BS: Language Pet Peeves part II

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 Jan 24 - 05:12 PM

Why have they got euphoniums surrounding Kate's surgery? I would have thought that they would not want a fuss

Oh, hang on...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Jan 24 - 05:09 PM

A regular language debate in my family that played out again at lunch:

I mention an herbal tea with mint and fennel.
"It's really a tisane, not tea."
"You know what I mean." (And I'm the English major!)

Camellia sinensis is the plant that is grown and picked at so many stages and elevations to create many grades of black tea or green tea, oolong, or white tea. Chai. (If you say "chai tea" it is tea tea, too much tea!) Tea being synonymous with the Camellia s. product. Herbal teas don't contain Camellia anything, so technically are a tisane or an infusion. They aren't made with tea leaves.

But it's too late for that argument to win. Packages around the world say "herbal tea" and note "no caffeine" and have no Camellia in them. The "brand" tea isn't a proprietary eponym like Kleenex or Bandaid or Xerox or Aspirin, tea these days means just about any cup of hot water in which leaves or herbs are soaked to create a drink that isn't coffee.

Off my soap box. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Rain Dog
Date: 17 Jan 24 - 04:12 PM

We can all choose to ignore posts from those who annoy us.

Some seem to find that hard to do.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 17 Jan 24 - 01:52 PM

Market here tends to be a specific area with stalls where independent traders can set up.

Bloomin' icy here too. I ended up flat on my back on our drive earlier! OK but for a sore back and bruised ego :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Thompson
Date: 17 Jan 24 - 01:44 PM

I don't mind market - it has different meanings in America (big shop) and Europe (road full of artisans selling fresh food).
Bully used to be a term meaning excellent around the turn of the 19/20 century.
Crikey but it's icy here; we're hovering between -5º and 0º. I have a big hooded fleecy cloak thing but it only covers the top half, and it's the bottom half that freezes most.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Jan 24 - 11:32 AM

Dave, I think the difference in how the term is interpreted may depend on which side of the pond one is on. I find Leeneia's list to fit my understanding of the word "bully" as it is used in the US. Synonyms would be intimidator, browbeater, and I would add scold. We're talking about an online environment, not in person where some of the words with a more dense meaning come into play (tyrant, persecutor, thug, heavy, ruffian, etc.)

Euphemisms will abound surrounding Kate's surgery. There are so many possibilities, not just the usual "lady parts." They said this morning she hasn't been seen in public since xmas.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: meself
Date: 17 Jan 24 - 10:51 AM

Item from TV news last night: "China's population declines as deaths jump." Maybe I'm too visual a thinker, but I find the image of deaths 'jumping' decidedly weird.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Mrrzy
Date: 17 Jan 24 - 09:52 AM

Aaargh! Princess hospitalizd after planned abdominal surgery.

Surgery performed at home?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Mrrzy
Date: 16 Jan 24 - 02:22 PM

I agree with Market not being the same as --dare I say not synonymous to-- Store or Shop.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 16 Jan 24 - 02:03 PM

Thanks leeneia but beside the point really. My peeve is that over (mis)use of the term is causing it to become meaningless

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: leeneia
Date: 16 Jan 24 - 01:34 PM

I've thought about bullying a lot. Here are my elements of bullying so far:

bully wants something he (or she, of course) is not entitled to

bully objects to something that is not really a problem

bully charges in fast, too fast for you to collect your thoughts and defend yourself

bully often is a bigger person, is used to dominating others with his size

bully is too loud

kids may bully outright to be mean, but adults learn to cloak their bullying in claims of being more proper, honorable, discreet, etc.

