Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Not quite write

When you are going to, say, add text to a document, do you say you're going to flush it out?  Or flesh it out?

When you've had a little rant about something, would you write that you've said your piece?  Or said your peace?

I say "flesh" and "peace".

I'm sure you can think of many other examples.  These little things drive me nuts.  

14 comments:

lucy said...

It's "piece". "Peace" would drive me nuts, although not as nuts as "make due" for "make do".

Liberal Arts Lady said...

I hate this stuff! I love today's Dinosaur Comics and its references. "Supposably" instead of "supposedly" particularly drives me crazy.

Unknown said...

Flesh and peace.

Irregardless annoys me.

Alyssa said...

Irregardless, unthaw/dethaw, and "I could care less" drive me nuts.

Nina said...

Un/dethaw??? Meaning you put something back in the freezer? Hahahaha! I love it!

chall said...

oh dear. I say flesh or fill it ;)

Personally, I'm with Alyssa (and Cath as she wrote in a blog post) I could care less... pet peeve. Oh, and "well, I'm just being honest - not rude" as those two are always way apart?

Anonymous said...

flesh. and piece.

Anonymous said...

who says flush? never heard that one...

Anonymous said...

Ahhh, yes. But why do flammable and inflammable mean the same thing?

Psycgirl said...

I've said flush (and had this argument). I think I was thinking flush, like you would flush birds out of a bush when you're hunting. But I could have made that reasoning up.

Cath@VWXYNot? said...

Flesh and piece, for sure.

Other pet peeves: "here here!", said in agreement (it's "hear hear!", as in "I hear what you're saying". And "common" used in place of "come on".

Yay, pedantry!

JaneB said...

LATE! Flesh and piece for me.

students who confuse effect and affect drive me nuts

Manor/manner, floor/flaw and for some reason (dear students) value/valve (what exactly is a pH valve??)

Though I rather enjoy the ones who insist that this feature is 'defiantly' present rather than 'definitely' present...

BuoyantOne said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
BuoyantOne said...

I'd say "flesh" and "piece". Out of curiosity I consulted my best (and possibly only) friend, the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, who had the following to say:

Flesh
flesh something out - add more details to something
(nothing relevant under flush)

Piece
say one's piece - give one's opinion or make a prepared statement

Peace
hold one's peace - remain silent
make (one's) peace - become reconciled

But I've seen that "say one's peace" is also rather widespread these days on the internetz, so I'd say they're both accepted versions! (some say with slightly different connotations, say one's peace = say that which gives one peace. To me that sounds like a modern construction, but then what's wrong with that?)

Ok, I've said my piece & now I'll try to hold my peace ;-)