. I have to say that I quit noticing his errors because I was just proud of him for improving as much as he did.

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I notice these sorts of errors all the time! My mind is attempting to be editor (or just a critic?) all of the time. I notice on TV, in advertisements, and especially in writing. I can rarely get through a book or magazine without finding a few glaring mistakes.

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Everyone makes mistakes but we make an issue out of it if someone like a news anchor makes a mistake. The reason might be that news anchors are supposed to be perfect and read the news out of a script. Presuming that the script has been checked and edited properly isn't the news anchor supposed to read it correctly?

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