BS: Language Pet Peeves part II

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: meself
Date: 02 Feb 24 - 03:58 PM

I just heard on the TV news that Joni Mitchell "will make a surprise appearance at the Grammys" .....

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: leeneia
Date: 04 Feb 24 - 11:29 PM

clever
never
sever
beverage
lever

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: meself
Date: 07 Feb 24 - 02:20 PM

Another one from radio news: the door came off mid-flight because "the bolts that held the door in were not installed."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Feb 24 - 05:35 PM

I am reminded of The only person on the scene missing was the Jack of Hearts...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 13 Feb 24 - 12:22 PM

Not read this thread for ages, but had a few chuckles on the way!

One thing that bugs me, is when people invent new words, often by turning perfectly good nouns into verbs. The latest new one came with a recent update to my iPhone - Journal: ok so far, but then "what are you journaling today?" (only one L as it's American too!) Journaling - I ask you?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 Feb 24 - 07:14 PM

Also unnecessary backformations.

Worth, noun. Worthy, adjective. Worthiness, useless backformation.

Health, healthy, healthiness. Bah!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 14 Feb 24 - 10:22 AM

English is a wonderful language: you can verb anything.

(Twenty bonus marks for correctly attributing this quote.)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Lighter
Date: 14 Feb 24 - 04:31 PM

What bugs me is the blithe and confident misuse of technical terms.

Like "virus" for a bacterial infection.

Or "euphemism" for "simple synonym."

Or "misnomer" for "misconception."

Or "back-formation" for "derivative."

Oxford has "worthiness" from 1372. It's been thought acceptable by Chaucer, Shakespeare, Hobbes, Wordsworth, and many others.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: BobL
Date: 15 Feb 24 - 03:56 AM

Or "quantum leap" for "paradigm shift".

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: mayomick
Date: 15 Feb 24 - 09:05 AM

UK police “officers”
I saw this today in a British newspaper- a witness account of police searching a tube train for a suspect

“ Officers told us to move down the train away from the carriage……..then an officer came into our carriage and shouted for the train manager to get the doors open. ………We were directed up towards platform 14 instead of towards the barriers, where there must have been between 20-30 officers present..”

Do they now use the word “officer” in the UK to describe their police? When I was growing up there in the fifties and sixties we never referred to cops as "officers" . I remember the police at the time didn’t like the term saying it was an Americanism and that they should be addressed as “constables” .

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 15 Feb 24 - 09:36 AM

Do they now use the word “officer” in the UK to describe their police?

I have gown up with 'police officer' being a perfectly normal, general term for all ranks of the British police. I certainly don't consider it as an Americanism. 'Cops', on the other hand, does not figure highly in my vocabulary and is not a word I would use within the hearing of a police officer.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 15 Feb 24 - 10:12 AM

‘Police Officer’ is in common use in my part of the British Backwoods and has been for many years. Similarly ‘policeman/policewoman’, and ‘Bobby’. Like Doug above, I don’t regard it as an Americanism.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: meself
Date: 15 Feb 24 - 11:02 AM

Here's one I've noticed only in the last, say, ten years or so, particularly in British sources, but now and then from the US as well, and that is, use of 'floor' for 'ground'; perhaps this usage goes 'way back ... ? To my mind, a 'floor' is inside a building, and 'the ground' is that flat surface in the great outdoors - so if you got out of your car and the cop/officer/constable pushed you down, you fell on the 'ground', not on the 'floor'.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 16 Feb 24 - 04:44 AM

@ Lighter:
Then there are those who talk about the “HIV virus” - effectively means they are saying virus twice.
And “a bacteria” - the singular is bacterium.
Another common medical one - “prostrate” when they mean “prostate”.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Mrrzy
Date: 16 Feb 24 - 04:09 PM

I did not use back-formation incorrectly, fyi.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Lighter
Date: 16 Feb 24 - 04:29 PM

Merriam-Webster:

"back-formation n. ...a word formed by subtraction of a real or supposed affix from an already existing longer word (such as burgle from burglar)"

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: BobL
Date: 17 Feb 24 - 04:07 AM

Regarding Floor/Ground you can also, metaphorically, "hit the deck".

