BS: Language Pet Peeves

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 25 Nov 20 - 08:33 AM

There were objections some years back concerning 'elderflower champagne', which is usually made by people in their own homes for their own use, using bunches of elderflowers, water, sugar and lemon juice. Problems arose when someone produced it commercially and in 1993 large champagne houses took the case to court, but failed. This report is from The Independent:

"Although a product sold as 'elderflower champagne' constitutes a misrepresentation in that it indicates that it contains 'champagne' and is likely to deceive a small section of the public, it is unlikely that the champagne houses' reputation and valuable goodwill in the name champagne will be substantially affected by the small-scale sale of elderflower champagne. Since there was no likelihood of substantial damage to the champagne houses' business, reputation or goodwill, the champagne houses' passing off claim failed.

Sir Mervyn Davies dismissed the plaintiffs' passing off claim for damages and an injunction to restrain the defendants from selling elderflower champagne."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Nov 20 - 06:23 AM

As for Cheddar, we have at least got legal protection for the term West Country Farmhouse Cheddar, thus:

"Cheese can only be called ‘West Country Farmhouse Cheddar’ if:

It is made using milk from local herds reared and milked in the counties of Somerset, Dorset, Devon or Cornwall. This ensures that the cheese has a particular texture and flavour.

It contains no colouring, no flavouring and no preservatives.

It is made in these four counties to traditional methods. These methods include the cheese being made by hand and the unique process known as ‘cheddaring’.

It is made and matured on the farm and aged for at least 9 months. Authentic Farmhouse Cheddar doesn’t leave the farm from the moment the milk arrives from the parlour until it’s ready to cut and pack. This means the Cheddar remains in the care of the farmer who can ensure that it is produced and stored to the very highest standards required of a premium cheese."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Donuel
Date: 25 Nov 20 - 06:20 AM

Democrats are rhetorical wimps. Republicans can demonize the conceptual name ANTIFA but Democrats can not bring themselves to call the gun toting white supremacists PRO FASCISTS.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Nov 20 - 06:01 AM

Champagne is not a generic term for sparkling wine. Champagne is a fairly small region of France north-east of Paris. It has a particular climate and terroir and there are strict regulations as to its sparkling wine production methods. The wine we call champagne has been produced there for centuries (for long before there was a USA). The Champagne region has long battled to preserve its name for its sparkling wine, and most countries in the world, including China, Brazil and the EU countries, all abide by the legal requirement to not call any wine not from that region champagne. Some winemakers in the US persist, via a loophole in the law, to dishonestly use the word champagne on their labels. If you call a wine Rioja, it has to come from that part of north-east Spain. Likewise, Napa Valley, Porto, Chianti Classico, among many others. We can't call a cheese Stilton unless it comes from a very restricted area of the English Midlands, and it has to be made a certain way. You can't call a pork pie a Melton Mowbray pie unless that's where it comes from. Prosecco has to come from the Veneto in northern Italy, from nowhere else. Routinely, these are not just place names but also reflect strict rules with regard to local and often highly traditional production methods. By any measure you look at this, the regulations are entirely moral. Of course, we've lost a few battles, Cheddar for example, though some of us, me included, will not buy any cheese calling itself "Cheddar" unless it comes from that small part of the Westcountry (wot pfr calls Scrumpyshire). I've just sampled a superb cheese from south-east England called Sussex Charmer, in every regard very like a superior cheddar, but it refrains from using that word on its label. Let's hang on to and celebrate regionality, say I!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: BobL
Date: 25 Nov 20 - 04:19 AM

Leeneia, you'll find many (slightly) different pronunciations across England, mainly between North & South although there are other regional accents. There are also local dialects like Geordie or Black Country, quite unintelligible to an outsider if the speaker so chooses.

Steve, I seem to remember that "champagne" was once a generic term for sparkling wine. However, that changed when we joined the Common Market.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 24 Nov 20 - 11:57 PM

about six months ago, the DH and I got interested in a British TV show about archeology. The name of the show is Time Team, and although it's been off the air a long time, we still enjoy it.

Watching the show has cause me to hear many different pronunciations between English English and American English. It's a funny thing, because the books I read about English don't mention them.

It's late at night and I'm tired, so I'm not going to try to list them. Nonetheless, there are so many of them that railing against them is like telling the waves not to come in.

