BS: Language Pet Peeves

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Jan 22 - 08:51 AM

Agreed about acronym. Very often, the misusers of this word think they're being clever as they're using such a sophisticated-sounding word. Instead, they are simply showing themselves to be complete asses.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: weerover
Date: 10 Jan 22 - 02:05 PM

On this evening's radio news, the sports commentator said that Novak Djokovic could be "the first male tennis player to win 21 Grand Slams". In fact, that would be 21 major tournaments, each of which would have been a single leg of a clean sweep of all major tournaments, which is what a Grand Slam actually means. This flawed terminology has become a regular feature of commentary on tennis and golf, and for me somewhat devalues the achievement of anyone who has actually swept the boards.

wr

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 10 Jan 22 - 02:33 PM

”Precarity": there is no such word but I have encountered it twice in recent weeks, in the Guardian newspaper and on a BBC radio discussion, in both cases by trade union representatives.”

It exists, according to the Cambridge English Dictionary…

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/precarity

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: weerover
Date: 10 Jan 22 - 02:47 PM

Thanks, Backwoodsman, before posting I checked with the Shorter Oxford Dictionary and Chambers Dictionary (of which I have five editions) and found no trace, but it appears I may be wrong after all. I suspect it could be a fairly new development.

wr

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 Jan 22 - 09:23 PM

Is the verb crescendo also? The music crescendoed?

I like precarity. Unlike Voltaire, if it hadn't existed, it would have been necessary to invent it.

Totz agree [see what I did there?] With Thinking to myself. That is exaxctly how I feel about the term bucket list. I mean, when would you do things, *after* you died?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: BobL
Date: 11 Jan 22 - 04:32 AM

I have another list, of things that came off the bucket list because I can't now be bothered to do them.
Guess what it's called.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 11 Jan 22 - 10:11 AM

Bet it rhymes!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jan 22 - 07:18 AM

To be pseudo-philosophical for a moment, I think it's possible to lament some word evolutions without actually castigating the kind of modern usage which may seem to us to be predicated on ignorance. There are shades: I'm not bothered at all by the way people use "unique," "literally" and things like that. I think that objectors to the modern usage of "decimate" are just plain wrong. It's hard to continue criticising the flexibility that's crept in with "uninterested" and "disinterested," even though I think the distinction is useful. In fact, that distinction is quite modern; it was not forever thus in any case. "Alternate" instead of "alternative" really gets my goat (I blame the Monkees), though it's now become unarguable. We need to do a bit more lamenting and a bit less criticising!

What grate are things that just look or sound stupid. "At the end of the day..." (I've just used that in another post and regret the lack of the ability to edit...we can all get sucked in...), "basically," "prior to," "on a daily basis," "going forward," "I have to say," "listen up," "with all due respect..."




"Albeit"...   :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Jan 22 - 09:37 AM

Wot, no "in real time"?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jan 22 - 10:06 AM

Definitely that one too. Many another: keep 'em coming!

I never did get "existential" and I don't know how to use it.

And don't get me started on "begs the question." Almost everyone who uses this means "raises the question," which is elegant and normal English. If I hear someone saying "it begs the question..." who ISN'T referring to a circular argument, I consider them to be a pompous arse. Unfortunately, they've won - it's now standard English even in its corrupted sense, irregardless of what I may think (see what I did there?)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Jan 22 - 12:00 PM

I love Irregardless.

I use this thread to list things that bug me. Not things I correct people for using. That last would be policing. Here, I just complain.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Jan 22 - 04:53 PM

How about "irregoddamnless." More emphatic.

I suspect the modern use of "beg the question" is older than most of us think - even if it only became visible recently.

After all, the orginal, highly idiomatic phrase has to be explained at some point to most people. Just knowing the meaning of each word isn't much help.

But the newer sense (not in OED, by the way) is easy to grasp as short for "begs that the question be asked."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Jan 22 - 05:15 PM

Dig this, from the St. Louis Republic of January 4, 1904 p.8:

"With reference to the act of recognition, the President begs the question of whether or not Panama by its own uninfluenced action established a complete independence."


Or the Morning Chronicle (London, Eng.) of October 30, 1838 [!], p. 2:

"The complaint we made against The Post on Saturday will equally apply to the Herald of Monday, viz., that it begs the whole question whether Mr TURNER'S discourses were soctrinal or moral."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Jan 22 - 05:18 PM

No, not "soctrinal."

"Doctrinal."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jan 22 - 06:20 PM

I take your point about the antiquity of the "modern" manifestation of "begs the question." I think the point is that saying "it begs the question" rather than the far plainer and more explicit "it raises the question" is unnecessary, pretentious and an attempt to sound clever. Not wrong, but all those things. I feel the same way about "albeit," which is correct and equally ancient (though it almost died out before its unfortunate twentieth-century resurgence). But it has plainer and more honest alternatives that, unlike "albeit," don't make you sound as if you're trying put sounding sophisticated ahead of making your honest argument. Try "though" every time...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Jan 22 - 07:25 PM

I concur that pomposity is abominable* (especially when wed to foolishness), but if you were to spend as much time as I once did reading academic prose in the lit-crit line, I think you'd find many of the annoying usages discussed here plain enough and positively refreshing.

