Thursday, December 8, 2011

Immaculate and Other Misconceptions

In honor of this day, I decided to do a post on popular misconceptions (er, and grammatical errors that really bug me). Feel free to comment with other stuff that you want the world to know!

The Immaculate Conception does not refer to the time Jesus was conceived.
When people make a joke about single friends being pregnant, and single friends reply with, "Ano yon? Immaculate Conception?" that isn't accurate. The Immaculate Conception was when Mary was conceived without sin (December 8, today--nine months before Mary's birthday, September 8). Jesus was conceived during the Annunciation (March 25--nine months before Christmas). Although it can be argued that Jesus, too, was conceived without sin...

Since we're on the topic of Catholicism, if you do the Math, Lent isn't really 40 days long. (It's longer.) I just counted it three years ago. There are different schools of thought--I read somewhere that Holy Week isn't included, but that's strange because I always thought it was the holiest part of Lent. Others say Sundays aren't included. I still don't know the real explanation, but the fact remains: between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday, there are more than 40 days!

The Quarter-Life Crisis doesn't hit when you turn 25. It's a term that covers the period from late teens to early 30s (depending on where you are emotionally and psychologically I guess), not just your 25th year. I think the confusion comes from the fact the "25" is a quarter of a hundred. (Which still doesn't really make sense because how many people actually live up to a hundred?)

Frisbee is not the name of the sport. It's a brand of flying disc. The sport is called Ultimate, but people call it Frisbee, in the same way that Pinoys call toothpaste Colgate and photocopying Xerox. Funny thing is, we hardly use Frisbee-brand discs here (Discraft is preferred).

"Training" cannot be pluralized. You can say "training seminars" or "training sessions" or whatever, but I cringe whenever I read/hear "trainings." Don't get me started on furniture, equipment, and jewelry.

"Traffic" is a noun, not an adjective. So it isn't grammatically correct to say, "It's so traffic!!!" Better to say, "Traffic is heavy" or "Pay-day Friday traffic is bat-sh*t crazy."

Keep this in mind: "result in." It's either that or "lead to" but never "result to."

OK, glad I got all that off my chest! Although there is that bit about dangling modifiers that really bugs me...

8 comments:

  1. Phew! Thanks for sharing these... It's nice to be reminded of little things that may have been ignored or forgotten. And oh! I'm guilty of that "Immaculate Concepcion" thing too :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I like this post. Thank you for it.

    -JC

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wow, JC, you really do read my blog. Haha! And you're welcome!:)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi! Me again! I tried one of your recipes and it was a big hit with my husband... and me too! http://eaturbanana.blogspot.com/2011/12/my-21-day-cooking-challenge-day-8-spicy.html

    ReplyDelete
  5. The Immaculate Conception confusion is very annoying. One of my little peeves is hearing people pronounce the "t" in "often".

    ReplyDelete
  6. Cham, good luck with the rest of your cooking challenge!:)

    Ric, does it happen, er, often?:D

    ReplyDelete
  7. oohh..very informative..the last one is new to me..i'll take note of that.. ;-) Your English teacher will be very proud of you. Haha! :D

    ReplyDelete

Oh, so sweet of you to drop a line!:)