things people say that are wrong!

[mycatis]

Does anyone hate things that loads of people say that are just wrong?  A few of the ones a really hate are :
"money is the root of all evil"
"The bigger half"
"Period of time"
"Male nurse"
and "Two twins"

[kazza12345]

what's up with male nurse?

i would have thought it was a good way to describe a nurse who has a mans gender.

Some job interviews for nurses advertise for male nurses, in gender specific areas (like prisons) for example

[mycatis]

Nurse is a job title, you wouldn't say male shop assistant would you?

[kazza12345]

but sometimes its good to get clarity.  In a profession thats 90% female sometimes you need to specify

[tetherend]

It's generally good to know, when you're about to give birth, if you are to have a male midwife as well.

[mycatis]

I had a male midwife called Andrew and he was lovely

[oceantrader]

"Money is the root of all evil" is one of the most common misquotes. A couple of others are "Beam me up Scotty" and "Elementary my dear Watson". Apparently neither of these was ever actually said by Captain Kirk or Sherlock.

Like many of the other correspondents, I don't see a problem with "male nurse"

[jno]

If you don't like male nurses, how do you feel about calling Gwyneth Paltrow an actor? The Guardian does this, though acknowledging that she won a Best Actress oscar, since that was the specific award category. How about Prince Anne? Sounds odd, but the first Queen Elizabeth called herself a prince occasionally. Many of these gender distinctions are just habit.

[jenstar]

"Money is the root of all evil" isn't a misquotation, it's just a selective quotation.

As for "Elementary my dear Watson", that WAS spoken by Sherlock Holmes in some of the Basil Rathbone films. If you're saying that the films are misquoting the books then that's true, but then the same is true of 90%+ of the films' dialogue, and there are much worse liberties taken with the text than that one line!

[Loosehead]

Surely it's a Midhusband tetherend!

My pet hate is "Free Gift" what other sorts of gift are there?

[jno]

'mid' in midwife is related to the German word mit = with. So a midwife is someone, of either gender, with the wife.

[Loosehead]

Lighten up jno, just kidding!

[calleach]

decimate although meaning reduce by one tenth  is abused to mean reduce drastically to a rump

[jno]

I know loosehead, just thought the world might need a little etymology anyway. Re decimate, I think I remember Martin Amis writing about it some years ago and saying he was going to stop protesting: it used to mean a tenth, now it means nine tenths, nothing he could do about it.

[Loosehead]

So given these days that most women giving birth are not married I suppose it should be Mid-Girlfriend, mid-bird or something! eh jno?

[Dark Angel]

midwife is the person who delivers the baby, not the mother of the baby!!

[Loosehead]

Dark Angel, Read jno's bits. Mid wife means With Wife.

[Dark Angel]

ah yes, Loosehead. I missed jno's post, sorry!

[brionon]

Mine is opinions expressed about whole peoples. If someone says, for instance, ''The French are---' you know they will come out with a tautology {eg. The French are citizens of France} or the are WRONG. There is nothing you can say of a people that is completely true.

[mycatis]

Thank you brionon : ) I was actually asking if people had things that they heard that annoyed them but I seem to have just upset everyone with the male nurse/midwife thing, oops! Does anyone else have any of these type of pet hates?  

[mycatis]

oops sorry everyone I just read the answers properly and I see that other people have given their own