How's That Chee - Lay Mon?

Don't you find it annoying when you hear some gringo say 'Chill-lay', when they mean that long, skinny country on the west coast of South America?  I do.

I mean, back in the good old days everyone pronounced Chile just like that homographic kidney bean, onion, tomato and chile powdered stew, long simmered, often with ground or chunky beef, that you ate hot on a cold winter day and were glad to have it.  Or in the summer with a cold beer at a chile cook off.

Make Like You Speak English, not French-Chinese

Standard English as well as Americanish uses many French words because the French ran England for 200 years and français leaked into the lexicon. The resident French invaders were themselves leaky:  England and English infiltrated them to the extent that, in only a few generations, they were no longer welcome in France as French; they'd become hicks and bumpkins.  Well, we all are to Parisiens.

Exact Same ...WTF?

Sometimes I think about how people have taken to saying 'exact same', as in, "It was mortifying! This girl was wearing the exact same dress I was!"  Instead of saying, 'exactly the same dress', or just 'the same dress'.

'Exact same' is crazy!  Not that the speaker shouldn't be mortified -- the other girl might look better in it -- but 'exact same' doesn't mean what the speaker thinks it does.

I.E. Does Not Mean 'For Example'

Are these the whole set or just examples?

This is another pet peeve.  I seem to have a few.

The abbreviation 'i.e.' is short for a Latin phrase that means 'that is', NOT 'for example'.

THE CORRECT ABBREVIATION FOR 'FOR EXAMPLE' IS 'E.G.'