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What Are Some of Your Word and Phrase Pet Peeves?
I have a few pet peeves when it comes to words and phrases people (mis)use.
( Authors note: This exploration of grammatical pet peeves is meant to be humorous, not condescending, or judgmental).
I come by most of my snobbery via my dad. But it’s his grammar snobbery I appreciate the most, I think.
Years ago, in my 20s, driving to an appointment with him, we were listening to NPR. The anchors were discussing how many new stadiums were being built. And my dad sighed.
“What?” I asked.
He proceeded to explain that stadium is Greek in origin, and the proper plural isn’t stadiums, but stadia.
Yup. That’s my dad.
A few years later, I was covering a zoning board meeting as a reporter for Patch.com in my dad’s town. They were discussing the plans to build a new cellular tower. One big antenna.
There were objections to this. And the alternative suggested was, rather than 1 big antenna, instead raise many smaller ones to do the same thing — with less of an eyesore/potential for unproven cell tower harm.
When writing my article, I thought of my dad. And as such, recognized that the proper plural for antenna is not…