bully seems to know unspoken behavioral standards that other people don't know about

bully stands too close, invades your space

bully implies that other people are ridiculing you behind your back

bully may be conscious of the audience, making you look inefficient in front of the boss or making you look foolish in the presence of that certain pretty girl

if you come back at him with a good defense, the bully suddenly has more important business elsewhere

bully leaves fast, often slamming the door

I suspect a lot of people are bullies in their teens and eventually improve. Either their minds mature or they wise up and realize that they have no friends and no future. My brother was a bully, but he changed when he topped out at 5'6".
===============
P.G. Wodehouse made a brilliant portrait of a bully when he invented Lady Constance Keeble of Blandings Castle.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 15 Jan 24 - 01:54 PM

I just drove through Keighley and spotted one of my pet peeves - Hijacking everyday terms to mean something else! 'Gay' is a lost cause now of course and the meaning has become what it is but 'market' seems to be next on the list. Every other shop seems to be a 'mini market' or a 'fresh market' or some such. They are no such thing! Markets are a specific type of trade. These new 'markets' are just shops trying to cash in on the idea that markets are more appealing. Stop it!

Catching up on this thread though and I noticed an even worse and potentially dangerous one. The mis-use of the term 'bully'. Bullying is nasty and ruins lives yet everyone who has a disagreement seems to accuse their opponent of bullying. Bullying is constant abuse of the victim or victims by one or more people and affects the lives of victims and their families. I know from experience how nasty it is. There is no bullying on here. Disagreements and sometimes personal abuse but not to the level that could ever be termed bullying. Keep the term bully for those who go all out to victimise someone else. Watering it down by using it as it was used above does the real victims no good at all.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Mrrzy
Date: 15 Jan 24 - 10:16 AM

That is precisely why meat juice is called jus, Steve.

Similar to beef, mutton, and pork. The French for what it is is more appetizing than the English for what it is, to English speakers.

Do those count as euphemisms?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Thompson
Date: 15 Jan 24 - 08:09 AM

Not so great with child: morning sickness.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 15 Jan 24 - 07:00 AM

Thanks Maggie, I saw your ‘hoist with his own petard’ post, but nothing after that. I’m keeping away from this thread now, you have enough to do without having to censor the loud-mouths. Apologies for stirring up the hornet’s nest. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Jan 24 - 06:48 AM

Several posts were deleted - I congratulated you on pulling that rabbit out of your hat ("hoist with his own petard") and his response continued to be inappropriate.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 15 Jan 24 - 02:59 AM

Something I’ve noticed many times during my almost 77 years on this Earth is the way those who have a habit of handing out the shit, tend to lose their own shit very easily and copiously when someone stands up to them and their bullying, know-it-all ways.

This is my last post on this thread, Maggie. Your choice whether to leave it here or delete it, I have no strong feelings either way. I’ll stick to the ‘Good News’ thread, where the air smells a lot nicer.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Jan 24 - 04:19 PM

Language is a many-faceted thing. Choice of words or expressions to use isn't at all the same thing as grammar.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 14 Jan 24 - 02:40 PM

”Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Steve Shaw - PM
Date: 14 Jan 24 - 12:05 PM

We might not like unique-qualified but, er, I think it's OK, along with the modern "liberal" use of decimate and literally. Language should be about wot people speak, not wot the grammar police say.”

I’ve saved that gem, to be brought out every time you - a leading, and noisy, member of the aforementioned ‘grammar police’ - berate anyone for using ‘albeit’, ‘intellectual’, ‘prior to’, ‘going forward’, or any other of the many perfectly understandable expressions you repeatedly bitch about ad bloody nauseam.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Jan 24 - 02:08 PM

"Meat juice" sounds incredibly unappetising to me, and I'm a confirmed carnivore. "A succulent steak" is another expression I find off-putting. Makes it sound squelchy and raw...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Jan 24 - 12:59 PM

"Jus is just that. Meat juice. No flour no wine"

Why not just call it meat juice then?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Jan 24 - 12:07 PM

As for this: "a teensy-weensy little bit pregnant," that's just as bad as "heavily pregnant." What's wrong with "great with child"??

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Jan 24 - 12:05 PM

We might not like unique-qualified but, er, I think it's OK, along with the modern "liberal" use of decimate and literally. Language should be about wot people speak, not wot the grammar police say.

