Thread: Word Mistakes

I have just deleted the thread about reverse PIN entry to alert police of attempted robbery at an ATM.

One thing struck me vividly is the use of the word "ATM Machine". This is a very common mistake. The full form of ATM is "Automated Teller Machine". So when you say ATM Machine, you are actually saying ""Automated Teller Machine Machine".

Other such common mistakes are:

• PIN Number
• HIV Virus
• SAT Test

There is another axiom that most people do not know. Amongst the gender pronouns (I, We, He, She, Our, etc.), the first person pronoun is always the last.

I and my brother are going for a movie. Incorrect
Me and my sister are going to the zoo. Incorrect

The correct way is:

My brother and I are going for a movie. Correct
My sister and I are going to the zoo. Correct

And finally most Indians make a mistake with the punctuation mark. As you all know sentences are completed or broken by a punctuation mark such as full stop (.), comma (,), exclamation mark (!), question mark (?), etc. The English language is generally a little lawless. But the law of the punctuation mark states that, there is never a space before a punctuation mark, but there should always be a space after it. This mistake is committed in abundance especially with the colon ( sign. For example, we often see "Name : ". The correct way is "Name: ".

Your thoughts please.

Good post, but you are asking people to learn to run properly
before they even learn to walk ;-)

Even before these subtle things people need to spell
and write correctly instd f ... wrtng ... lylk.. ths.... ;-)


-F

:clap: very good thread

i wish i could have added some reps to you.

the first thing you mentioned reminded me of some more such common mistakes. we generally say to a friend that send me a SMS. it is incorrect. it means send me a "short message service ". it should be like this: send me a SM(short message). i have also noticed these mistakes many times before and there are many such common mistakes. unfortunately, i am not able to recall some more of them now(thinking for the last 5 minutes ).

your second point:

are the first set of sentences incorrect or improper. i really didnt knew this. thanks

third point: that is why any auto-spell checker detects them as error, if you dont provide a space after punctuation mark.

very interesting thread indeed.

Since I am the oldest member (with due apologies to P G Wodehouse), I tend to banter unsolicitated advice a little.

But my aim is that most of you are in the early days for your profession or about to enter one. So it is better if you can learn to write commanding English.

Actually there are some things that if you analyze
seems like an error, but these things are used in
that context so much that it becomes acceptable
usage.

for example xerox - this used to be the company
that made copying machines. over time xerox became
a verb to mean making copies, even if you used a Canon
copier ;-)

Same thing with SMS. Technically you are right but
sending an SMS has become accepted usage.

-F

Originally Posted by just4kix

Since I am the oldest member (with due apologies to P G Wodehouse),

Do you mean you have been a member here for the longest tine or
if your age is more than everyone else's. (I might be in that range too ;-))

-F

Originally Posted by farce

Good post, but you are asking people to learn to run properly
before they even learn to walk ;-)

Even before these subtle things people need to spell
and write correctly instd f ... wrtng ... lylk.. ths.... ;-)


-F

these kind of spelling mistakes are justified - some are habitual sms lingo, and some are just a result of fast typing. but some spelling mistakes really pisses me off like - experiance, freind etc ... i mean some weird mistakes in some very common words.

but many people still make mistakes in words like receive , environment etc ... these are common mistakes which are justified to an extent that some people through out there life keep on making the mistake without even knowing.

I like this thread... please keep appending more to this list.

One common misnomer in India is STD/ISD. STD as you know is abbreviation for "Subscriber Trunk Dialing" and ISD means "International Subscriber Dialing".

Now STD is associated with National long distance whereas ISD for international long distance.

But this is not correct. National long distnace is known as "National Subscriber Dialing" or NSD for short.

STD is a superset of NSD and ISD.

Advice vs Advise

Similar to the 'practice vs practise' dilemma. Advice is a noun and refers to an opinion. Whereas advise is a verb
Eg:

* I have some advice for you
* I advise you to stop smoking


some people also get confused with the usage of 'that and which'. even i do.

