Sometimes we are bugged by some commonplace behavior, belief, or attitude, but bringing it up will come off as obnoxious and elitist. We all have those. I will tell you two of mine, in hope I am not unknowingly a snide weirdo.
1 - And/Or is redundant: Just use OR
At some point it was funny in context (like "the OP is stupid and/or crazy). I can hardly find a context that is not similar to this (arguably) ableist template.
In formal logic there is no use case for saying ‘and’ OR ‘or’, because simply OR entails AND.
If there was a valid case it should represent the logical structure of ‘AND’ OR ‘XOR’, but it is obvious that this is OR.
So, whenever we are tempted to say “and/or” it is kinda definitive that just OR should suffice.
2 - A ‘steep’ learning curve means the skill is quickly mastered : Just use ‘learning curve’
Apparently stemming from an embodied metaphor between the steepness of a hill and the difficulty of climbing it, this misnomer is annoyingly common.
I have yet to find a single source that does not yield to this erroneous, ubiquitous misconception.
Same goes for the fancier alternative ‘sharp’ learning curve.
In fact, in a diagram where the vertical axis is the skill mastery and the horizontal is time, a steep curve would mean that the task is quick or easy to master, since it reaches the higher level quickly, hence the steepness.
Since the literal alternative (‘Rust has a smooth learning curve’) will be counter-intuitive and confusing, and I bet nobody will adopt it, I suggest the following solution.
Almost every time you feel the need to reach for this phrase, YSK that probably just using ‘learning curve’ should suffice. For example ‘This language has a learning curve’. It gets the message across, without making others question your position in the graph interpretation learning curve.
What are your mundane grievances?
I have two off the top of my head. First, inappropriate apostrophe usage. Far too often I see people writing things like tea’s, hot dog’s, bagel’s, and so on. They’re not just there to alert the reader that an s is coming!
My other gripe is people standing in a grocery aisle to ponder products or chat with someone while parking their cart horizontally so that nobody can get past them. It really marascinos my cherries when I need to either go down another aisle to go around them, or worse, I need to talk to someone to ask them to please scoot a little.
I 100% agree with you. But also my iPhone puts 's on anything and everything. And’s <- look at that shit. That’s not even fucking possible except in the most unusual of sentences. I try really hard to correct all of them, but a lot of them slip through because I can’t catch them all. Especially when it helpfully updates it after I’ve typed the next word.
My local grocer has “Tea’s” on the sign for that aisle and it bothers me every time I see it.
It’s the tea’s bag. It’s the hot dog’s cheese. It’s the bagel’s (whatever bagels claim ownership of.)