Check this out. The learned author is discussing Charlie Chaplin in "Shoulder Arms: (1918):

"Because such moments of interpretive perception in 'Shoulder Arms' frequently take the literal form of one character seeing one thing *as* another, they provide a useful test case for the idea that the concept of aspect perception, as Wittgenstein understood it, may have interpretive rather than simply theoretical use, that this concept has to do with the surprising conjunction of perceptual agility, knowledge of the world, and ethical understanding. Whereas most film theoretical accounts of aspect perception use Wittgenstein's concept as a means of thinking through the phenomenology of vision. 'Shoulder Arms' suggests that aspect perception is of importance for its articulation of value and mutuality."

I believe this means in English that "characters in 'Shoulder Arms' often mistake one thing for another. The movie, however, suggests that everyone may profit from seeing objects as they are."

Wow! Insights worthy of Wittgenstein, not to mention Socrates.

____

*See what I did there?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jan 22 - 08:00 PM

Brilliant! Doesn't that sort of thing get your goat? We have such a lovely language, full of what perplexed scholars call "irregularities," whilst the truth is that the intricacies, the colour and the nuance of English ironically (ironically in some people's view only) allow us to express ourselves so clearly, flexibly and simply. Yet there are people, the over-clever who aren't clever at all, who prefer to use long words where a shorter word would work better and multiple words where a single word would be just fine. My aim is always to try to make sure that, whatever the victims of my posts think of my opinions, I express myself in a way that doesn't require a ton of mental processing in order to understand what I'm on about. Mistakes, typos, grammatical inelegance and the occasional spelling error don't count for much. Language is all about the clarity of communication.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Jan 22 - 08:05 PM

I'm wit' yoo, pal.

Lucidity, not stupidity!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 13 Jan 22 - 12:42 AM

I've noticed another peeve of mine - using "place" to mean something more complicated.

Like this: "At that time I was with an abuser who was also highly manipulative. I was in a very bad place." That speaker went on the use "place" 3 or 4 times, as if it were particularly clever.

The person wasn't in a place; she was in a marriage, or a relationship, or a cult or something similar. And getting out of it was far more complicated than simply leaving a place.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Jan 22 - 05:51 AM

Dunno about that one: I think I quite like it. The meaning is clear and obvious, taken in context, and it's one of those things that seem to add colour to the language without resort to big or obscure words. As ever, one man's fish is another man's poisson...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 13 Jan 22 - 08:47 AM

You mean "One person's..." ;)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Jan 22 - 10:15 AM

Tends to take the edge off the maxim somewhat! :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 Jan 22 - 12:53 PM

Ok this one bugged me but not grammatically:

12-year old boy died with his mother and 2 sisters.

How did the one male become the person and the others the mere relatives? How about Woman dies with 3 children? How about Family dies, including (12-yo boy if he was the youngest by a large margin maybe?)?

Anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 13 Jan 22 - 01:53 PM

Yes, Mrrzy, that is odd. Why not "Three die in..."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Jan 22 - 01:58 PM

Reminds me of a headline (possibly apocryphal) many years ago, when we still thought that Britain ruled the waves:

FOG IN ENGLISH CHANNEL: CONTINENT CUT OFF

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 13 Jan 22 - 02:22 PM

Could it be that they just discovered that the 12-year-old was also the victim of a previously reported fire?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Jan 22 - 05:02 PM

I understand someone being the splitting image of their mom.
I don't get 'spitting' image.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 14 Jan 22 - 01:46 PM

I should obviously have said "was an additional victim of..."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: BobL
Date: 15 Jan 22 - 03:50 AM

Not so apocryphal: when the diggers of Channel Tunnel met in the middle, the Times' headline was

CONTINENT NO LONGER ISOLATED

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 15 Jan 22 - 08:31 AM

Spitting image is the same in French, oddly enough (portait craché). I never got that either.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 15 Jan 22 - 10:29 AM

Brace yourselves for this, straight from Oxford.

"Spitting image" is a now standard phrase that was originally a hypercorrection of...

"Spittin' image," which was a hypercorrection of...

"Spitten image," which the OED regards as "nonstandard," and which was a misconstrual of...

"Spit and image," which the editors consider perfectly standard, and which was a variation of the seminal and equally standard "very spit of."