As for this damned jus saga, this side of the great divide we make jus (if we really must, and even if we do we try to not call it "jus" unless we're Hyacinth Bucket) with beef stock, red wine, shallots and herbs, boil it all to death, strain it, boil it some more and add butter. There you go. Jus. And don't make me type that ridiculous word again. What's wrong with gravy anyway!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 14 Jan 24 - 11:37 AM

Just seen quoted in an article about how Musk is trashing Twitter (or X, or whatever it's called this week):

You're really creating a bit of a perfect storm.

That's on a par with "relatively unique" (and sim perversions) or "a teensy-weensy little bit pregnant". Arghissimo.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 Jan 24 - 06:46 PM

Eschew obfuscation?

Jus is just that. Meat juice. No flour no wine.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Jan 24 - 02:41 PM

Reference to anyone at all as an "intellectual" is one of my pet peeves.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: meself
Date: 12 Jan 24 - 09:02 PM

The term 'pseudo-intellectual' emerged in the '60s or '70s, or such is my impression. It is enjoying a second life, or extended life, on the internet, where it is invariably used to denigrate an intellectual whose views the user of the term objects to. What bugs me about it is the implication that the user has some basis for judging the authenticity of intellectuals, and respects 'real' intellectuals, when it is safe to assume that in fact the user respects only those 'intellectuals' - real or pseudo- - who share the user's views.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Thompson
Date: 12 Jan 24 - 06:33 PM

Delighted: the electricity's gone out again

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jan 24 - 06:02 PM

I know what you mean, Doug, albeit I never agree, not even on a daily basis, though, prior to your comments in this thread, I wouldn't have made an argument going forward, if you will.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jan 24 - 06:00 PM

Heheh.

I know what a medley is supposed to mean on restaurant menus. It's plainly an attempt to big up stuff that's actually very plain, wot I could do in my steamer in eight minutes. In my house, a medley of veg means something to go with my meat, Yorkshire puddings and roast spuds. "Jus" a la UK is a form of gravy with red wine in it that's been cleaned of all its tasty bits and boiled up until it's no longer the stuff you want on your roast chicken. "Compote" is mushed-up soft fruit that wouldn't have cut the mustard had the fruit been left whole. The stuff you can make out of the raspberries that have been in your freezer for a couple of years and which don't really look much like raspberries any more. In my house, if I called any of this stuff "medley," "jus" or "compote," I'd get a really good laugh.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 12 Jan 24 - 04:49 PM

> Yesterday's menu said Red wine reduction. I got brown gravy.

That's not bad cooking: it's an offence under the Trades Description Act. A "red wine reduction" is a price cut on (what I insist on calling) plonque rouge de la maison.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Jan 24 - 04:16 PM

Jus isn't gravy. Using jus for jus is merely accurate. Using jus for gravy is incorrect, not necessarily (but probably) pretentious.

A medley is a medley. Overcooking it doesn't make it not a medley.

What you're complaining about, Steve, doesn't seem to be the words themselves, but that bad cooks use them.

That's a cooking peeve, rather than a language one.

Yesterday's menu said Red wine reduction. I got brown gravy. Not pretentious, but bad cooking.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 12 Jan 24 - 03:55 PM

I don't give it much thought at all, Steve. I am just sick of hearing the word through its overuse to describe other perfectly good words, elsewhere in the 'Pet Peeve' threads.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jan 24 - 03:35 PM

So, Doug, you don't think that "jus" for thick gravy, "compote" for a bowl of sour and mushed-up boiled fruit pulp and a "medley of vegetables" for a rapidly-going-cold pot of over-boiled broccoli, carrots and frozen peas is pretentious? Well, as a down-to-earth northern lad, you do surprise me. You'll be calling a spade a manually-operated bladed digging implement next!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 12 Jan 24 - 02:01 PM

Eye-bee-fah. (Are you reading this, Rylan?).