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 17 Feb 24 - 11:57 AM

> Regarding Floor/Ground you can also, metaphorically,
> "hit the deck".

Especially if you're all at sea. (In circuit diagrams, "earth" and "chassis" have different symbols.)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 17 Feb 24 - 02:14 PM

The headline writers of our local online "rag" - Edinburgh Live - are very fond of using "as" in a rather odd way, which goes against cause and effect. e.g.

Missing child and teenage vanish AS Police launch urgent search (and in this instance there's also the issue of the fact that the child and teenager are already missing before they vanished!)

Edinburgh rush hour collision blocks road AS traffic tails back (did the tailback cause the collision?)

Car ploughs into house on Scottish street AS emergency services rush to the scene (so they knew this was going to happen?)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Mrrzy
Date: 17 Feb 24 - 04:03 PM

As is weird. We get After, as in 2 people killed after their plane crashes. Like they survived the crash itself, only to be murdered, later.

As would actually work, in those instances.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 18 Feb 24 - 07:25 AM

Using "as" in that context is also counterproductive. If they really want to save horizontal space and ink, a comma would serve better as the required hiccup in the cadence, however jarring to those of us who dislike seeing comma abuse.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Feb 24 - 08:26 AM

Navalny's widow. Not hus wife. His widow. Stop robbing her of his death.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 19 Feb 24 - 11:36 AM

Guilty, Mrrzy!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Feb 24 - 05:53 PM

WashPo has updated their headlines too!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Feb 24 - 08:01 AM

Then again, WashPo has this:

Ask Amy: I want to go visit my ex long ago who is ill

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: meself
Date: 20 Feb 24 - 12:18 PM

Hmmm - I wonder if "my ex long ago" is something like "my used-to-be", as you find in the old Blues songs ... ?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Feb 24 - 02:30 PM

Long-ago ex, maybe.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: meself
Date: 20 Feb 24 - 03:11 PM

"I want to go visit my ex long ago ... "

I believe the speaker wants to go back in time, and visit their ex, presumably before they were an ex, and before they were ill - after all, isn't that the kind of thing we all want to do now and then?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: mayomick
Date: 22 Feb 24 - 08:26 AM

Doug, in my experience police officers don't mind being called cops - so long as the word is not used offensively .I've looked up the etymology of cop and there's no agreed origin but I wouldn't be surprised if the word wasn't first used by police officers themselves

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 22 Feb 24 - 11:01 AM

Doug, in my experience police officers don't mind being called cops

Maybe so, but I wouldn't be comfortable using it in a situation where police officers were carrying out official duties. In a more informal setting, though, I wouldn't be too fussed about its use.

Vocab.com gives it as:-
"Cop is an informal, somewhat derogatory word for a police officer."

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Mrrzy
Date: 23 Feb 24 - 09:56 PM

My kids used to go running up to their favorite cop yelling Hey, look, it's our favorite cop! He thought it was funny, which made me realize it was, actually, disrespectful.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 24 Feb 24 - 02:29 AM

My BIL (Mrs Backwoodsperson’s brother) has been a police officer all of his working life - in the RAF Police, Cambridgeshire Police and, for the past 17-or-so years, in the Toronto ON Force - and he sometimes refers to himself as a ‘cop’. But AFAIC that’s his right. I always describe him as a police officer, but I don’t imagine he would feel offended if I called him a ‘cop’.