Why exactly "spit" should have been used this way is uncertain, though uncouth possibilities do come to mind.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 15 Jan 22 - 10:54 AM

Thanks! Etymology rules, spit drools!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 16 Jan 22 - 03:33 PM

Hi, Mrrzy. My dictionary says that spit can mean 'exact likeness or image,' and merely notes that it is dialect. No origin. Spitting image used to be spit and image, as the OED observes.
=========
Here's a word I'm tired of: passion. So many people nowadays seem to be looking for their passion, blah blah blah. I have a lot of interests and causes, but I don't believe I've ever had a passion for anything.

What would I have to do if I had a passion for something? Stay up night and day doing it? Spend all my money on it? Roam the world seeking it? I have better ways to spend my time.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 16 Jan 22 - 05:39 PM

As someone prone to mania, I try to avoid passions.

That said I am up to 3x mahjongg a week...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Feb 22 - 07:52 PM

I have complained before about the phrase Stray Bullet.

I write newspapers when I see it.

Reporting that *this* time I heard back from a Washington Post reported that he promises (his word) to avoid it.

Yay, the power of the pen.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Feb 22 - 08:25 PM

To "gift" someone instead of to give them something. It's spreading like a horrible rash...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Senoufou
Date: 13 Feb 22 - 03:38 AM

A verb used as a noun is becoming quite popular. For example, 'I got an invite...'.
But as you have said on here in the past Steve, language evolves and new ways of expressing oneself emerge. I agree with you - we no longer speak as we did in medieval times.
Obviously, modern media swiftly disseminates these new language forms.
I waver between being peeved and being entertained and amused. ("Innit?")

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 13 Feb 22 - 04:56 AM

"Gift" was discussed in November 2020. Your comment at the time, Steve, included:
       .......... people who allegedly misuse "gift" ............
Perhaps you weren't as peeved back then.

A post from Reihard, on the subject, included:
The OED defines gift as a verb too besides the noun and gives as examples:
..............................................
Daily Telegraph: You can be ... gifted up to £90,000 before you become liable to tax.
J.C. Lees: The Regent Murray gifted all the Church Property to Lord Sempill.


"Give" and "gift" are not interchangeable

To "gift", as a short form of to "give as a gift", is a specific form of to "give", meaning "give of your own volition, without expecting recompense".

A sportsman who, for whatever reason, decided not to challenge for first place could be said to have gifted his opponent the win.

To "give", as in the sense of "pass to me" something that I already owned, such as:
      "Could you give me my coat, please"
would not be to "gift".

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Feb 22 - 06:13 AM

You are an erudite man, Doug, and I take your point, as ever. However, the distinction between the two senses is getting blurred, and therein lies my peeve. But I'm not that bothered. As Eliza says, it's more a source of amusement than irritation, generally earning a smirk and a tapping on the temple with one's index finger.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Feb 22 - 06:38 AM

I see that the British athletes at the Winter Olympics, at least up to yesterday, had failed to podium... ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Senoufou
Date: 13 Feb 22 - 06:45 AM

A young mother in my village told me she'd 'breakfasted the kids a bit earlier than usual.'. That made me smile I must say.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Feb 22 - 06:53 AM

Reminds me of when I read about some dead bloke in America who'd been funeralised...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 13 Feb 22 - 11:10 AM

One mistake I have seen several times recently is “reign(s)” when it should be “rein(s)”, e.g “Joe Bloggs took the reigns”, or “I’ll have to reign him in”.

And a peeve while watching an episode of “Hope Street” last week (BBC TV drama series based in N Ireland) - investigating the death of a person called Donal - which is correctly pronounced like Donald, but without the second D. All characters except one pronounced it that way, but the lovely Leila persistently called him Dohnal. No need, she had a neutral English accent. Why didn’t the producer, continuity person, or even the bluntly-spoken other characters ever correct her? It stuck out like a sore thumb!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Feb 22 - 11:15 AM

Nucular. I mean, what's so hard about saying "nuclear"??

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Geoff Wallis
Date: 13 Feb 22 - 01:18 PM

'Invite' has been around a long time as a perfectly justifiable noun.

See Words at play.

In Ireland the name Dónal is usually pronounced to rhyme with 'tonal', though parts of Belfast may be an exception.

My personal bugbear is the often inappropriate use of the word 'fury' in newspaper headlines when mere 'anger' or 'concern' may be more appropriate. I'm also not fond of the increasing use 'outlined' in newspaper reports instead of the perfectly adequate and more accurate 'described'.

Ta-ta.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Feb 22 - 01:50 PM

Howdy, Geoff!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 Feb 22 - 02:07 PM

I mind the reign/rein confusion too.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 14 Feb 22 - 03:47 PM

Thanks for the explanation, Geoff, but it still doesn’t explain why all N Irish characters, including the actress playing his own sister, called yon man “Donnle” and the England-based detective stuck religiously to Dohnal!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Feb 22 - 04:07 PM

Coh-lin Powell vs Collin Powell...?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 14 Feb 22 - 11:25 PM

However he pronounces it. That one's easy.

Between means there are 2; if there were more, it'd be Among. So between both is redundant, and redundancy is my pet peeve of mine.