Please don't use "itch" as a transitive verb

This post is more than 3 years old.

Even though it's apparently technically legitimate, one of my biggest pet peeves is the use of the word "itch" as a verb, as in "he itched the bug bite". Blech. I double over and cringe in disgust. You scratch a bug bite, or an itch, or anything similar. You don't itch it. The itch is what you scratch. If you can just follow that one simple request, we'll get along fine.

4 thoughts on “Please don't use "itch" as a transitive verb

  1. AARGH! I know exactly what you mean! I hate it when people say "itch a scratch", it drives me nuts!

    You know what else I can't stand? When people say "Hey, can you borrow me that?"

    What? What the hell are you trying to say? NO, I can't borrow you that, but I might have LENT it to you, and you might have borrowed it FROM me, if you hadn't spoken like a nimrod! AARGH!

    *whew* ok got that out of my system. Thanks Chris for enabling my little tantrum, I appreciate it. I'll see if I can muster the strength to email you one of these days. (Actually, that's not much of an exageration, I've been wicked sick for over a month now. Hey, did I just say "wicked"?...AARGH!)

  2. It really presses my buttons when people use blech and aargh, who actually says those things? I bet they don't even have lives! I think it just comes down to a bad attitude.

  3. I'm actually doing a pet peeve speech for my speech class in high-school. I am doing some research and i stumbled upon this post. I just have to say that I completely and utterly agree with you. When peple say that, it makes me want to strangle them for their ignorance. 🙂 (P.S. Donna Summer is retarded... 🙁 )

  4. Man, I got a mosquito bite that I just keep itching. 😛

    If it's legitimate, then it's legitimate, and it only makes you seem ignorant for whining about it.

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