BS: Language Pet Peeves

Subject: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Alvin-Songster
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 11:31 AM

"Emma Thompson attacks poor language" inspired me to begin this thread. Jump in with your own PP's.

"Awesome" use to mean "inspiring awe," but currently it's beginning to mean "better than average." "Hey, look! The Grand Canyon. Isn't that better than your average hole in the ground?" Sometimes it's even used just to say something nice. "You know how to spell cat? That's awesome!" Huh?

Where did, "Here's the deal" come from, and what will make it go away?

The word is "information," NOT "info." Is four syllables really that much more difficult to say than two? Okay if you want to use it informally, or to show you're with it. But using it on radio or television, as in, "For more info..." makes me wonder who's in charge.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: GUEST,999
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 11:48 AM

People who use the word `fuck` on threads. Hear that Spaw?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 12:09 PM

"One pence"

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: michaelr
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 12:12 PM

"...one of the only..." Someone/thing is either the only, or one of the few. Drives me nuts!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: catspaw49
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 12:50 PM

Awesome post 999 and here's the deal on that.......I'll tell myself to fuck off and that should handle it. If you need more info on my decision just lemmee know.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: akenaton
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 01:06 PM

"We shal re-double our efforts"

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: catspaw49
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 01:25 PM

You got it Ake,,,,one of the only things we can all do! Let's all give 200% 100% of the time!!!

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 03:38 PM

Then instead of than
"PIN number" (the N already stands for number)
X "a.m. in the morning" (similar issue)
"baited breath" (unless you've been eating worms)
"very unique" (see "one of the only", in a previous post)
X "peaked my interest" (unless your interest began to decline after that)
"forward" instead of "foreword"
apostrophes -- some missing, others unnecessary

These things don't bother me so much from everyday punters (we all have our strengths and weaknesses; just because spelling & grammar always seemed to come pretty easily to me (perhaps because I read a lot as a kid) doesn't mean everyone else finds them easy), but when I see them in books/magazines/newspapers or hear them on radio or TV, I really feel that someone should have caught it before it was published/aired -- aren't proofreaders/editors/subeditors supposed to notice such things?

Although... it seems that businesses rarely think it worth the time to proofread things these days -- after all, "time is money"!
I'm a graphic designer, and in more than one job I've had, it has not been appreciated when I've caught mistakes; I've been told it's not my job to worry about such things. One printer even said that mistakes were no bad thing (as long as the mistake was the client's rather than ours), since they generate more business when the job needs to be reprinted... [sigh] Let's not worry about the sheer waste of binning all that paper and ink from the first run...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Wesley S
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 04:35 PM

The word "veggies". I guess "vegetables" takes to long to say.

"Newbie" for newcomer. Same thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 04:44 PM

12 am and 12 pm ~~ if you work it out, both can only mean mean midnight, which is both 12 hours before noon [=ante meridiem] & 12 hours after noon [=post meridiem]. 'Noon' & 'midnight' are the correct terms.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: maple_leaf_boy
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 05:13 PM

I don't get "my bad" and "a$$hat".

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 05:51 PM

I think "my bad" is a useful coinage.

What is "a$$hat"?

I think I am most annoyed by the following (partly because of their frequency, partly because of their egregious nature): -

"For free" in stead of "free" or "for nothing"
Split infinitives
"Checkout" in stead of "till"
"Janitor" (or, worse, "in-store janitor") for "cleaner"
"Regular" for "ordinary". "Regular" means "recurring with a fixed periodicity".
"Expiration" (which means "exhalation") in place of "expiry"
"In the event that" in stead of "if".
"Less" in place of "fewer" (the former applies to amorphous quantities, the latter to numbers of individuals or individual things).

I am confident that more will occur to me as the evening wears on and the bottle empties.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 05:52 PM

Oh - how could I have overlooked "Off of"?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 06:15 PM

I would have sworn that I posted the following earlier in this thread:

"Epicenter" as in a usage like "Hollywood is the epicenter of the film industry in the U.S."

Oh, so the film industry in the U.S. is way down underground, and Hollywood is located on the surface above it?   Awww, c'mon!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 07:28 PM

I'd say the repetition of the word "is" in sentences like, "The trouble is, is that nobody listens."

Once you notice it, you keep hearing it everywhere (in the US).

I have only heard it in speech, probably by people who don't even realize they're saying it. I have never seen it in print.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 09:01 PM

Right here, in our very own, Mudcat, a lot of posters, use way too many, commas, without any, justification or sense. Makes it, hard to, understand. Leaving ALL commas, out, would make it, more readable!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 09:33 PM

Misuse of quotation marks and apostrophes. Also confusing compose and comprise.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: michaelr
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 10:12 PM

People who don't know the difference between palette, palate, and pallet.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 11:01 PM

Oops! How could I forget "copywrite" (for "copyright") "copywright" and even "copywritten"?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: katlaughing
Date: 02 Oct 10 - 11:42 PM

I've been having a little to-do with a newperson at the station where my Rog is chief engineer. They posted a story with the headline approximately as follows:

"Humane Society Looking to Get New Diggs"

Found out said reporter teaches at the local college and readily admitted to mistakes, which were corrected. We exchanged a couple of more comments in which she agreed using such slang as "diggs" should be guarded against, as she tells her students, but that sometimes it is "just fun."