We do smile at all the extra r's in the British speech:

arear
Carenzer (Carenza)
dramer (drama)

We think they're cute.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Nov 20 - 06:29 PM

Would that be vaccINate? :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Nov 20 - 05:00 PM

Ford has ordered freezers to vaccinate their employees. Took me a while to place that missing comma!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Nov 20 - 12:54 PM

Yeah, and the French invented champagne, and we in Europe respect that and refrain from calling our sparkling wines champagne. Not so in America, eh? If vaccination was invented here and we've been saying VACCine for 200 years, well just behave yourselves and talk proper!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 24 Nov 20 - 12:47 PM

"He invented it, so the English pronunciation is correct." Thanks for my morning chuckle.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Nov 20 - 12:46 PM

Well I'm pretty tolerant when it comes to variations in pronunciation, but vaccINE seems to have caught on like an infection. Until the last couple of weeks I have never heard that pronunciation in this country (and I am 69...). A few of our telly commentators, after hearing reports from the US, have slipped into saying it then corrected themselves. I regard vaccINE as a horror no less vile than albeit, prior to and on a daily basis. It's just wrong. It comes from the Latin word for cow, vacca, fer chrissake.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 24 Nov 20 - 11:49 AM

VACCine - Edward Jenner was English. He invented it, so the English pronunciation is correct.
Here's a little BBC film about it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p015gmdn


And while we're about it, it's conTRIBute, not CONtribUTE, and disTRIBute, not DIStribUTE.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Nov 20 - 10:55 AM

VaccINE.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 24 Nov 20 - 06:54 AM

"The Postman Always Rings Twice" is a 1946 American film noir based on a 1934 novel of the same name, by an American author James M Cain.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Nov 20 - 06:44 AM

We give letters to our postman. It's like that round here.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 24 Nov 20 - 06:20 AM

Elvis's 'Return to Sender' begins 'I gave a letter to the postman ...'.

So at one time in America the person who both collected and delivered letters was called the 'postman'.

'Letter carriers' sounds like the homing pigeons that carried messages in wartime.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Joe_F
Date: 23 Nov 20 - 10:06 PM

Jos: When I was in Scotland in 1959, I received an anonymous valentine whose envelope was inscribed

Postie, postie, dinna falter.
This may take me to the altar.

So "postie" must be Scottish as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Nov 20 - 05:57 PM

It's VACCine fer chrissake. Not vaccINE!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 23 Nov 20 - 01:22 PM

Another peeve of mine: "categorically" as in "It is categorically untrue that Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves in 1832."

Apparently the word is substituted for "absolutely" or "completely", but every time I hear it, I wonder what unstated category the speaker has in mind. It doesn't help that those who use it often sound like they are trying to put over a snowjob.
==============
Re: the mail. In the U.S. we call them letter carriers.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 22 Nov 20 - 11:57 AM

In England (probably in other parts of the UK as well) the person who delivers the post isn't called the 'mailman' (or 'mailwoman'). Some people try to call them 'posties' but that sounds Australian.
If calling the chairman (or woman) the chair is now widely regarded as normal, why not call him/her 'the post'? We do say 'Has the post come yet?'

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 22 Nov 20 - 11:46 AM

"hupersonity", obviously!

Back when women in hitherto 'men's jobs' was new, my father referred to their female letter-carrier as 'the femailman' - or 'femaleman' - not sure of the spelling ... !

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 Nov 20 - 10:20 AM

I have been stymied by humanity in my endeavor to use neutral terms.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 22 Nov 20 - 07:20 AM

If 'chair' is considered preferable to 'chairman', shouldn't we be using the term 'hu beings' ?

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Nov 20 - 04:50 AM

Here in Bude we have a lady policeman and a lady postman. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: BobL
Date: 22 Nov 20 - 03:46 AM

I'm happy with "lady chairman" (and so is the lady chairman of our local Country Dance club).

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Nov 20 - 01:55 PM

Lol!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 21 Nov 20 - 11:52 AM

Not a pet peeve, but I heard this on the radio this morning: "If we do that now, it will come back and bite us in the end."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Nov 20 - 09:38 AM

If I'm in a meeting and the person chairing it is a woman, I'm perfectly fine with Chairwoman. Likewise, Chairman if it's a bloke. I'm fine with Chairperson or just Chair in either case. But if we're just talking about meetings in general, we may need something generic. In that circumstance I'm fine with Chair or Chairperson. Shouldn't be saying Chairman if I don't know the gender of the person in the chair or if I know it's a woman. It isn't hard, is it?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Nov 20 - 08:18 AM

Ooh, I *like* chair and such as gender-neutral titles. Necessary, I would say. Silly to have to specify genitalia, and hyphen-person is awkward.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 21 Nov 20 - 07:31 AM

I have just heard someone on BBC Radio 4 describing financial problems resulting from Covid 19 as "the biggest cause of mental health ...".
Not "mental illness", or even "mental problems".

Shouldn't we be encouraging anything that is a cause of mental health?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 21 Nov 20 - 07:22 AM

Calling them 'chairholders' would solve that problem.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 21 Nov 20 - 05:43 AM

Use of the word "chair" for chairman and chairwoman or chairlady - hideous unnecessary neuterisation.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 21 Nov 20 - 05:31 AM

I particularly hate people who shout "Come on!" like a bullying PE teacher faced with reluctant children who have no interest in getting a ball into whatever variety of hole or goal the game requires.

