As someone who is frequently pedantic I sometimes sit and hypocritically brood on which unnecessary pedantry from other people annoys me most I've decided it's people who try to draw a distinction between the word "possum" and "opossum"
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Explanation: There are two different families of pointy-faced trash-eating marsupials in the world One is from North America and is called "opossum" from a Powhatan term meaning "white dog" Everyone who actually interacts with them just says "possum" though
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The other is from Australia, and looks somewhat similar but is not actually at all closely related (all native Australian species are pretty distant from the rest of the world) For one thing, they don't have the characteristic white face the North American opossum was named for
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However, these are officially called "possums", because the British colonists named them after the North American opossum They did not include the O because no one in America actually says the O, and colonial Australia was, I gather, a somewhat informal place and time
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As a result of this, it's a whole stupid trivia thing that in the official dictionary spelling of the term, American opossums have the O (and "possum" is a mere "slang nickname") and Australian possums do not
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Therefore if you should ever refer to "opossums" as "possums" in print in some public venue, the chance is small but significant that someone will helpfully correct you "Those are opossums, possums are from Australia" This is very, very annoying
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Because NOBODY in the United States actually pronounces it "opossum" THAT'S THE WHOLE REASON THE AUSTRALIAN ONES ARE CALLED "POSSUMS" IN THE FIRST PLACE
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Replying to @arthur_affect
And yet it is still correct to, for example, write "should've" not "should of", and to include the "r"s in words like "February" and "library".
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Replying to @phyphor
I hear "February" as "Febuary" pretty often but I have rarely heard "library" as "lie berry"
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That was one of Piers Anthony's weird puns, they find a "library shrub" whose fruit supposedly gives you knowledge but the knowledge all turned out to be false because they were actually lie berries
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Replying to @arthur_affect
Ah, Xanth. A series I enjoyed until I find out more about the author.
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