BS: Language Pet Peeves

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 31 Jan 21 - 08:01 PM

Mwah, Jos and Steve Shaw!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 03 Feb 21 - 11:57 AM

I wouldn't use the "just because" construction if writing a book, but I believe it's all right for everyday use. The ""just because" part is a noun clause which functions as the subject of the sentence.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 03 Feb 21 - 12:11 PM

My problem, Leeneia, is that it leaves me feeling very insecure, as if I was driving across Tower Bridge just as it opened to allow a ship to pass through, and I am left hanging in the air ... with no way of getting to the other side.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 04 Feb 21 - 02:03 PM

I used to have dreams like that, but in my case the bridge collapsed beneath me. Then one night the bridge was collapsing, and I thought, "I'll be all right. I can swim." After that, I never had another nightmare about a bridge.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 04 Feb 21 - 02:08 PM

Back to peeves.

I saw a YouTube video where a major network referred to the "unrest" at the Capitol. I posted "Five people are dead, including one trampled to death, one shot and one brained with fire extinguisher," and you call that UNREST?

Unrest is when people are marching and shouting.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 07 Feb 21 - 10:07 AM

The pronunciation of "efficacy" is changing. Until recently I had only ever heard "EFFicacy". Recently I have heard people being interviewed whose first language was clearly not English, who talked about a vaccine's "effICKacy".
Yesterday I heard the change taking place on air, as someone with a southern English accent who was being interviewed on Radio 4 began to say "EFFic...", then hesitated, started again, and this time said "effICKacy".

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Feb 21 - 11:00 AM

On yesterday's Radio 4 one o'clock news, the newsreader just managed to rescue herself from calling Jeremy Hunt "Jeremy C***", sounding like "Jeremy Ker-Hunt..."

(I don't like using asterisks like that, but I decided that this thread is a family show, folks).

It's been a common error, even having investigated by psychologists who decided that it's not a Freudian slip. To some of us, it has seemed oddly appropriate...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Feb 21 - 12:08 PM

Freudian slip: when you mean to say one thing and accidentally say a mother.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 08 Feb 21 - 11:16 AM

Jos:
I think 'efficacy' is probably not a common word in peoples vocabularies.
The accent on "eff" may be a hold-over from Scaffold and "Lily the Pink". "Most efficacious in ev'ry case"

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 08 Feb 21 - 12:43 PM

I bet people base their pronunciation of efficacy on similar words such as proficiency and effiency and deficiency, all of which have the accent on the FI.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 08 Feb 21 - 02:06 PM

I rather think they base their pronunciation on whatever they have heard most recently (which will probably not be 'Lily the Pink').

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Joe_F
Date: 08 Feb 21 - 11:55 PM

Efficacy: Both the OED and the AHD give only the first-syllable stress, which is what comes natural to me. The analogy with -ciency words seems to me a poor one. However, I do not blame people for trying their luck with efFIcacy; the orthodox pronunciation leads to three unstressed syllables in a row, which English usually avoids.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 09 Feb 21 - 03:14 AM

If 'effICacy' catches on everywhere, will 'diffICulty' be next?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 09 Feb 21 - 06:46 AM

Another pronunciation that annoys me is 'pasTORal'. It sounds really awkward, and 'PAStoral' sounds so much more peaceful.

But sometimes the newer versions can be more expressive - 'haRASSment' sounds much more aggressive than 'HARassment'.

And such controversies are not new. Years ago, my mother used to get very annoyed when she heard someone say 'CONtroversy' instead of 'conTROVersy'.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 09 Feb 21 - 07:35 AM

Like "laBORatry"?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 09 Feb 21 - 08:01 AM

Good point. (But I would avoid 'lABorat'ry' as it can too easily be misheard, and mistaken for 'lavatory'.)

And then there are 'aLUminum' and 'aluMINium', where even the spelling changes.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Feb 21 - 09:57 AM

I think you'll find that the American "aluminum" has the greater claim to be the "correct" spelling. However, if it's wot millions say...

Another weird one is licorice/ liquorice, (or, up north, liquorish ("lickerish!"). I suspect that the spelling more popular in the US, licorice" is "more correct" if the etymology is consulted, but in the UK it's more likely to be rendered "liquorice." The vulgar-sounding "liquorish/lickerish" actually goes back hundreds of years. If enough people use them, they're all "correct," though some raise hackles more than others. It pays to be not too imperialistic when claiming correctness in a spelling...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 09 Feb 21 - 10:01 AM

In the U.S. we say "LAvatohry" and "LAbratohry"

But since we don't usually say "lavatory" ("rest room" is preferred) *or* "laboratory" ("lab" is preferred) the chance for genuine mishearing is about nil.

Context is a big clue.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Feb 21 - 10:10 AM

Most Brits will use a word other than lavatory...

