Language Pet Peeves #2

Wow. Since I actually managed to post about language without having my ass chewed off by anti-grammar guerrillas, I have to point out one more which irks me:

“out loud”

When I was a kid many of my teachers would tell us students to read “out loud”. Later I learned the word ‘aloud’ and almost immediately realized that “out loud” was a lazy, colloquial bastardization of the word ‘aloud’.

Now this one is a tougher fight than the others I have complained about because you can find some dictionary support for the incorrect version (namely Merriam-Webster, which is complete trendwhore of a dictionary, IMHO). But I’m a firm believer that we must hold the line on some aspects of language—not simply sanction whatever jibberish the masses spout (how many of you really want ‘nother’ in the dictionary because Midwesterners like to say “that’s a whole nother story”? How about ‘ain’t’?).

But I’m not without support on this one. Garner’s Modern American Usage (2003) says, “’Out loud’ is simply the colloquial equivalent of ‘aloud.’ Use ‘aloud’ in all but the most casual of settings.” So I’m not just crazy.

Yes, that means LOL is wrong. LA.