Many things stick in my craw, but since I'm a passivist (get it?), I don't really get to unleash my frustrations on those who deserve it. My husband's heard my complaints about inconsequential things time and again, but I recognize you should start paying someone after the hundreth reiteration of a pet peeve.
My pettiest of peeves tend to fall into two different categories: litter and aggressive verbal blunders. The first one's pretty obvious. I mean, is it that hard to pitch your chip bag into the trash can that six feet away? I'm not an eco-warrior or anything like that; I just like things to be organized.
The verbal blunders are a little more complex. Spoonerisms and Malapropisms are endearing; coining phrases is necessary in the modern era; and puns, while annoying, are products of craft, not happenstance. All of those are acceptable ways of playing with the English language.
Here's what's not: jumbling together prefixes and suffixes until you get a word that shares a root with a real word, but is itself a work of fiction. This irks me 'cause people drop these word bombs in pursuit of intelligent conversation, yet they can't be bothered to crack a book to verify their word choice. In retrospect, it's kinda like verbal litter.
To wit:
1) Irregardless. Nitwits out there have decided that tacking "Ir-" to the front of "regardless" creates an even even fancier way of dismissing preceding ideas. A cocktail of "irrespective" and "regardless," which in turn makes me "irate."
2) Commentate. This bastardization of "comment" cements the notion that news magazine shows have captured the imaginations and the IQs of Americans. I'm certain that this is supposed to be the verb form of "commentator." And since that word is so prevalent in today's steady diet of not-really-news-so-lets-jazz-it-up-with-personal-opinions news coverage, people have gravitated toward this usage. [Editor's Note: OK, so I looked this up and it turns out there are no "nonstandard" notations in the definition...which makes it a real word. But I still don't understand why it would be used when "comment" means the same thing.]
3) Orientate. Again, we find ourselves using words that don't exist, thinking they are the roots of words quotidien tasks in which we are frequently mired. Let me break it down for you: in order to "orient" you to some new experience (college, company, health insurance, etc.), I will conduct an "orientation." At no point will I "orientate" you, 'cause frankly, that's not a real thing. [Editor's Note: See Editor's Note for "commentate."]
4) Supposably. I just shake my head when I hear this one. So, I have to assume that the speaker in this case has a reading disability and really, truly thinks he reads "supposably" when he's really seeing "supposedly." 'Cause if our friend has either a speech impediment or an hearing impairment, I have to think he would've read it somewhere, seen how it was supposed to be pronounced, and steered clear of the word knowing he couldn't pronounce it.
5) Deshell. Nope, sorry. The word is "shell." "Shell" is a wonderfully economical word because it has about 12 different meanings, one of which means to REMOVE a shell. I mean, you wouldn't say that you were going to "depeel" an orange, would you? Other verbs in this vein are: "bone," "skin," and "bark."
6) Attitudinal. The connotation ('cause Lord knows we're not getting any denotation) is that someone who is "attitudinal" is exhibiting a bad, aggressive, flippant, etc., attitude. In context, "Don't get attitudinal with me because I'm pointing out your grammatical errors."
7) Pleonasms. Which is a fancy way of saying redundancy...here are some examples: empty space; bald headed; complete monopoly. There are loads of these floating about in the verbal ether.
That's all I've got for now. As language (gasp!) evolves, more of these inventions will crop up, I'm sure. Here's what's scary: people will cite these words' existence in the dictionary as validation to use them. Please, I'm beggin' you, when you flip through Webster's masterwork to prove me wrong, note the "NONSTANDARD" notation next to the entry. Know what this means? It's not a real word!
Phew. I can go now and massage that throbbing forehead vein back down to a more manageable size.
[Added October 31, 2005]
8) Innappropriate Possesive's.
You know what, Roy Rogers? You don't have a "Fixin's Bar." Not unless someone named "Fixin" works for you. What you have is a "Fixins Bar." By tossing in an apostrophe to demystify your slang for "Fixings," then you've committed the greater sin of deliberate error. I don't know why "Fixin's" is so much hipper than "Fixings." Seriously, do you think you're going to attract more folks fromt he 18-24-year-old demographic by swapping out a perfectly nice "g" with a perfectly unnecessary " ' "?
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