"Rest room" seems a bit over-polite. Your visit there might be anything but restful...

And tell me about "bathrooms" that don't have a bath...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 09 Feb 21 - 10:34 AM

I used to be very confused by talk of bathrooms in trains or aircraft, until I realised what was meant.
And as for people taking their dog out so that it can 'go to the bathroom' ...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 09 Feb 21 - 01:46 PM

Guilty. We say those things too.

Well, some of us.

When I was in England, I found use of the phrase "go to the toilet" a little embarrassing.

Here, a "toilet" is specifically the commode, rarely the little room.

It's often heard in the phrase "on the toilet."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Feb 21 - 01:58 PM

Going for a lash

Off to point Percy at the porcelain

Off to drain the spuds

Off to shake hands with the unemployed

Off to shake hands with the wife's best friend


You can't beat a good euphemism, mate...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 09 Feb 21 - 02:15 PM

My father's generation used to say they were 'going to see a man about a dog'.

Most people I know these days call it 'the loo'.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Feb 21 - 03:39 PM

Loo is way too twee. As are poo and pee, now seen, annoyingly, on every medical website. Give me bog, dump and wee any time.. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 09 Feb 21 - 03:52 PM

Twee would be 'little boys' room' or 'little girls' room'.

A female equivalent of 'I'm going to see a man about a dog' would be 'I'm going to powder my nose'. Do people powder their noses any more? It makes me think of Barbara Cartland.

'Bog' and 'dump' are too blokey.

'Loo' seems to me to be fairly neutral.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 09 Feb 21 - 04:36 PM

Wait - "pee" is more "twee" than "wee"? Well, learn sumpm every day ....

Reminds me, though. One time, late at night, I was in the company of the poet Al Purdy, who, I daresay, prided himself in being salt of the earth. The others in our party were a young-ish, upper-crust couple, connected with some publishing house. At one point, the woman said, "Where's Al?", and the guy said, "He's peeing on a tree". Al's voice boomed indignantly out of the dark: "I'm not 'peeing' - I'm pissing!"

Maybe you have to be Canadian to get it; I don't know.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 09 Feb 21 - 04:46 PM

Maybe you nave to be a poet ...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 09 Feb 21 - 05:05 PM

Where did that 'n' come from? Maybe you HAVE to be a poet.

When I was a child we went to the lavatory, and what we did there was 'spend a penny'. It never occurred to me that this was odd - it would only cost a penny if you were to use a 'public convenience'.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Feb 21 - 05:38 PM

I once emailed the great flute player, Harry Bradley, to ask him what he'd thought of a particular book on traditional Irish music. He replied that the best use he could find for it was to drill a hole in the top left corner and suspend it from string in his lavatorium...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Feb 21 - 05:49 PM

Pee more twee than wee? Heheh. Gee...

Here in Britlandia, "Begod, I just have to nip out for a wee..." is now in common parlance, even among the hunkiest of alpha males, ladies too. I like that. One day, we'll all be able to say "Hey, I just need to nip out to take a shit/dump/Tom tit/Eartha Kitt", male or female, without anyone raising an eyebrow. I look forward...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 10 Feb 21 - 06:22 AM

"Going to the little boys' room"
or,
"Going for a pony!"

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Feb 21 - 06:42 AM

"I'll be five minutes - I just have to go and crimp off a length..."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Feb 21 - 06:49 AM

"Where have you been?"

"I've just been upstairs dropping the shopping. I'd give it twenty minutes if I were you..."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 Feb 21 - 09:48 AM

Grandmother was suffering from digestive woes and someone asked where she was and grandfather said, she's sitting down upstairs.
Decorum, indeed.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: JennieG
Date: 11 Feb 21 - 07:43 PM

An expression read in American books is "going potty".....as in, "the dog went outside to go potty".

No, it didn't. It went outside to urinate. It didn't sit on its little potty like a toddler being toilet trained. Likewise when the term is used about an adult.

A library where I worked in the mid-late 1990s was upstairs, above a staff room (in a school). We had our own little cubicle, loo, dunny, whatever you call it, tucked away in a corner. The library staff referred to it as "the corner office"......"Is Pat here?" "In the corner office" would be the reply.

It's a term I still use.......

