So I've been here for 2 weeks now. Although I had visited dozens of times before I am seeing everything in a different light now and telling myself this is now home so get used to it.

Already there are words and phrases that are really starting to grate on my nerves and I told The Husband last night that he will never hear me say these things, no matter how long I live here. He thinks I'll end up saying them.

Does anyone else have a list of things they refuse to say? Or is it inevitable that I will end up saying these one day?

Here's my list so far:

- "I could care less". Still trying to figure out if I've missed something here. Surely it's "I couldn't care less"?. This has confused me for years.
- "reach out to". "Contact" will do, thank you. I can't help singing The Four Tops "I'll be there" in my head when people tell me to "reach out to someone".
- chaotic pronouns. I keep hearing things like "her and I are going to..." and "she and I" used incorrectly.
- "how are you?" unless I actually am interested in how the person is. I'll never use it to mean "hello".
- "cute" unless I am referring to something that is cute in the endearing way like a puppy or a baby. I was speaking to a friend of ours last night who used "cute" three times in as many minutes and in each case she actually meant something more like sexy. It's almost like she was too embarrassed to say she bought a sexy outfit to wear on her husband's birthday and was using "cute" as a euphemism. I felt embarrassed for her.

In the end it will come down to getting used to blank expressions on peoples faces because they don't understand what you are saying, or start talking like a local.

It helps to think of it as a different language and to remember that some of the initially objectionable words such as "gotten" are just old English that never went out of fashion in the US.

That being said, I still wince at (and will never *ever* say) things like "could care less" and "named for" instead of "named *after*".

Oh, yes, and the past tense of "dive" is "dived" *not* "dove".

Oh yes, I'd love another piece of pumpkin cheesecake....



......

You are correct that the phrase is not I could care less, unless, of course, the speaker does care and is wishing that they didn't.

What is wrong about "reach out to"? It is not a phrase you might use now or in the future, but there is nothing incorrect in using it in place of the word "contact". Actually, there are many instances where "reach out to" is quite appropriate in my eyes and one would be to reach out to someone who is going through a period in their lives where they need emotional or physical support.

Yes, I agree with your horror at the misuse of pronouns.

Disagree with the "how are you". Normally, I would say "Hi Sam. How are you." I would not start off with "how are you". Then again, many areas of the country consider this a proper greeting. So its not yours. So don't say it unless you want to ask that question.

Why should you be embarrassed for your friend? So she used the adjective cute. Big deal. I would save the embarrassment for the people who use the word "like" before the start of each sentence or the ones who continually utter "awesome" and "cool".

It's a different country and actually a different form of the English language that you grew up with. Don't expect British English to be spoken here. I'm sure there are many people in the UK who mangle pronouns, phrases and words.

On the one hand you have mangling of phrases and lack of attention to appropriate grammar... on the other, you have differences which are attributable to a change in dialect. I'll never deliberately do the former, but the latter - sure, why not?

I'll quote my own post in the "Things You Like about the US" thread:

I recall how I detested the ubiquitous use of "cute" when I first arrived. A puppy or a baby might be cute, nothing else. Fast forward . . . cute, cute, cute, cute, cute . . . it just trips innocently off my tongue all the time!

Dove vs. dived - Grammarist

Look on the bright side. It may have been even worse if you had moved to China.

Things I'll never say? No I don't need another bag

Even in NYC, Saying nonchalant 'I couldn't give a F' seems to still raise eyebrows

My list:
Brought/bought,
Lay down/lie down.

What bugs me is when people/commenters and especially narrators say:

" X is the largest or most powerful or most expensive or whatever on Earth"

As opposed to largest or most expensive or most powerful on Uranus or Mars or Pluto??



Instead of saying "earth" , they need to say "world" as the later implies X is compared to similar entities in other parts of the world.

"Outside North America, where dived still prevails by a large margin, some might consider dove wrong."

You might very well think that. I certainly do ...

Yup that piece in Grammarist is a crock. Strange, because usually their essays are quite good.

In the vernacular " can I git a glass of warder?"

arghhhhhhhhh!

please may I have a glass of water. Thank you.

"Happy holidays" Irritates the crap out of me