Jamie Oliver does it in nearly all his cookery programmes (at which point I switch off).

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Nov 20 - 04:59 AM

My first Bol recipe came from Katharine Whitehorn's "Cooking in a Bedsitter." Anyone else remember that? :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: BobL
Date: 21 Nov 20 - 03:44 AM

Authentic - there are as many authentic recipes for ragù alla bolognese as there are housewives in Bologna.
Mine, derived from that of the late great and not entirely unlamented Fanny Cradock, isn't one of them.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Nov 20 - 12:52 AM

From cooking shows: This dish [nobody ever heard of] is a new tradition. You can't know that, ya know.

This is an authentic recipe. An authentic what recipe? All recipes are authentic *recipes* eh.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 20 Nov 20 - 12:13 PM

Another peeve of mine: 'shout out', as in "Let's give a shout out to John Jones for his generous donation to Children's Hospital."

I think a kind donation deserves gracious words of thanks, not a shout, as if we were all at a football game.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Thompson
Date: 20 Nov 20 - 04:31 AM

Oh God. "Absent" meaning "without". Without is a perfectly good word. "Absent a policy to do yadayada…" No!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 18 Nov 20 - 09:36 AM

I'd be more likely to say "Have you any chips?"
(Assuming I'm not in a chip shop. They would have chips, wouldn't they?)

Something that makes me uncomfortable is people who write, for example, "See the below list" or "See the below link". When I first came across this in emails I reported them as spam, as they contained what to me was suspect English.
I don't know why it seems wrong though, as "See the above link" sounds fine, and of course "See the link below" is as good as "See the link above".

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Nov 20 - 09:16 AM

I can't imagine my asking anyone "Have you chips?" I'd be far more likely to say "Give us a bloody chip, you tight arse!"

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Nov 20 - 09:13 AM

"If you have already set up a Direct Debit arrangement then you're done."

Well I have some sympathy with organisations that are trying to be a bit less formal by ditching officialese. They do go a bit over the top at times. I've just had some protracted email correspondence (concerning a rather large financial matter - no criminality involved! - which took months to resolve) with a solicitors' firm hundreds of miles away. The person who finally managed to sort it out for me signed off her final email "With kind regards, Imogen." I'm OK with that. In my (separate) dealings with my late mum's affairs, I'm on first-name terms with my solicitor (who I've only ever met once, briefly, twelve years ago). Among several doctors and other medics who have worked on my ailments over the years there's been Adam, Dave, Charlie, Rob and Gretel. There's nothing to say that due deference can't still be afforded simply because we use first names or less formal language in m'humble...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 18 Nov 20 - 09:06 AM

This is one which always makes me cringe: someone asks a question like 'Have you got ...' and the reply comes back 'Yes, I do' (or 'No, I don't'). You hear it all the time. Aaaarrrggghhh!!

It is the initial questioner who is at fault for using 'got' in that manner. (unless it means 'have you been to collect . . .?')
The question could just as easily "Have you . . .?" Such as "Have you chips?". To which the answer would be either: "Yes. I have (chips)", or, if the question was taken as meaning "Do you have ...?" then an answer of "I do" would also be correct.

In my opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 18 Nov 20 - 07:22 AM

When people are introducing two points, instead of listing them as first and second or 'A ... and B...' they often present them as:
A ... and secondly ...'.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Senoufou
Date: 18 Nov 20 - 07:16 AM

Yesterday we received our paper TV Licence, and the schedule for Direct Debit payments.The wording in the opening paragraph made me fume. It said, "If you have already set up a Direct Debit arrangement then you're done." Eh? What? DONE???? Grrrrrr!!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: G-Force
Date: 18 Nov 20 - 07:13 AM

This is one which always makes me cringe: someone asks a question like 'Have you got ...' and the reply comes back 'Yes, I do' (or 'No, I don't'). You hear it all the time. Aaaarrrggghhh!!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 15 Nov 20 - 09:44 AM

Abandoned Boat Was Found With A Missing Girl For 8 Years
Boy did that not make sense

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Nov 20 - 06:45 AM

Easy as pie. Cheap as chips. Nothing wrong there!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: JennieG
Date: 13 Nov 20 - 09:50 PM

Thank you, Mrzzy! Like minds and all that......

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 Nov 20 - 09:09 PM

Yeah, I saw that in a headline recently and bristled for both of us.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: JennieG
Date: 13 Nov 20 - 08:39 PM

One that makes me shout at the TV - something is said to be "easy as." Or "cheap as".

Easy as what? Cheap as what?

A woman in my quilting group uses it, I suspect it may have come from her grandchildren. It is still irritating.

Irritating as........