Ok have went into joomsef manage ext > content > url settings and turned off show categories and sections so my urls use just the article alias for the url and page title. it works fine until you select any type of blog layout. If you select a blog category blog layout it will add a /blog at the end of the url. Everything works fine it uses the category alias as the url. but it adds the /blog at the end of it.

Example:
www.yourdomain.com/frequently-asked-questions (this is how it should look)
www.yourdomain.com/frequently-asked-questions/blog (but it add this at the end)

under manage ext > content > url setting there is a option to set the default layout, the options are default and blog. and if you say never add layout it make s the blog page turn into a list layout and takes the /blog off the end. but then you dont have a blog layout.

here are the settings im using for the url settings

Show cat - no
show section - no
title url part - alias
cat url part - use global config
section url part - use global config
add layout - only when different
default layout - default

can someone help me take the /blog off the end of my urls.

Hello,

well, you should change the default layout from "default" to "blog".

Then purge the existing URLs, and clean cache.

tried that... If you have a blog layout selected as the menu type. and then in joomSEF you have selected blog layout as default, it turns all the blog layouts on the site into a list layouts. but it does take the /blog off the url. but its not the layout correct layout type.

Are you sure that you have purged the existing URLs after you did the change in configuration? (and cleared cache?)
I would guess that not - at least the result as you describe it would point to that.

i have done all of this and i do it everytime i make a change in joomsef. i purge urls then update them then clear cache out of joomsef and joomla