The following podcast contains explicit language.

From New York City, this is Luxicon Valley, a podcast about language.

I'm John McWhorter, and this week I want to talk about linguistic pet peeves.

Not yours, but mine.

Because people often ask a linguist. We linguists are seen as so permissive about what are widely seen as language errors.

We're permissive. We're benevolent.

And we're often asked, well, what bothers you? Do you not like any of the things that you hear people saying all the time?

And the answer to that question, at least from me, is of course there are things that I don't like hearing in terms of people's grammatical constructions, etc.

But we consider it our jobs to work against our feelings like that and think of them as understandable but unfortunate biases.

Because as I've often tried to get across on this show, scientifically there is no case for the idea that someone who's speaking fluently and with nuances somehow doing something wrong.

Our sense of what's wrong, unless we're talking about an outright grammatical error that nobody else makes, is conditioned by sociological and sociocistorical randomnesses.

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So what about my pet peece? What do I not like? I don't like spending long times cooped up in a closet as I am now, but other than that, what are some things that people say that I can't stand?

Well, let me share my main one with you. And it's something that I don't get the feeling most people even notice, but this drives me crazy. It's like an eyelash in your eye and people do it a lot.

And so it means that I have something to be handily annoyed about all the time. Here is a clip from the slightly under song live action Disney movie from the 60's, the happiest millionaire.

Here is Fred McMurray talking and just listen to him. You're not going to hear anything at first, probably, but just listen to what he says.

I was a sickly child, Mr. Duke asthma. And then when I was 10, I came down with typhoid fever. Well, that's if they said he'll never make it, but I did make it.

And somehow the fever killed the asthma. It was like a miracle. And you know what I learned at that early age, Mr. Duke.

That life is a precious and wonderful thing, but you just can't sit there and let it lap around you. You have to dive into it. You have to taste it. You have to feel it. You have to use it.

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