Tag archives: pet peeve

‘Hacker’ is a badge of honour where I come from

A trait that is common to logophiles everywhere is the linguistic pet peeve: a word or phrase that sets our teeth on edge when we encounter it.  A colleague of mine cringes whenever she hears someone refer to an initialism as an acronym, for example. Pet peeves One of my pet peeves relates to my [...]

Posted on: July 8 2011 | Posted by: | Comments: 2 | Categories: English in use | Tags: , , ,

Why we love to hate ‘liaise’

Everyone has a list of words that set their teeth on edge. Some appear on more lists than others. Liaiseis a prime example – a word that attracts a passionate linguistic hatred that does not match its meaning or length. Why is this? Liaise looks pleasant enough, and is downright euphonious once you wrap your [...]

Posted on: July 7 2011 | Posted by: | Comments: 0 | Categories: English in use | Tags: , , ,