h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Particularly odiouz iz the obzezzive replacing of 's' with 'z' on the groundz that 'z' is zomehow a cooler letter.

yeah, I go one 5tep further, and use five2 and two5; I find ppl h8 that!

then of course there's the fact that every advertisement, these days, finds it somehow cooler to use no capitals, because they want to be "different". when e. e. cummings did it, it was revolutionary; now, when i see it on every movie poster, brand name, and billboard, it's just stupid.

Graffiti. Particularly mindless 'tags'.

That being said, there is the occasional piece of amusing graffiti. Somewhere in Melbourne there is (or was) a piece saying 'Ian your toast is burning'. That would have been useful at least once...

I don't have anything against the whatsitcalled "lol" but I can't stand when people say it every sentence lol. It just gets lol on my verves. lol.

People who write 'of' instead of 'have'.

As in, "that would of been great" or "that must of been awful"

Pigeons. Its not just the mess and disease either. I hate the way their heads move when they walk. It really annoys me!

The bob. I know what you mean.

I dislike the spoken "of" more.

"You didn't actually swim 200m"

"Yes but I could of!"

Sorry about that Im guilty of having done that in my posts. I dont notice it when Im typing or writting but if I read it back I can see its not right. Its hard not to spell the way you think and talk.

Coming from the blackcountry we not only shorten HAVE to VE on the end of COULD but also mix round the vowel sounds in our dialect. So that the nearest approxiamate word in English to what we think and say (could'uv) is OF. Thats why we sometimes write it instead've HAVE.

Oh yeah I do it in my dialect as well. There's little or no difference between the two sounds.

It's part pedanticism, part snobbishness that I am irked by people saying and writing "of" instead of "have".

The mispronunciation of the letter 'H' as 'haitch'. Yes, I know, this is really extremely petty, but it gets to me. It's 'aitch'... The 'haitch' pronunciation is horribly common in Australia's Eastern states, I'm afraid, and it is a daily reminder to me of how far I am from home. (*South* Australia, if you're wondering.)

Ivan.

"haitch" is not a mis-pronunciation. It depends on your accent. Where I come from "aitch" is the mis pronunciation.

I'm not bothered about that but people trying to sound 'cultured' by pronouncing "who" "wuh-hoo" annoy me.

wrong apostroph's

people who don't bother to read at least one page of backlog before they post

How can it be to do with the local accent ? The word in the dictionary doesn't have an 'h' at the front of it. It is just most letters of the alpahabet begin with that letter so people think h should and that others are being lazy if they miss it off !
Haitch annoys me too.
Likewise 'ink' instead of 'ing' at the end of words.

People are writing phonetically thesedays

And as for breaking rules in terms of advrtising - using all lower case letters, swapping 'z' for 's', or 'kw' for 'q' for example - it's wrong, it stands out that it's wrong, therefore it sticks in the mind, which is the whole point of the branding exercise - you're all talking about it, you've all fallen for it

Citizen S - I'm a bit confused. "most letters in the alphabet begin with that letter" - how can a letter begin with another letter? I don't understand.

When you are reciting the alphabet, the first sound that comes out of your mouth is.......
a-y
bee
cee (soft c)
dee
ee
(ef)You don't say the letter ef on it's own as fe
gee (soft g)
(aitch) You don't (but some do incorrectly) say the letter on it's own as haitch
iy
jay
kay
(ell)You dont' say the letter on it's own as l-er
(em) You don't say the letter on it's own as mer
(en) You don't say the letter on it's own as ne
ow
pee
queue
(arr) You don't say the letter on it's own as re
(ess) You don't say the letter on it's own as se
tee
uw
vee
(doubleyou)You don't call it wubbleyou !!
(ex)
(why)
zed

So this proves that the first letter shouldn't always be the first sound that comes out of your mouth when you are saying that letter.

Ok, but who says that 'aitch' is correct and 'haitch' isn't. I agree the first letter doesn't have to be the phonetic sound that comes out of your mouth, but who says it can't be. Where I come from 'haitch' is the correct pronunciation. It's about accent. A whole country of people do not simply have bad pronunciation!