'Cut and dry' or 'cut and dried'

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Please forgive this thread. I know I should be less pernickety, but I just cannot stand it any longer. I have seen several posts from CAF members in which they use the phrase ‘cut and dry’. Well, this phrase doesn’t exist. The actual phrase is ‘cut and dried’, as in something that is plain to see and unmistakable. ‘Cut and dry’ makes no semantic sense. Similarly, the phrase is ‘Hear, hear!’, not ‘Here, here!’ ‘Hear, hear’ is an injunction to pay heed to a worthwhile utterance, while ‘Here, here!’, while it conceivably could be directing the attention to the speaker’s physical location, is still gibberish in the sense in which it is being used. I know I am overly sensitive to such matters, and in truth I didn’t create this thread in order to cause trouble or to debate the proper usage of idioms; I just needed to vent. Thanks for tolerating the sotto voce mutterings of a semi-retired member of the Grammar Police!
 
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Thank you for the reminder. It is educational. Perhaps more members can point out to many more often misunderstood or misused phrases.
 
“For all intents and purposes” is another old phrase that sometime gets unusual renderings (intense and purposes, intensive purposes).

There, their and they’re are often misapplied.

I’m not the King of Grammar, but I know when something doesn’t seem quite right. I frequently consult google whenever I’m writing online to see if my spelling or use of a particular word is correct.
 
I had never seen “cut and dry” until quite recently – less than a year ago, I think. Has it been around a long time?

My pet peeve is “might” being used instead of “may”, which can be confusing, particularly when it is “might have” instead of “may have”.
  • “She may have missed her flight” means I don’t know whether she caught or it or not.
  • “She might have missed her flight” means something happened that meant she was in danger of missing it, but in the end she managed to catch it.
 
“Begging the question” we sometimes use it for a natural question to follow or a question that needs to be asked. But it is really a logical fallacy of assuming the premise in the argument: “Freedom of speech is important because people should be able to speak freely.”
 
Shakuhachi said:
“Begging the question” we sometimes use it for a natural question to follow or a question that needs to be asked. But it is really a logical fallacy of assuming the premise in the argument: “Freedom of speech is important because people should be able to speak freely.”
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‘Begging the question’ is another one that bothers me when used incorrectly. One online person (not on CAF!) actually told me we should just change the meaning to 'raising the question ', since that’s how most people use it anyway! 😠

Other ones that irk:
  • ‘Would of’ for ‘would have’
  • ‘Where is he at’ for ‘where is he’
  • ‘Whip cream’ for ‘whipped cream’
A close friend is something of a modern-day Mrs Malaprop. She says ‘Valentime’s Day’ and puts calamine lotion on her kids when they get into the ‘poison ivory’. She is also a fan of the late comedian ‘Red Skeleton’.
 
BartholomewB said:
I had never seen “cut and dry” until quite recently – less than a year ago, I think. Has it been around a long time?
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I haven’t seen it in writing until recently, but I’ve been hearing people say it for years. It’s like nails on a chalkboard to my ear.

The ‘might vs may’ thing reminds me of ‘lie and lay’. ‘Lie’ is what you do with your body, and ‘lay’ is what you do with an object. Thus: ‘I am going to lie down for a nap’, and ‘Please lay that hammer down’.

Farther vs further: ‘farther’ is used for distance, while ‘further’ is used for intangible concepts. Thus: ‘It’s only a few miles farther to the restaurant’, and ‘He could have made further inquiries, but decided against it’.

An especially odious pronunciation is ‘eck cetera’ for ‘et cetera’. This one seems to be all but universal now, like ‘expresso’ for ‘espresso’. As a boy, my mother refused to let me play with any child that pronounced the word ‘library’ as ‘liberry’. Ah, the life of the overly sensitive! 😂
 
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I am grateful all y’all Are venting here instead in a reply to a question or post.
 
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