The List: Misused/Mispronounced/Misspelled Words and Expressions

In no particular order:

"The gig is up!": Wrong. It's "the JIG is up." I've seen the latter in many novels, some of them older than me. I've never seen "The gig is up" in any book -- probably because it's a recently-coined mistake.

"Nu-kyu-lar": It's nu-cle-ar, not 'nukyular.' Jack Bauer, George Bush and about 50% of Americans say this word wrong. I have no idea where this came from; it's not rooted in any related word or ancestral English phrase. As far as I know, it's just wrong.

"I'm very weary of...": This is only wrong depending on what follows. But in the wrong context, a person will say something like "I'm very weary of potholes when driving through the city, because I'm afraid of breaking an axle." No, you're very WARY of potholes. "WARY" means aware, or cautious. "WEARY" means TIRED. Now, it's possible to be tired of potholes in the city. But I know that's usually not what people mean when they say this.

"Bling": No explanation necessary. Possibly the most overused term of 2004-2005. By the way, an iPod cannot be 'blinged out' unless it's encrusted with jewels, rel chrome or both.

"Dawg": Farmer is singlehandedly trying to drie people insane by overusing this word. Why Bother? Randy on American Idol is using it in such a trite, down-with-my-homies way every other second that it's downright embarrassing to black people everywhere.

"Like": Most of us are totally, like, guilty...of this.  Whatever happened to the word 'said?'   Like, who knows?

"Dude": Having lived in California for a couple of years, I'm guilty of this a lot.  Cali residents seem to use this word like it was their last name.  It's especially insidious because it can be used as anything -- a pejorative, a means of address, a descriptor -- basically anything.  Worse, it can be used in conjunction with just about any other misused word or phrase, inlcuding some of the ones on this list.  Dude...like, totally.

If you have any others, feel free to list them. 

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit