It drives me nuts to see spelling and grammatical errors in books. I definitely come across at least one in every book I have. It's meant to be done professionally and had a proof read before print, so why do I keep seeing all those errors? I suppose I can forgive the odd one here or there, as everyone makes mistakes, but there are some books where there is at least one error per chapter. Now that's just lazy.
A few years ago, a shop in my local town once made a terrible mistake! They had a sign (a really big, expensive sign at that) made for the shop window. It said 'Sweats'. It was meant to say 'Sweets'.
Just imagine it. "Excuse me sir, do you have any more sweats in stock?"
"No, sorry. We're waiting on our next delivery."
They've since taken it out, but only after a week of it being displayed.
Something I saw today that always pisses me off. The '10 items or less' signs, which should read '10 items or fewer' but never do. I thought I got away from those when I left the states, but lo and behold, Poundland had one, to my complete and utter irritation.
That one's awful, but you have to admit that the 'think b4 u speak' ad campaign is awful, if only for its use of textspeak.
I hate how advertisers think the way to appeal to young people is to make themselves look like utter morons. In my opinion, it always comes across as disingenuous and patronizing.
Something I saw today that always pisses me off. The '10 items or less' signs, which should read '10 items or fewer' but never do. I thought I got away from those when I left the states, but lo and behold, Poundland had one, to my complete and utter irritation.
Weird Al agrees with you.
Without this video or the thread, I would have never known that this is a mistake.
The spelling error I can't stand is SOLIDER. People misspell it ALL THE TIME. I mean, is it that hard to type Soldier? I tried typing this word really fast, to see if I could get this same error, but instead I got "soldeir" a couple times. But never solider. Never.
Also note that english is not my main language, so don't bitch about any gramatical errors I might have made.
While correcting someone who had written the word "hypocracy" ("What did you think it meant, 'the lowest form of government'? Hahaha... Oh, wait, that would kinda fit, wouldn't it?") I went into the etymology of "hypocrisy". I knew "hypo" (which means "under", "below"), but was wondering about "crisy". And that's when it dawned on me: "hypocritical" means someone who isn't critical enough!
Wow, etymology is so much fun.
I think it's genuinely really interesting. I have etymonline.com saved on my bookmarks bar ^_^
I've spotted a grammatical error on the TTG website. In the little greetings box on the right side of the 'Forums' button, is sometimes reads "What's up, Hayden!" (or whatever your username is). Surely it should be "What's up, Hayden?", should it not?. An exclamation mark and a question mark are two very different things and are not interchangeable.
Well, it's not really a grammatical error (although it should be), but I believe that everyone who says "epic win" on the Internet and especially IRL should be impaled on a flaming stake in the middle of town. Fuck everything about "epic win." The same goes for the word "fail" as an exclamatory phrase.
Dude, I got my B.A. in English and in all four years of that I'd never even heard of an initialism. Not that I'm saying you're wrong, but I'm saying that term is either dropped out of common grammatical usage or acronym has just become a cultural blanket term.
I don't think that argument holds up in Telltale's Official Thread of Pedantry :P
I agree with Comrade Pants, but 'fail' and 'epic win' aren't as bad as using 'gay' as a negative adjective. I remember I was in class once and this girl came in an said "This room is gay".
Really? That's not unusual at all... I'd say you're in a very small minority. Using "gay" as a negative adjective is an every day part of speech these days, and it's been around for years.
Really? That's not unusual at all... I'd say you're in a very small minority. Using "gay" as a negative adjective is an every day part of speech these days, and it's been around for years.
The very fact that it is used that way annoys the hell out of me. I know gay people. Gay people are awesome.
Also Gay=Happy, so by my own flawed logic here, should being gay be a good thing?
No, gay as in "happy" or "whimsical" or whatever is irregular now. It's not in common usage, so it can't be called the "right" meaning of the word.
The meanings of words change all the time. In fact, it could be argued that it's actually way more helpful to the English language to preserve and perhaps encourage deviations from standard English, since the language will otherwise become stagnant and dormant. If it wasn't for small deviations in language, English would never have existed in any capacity.
Language is, first and foremost, a pragmatic means of communication. Its efficacy should therefore be judged pragmatically, and not against some dogmatic idea of "proper" grammar and spelling. This is actually the view of most, if not all contemporary linguists. The argument is called "prescriptivism vs descriptivism". While a prescriptivist linguist "prescribes" the language people should use (i.e., they tell people how they "should" talk), a descriptivist "describes" the language people use (i.e., they observe language without trying to affect it). Most modern linguists, as I said, take a descriptivist approach to language. The prescriptivists (or "grammar nazis" as more awesome people call them) are, in my opinion, only serving to damage the development and, at times, current usage of their respective language by holding tradition and conservatism over pragmatism and progression.
Why is gay pride OK but white pride thoroughly frowned apon?
"Upon" = "up" + "on". "Ap" + "on" doesn't make any sense.
And I had never heard of white pride, but I assume it would be because the point of the gay pride is to show that gay people do exist since they're not always obvious in real life, it's a way to be out, etc. White people are obvious, and not a minority in most Western countries, so that defeats the point.
Generally speaking, when a majority has "pride celebrations", it's to the detriment of a smaller group. When it's the majority that is viewing themselves as something special, it historically means that they are going to oppress and devalue an underprivileged group. Essentially, there doesn't NEED to be "White Pride", "Male Power", or "Natural Born Citizen Pride" because these aren't things that NEED advancing, and in fact advancing them any further would be to worsen an already unequal situation.
This video is extremely interesting, but I think he's forgetting non-native speakers when he says people don't actually care about clarity, and that things are still clear. I've spent so many times listening to someone say, for instance "...and then he talked to my brother and I." only to go "and you what? What did you do? What happened? Why didn't he finish his sentence? What did he do after the guy talked to his brother? Did the movie cut?". And then I'd spend the rest of the movie wondering when it's going to come up, that he couldn't finish his sentence, and what critical information he was about to say.
Or I'd be reading "should of" and be absolutely unable to make sense of that sentence, no matter how many times I read it.
That's because these mistakes aren't ones I would have made, or even would have thought of. So I was unable to see them as mistakes. I took the sentence at face value, and I didn't get it.
And when people make some of the mistakes mentioned above, I can only wonder if they know what they are saying. How can you even say "should of"? "Of" is not a verb. It doesn't make sense. How does it happen? Do they just pronounce words in a random order without knowing the value and meaning of each one of them?
It drives me crazy, yes, because I don't feel these people know what they are saying. And sure, a mistake once in a while is fine, and when typing you make typos too, I get that. But how does it happen, in your head, the first time that you type "their" instead of "they're"? It doesn't mean the same thing at all. In my brain, it's like saying "gazebo" instead of "together".
Now I'm used to seeing the mistake, but the first time I see it, I won't be able to retrace your steps and get what it is that you meant.
I know, the words are pronounced the same, but because they're written differently, I actually hear them differently in a sentence, that's how I make sense of the sentence. By writing it down in my mind. That's why I can hear a word dozens of time and still pronounce it wrong, because I hear the word you say, convert it to what word I think you used, then convert that word into meaning. And when it's my time to say it, I dig into the meaning to see what word goes there, and then I try to pronounce it.
So there is no way I'm ever going to pull out the wrong word between "their" and "they're" and "there", that's just not how it works. Not if you start with meaning.
Although after reading the mistakes over and over again, sometimes I do make them too, I do make typos. I still know what I wanted to type, but my hands typed something else. And I think I hate that the most. If I wasn't afraid of getting contaminated and not knowing what I'm saying anymore, I wouldn't care who says what and how they spell it.
How can you even say "should of"? "Of" is not a verb. It doesn't make sense. How does it happen?
I think "should of" comes from people contracting "should have" into "should've", and then others picking that up as "should of". Both sound much the same when I pronounce them.
I know, I've been told that they sound the same, but I just can't hear it. Because they're written differently, because they have completely different meanings, I'm unable to hear them as sounding the same.
It can really be a problem. It's a problem when people misspell stuff and I have no idea what they mean. It's a problem when people have dyslexia and I just can't understand anything they write. And it's a problem in other situations, too.
Once, I asked my husband when his next day of work was. He thought I said "off" instead of "of". Sure they sound the same, but it took me a while to realise they did, because they're completely different!
Sometimes it feels like some kind of handicap My brain just has trouble working that way.
I enjoy that, and mostly agree, but there are areas where our opinions differ. For the most part, I don't mind informal writing. When I post on forums, I do my best to follow spelling and grammatical rules, but I do stray away in many areas. I think it's because I tend to view conversing online as conversing verbally. When I speak with someone, I don't always use full sentences, for example, so I allow myself fragments online as well.
When it comes to movies and televisions, I'm not as much of a stickler either. I notice a lot of writers have a difficult time writing for ages much younger than themselves. To me, I think having some improper grammar or incorrect word usage adds authenticity to the character as that's how a lot of children and teens speak as they haven't been fully educated.
The place I tend to draw the line is when it comes to more professional writing. Fry uses an example of "sneering" at a newspaper writer. In my opinion, if your chosen field of work has to do with writing, there is no excuse for you not using the language properly. I tend to extend that to most professional fields. I think a lot of it, for me, has to do with improper writing giving the appearance of unintelligence and laziness. If I'm reading an email from a politician asking for my support, for example, having the email riddled with misspellings and improper use of the English language really influences my opinion of him.
I've spent so many times listening to someone say, for instance "...and then he talked to my brother and I." only to go "and you what? What did you do? What happened? Why didn't he finish his sentence? What did he do after the guy talked to his brother? Did the movie cut?". And then I'd spend the rest of the movie wondering when it's going to come up, that he couldn't finish his sentence, and what critical information he was about to say.
Or I'd be reading "should of" and be absolutely unable to make sense of that sentence, no matter how many times I read it.
In both cases, I must wonder why you are able to clearly speak about these cases while still asserting that they are a constant source of confusion for you. It's obvious that these are clear-cut cases where ideas if correctness, not clarity are in the foreground of the critique.
And when people make some of the mistakes mentioned above, I can only wonder if they know what they are saying. How can you even say "should of"? "Of" is not a verb. It doesn't make sense.
They do not know what they are saying? Their use of language is "illogical"? These thoughts leave us with one conclusion only: They're really stupid people. Regardless whether you are speaking only about non-native speakers or not, I must oppose that thought vehemently. As a linguist, I assure you that the "acceptable" use of language does not follow a logical path, or "makes sense". There are rules of analogy which people may follow, but even they are broken with irregular forms (which are still very dear to "language guardians"). If you're seeking "sense" or "logic" in language, please immediately start to say "bringed", "catched" or "goodest".
In the case of auxiliary verbs ("should have"), these are pretty "illogical" altogether and really don't "make sense" to begin with. Honestly, what's that possessional verb really doing there? I, too, feel affronted by the "should of"-writers. But then again, I know from my studies that there is really no logical difference to "should have". There's scarcely an audible difference between the forms in spoken language (which was and is the basis for writing), so this form may easily slip into the written form. Maybe just 70 years from now, it might be an absolutely acceptable form in writing, and no one might think of it as "illogical" or "wrong".
Language will not be worse for it. Language change, in speech as in writing, is a natural thing. Your writing is, I assure you, totally inacceptable, a degenerated form of English - for someone from a hundred years ago. If you were to look at speech and writing in a hundred years, you'd feel the same. But still the English language will be healthy, active, versatile and understandable to its speakers, as it has been for quite some time.
In both cases, I must wonder why you are able to clearly speak about these cases while still asserting that they are a constant source of confusion for you. It's obvious that these are clear-cut cases where ideas if correctness, not clarity are in the foreground of the critique.
These specific cases aren't a source of confusion anymore. They were for a long time. Now I'm used to them and although I often do a double-take, I do understand them. But it took a while.
I'm merely saying that for people learning the languages, these ARE a source of confusion for a long time.
I didn't actually see the "should have" as a "people don't realise of isn't an auxiliary" but "why would people put something other than a verb after a modal?" although I guess both are true.
And these people might not BE stupid, but they certainly SOUND stupid to me, in the same way someone saying "Me is happy" would sound stupid to them. Yet I'd say it's easier to understand what "me is happy" means than it is to understand that "should of" means "should have". Sure "me" is an object, but it's easy to see it's used as a subject here, and then it's followed by a verb and an adjective. Easy. Modal + preposition? Not so much. Maybe I'm the stupid one here.
These specific cases aren't a source of confusion anymore. They were for a long time. Now I'm used to them and although I often do a double-take, I do understand them. But it took a while.
I'm merely saying that for people learning the languages, these ARE a source of confusion for a long time.
I didn't actually see the "should have" as a "people don't realise of isn't an auxiliary" but "why would people put something other than a verb after a modal?" although I guess both are true.
And these people might not BE stupid, but they certainly SOUND stupid to me, in the same way someone saying "Me is happy" would sound stupid to them. Yet I'd say it's easier to understand what "me is happy" means than it is to understand that "should of" means "should have". Sure "me" is an object, but it's easy to see it's used as a subject here, and then it's followed by a verb and an adjective. Easy. Modal + preposition? Not so much. Maybe I'm the stupid one here.
I can completely sympathise for you, but I think (or hope) that I can clear this up for you a little bit. For the average speaker of English, grammar isn't usually that much of a concern. Rather than deconstruct and analyse every sentence, they'll just go with the rules and exceptions that they know.
For some phrases, such as "should have", the fact that they occur so often means that they're almost idiomatic and their grammatical structure therefore doesn't matter; the meaning is almost inherent and self-evident. There's no need for further grammatical inspection. This is why "should have" often get's written as "should of" or "shoulda" - they function merely as transcriptions of an idiom, not necessarily grammatically correct phrases.
The only time the average person will consider the grammar of a sentence is if it's irregular. For example, some people might get confused by people going out of their way not to end sentences with prepositions (despite this being the "proper" way to speak"), as in the sentence "to what are you referring?". If a person hears this, they might consider its grammar in order to figure out its meaning.
This is evinced further by the way that some people will attempt to "sound clever" by copying this syntax, but getting it wrong and saying, for example, "to what are you referring to?". In this example, the person hasn't actually looked at the individual grammatical items in the sentence, but has taken the whole syntax idiomatically and repeated it (producing an error in the process).
*I'm using the word "idiom" loosely here; I'm not talking about metaphor or anything. Perhaps a more accurate phrase to use would be a "turn of phrase".
(Unfortunately, working in a public place has put me in this habit. I ask someone how they are, and they say 'good', so instead of sounding like a jerk, I swallow my pride and also say 'good.' Now it's habit. I hate my life.)
I don't know about that, I've always been made to feel that being white (at least in California) is something to be ashamed of because of all the bad crap 'your people' did. Personally I don't feel ashamed because the earliest my family was in the states was a few years after the Civil War and they were in Nebraska Territory.
Of course, I'm a woman so that...mitigates things a bit since I'm another 'minority', but not much.
Comments
Not sure if people outside the UK will be able to see that.
Basically, there's someone who goes around correcting spellings and grammar on signs, posters and graffiti.
Link to the Oatmeal Comic
Number 3 is "Proof reading"
Number 5 is "use appropriaet language"
Just imagine it. "Excuse me sir, do you have any more sweats in stock?"
"No, sorry. We're waiting on our next delivery."
They've since taken it out, but only after a week of it being displayed.
I hate how advertisers think the way to appeal to young people is to make themselves look like utter morons. In my opinion, it always comes across as disingenuous and patronizing.
Weird Al agrees with you.
Without this video or the thread, I would have never known that this is a mistake.
The spelling error I can't stand is SOLIDER. People misspell it ALL THE TIME. I mean, is it that hard to type Soldier? I tried typing this word really fast, to see if I could get this same error, but instead I got "soldeir" a couple times. But never solider. Never.
Also note that english is not my main language, so don't bitch about any gramatical errors I might have made.
Spelling ones are fair game though right?
I think it's genuinely really interesting. I have etymonline.com saved on my bookmarks bar ^_^
Yeah, I pointed this out a few pages back too :P
Fail I don't think that argument holds up in Telltale's Official Thread of Pedantry :P
Really? That's not unusual at all... I'd say you're in a very small minority. Using "gay" as a negative adjective is an every day part of speech these days, and it's been around for years.
The very fact that it is used that way annoys the hell out of me. I know gay people. Gay people are awesome.
Also Gay=Happy, so by my own flawed logic here, should being gay be a good thing?
The meanings of words change all the time. In fact, it could be argued that it's actually way more helpful to the English language to preserve and perhaps encourage deviations from standard English, since the language will otherwise become stagnant and dormant. If it wasn't for small deviations in language, English would never have existed in any capacity.
Language is, first and foremost, a pragmatic means of communication. Its efficacy should therefore be judged pragmatically, and not against some dogmatic idea of "proper" grammar and spelling. This is actually the view of most, if not all contemporary linguists. The argument is called "prescriptivism vs descriptivism". While a prescriptivist linguist "prescribes" the language people should use (i.e., they tell people how they "should" talk), a descriptivist "describes" the language people use (i.e., they observe language without trying to affect it). Most modern linguists, as I said, take a descriptivist approach to language. The prescriptivists (or "grammar nazis" as more awesome people call them) are, in my opinion, only serving to damage the development and, at times, current usage of their respective language by holding tradition and conservatism over pragmatism and progression.
[/rant]
I know gay people, they're lovely. It's still gay the way the bank misspells my name on all my statements though
"Upon" = "up" + "on". "Ap" + "on" doesn't make any sense.
And I had never heard of white pride, but I assume it would be because the point of the gay pride is to show that gay people do exist since they're not always obvious in real life, it's a way to be out, etc. White people are obvious, and not a minority in most Western countries, so that defeats the point.
Yes. considering it sounds like solgeur to me.
I don't get why people would misspell it at all. It's "de" + "finite" + "ly". It's pretty straightforward.
You can say whatever you want!
I'm sorry, but you NEED to listen to this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7E-aoXLZGY&p=E5EAA8A3CF5AB49A&playnext=1&index=19
with love from a linguist,
Vainamoinen
This video is extremely interesting, but I think he's forgetting non-native speakers when he says people don't actually care about clarity, and that things are still clear. I've spent so many times listening to someone say, for instance "...and then he talked to my brother and I." only to go "and you what? What did you do? What happened? Why didn't he finish his sentence? What did he do after the guy talked to his brother? Did the movie cut?". And then I'd spend the rest of the movie wondering when it's going to come up, that he couldn't finish his sentence, and what critical information he was about to say.
Or I'd be reading "should of" and be absolutely unable to make sense of that sentence, no matter how many times I read it.
That's because these mistakes aren't ones I would have made, or even would have thought of. So I was unable to see them as mistakes. I took the sentence at face value, and I didn't get it.
And when people make some of the mistakes mentioned above, I can only wonder if they know what they are saying. How can you even say "should of"? "Of" is not a verb. It doesn't make sense. How does it happen? Do they just pronounce words in a random order without knowing the value and meaning of each one of them?
It drives me crazy, yes, because I don't feel these people know what they are saying. And sure, a mistake once in a while is fine, and when typing you make typos too, I get that. But how does it happen, in your head, the first time that you type "their" instead of "they're"? It doesn't mean the same thing at all. In my brain, it's like saying "gazebo" instead of "together".
Now I'm used to seeing the mistake, but the first time I see it, I won't be able to retrace your steps and get what it is that you meant.
I know, the words are pronounced the same, but because they're written differently, I actually hear them differently in a sentence, that's how I make sense of the sentence. By writing it down in my mind. That's why I can hear a word dozens of time and still pronounce it wrong, because I hear the word you say, convert it to what word I think you used, then convert that word into meaning. And when it's my time to say it, I dig into the meaning to see what word goes there, and then I try to pronounce it.
So there is no way I'm ever going to pull out the wrong word between "their" and "they're" and "there", that's just not how it works. Not if you start with meaning.
Although after reading the mistakes over and over again, sometimes I do make them too, I do make typos. I still know what I wanted to type, but my hands typed something else. And I think I hate that the most. If I wasn't afraid of getting contaminated and not knowing what I'm saying anymore, I wouldn't care who says what and how they spell it.
I think "should of" comes from people contracting "should have" into "should've", and then others picking that up as "should of". Both sound much the same when I pronounce them.
It can really be a problem. It's a problem when people misspell stuff and I have no idea what they mean. It's a problem when people have dyslexia and I just can't understand anything they write. And it's a problem in other situations, too.
Once, I asked my husband when his next day of work was. He thought I said "off" instead of "of". Sure they sound the same, but it took me a while to realise they did, because they're completely different!
Sometimes it feels like some kind of handicap
I enjoy that, and mostly agree, but there are areas where our opinions differ. For the most part, I don't mind informal writing. When I post on forums, I do my best to follow spelling and grammatical rules, but I do stray away in many areas. I think it's because I tend to view conversing online as conversing verbally. When I speak with someone, I don't always use full sentences, for example, so I allow myself fragments online as well.
When it comes to movies and televisions, I'm not as much of a stickler either. I notice a lot of writers have a difficult time writing for ages much younger than themselves. To me, I think having some improper grammar or incorrect word usage adds authenticity to the character as that's how a lot of children and teens speak as they haven't been fully educated.
The place I tend to draw the line is when it comes to more professional writing. Fry uses an example of "sneering" at a newspaper writer. In my opinion, if your chosen field of work has to do with writing, there is no excuse for you not using the language properly. I tend to extend that to most professional fields. I think a lot of it, for me, has to do with improper writing giving the appearance of unintelligence and laziness. If I'm reading an email from a politician asking for my support, for example, having the email riddled with misspellings and improper use of the English language really influences my opinion of him.
In both cases, I must wonder why you are able to clearly speak about these cases while still asserting that they are a constant source of confusion for you. It's obvious that these are clear-cut cases where ideas if correctness, not clarity are in the foreground of the critique.
They do not know what they are saying? Their use of language is "illogical"? These thoughts leave us with one conclusion only: They're really stupid people. Regardless whether you are speaking only about non-native speakers or not, I must oppose that thought vehemently. As a linguist, I assure you that the "acceptable" use of language does not follow a logical path, or "makes sense". There are rules of analogy which people may follow, but even they are broken with irregular forms (which are still very dear to "language guardians"). If you're seeking "sense" or "logic" in language, please immediately start to say "bringed", "catched" or "goodest".
In the case of auxiliary verbs ("should have"), these are pretty "illogical" altogether and really don't "make sense" to begin with. Honestly, what's that possessional verb really doing there? I, too, feel affronted by the "should of"-writers. But then again, I know from my studies that there is really no logical difference to "should have". There's scarcely an audible difference between the forms in spoken language (which was and is the basis for writing), so this form may easily slip into the written form. Maybe just 70 years from now, it might be an absolutely acceptable form in writing, and no one might think of it as "illogical" or "wrong".
Language will not be worse for it. Language change, in speech as in writing, is a natural thing. Your writing is, I assure you, totally inacceptable, a degenerated form of English - for someone from a hundred years ago. If you were to look at speech and writing in a hundred years, you'd feel the same. But still the English language will be healthy, active, versatile and understandable to its speakers, as it has been for quite some time.
These specific cases aren't a source of confusion anymore. They were for a long time. Now I'm used to them and although I often do a double-take, I do understand them. But it took a while.
I'm merely saying that for people learning the languages, these ARE a source of confusion for a long time.
I didn't actually see the "should have" as a "people don't realise of isn't an auxiliary" but "why would people put something other than a verb after a modal?" although I guess both are true.
And these people might not BE stupid, but they certainly SOUND stupid to me, in the same way someone saying "Me is happy" would sound stupid to them. Yet I'd say it's easier to understand what "me is happy" means than it is to understand that "should of" means "should have". Sure "me" is an object, but it's easy to see it's used as a subject here, and then it's followed by a verb and an adjective. Easy. Modal + preposition? Not so much. Maybe I'm the stupid one here.
Because white people aren't a minority, you twerp
I can completely sympathise for you, but I think (or hope) that I can clear this up for you a little bit. For the average speaker of English, grammar isn't usually that much of a concern. Rather than deconstruct and analyse every sentence, they'll just go with the rules and exceptions that they know.
For some phrases, such as "should have", the fact that they occur so often means that they're almost idiomatic and their grammatical structure therefore doesn't matter; the meaning is almost inherent and self-evident. There's no need for further grammatical inspection. This is why "should have" often get's written as "should of" or "shoulda" - they function merely as transcriptions of an idiom, not necessarily grammatically correct phrases.
The only time the average person will consider the grammar of a sentence is if it's irregular. For example, some people might get confused by people going out of their way not to end sentences with prepositions (despite this being the "proper" way to speak"), as in the sentence "to what are you referring?". If a person hears this, they might consider its grammar in order to figure out its meaning.
This is evinced further by the way that some people will attempt to "sound clever" by copying this syntax, but getting it wrong and saying, for example, "to what are you referring to?". In this example, the person hasn't actually looked at the individual grammatical items in the sentence, but has taken the whole syntax idiomatically and repeated it (producing an error in the process).
*I'm using the word "idiom" loosely here; I'm not talking about metaphor or anything. Perhaps a more accurate phrase to use would be a "turn of phrase".
"Good"
No. No you're not. You're well. *bleep*hole.
(Unfortunately, working in a public place has put me in this habit. I ask someone how they are, and they say 'good', so instead of sounding like a jerk, I swallow my pride and also say 'good.' Now it's habit. I hate my life.)
I don't know about that, I've always been made to feel that being white (at least in California) is something to be ashamed of because of all the bad crap 'your people' did. Personally I don't feel ashamed because the earliest my family was in the states was a few years after the Civil War and they were in Nebraska Territory.
Of course, I'm a woman so that...mitigates things a bit since I'm another 'minority', but not much.
Whites are the best! (Tied with all other races. 'Whites are first' looses some power and isn't true. [Technically blacks were first.])
Yeah... So... I'm Latino. (joke)