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Feb 21 - 07:59 PM

"Going potty" in English English means going a bit loopy, becoming prone to doing daft things, going a bit mad, barking, losing it in a sort of frantic way, going nutty. Becoming a crackpot.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Feb 21 - 08:21 PM

When we were little there was no bathroom in our house. There was a row of brick shithouses for the houses in the block which you had to cross an unlit dirt communal yard to reach. The lavvy had a high level cistern with a metal chain and ceramic handle. It would flush only if you "took it by surprise." Bad on a winter's night and impossible for kids after bedtime, so we always had a guzunder, a potty, a po ("goes under" the bed). More politely, a chamber pot, the bedroom ware, a vase de nuit or a pot de nuit.. I think "po" came from the French "pot." In our house it was always the potty. When talking politely about the setup in others' houses we'd say "guzunder." It was regarded as extreme bad form to employ said item for anything other than a "number one", especially in a shared bedroom...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 14 Feb 21 - 03:34 PM

Another pet peeve of mine: litany

A litany is a list of petitions in a church service. The minister asks the Lord for something, and the congregation responds with a phrase such as "Hear our prayer." Another use: when I was attending Catholic church, we sang a beautiful "Litany of the Saints" which named ancient saints and our own dead, followed by "Pray for Us." Like the lullabies I mentioned in a different thread, that song seemed designed to soothe a person and bring inner peace.

My peeve occurs when somebody uses "litany" to mean any old list. I just heard a lawyer say that people arrested for attacking the Capitol on Jan 6 can face a litany of charges. Pfui. It's just a list of charges.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Feb 21 - 03:50 PM

Litany has evolved to mean a long (and possibly tedious) list of things. Lengthy could be a better word than long. A litany of grievances. A litany of complaints. I think it's commoner used in this sense now than it is in its liturgical sense. Another battle lost, I'm afraid. It's standard English in the sense you are complaining about!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 15 Feb 21 - 10:57 AM

Actually, standard English isn't good enough for most Mudcatters. We're a literate and literary group.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Feb 21 - 11:57 AM

Well my gripe is with degradation - stuff such as alternate for alternative, or the terminal blurring of uninterested and disinterested. I don't think we necessarily have to reserve litany for churchy use. It's perfectly good in that context, but the more modern expansion into tedious lists of things (it's already acquired that nuance of tediousness when it's used that way: "I don't want to hear your litany of complaints...") is colourful. What's more, it doesn't degrade the liturgical context for the word. So it's fine by me!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 15 Feb 21 - 01:00 PM

Yeah, it isn't just any list. It's a long or tedious list, especially if spoken aloud.

I don't write out a grocery litany, for example, or a to-do litany.

Nor do I think that Mudcat is likely to have a litany of members.

For fans of group designators (like a "clowder" of cats), a "litany" is now pretty much the inevitable term for a number of complaints.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 15 Feb 21 - 04:42 PM

Right, to me too, it isn't a litany if it isn't being tediously listed *out loud*.

But it does not have to be in worship.

I agree with Steve Shaw on degradation. I also mind backformations, I think the term is, for words like Worthiness. The word is worth. Worthy, the adjective, does not need a -ness added to form the noun. The noun is already there.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 15 Feb 21 - 05:43 PM

Oxford shows "worthiness" from 1372.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Feb 21 - 05:55 PM

Worth and worthiness mean two different things to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Feb 21 - 08:38 PM

The first-up online dictionary gives two distinct meanings for the adjective "worthy," viz:

1. having or showing the qualities that deserve the specified action or regard.
"these issues are worthy of further consideration"

2. characterised by good intent but lacking in humour or imagination.
"worthy but tedious advice"

That second meaning is common in the UK, but, oddly, when I looked it up in Merriam-Webster online it wasn't there. It sort of means competent enough but just dull and uninspiring. The point is, to extend that into a noun you would say "worthiness." Which is what I meant in that earlier post. I'd be interested to know if the word "worthy" is ever used in that sense your end.

It might be worth adding (see what I did there?) that we also have a noun "worthy," as in "The public meeting was attended by the town's ceremonial bigwigs and quite a few other local worthies."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 16 Feb 21 - 04:54 AM

A vehicle that is maintained to a sufficiently high standard to be used legally on a public road is road-worthy. The quality that it possesses is that of 'road-worthiness', not 'road-worth'.



Steve, your second definition conflates two separate ideas:

2. characterised by good intent but lacking in humour or imagination.
"worthy but tedious advice"
.............
.............
It sort of means competent enough but just dull and uninspiring.


So,
"worthy": characterised by good intent; (sort of means) competent enough
but
"tedious": lacking in humour or imagination; (sort of means) just dull and uninspiring.



DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 16 Feb 21 - 11:47 AM

The quotation reveals a lack of faith in the definition: "worthy but tedious" is otherwise redundant, if worthy already means "worthy but tedious" .....

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Raggytash
Date: 16 Feb 21 - 01:04 PM

Grammar is important. Capital letters are the difference between "helping your Uncle Jack off a horse" and "helping your uncle jack off a horse"

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 16 Feb 21 - 03:02 PM

..... if worthy already means "worthy but tedious"

But "worthy" doesn't already mean "worthy but tedious". I could donate money to a "worthy and inspirational" charity.

DC