BS: Language Pet Peeves

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Joe_F
Date: 16 Apr 21 - 08:56 PM

The use of "already" as a tag at the end of a request, indicating impatience, is indeed a Jewish importation into American English, representing the Yiddish "shoin".

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 17 Apr 21 - 04:00 AM

For me, the name Guy would only bring the effigy to mind in the phrase "Penny for the Guy", when kids in the street are trying to extract money from me in the early days of November.

Even if someone was alluding to a person's scruffy appearance, I would never expect "Guy" to be attached to "regular". They would more likely say "He looks a right scarecrow".

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 17 Apr 21 - 11:32 AM

I guess I am old. Or the books I read are...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Apr 21 - 12:19 PM

Twee words get my goat. My two most detested are hubby (Mrs Steve is banned from using that) and sarnie. I'm clenching my buttocks here, even thinking about those two. It's a sandwich if you must. But in reality it's a butty. Egg butty. Bacon butty. Dripping butty. Fish finger butty. Cheese butty. Chip butty. You may call it a sandwich if it's toasted or if you bought it at Marks and Spencer. At a stretch, it can be a ham sandwich. There is no "chip sandwich" and there never has been. And my mum ran a chippy for ten years. Almost as bad as hubby are the related terms "my better half" or "my significant other." "The missus" is just about OK but "the wife" is not. I can just about take "'er indoors."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 17 Apr 21 - 02:53 PM

And here I thought a sarnie was something to do with sardines.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 17 Apr 21 - 03:00 PM

It could be, if you made a sardine sarnie.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: robomatic
Date: 17 Apr 21 - 06:08 PM

I had one of those cases where my mind is thinking something that 'I' am merely listening to. On awakening. So on this awakening my mind was telling me type:

"I have some issues with a language which occasionally puts a 'p' in front of a word and then fails to pronounce it."

I say 'ptooie' to that!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 18 Apr 21 - 03:16 AM

I reached middle age before I even heard of a chip butty. It struck me as a strange idea, but tried it and it was OK, though I haven't bothered since. I have also heard people say 'bacon butty' and maybe 'jam butty' - but never 'egg butty' or any of the others. I think it is a North / South thing, to do with where you grew up, not where you live now.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 18 Apr 21 - 03:55 AM

I thought "sarnie" was probably a scouse thing but its origins are uncertain. Some answers I found point to the OED which apparently indicates that the use of "sarnie" popped up in 1961 and is believed to be from a northern England dialectical pronunciation of "sand" from "sandwich."

I was familiar with both this and "butty" from my years in North Wales, I'm not sure about Norfolk where I've lived my last 20.

I think my choice of word usually depends on the filling, eg. a cheese sandwich but a chip (or bacon) butty.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Apr 21 - 05:10 AM

Y'all. - you all; you people, usage southern US
Perhaps its fading out like 'race creed or color'
I am not sure if can be used both affectionately or aggressively but it is a southern thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Apr 21 - 05:55 AM

"...but tried it and it was OK, though I haven't bothered since."

You must be doing it wrong. For a start, you need chip shop chips. They must be overloaded with salt 'n' vinegar. Take one slice of terrible white bread. Butter it thickly (when you bite into the butty your teeth should be leaving little cliff edges). Stork will do at a pinch. Load one half with chips then fold it over. Tommy K optional. Two basic rules should be followed: sit over your plate (or newspaper wrapping) to avoid buttery drips on the trousers, and make sure you've had five pints before you eat it. Viola!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 18 Apr 21 - 06:45 AM

1. I don't like vinegar on my chips.
2. I don't like tomato ketchup (it ruins the taste of tomato for no good purpose).

3. Five pints? Yes, especially after a good long walk finishing in a decent pub. But would I want a chip butty afterwards? It probably wouldn't occur to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 18 Apr 21 - 06:57 AM

"Y'all" means "the two or more of you" or, sometimes, "the one of you as a representative of a group."

Period. And it's useful.

It's used in speech every day by everybody who grew up in the South, regardless of education, class, or ethnicity. Not even the most pedantic Southern English teacher takes notice - because they use it too.

It's definitely not fading out. It might even be spreading northward.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 18 Apr 21 - 07:56 AM

You used to be plural only when Thee was the singular.

