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Some "errors" make perfectly proper sense, and if corrected, would be so jarring as to distract the reader from the context. For example: "When you phoned your bank about it, what did it tell you?" If you asked me that, I'd completely ignore your question, and instead I'd wonder what you're talking about.
But this wasn't a conversation; it was a business letter. The written word should be more formal. One would assume that a person who expects to make business contacts through the mail would have his correspondence proofread before it was sent out.
That reminds me, there are still some pretentious publishers who use the ligature Æ (lower case: æ) for the AE combination, like in Vergil's "Æneid", or "anæsthetic". It's also done with OE. Very annoying.
Korean and Inuit/Cree are examples of alphabets in which a single character represents both the consonant and the adjacent vowel. I guess it's OK for them, they do it all the time.
I agree, just a tad bit pretentious. Then again the OED people are the bastion of pretentiousness, so I'm not surprised.
There's an overused (IMO) phrase, "We have to get all our ducks in a row", that I hear people use all the time.
Heard someone come up with a slightly different version of this the other day: The person said "We have to get all our ducks in the road." Sounds as if it could get messy!
Now I keep seeing people write "awe" when they mean "aww," as in, "how cute!" "Awe, how adorable!" How are people confusing these easy things? One of them is a teacher, too!
What is with that phrase? I hear it constantly - and I cringe whenever I do...
I think that one's already in here somewhere.
Sometimes it is appropriate. A statement is made, and then it is followed by something that may appear contradictory to the statement, so "that being said" is used as an indicator of the change in direction. It does seem to be overused sometimes.
I've used it often as a preventive statement in forums like CD, where one can make a clear and forthright statement only to have someone respond with "so what you are REALLY saying is <insert something you didn't say and didn't mean>".
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