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 12 Jan 24 - 01:46 PM

My pet peeve:- overuse of the word "pretentious".

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Jan 24 - 01:34 PM

Au jus is ok. With au jus is not.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jan 24 - 11:57 AM

Apropos of pretentious stuff to do with food: compote. A medley of vegetables. Jus. Pan-fried.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 12 Jan 24 - 11:57 AM

I have a similar peeve with ‘maintenance’ which always used to be pronounced ‘MAIN-ten-ance’ (it still is by me) but which I frequently hear in my neck of the Backwoods pronounced nowadays as ‘men-TAIN-ance’. Grrrrr!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jan 24 - 11:54 AM

Eye-ran. Nucular.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: meself
Date: 12 Jan 24 - 11:46 AM

I'm hesitant to bring up matters of pronunciation on an international forum, but I am curious about whether people in other places have noticed any changing pronunciations of certain polysyllabic words. A couple that come to mind: "advertisement" and "pianist". When I was growing up in Canada, the only pronunciation I heard for "advertisement" was "ad-VER-tiz-ment" - now all I ever hear is "ad-ver-TIZE-ment". "Pianist" was always "PEE-an-ist"; now I hear "pee-YAN-ist" all the time.

I will (or will not) provide more examples as they come to me (or not). I know there are about half-a-dozen that I hear frequently these days, and there seem to be more all the time. And, yes, they are 'pet peeves' which I will make no attempt to justify.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Jan 24 - 10:58 AM

Headline in this week's Bude and Stratton Post: "Car collides with garden"

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 11 Jan 24 - 08:14 AM

When visiting Bayeux we witnessed an old lady getting annoyed with a car in her way so she set about it with a baguette!

Car hit by pedestrian? :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Thompson
Date: 11 Jan 24 - 07:57 AM

Then there's the automotive passive voice, used in news reports: "Pedestrian hit by car".

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Lighter
Date: 09 Jan 24 - 07:54 AM

Often better than the passive voice is simply "They say" or "They did," without saying who "they" are.

If "they" is too obviously a weasel, use "people" or "many people" or some similarly opaque variant.

The benefit is that "they" and "people" emphasize human agency, making the claim more vivid, while the passive doesn't. What's more, it's easier to mislead with "they" and "people," since the passive voice at least declares clearly what was done, but "they" and "people" give no clue as to whom is referred to (maybe nobody).

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Jan 24 - 06:19 AM

Ah yes, the good old passive voice, a vital tool in the box for weasel-worders:

It's said by many people that....
It's been reported by a number of sources that...
It's claimed by medical experts that...
It's emerged that...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: leeneia
Date: 08 Jan 24 - 11:25 PM

Today gave me two examples of journalists wriggling out of a reporting

"Sam Bankman Fried shares why FTX flopped" (Daily Mail) So the problem wasn't embezzlement, foolish trading, and lack of record-keeping by humans. Supposedly FTX, an exchange of sorts, just did it by itself.
=======================

Low-class congresswoman Lauren Boebert got in an altercation with her ex-husband in a restaurant in Silt, Colorado, and the local Fox News reported that "authorities were called."

This is classic use of the passive voice to obscure facts. Who called the police? Is this candidate a woman being stalked, or is she a perpetrator of domestic violence?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Jan 24 - 07:16 PM

Sometimes you see words used that seem to have been used pretentiously, or just downright incorrectly. Three such that really get my goat in some contexts are enormity, epoch and normalcy. Then you look them up and find that what bugs you can actually be perfectly correct. If I see "look at the enormity of that elephant," or "my childhood was an important epoch in my life," I emit growls. But investigation reveals that both those are correct. Well you may convince me that they're correct but you won't convince me that they're fine. And what's with the horrendous "normalcy?" It's not wrong but I simply never want to see it!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Jan 24 - 06:28 PM

...But so many people use them interchangeably...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Thompson
Date: 08 Jan 24 - 12:07 PM

Also disinterested (with no personal stake in) vs uninterested (bleagh, who cares).