You is now ambiguous, could be plural or singular.

Y'all is plural, leaving You as an unambiguous singular. Useful.

Also Southern US- here is where I am, there is where you are, yonder is somewhere else. Also useful.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 18 Apr 21 - 08:27 AM

I'll leave Y'all to you Yanks (British usage of "Yanks" there...).

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Apr 21 - 09:15 AM

When I were a student, Jos, we thought nothing of downing six pints of Bank's bitter and then going for a biryani with extra fried rice and two poppadoms...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 18 Apr 21 - 10:08 AM

New peeve: push back. A vague phrase used by TV journalists who are too lazy or busy to be specific.

"Today Matt Gaetz pushed back against charges that he had [insert name of criminal or inappropriate thing to do]."
===============
I don't know what a poppadom is, but that would be a cute name for a small, fuzzy dog.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 18 Apr 21 - 10:56 AM

From: Steve Shaw
"...but tried it and it was OK, though I haven't bothered since." . . .

. . . to avoid buttery drips on the trousers, and make sure you've had five pints before you eat it. Viola!

Nice try, but mentioning one musical instrument is not enough to make this a music thread ;)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 18 Apr 21 - 11:38 AM

No vaguer than "resist" or "react."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 18 Apr 21 - 12:15 PM

I believe "y'all" is becoming more popular due to - wait for it ... the internet. Some years back, it would be a clear indication of a Southern American; now, not so much. Where I grew up (Central/Eastern Canada), "you all" was not uncommon, but "y'all" unheard of. "Yous(e)" is common where there was significant Irish settlement.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Apr 21 - 12:20 PM

I always do the same deliberate mistake of typing "Viola!" for that exclamation, Nigel. It's a kickback against the pretentiousness of some people for whom using unnecessary foreign phrases is a sine qua non...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 19 Apr 21 - 11:48 AM

A few years ago there was a long and worthy mudcat thread about all the variants we have created of the missing second-person plural. Y'all, you all, youse, all y'all, etc.

In Scotland I encountered something that sounded like "yiz". Is that plural?

Now what we need is a pronoun which means "he, she or it" depending on circumstance.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 19 Apr 21 - 11:49 AM

Steve: we are not deceived. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 19 Apr 21 - 12:38 PM

Not a peeve. I've learned a new word. Those banners that we see at the bottom of newscasts, usually unrelated to the story being discussed, are called chyrons.

Learn all about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKx5TzW0URo

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Apr 21 - 02:04 PM

That is what They is for... He, She or It, depending on context. Repurposing a plural into a singular. You have seen that before, haha!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Apr 21 - 03:33 PM

It was repurposed thus at least six hundred years ago.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 19 Apr 21 - 03:42 PM

Yes, and know-it-alls are still objecting.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 May 21 - 04:36 PM

Ok the headline was about the 6yo shot in a road rage incident by "another driver" - was the baby at the wheel?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 22 May 21 - 05:03 PM

The little boy was a car driven by his mother, the first driver. He was shot by a person driving a different car - another driver.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 23 May 21 - 03:48 PM

If that had been the headline I would not have been peeved. I know what they *meant* - I objected to what they actually wrote.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Jul 21 - 05:52 AM

"England football fans have been celebrating the team reaching their first European Championship semifinal for 25 years..." (BBC Radio 4 news this morning).

Cor, just think how long we'll be celebrating for if we get to the final...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 15 Jul 21 - 03:59 PM

Yesterday I saw a video of a man named Donald Trump at a podium and he spoke of kicking ass against his opponents. He used some other vulgar phrase, but I can't recall it.

It's vulgar.
It's dangerously vague. What's he inspiring this time?
It insults the listener, as if to "You aren't important enough to hear good English."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Jul 21 - 04:46 PM

George HW Bush publicly used the words kick ass referring to what he would do to Saddam. His son relied on lawyers to make the courts determine his election instead of voters. Trump uses the f word and tried to overthrow Congress via violence to declare election victory. He put well placed loyalists in the Pentagon, FBI and CIA to improve his chances of a coup.

We carp about it now but even the Romans wrote letters of the downhill decorum in the quality of leadership. power corrupts etc.

