You can underestimate how annoying this is, but you probably shouldn't.

Manuel Royal · Sep 26, 2014

Just the past few years, I've been noticing an odd syntactical error. Haven't seen it in print, but I've heard it quite a bit. Perhaps a brief note here will help a few people avoid committing this particular error in writing.

If you want to indicate that something is very, very important (or very, very something), a common expression is: "You can't overestimate how important this is."

What I've been hearing instead is: "You can't underestimate how important this is." The speaker is saying the opposite of what he means. Either he's confused about what "underestimate" and "overestimate" mean, or what "can't" means. The sentence would make sense if "can't" meant either "shouldn't" or "mustn't".

Anyway, don't do this.

shakeysix · Sep 26, 2014

because I would be underestimating how annoying this error is?

Amadan · Sep 26, 2014

Maybe it's meant as a proscription:

"You can't underestimate how important this is."

/pedant

cornflake · Sep 26, 2014

I could care less about this error people make.

Amadan · Sep 26, 2014

cornflake said:
I could care less about this error people make.

I'm literally going to decimate you, irregardlessly.

King Neptune · Sep 26, 2014

I look at errors of that ilk as indicators of the thinking of the people who say such things, so I find such errors useful, even though they are nonsensical.

WriteMinded · Sep 27, 2014

Amadan said:
I'm literally going to decimate you, irregardlessly.

I always liked irregardless. It draws so many hate comments.

ironmikezero · Sep 27, 2014

Yeah, that's like the penultimate... really annoys me, know what I'm sayin`?

Rufus Coppertop · Sep 29, 2014

Can't underestimate?
Irregardless?
Penultimate?

Leeeeeeeeeeeet's get 'em! :mob

evilrooster · Sep 29, 2014

Penultimate is a perfectly good word! It means the one before the last one.

Now put those torches out or I'll comma-splice you.

slhuang · Sep 29, 2014

evilrooster said:
Penultimate is a perfectly good word! It means the one before the last one.

Yeah, what's the problem with "penultimate?" I love that word!

As for the OP, I got nuthin', except what corny beat me to saying.

Bufty · Sep 29, 2014

Yep - penultimate is a brilliant example of how the correct word can do the job of four, five or six.

evilrooster · Sep 29, 2014

Furthermore, without penultimate, you can't have antepenultimate, and then what do you do when you want to talk about something two before the end?

Avert this tragedy! Defend peniultimate to the ~~last~~ one before the last!

Bufty · Sep 29, 2014

ooooooh- peniultimate conjures up all sorts of weird images. :snoopy:

Duncan J Macdonald · Sep 29, 2014

evilrooster said:
Furthermore, without penultimate, you can't have antepenultimate, and then what do you do when you want to talk about something two before the end?

And we couldn't have the wonderful Madeira M'Dear by Flanders & Swann! What would the world come to?

Bufty · Sep 29, 2014

I wonder how many folk are wondering who Flanders and Swann are/were?

Saw them in the theatre many times at variety shows.

London Transport Omnibus and Hippopotamus song were also theirs I believe.

Duncan J Macdonald said:
And we couldn't have the wonderful Madeira M'Dear by Flanders & Swann! What would the world come to?

Haggis · Sep 29, 2014

Duncan J Macdonald said:
And we couldn't have the wonderful Madeira M'Dear by Flanders & Swann! What would the world come to?

'Tis a beautious song, 'tis.

King Neptune · Sep 29, 2014

Bufty said:
Yep - penultimate is a brilliant example of how the correct word can do the job of four, five or six.

Even better, one word is worth a thousand pictures, if it's the right word.

evilrooster · Sep 29, 2014

Bufty said:
I wonder how many folk are wondering who Flanders and Swann are/were?

It's my understanding that nowadays the whippersnappers use something called the Interweb to access a thing called YewTube, or something like that. (I think it's made of wood? But like a seashell you can hear the ocean in?) Apparently this tube of yew allows them to listen to music they haven't encountered before.

My son and I were comparing terrible love songs. I played him Tom Lehrer's "I Hold Your Hand In Mine", and won.

Bufty · Sep 29, 2014

benbradley · Sep 29, 2014

Manuel Royal said:
Just the past few years, I've been noticing an odd syntactical error. Haven't seen it in print, but I've heard it quite a bit. Perhaps a brief note here will help a few people avoid committing this particular error in writing.

If you want to indicate that something is very, very important (or very, very something), a common expression is: "You can't overestimate how important this is."

What I've been hearing instead is: "You can't underestimate how important this is." The speaker is saying the opposite of what he means. Either he's confused about what "underestimate" and "overestimate" mean, or what "can't" means. The sentence would make sense if "can't" meant either "shouldn't" or "mustn't".

Anyway, don't do this.

I must be in some sense a connoisseur of the English language and its quirks. I've seen this kind of thing (perhaps not so much in print as spoken) for a long time.

There was a Saturday Night Live skit based on this, involving a nuclear reactor. I found a description of the general "ambiguous statement" here, as well as a comment describing the SNL skit with both of the statements the skit uses:
http://tenser.typepad.com/tenser_said_the_tensor/2004/03/i_dont_think_it.html

Saturday Night Live did a sketch, some years back, based on the ambiguity in the parting words of a nuclear plant manager: "You can't put too much water in the reactor." The people on shift argued over whether that meant that any amount of water isn't too much, or that too much water in the reactor was a bad idea. They ended up guessing (wrong, of course), and the manager, surveying the ensuing mushroom cloud from a cafe miles away, remarked to the waitress, "You can't stare too long at a nuclear explosion," leaving her scratching her head. Ba da bum

It's this episode from November 17, 1984:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0694470/

When it comes to humor in reference to language (and not just from the SNL skit, but with what this thread has (d)evolved into), I recall that George Carlin often joked about words and their meanings in his skits.

Duncan J Macdonald · Sep 29, 2014

evilrooster said:
My son and I were comparing terrible love songs. I played him Tom Lehrer's "I Hold Your Hand In Mine", and won.

But are you sorry now you killed [insert gender appropriate pronoun for spouse here], for your love was something grand?

Duncan J Macdonald · Sep 29, 2014

Bufty said:
I wonder how many folk are wondering who Flanders and Swann are/were?

Saw them in the theatre many times at variety shows.

London Transport Omnibus and Hippopotamus song were also theirs I believe.

"The amorous Hippopotamus,
Whose last song we know,
Is now married
And father of ten."

My exposure was from my father, who brought back two albums from London after one of his business trips in the 1960's. At the Drop of a Hat, and At the Drop of Another Hat. I was ruined at a young age.

(Not to mention the 78 rpm shellac records of Spike Jones that came with the 1920 RCA Victor Talking Machine)

[sniffle] Kids these days ...

Bufty · Sep 30, 2014

Ah - those were the days...Spike Jones and the City Slickers...

You can underestimate how annoying this is, but you probably shouldn't.

blue eyed floozy

practical experience, FTW

Derailed

practical experience, FTW

Wicked chicken

Inappropriately math-oriented.

Where have the last ten years gone?

Wicked chicken

Where have the last ten years gone?

Plotting! Not Plodding!

Where have the last ten years gone?

Evil, undead Chihuahua

Wicked chicken

Where have the last ten years gone?

It's a doggy dog world

Plotting! Not Plodding!

Plotting! Not Plodding!

Where have the last ten years gone?