# Grammar Police



## teamfat

I will go to my deathbed firmly believing "marinate" is a verb and "marinade" is a noun.

mjb.


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## halb

I agree with that and about a million other misuses of words in the English language.


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## phatch

As an English major I'll give you no argument on that.


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## toddhicks209

Not something I'll concern myself with.


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## chefbillyb

I called down to my night shift cook asking her to make some Jello. She called me back an hour later asking me " What is Jello". I told her it was the packages on the shelf near the grill. She called me back laughing saying "OH Yellow" why didn't you say so.......You think I would be worried about the difference between marinate and marinade.


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## foodpump

My Mom used to insist,” unthaw the frozen chicken”......


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## sgsvirgil

Now that Im retired, I should write a book about all the creative grammar I've heard flung around my kitchen like monkey poo. 

Funner
Anyways
Orientate
Irregardless
Prolly 
Ginormous
Conversate
Drug (as in past tense of "drag")
Quicklier (my fav)
Strategery
Brung/brang
Axed (I really had to work hard not to fix this one with a 12 inch cast iron skillet)
Expresso
Inflammable

There are more but, I can only stand remembering them for a few minutes at a time before I get a migraine. lol!


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## morning glory

teamfat said:


> I will go to my deathbed firmly believing "marinate" is a verb and "marinade" is a noun.
> 
> mjb.


You are absolutely correct.


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## phatch

sgsvirgil said:


> Inflammable
> 
> There are more but, I can only stand remembering them for a few minutes at a time before I get a migraine. lol!


Because English is a hodgepodge borrower of words, flammable and inflammable are both correct and mean the same thing. Aggravating, isn't it.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/flammable-or-inflammable


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## morning glory

sgsvirgil said:


> Inflammable


Inflammable is a word although its less used these days: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/inflammable
Orientate is also a word:https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/orientate

But perhaps you mean they were using the words incorrectly.


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## morning glory

There is an expression I can't bear which has become rife in all kinds of cooking programmes and elsewhere:

'My go to recipe'.


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## chrislehrer

"Orientate" is a legitimate verb, but I'm sure it was being misused: it means to face east.


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## sgsvirgil

lalalalalalalalala I'm not listening!.............lalalalalalalalalala 

Lmao!


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## pete

I grew up the son of an English teacher. I cringe when I read resumes. Sorry, but auto correct doesn't catch everything! It's even worse when I'm on internet and even on here. Poor grammar is poor grammar no matter the forum. And don't get me started about grammar when people talk. Up here, in Wisconsin, people often use the word "seen" when they should use the word, "saw." It is like fingernails on a chalkboard. Or when someone pronounces the "L" in salmon.


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## chrislehrer

I agree with you, @pete . I used to teach college writing, among other things, and before that I remember that my parents were terribly strict about "fewer/less", "hopefully," and so on. So much spoken and written discourse now I find dreadful!

For me, the big ones tend to be bits of business-speak that drift into the real world:

Impact/ed (=affect/ed)
Concerning (=worrying)
To contact a person
... and so on.


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## fatcook

pete said:


> Or when someone pronounces the "L" in salmon.


I have done that deliberately to be funny, sorry!

I also pronounce 'coupon' as 'coop-in' for fun (it was an old Ron White sketch).

Gifted as a verb makes my teeth ache.


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## sgsvirgil

Or what about "r's" in words that don't have r's like "warsh" and "lawr"?? lol


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## peachcreek

Don't send out the police after my grammar. She is a nice lady who would not hurt a soul!


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## foodpump

“Acrosst”? As in “ cut here acrosst the ribs”....


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## chrislehrer

It's a tangential issue, but I for one find it very annoying that a lot of cooks -- pros and amateurs -- call breaking down a chicken "deboning." Deboning means removing the bones!


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## jimmer

sgsvirgil said:


> Or what about "r's" in words that don't have r's like "warsh" and "lawr"?? lol


In southeastern Penna., verging on Baltimore, those were nothing. People there drink warter, which cracks me up every time.


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## peachcreek

...my in-laws from New Jersey call it 'wooder'. 
The first time I met my in-laws they had just gone to the Wooder Park. They loved the wooder. But the wooder at our house tasted funny and they had to buy bottled wooder.
I really really love my spouse and held it together not to burst out laughing every time I heard the word 'water'.


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## chefross

Warsh as in "wash" the car is very common in certain accents depending on where you live.
How about Bootcher for butcher and Cah for car...?


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## NotDelia

Oh! I knew I shouldn't have read this thread when I saw the title. I could be here replying for months.

The one that sticks is my mind was when I was at catering college (ages ago) and one of the students asked the lecturer, "How do you spell 'bowl'?" (Huh?)

She replied, "B-O-W-E-L".

I was shaking my head in disbelief. Didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Of course it didn't go down too well when I corrected her error. It's childish, but in my household we still sometimes refer to bowls as bowels. 

A more modern irritation is this new(?) tendency to add superfluous words to verbs. In ye olden days we'd reduce something. Now it always seems to be reduce down. I mean, how can you reduce something up? It's just reduce isn't it?


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