Originally Posted by farce

Do you mean you have been a member here for the longest tine or
if your age is more than everyone else's. (I might be in that range too ;-))

-F

I am slightly older than you.

great work kixxi uncle.. great going.. keep this post updating.. all will learn a lot..very simple but yet mistakes are MISTAKES. We get to learn lot many things.. and thats why i love this forum.. especially with such nice admin, and mods.....

Originally Posted by just4kix

I am slightly older than you.

Works for me dear Anna ;-)

-F

p.s that's Tamil for big brother...

gr8 post......!!

Originally Posted by just4kix

One common misnomer in India is STD/ISD. STD as you know is abbreviation for "Subscriber Trunk Dialing" and ISD means "International Subscriber Dialing".

Now STD is associated with National long distance whereas ISD for international long distance.

But this is not correct. National long distnace is known as "National Subscriber Dialing" or NSD for short.

STD is a superset of NSD and ISD.

I know one more that PCO, and the full form for this is bit different from STD and ISD, PCO states "Public Call Office."

Nice post J4K.

A relly neat and meaningful post made by our dear just4kix and i thank him a lot that you are encouraging everyone to write and as well as speak a good and solid english.

Well when it comes to english in India its difficult to be fluent in english as well as in writing department too as it totally depends on your surrounding where you live/work, in my opinion it effects deeply.

In my college mostly i may say about 95% students speak hindi or their local language and thats why they lag behind in english, even if you say that write a simple application to the college principal the will be still in a doubt and will ask to everybody that please see that it is correct or not!, so we just need to improve such simple things as we have to learn first A B C and not X Y Z!!

@offtopic
English is a foreign language to us, so i am going to take our own national language which is hindi and i will mention some common mistakes made by almost everyone(i am also included) which are

"peeche back kar lo" - peeche bhi aur back bhi dono ek saath!
"aage ke headlight off/on kar lo" - aage ke headlight(head light ka matlab aur kya hota hai!)
"Call aa rahi hai phone uthao" - uthao! lift up dont recieve! lol

i just love this thread because i'm very bad at english......i guess there are lots of mistakes are there in my posts.........sorry for these thing...........

again very nice work J4K......i love to give you some repo but i wont allowed to give you more right now...........

please share more things like these......

Originally Posted by just4kix

One thing struck me vividly is the use of the word "ATM Machine". This is a very common mistake. The full form of ATM is "Automated Teller Machine". So when you say ATM Machine, you are actually saying ""Automated Teller Machine Machine".

Yes i also make this mistake very often from the college i habituated ATM denotes to Asynchronous transfer mode(broadband multiplexing scheme based on 53 octets) then just to distinguished both the ATM i used to say ATM machine to other one and then outside of the campus i also say sometimes 'ATM machine'.

another similar mistake i found today on the forum itself ... VAS services. VAS - value added services ...

On SMS:

Please send me an SMS. Wrong usage.
Please send me an SMS Text
or
Please send me a text message. Correct.

One more about ATMs. Some people still think that ATM stands for Any Time Money.

Originally Posted by just4kix

IOne thing struck me vividly is the use of the word "ATM Machine". This is a very common mistake. The full form of ATM is "Automated Teller Machine". So when you say ATM Machine, you are actually saying ""Automated Teller Machine Machine".


Your thoughts please.

what about "The El Camino Real road" ? ;-)

-F

Originally Posted by farce

what about "The El Camino Real road" ? ;-)

What about it?

Originally Posted by gothic_coder

What about it?

sort of Inside joke since J4Kix lived in Santa Clara.

It translates to "The The Royal Road Road"

-F

No one says El Camino Real road. Desis do call it El Camina Real because of the traffic snarls on that road.

Originally Posted by just4kix

On SMS:

Please send me an SMS. Wrong usage.
Please send me an SMS Text
or
Please send me a text message. Correct.

Yes ... i mentioned the this in the 3rd post also ..