120mm film

[polyglot]

I've actually got a whole list of photo jargon which irks me:

Burning a roll of film
Souping a roll of film
'bokeh'
The Big Auction Site
Fast Glass (as Shawn said, above)
Lense (even though as Thomas points out it is a variant)
'nice capture'
Xpro

Sure, but none of them are really wrong as such, they're just slang or euphemism. I use at least four of them regularly (come on, bokeh is the japanese word for blur; I don't see the problem with its use to describe the quality of out-of-focus areas in an image) !

[kraker]

"120mm" is my favorite misnomer in the world of photography. (...) Surprisingly, very few people say "220mm" but it happens every once in a while you will see it in product list

Next thing you know they'll be adding 110mm film to the list, which is just "a bit" smaller than 120mm and 220mm...

What bothers me when they spell Canon, Cannon.

Ditto when Rollei is misspelled Rollie, and Harman (of Ilford fame) Harmon.

[sandermarijn]

Ditto when Rollei is misspelled Rollie, and Harman (of Ilford fame) Harmon.

I've always thought that people saying "Rollie" meant to express affection. Maybe some actually do, while most are just bad typists.

[Diapositivo]

I dislike abbreviations in general, I suppose they are just a "smart" way not to check orthography. People write "silo" because they have no idea where they would put the "h" in silhouette, "tog" is a way to resolve the dilemma photographer or fotografer, photografer, fotographer.

The thing that disturbs me more is all the "it's" instead of "its", "he's" instead of "his" (the list could go on) because that shows a basic ignorance of basic grammar rules of the language. You find it now in technical documentation as well. That's sad to say the least*.

Also "your" instead of "you are", "their" instead of "they are", "whose" instead of "who's" or "who's" instead of "whose" can be mentioned. One has to read the sentences twice to figure where the catch is

And another thing is all the commas, dots, semicolons which are not followed by a space. When one writes a sentence without leaving a space after the comma,the text is much more difficult to read fast,and reading a forum becomes a pain,so much so that sometimes I immediately skip the text. Spaces are free, use them generously :-)

* It's not difficult to understand.
It's = a contraction of "it is".
Its = of it, related to it.

If you can substitute it's with "it is" then you write it "it's".
If you cannot substitute it's with "it is" then it's "its".

One cannot say "I loved the camera but not it is price". You say "I loved the camera but not its price".

And by the same token "her's" (that doesn't exists at all) is different from "hers", "his" is different from "he's".
The girl brought her book. I brought my book, she brought hers.
Never: the girl brought her's book. Her's makes no sense and does not exists in English. Your's does not exists in English as well. If it's yours, it's yours without apostrophe.

He's just arrived with his car. She's just arrived with her car. They're just arrived with their car. It's their car, not yours. You're not the owner of this car, because it's theirs.

Spend half an hour with your grammar, it's your friend

(I'm not targeting anybody in particular, just being my usual pedantic )

PS Being a foreigner I have a grammatical license to kill, so now don't shoot at me in retaliation :-)

[Thomas Bertilsson]

Here are some that completely irritate me:

Blown highlights. What the hell does that really mean? They exploded? Somebody breathed on them?
Compo - composition, of course. Yuck.
Dorff - Deardorff, please.
Blad - Hasselblad, please.
Shooting - What's wrong with photographing? Or taking pictures?
Capture - Ugh
Bokeh - Please kill me by saying it one more time.
Muddy - Someone describe to me what a 'muddy' print is. Somebody really smear mud on it? Be more creative, please, like 'not sharp', or 'poor contrast'.

What's worse, I think I may have used all of the messed up language above at some point in time.

[vpwphoto]

I always measure is as 5.5 cm...

[Ottrdaemmerung]

To add to Diapositivo's mentioning of grammatical errors: plurals made with apostrophes! I saw this on Craigslist this morning:

"I have over 300 camera's, scanner's, and many types of sensors for material handling systems.
photo's and more info available."

[Thomas Bertilsson]

And by the same token "her's" (that doesn't exists at all) is different from "hers", "his" is different from "he's".
The girl brought her book. I brought my book, she brought hers.
Never: the girl brought her's book. Her's makes no sense and does not exists in English. Your's does not exists in English as well. If it's yours, it's yours without apostrophe.

The problem with criticizing other people's grammar is that you have to be absolutely correct yourself, in order for the advice to carry any weight.
The italicized and underlined words above - 'exists' - really should be 'exist' in the context you're writing them. Just sayin' - spend half an hour with your grammar. It's your friend.

[Steve Smith]

Everything Diapositivo mentioned......

To add to Diapositivo's mentioning of grammatical errors: plurals made with apostrophes!

And that!

The problem with criticizing other people's grammar is that you have to be absolutely correct yourself, in order for the advice to carry any weight.

Otherwise..... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry's_law

And whilst we're at it, alot or allot in place of a lot and writing my bad when bad is an adjective, not a noun. And just one more: It's try to (do something) not try and.


Steve.

[vpwphoto]

Annie Leibovitz was quoted in a Mamiya advert calling another camera a "Hassle".
A 20 something art director said Bokeh to me yesterday! Smack him in the head.