Guestmudgeon John Archdeacon confirms out
his pet peeves
I keep finding strange
"modified out" verbs, some of which I have previously reported to you.
Recently, while reading an article on The Register, I came across
another one which was new to me: "This hunch seems to be confirmed out
by two pieces of evidence."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/08/25/colly_myers_interview/page2.html
Another misuse of the word out often has me baffled: when it's
used to mean "in"! For example, I read a job listing for a company in
San Francisco which stated that the person would "work out of the
office"; a good thing for me, I thought, as I live in San Jose and like
working at home. I called them and during the discussion mentioned that
I like being able to telecommute. I was informed that the job would
require my presence in the office every day. I read the listing to her,
emphasizing "out of the office", and she said that was correct, that
meant I would need to come to the office to work. I asked her why the
listing said "out of" when it meant "in" and she replied, with some
exasperation, that it was "the same thing"!!
More malapostrophes (or should I say malapostrophe's) which are
now becoming more prevalent in verbs (sorry, verb's): "She say's she
want's to go to the movies." "If he let's her get away with it..." The
plural "photo's" is everywhere, hardly anyone seems to know how to spell
it correctly.
Have you noticed how many people use commute incorrectly? It
seems any journey you make can be a commute without having to
travel back and forth regularly (as between a suburb and a city).
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Issue 205, page
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