The main difference between Hitler and Trump is that Hitler ordered mass murders of disloyal dissidents. Trump only instigated riots, assaults and kidnapping. He wanted officers to shoot demonstrators in the legs at the border and on our streets but there was resistence.

Today we are not all using the words treason, sedition and insurrection correctly.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 18 Aug 21 - 08:02 PM

From buzzfeed:

People Are Spilling The Secrets They'll Take To Their Grave

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 19 Aug 21 - 07:39 AM

I want a pet peeve! Where do you get them? Are they like cats?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 19 Aug 21 - 09:23 AM

No, they are like mice. You see them out of the corner of you eye when you are doing something else, and they're irritating. In the case of language, the "something else" is reading or talking.

If I haven't said it already, a peeve of mine is "pushback." As in
"Rep. Max Gaetz pushes back on sex charges." Meaning what?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 19 Aug 21 - 05:33 PM

Ahhhhh. Got it.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Bill D
Date: 20 Aug 21 - 12:44 PM

In a TV commercial, I heard a young woman get 4 syllables into "manganese".

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: BobL
Date: 21 Aug 21 - 02:41 AM

I don't know even 4 syllables of Manganese.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Senoufou
Date: 21 Aug 21 - 03:55 AM

Oh, I speak fluent Manganese. Lovely people, the Mangans.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Aug 21 - 04:18 AM

I thought Mangania was now known as Personland?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Aug 21 - 07:34 AM

I am not sure why this is so wrong but you just can't use By the time this way:

He was a baby when his dad died in Afghanistan. By the time he turned 18, the war still wasn’t over.

When would be ok, but this is wrong.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Donuel
Date: 24 Aug 21 - 08:18 AM

'Through put' sounds odd to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 25 Aug 21 - 11:31 AM

People using black lingo then forgetting about it. For example, they make a video and give it a title like this:

New Yorkers be makin' fake pizza

Then they forget all about talking that way in the rest of the video.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 25 Aug 21 - 01:06 PM

> you just can't use By the time this way

I worked like hell to get a doctorate in English decades ago, and this usage seems absolutely normal to me.

In "theory" (which I've only just now discovered online - or, I should say, "on line"), "by the time" should only be used with a past perfect verb.

But the sad, or totally innocuous, fact (depending on one's prejudices) is that the simple past often - very, very often - replaces the past perfect in other than very formal usage, especially when context makes the distinction immaterial. The meaning in the given example couldn't be clearer.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 25 Aug 21 - 03:12 PM

Well, in matters of the English language, grammar and usage thereof, the distinctions between "right" and "wrong" are malleable - but the term "awkward" often applies in doubtful cases - as in this one. The expression "by the time" conventionally signals allusion to an event that has occurred or conditions that have changed or reached some point of finality between a previously referenced time and the time in question. If not "wrong", it can be "awkward" to use "by the time" to signal allusion to stasis. No doubt there are exceptions, and the context may make a difference.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 25 Aug 21 - 03:16 PM

And the idea of "by the time" having to do with a completed event or change would explain the "rule" regarding its necessitating the past perfect.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 25 Aug 21 - 04:32 PM

Then again, it can be used to a speculative future, as in, "By the time I get to Phoenix, she'll be rising", which technically should be, "By the time I will have got[ten] to Pheonix, she will have arisen".

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Aug 21 - 05:44 AM

Absolutely with you there, Lighter.

Here's a couple that are so awful that I've decided to use them all the time from now on:

"I'm not quite ready yet: just bear with..."

"I'm a bit busy just now: can I call you back in ten?"

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 26 Aug 21 - 07:38 AM

Nice point, Meself.

In U.S. English, the future perfect is even more moribund than the past perfect.

While I recognize "will have got/gotten (U.S.)/reached/arrived at," etc.," as absolutely correct, I honestly doubt that I've ever used that tense, even in writing - at least not since translating Vergil/ Virgil in high school.

Steve, "five" and "ten" used this way have been ridiculously (viz., "extremely") common in America for many decades (though I assume you've guessed that).

Adverbial "with" ("go with," "come with") is, I believe, mainly a Midwestern habit but must be spreading.

Have we mentioned positive, utterance-initial "anymore"?:

"Anymore, social media is [sic] a menace."

See https://ygdp.yale.edu/phenomena/positive-anymore

I feel sure you will want to start using this as well. ASAP.