In my part of the Backwoods, the usual offensive terms for a police officer are ‘rozzer’, ‘PC Plod’, and ‘pig’. I’m sure there may be others, especially amongst young people, although why anyone feels the need to insult men and women who are doing a difficult, stressful, and often dirty, job is beyond my ken.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 24 Feb 24 - 05:14 AM

Another nickname is “the fuzz”, which I gather is derived from “the Feds”. Many years ago, one of Edinburgh’s folk clubs took place in the Police social club premises, so it was referred to as The Fuzz Folk Club. Then Ian Green, who founded Greentrax recordings after he retired from being a serving police offer, wrote his autobiography, which he entitled “Fuzz to Folk”. (None of this is particularly peeving, by the way!)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 24 Feb 24 - 06:22 AM

Ah yes, I forgot ‘The Fuzz’! ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Feb 24 - 03:05 PM

Sic'm, Fang!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Lighter
Date: 24 Feb 24 - 03:06 PM

Hard to believe, but here are two English words that are essentially as thoroughly synonymous as "gorse" and furze."

Not very exciting though:

"inalienable"

"unalienable."

Semantically identical and orthographically nearly so - just one letter different out of eleven.

The only other difference, if it is a difference, is that the Declaration of Independence uses "unalienable," though most people (who'd be unlikely to use either one in a sentence) think it's "inalienable."

Oxford shows "inalienable" from 1647 and "unalienable" from 1611.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Thompson
Date: 24 Feb 24 - 03:07 PM

In Ireland, cops are the shades.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Mrrzy
Date: 25 Feb 24 - 02:04 AM

Ok... every car on this lot was hand-selected.

What, like a flower? How do you HAND-select a CAR?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 25 Feb 24 - 06:52 PM

Then there are the “hand-cooked” crisps (chips to those in the US) - as if you’d plunge your hand into a vat of boiling oil?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: meself
Date: 25 Feb 24 - 09:46 PM

No, no - you just hold them in your hand and warm them up. The term 'cooked' is being used loosely.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Mrrzy
Date: 29 Feb 24 - 09:55 AM

Again, someone was arrested "after" a drug bust. Like, in a completely unrelated other bust?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Mrrzy
Date: 01 Mar 24 - 08:28 AM

Heard on NPR

surprises are to b expected

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Lighter
Date: 01 Mar 24 - 09:59 AM

Of course surprises are to expected.

Specific surprises are not.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Thompson
Date: 09 Mar 24 - 04:20 AM

People have discarded "whoever" and are using "whomsoever", weirdly.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 10 Mar 24 - 06:53 AM

Has anyone brought up* the overuse of the term "key"? I can see why newspapers use it instead of "vital" in headlines (shortage-of-ink error), but I find use of it in speech to be unforgivably jarring, especially when overuse makes it a stand-in for "important", "noteworthy" or "interesting". There's so many "key" issues these days that there's no room in the door for anything else but locks.

* I use the term most carefully. Sound effect to (dis)taste.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 10 Mar 24 - 09:49 AM

> someone was arrested "after" a drug bust

Bingo! this just seen on the the Beeb's Red Button: someone being "detained", then "arrested". I'll check, but to be formally arrested, methinks there needs to be one or more specific charges, and the defendant must then go before the Beak. One can instead (or first) be detained, which (like being chucked in the cooler after an excessively good celebration) need not necessarily lead to a charge.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 10 Mar 24 - 01:17 PM

someone being "detained", then "arrested". I'll check, but be formally arrested, methinks there needs to be one or more specific charges, and the defendant must then go before the Beak. One can instead (or first) be detained, which (like being chucked in the cooler after an excessively good celebration) need not necessarily lead to a charge.

My understanding of the situation in the UK is that there are three circumstances where someone can be detained before arrest: stop and search; to prevent an imminent breach of the peace; search of property. Otherwise, at formal arrest must be made and the arrested person advised of their legal rights. They may then be detained without charge for a limited period, normally 24 hours, although exceptionally, this may be extended to 36 hours by the station Superintendent, or 72 hours under a magistrate's warrant. The decision to charge rests with the Crown Prosecution Service.


DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 11 Mar 24 - 09:33 AM

Thanks for the disambiguation, Doug: I bow to your superior knowledge.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Mar 24 - 10:44 AM

NBC headline
Trump frustrated as bond deadline nears and key bacteria identified in colon cancer cases: Morning Rundown

I just bet he cares deeply about bacteria

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves part II
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Mar 24 - 06:30 AM

Lazy American mouths say Ax instead of ask.