The new headline reads as follows:

"Lots of tail wagging over proposed Roice-Hurst move"

A definite improvement, though I suppose it would be better if "tail" were plural.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: GUEST,Bert
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 01:49 AM

Second of all

Surely it should be 'second of all but one' seeing as 'first of all' has already dealt with the first one?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 01:55 AM

People who use 'gibberish-logic' ...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 02:50 AM

Uncle DaveO: for some reason you posted your 'epicenter' comment on the Emma Thompson thread ~~ I wondered at the time if you had meant it for this one, or were making some recondite point about luvviedom!

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 03:30 AM

Go figure, which is usually written as ' go figger, ' it really means " If you don't know that, I think you are stupid "

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 04:01 AM

People who say 'two things, a) blah de blah and secondly....' It's A and B or First and Second!!!

Less instead of Fewer gets me every time and I shout at the TV when an advert that uses it is shown.

'Compares to' instead of' compares with'.

I can accept that we are ruled by Microsoft's version of spelling (even when the thing is set to English rather than American English) but am driven completely spare by books and publications that have both UK and US spellings used with gay abandon, often ON THE SAME PAGE! I dearly wish to go through certain books with a red pen, correcting every mistake and send it back to the author with the exhortation to employ a proofreader or at least a bloody spell checker! The worst offender was a 'vanity printing' tome that professed to be 'one of the best guides' to its subject matter... Opened at random, I gave up counting after the spelling mistakes, grammatical and typesetting errors got to 2 dozen on one double page. Obviously the subject matter was not 'how to write correct English'.

Another pet peeve is the continued publication of historical "facts" that have been proven to be otherwise. The accusations of murder levied against Richard III is a prime example. The account of these murders were written on the orders of the man who had just usurped Richard and wanted to dispose of any potential threats. Tudor 'historians' state that Richard III had his 2 nephews murdered in the Tower of London when in fact, there is no contemporary evidence that this happened. When the Tudor dynasty was exhausted, a retraction was broadcast and Richard exhonorated. However, if you open any school history book published in the last 200 years, you'll see that Richard murdered the Princes in the Tower and that is it.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: GUEST,FloraG
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 04:01 AM

The last line is repeated ( singers)

- if so - its not the last line.

A right and left hand star - callers call. Try putting both hands in!

This door is alarmed ( poor door )

Turn into a bowl ( cooks ). How?
FloraG

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Abdul The Bul Bul
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 04:53 AM

"tiny little" and pronouncing 'aitch' with an h.
Al

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Wyrd Sister
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 05:19 AM

"Should of" as the expansion of "should've", a contraction of "should have". Same for could/would

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Paul Burke
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 05:37 AM

It's been going on a long time, and I doubt if it will stop in our species' lifetime. A hundred years ago, Disgusted of Tonbridge Wells might have written to "The Times"(*):

The word "terrific" used to mean "inspiring terror," but currently it usually means "very good."

Where did the phrase "Hello" come from, and what will make it go away?

The word is "omnibus," NOT "bus." Are three syllables really so much more difficult to utter than one? It is permissible if you want to use it informally, or to show you are "up to date". But to use it in the newspapers, as in "to catch the bus..." makes me wonder who is in charge.

Note that I've partially corrected a few solecisms ("use to", a certain laxness of punctuation), and excised contractions like "isn't" that would not have been printed in the better newspapers, but wouldn't be blinked at today.

(*) That's how he would have put it then. No one with any education wrote to the Times.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 05:51 AM

"Didn't used to" ~ horribly widespread ~ should of course be "Didn't use to": think about it. But this one a losing battle, I fear.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 06:47 AM

The American usage [following on from a post above] 'The London Times'. There is no such newspaper. It is called simply 'The Times'. A friend from US once tried to defend this, as necessary to distinguish from 'The New York Times', &c; but climbed down and admitted I was right when I pointed out that the masthead of 'The New York Times' reads 'The New York Times'; while the masthead of 'The Times' simply reads 'The Times'.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Paul Burke
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 09:27 AM

And haitch with an haitch his has hold has the 'ills.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 10:00 AM

I once bought a guidebook to the northwest United States (principally Washington and Oregon) that consistently and repeatedly referred to the "Williamette River." The correct spelling is Willamette.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 10:08 AM

"The American usage [following on from a post above] 'The London Times'. There is no such newspaper. It is called simply 'The Times'."

That's true MtheGM, and I understand that both are proper names so the insertion of a place name (as in London) isn't grammatical, but for US readers the default cultural assumption would (probably?) naturally be that if someone refers to 'The Times' they will be using shorthand for "The NY Times"?

Personally I'm inclined to think "The London Times" is sloppy journalism because you'd never get that kind of fudge used as a reference in academic literature. But is there a preferable way to disambiguate, that is both uncomplicated and concise for more general use?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: GUEST,999
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 10:11 AM

Expressions such as `Are you joking me?`

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 12:02 PM

>But is there a preferable way to disambiguate, that is both uncomplicated and concise for more general use? <

CS ~ I think 'The [London] Times', or '"The Times" of London' would both be acceptable.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 12:48 PM

I think it was GUEST,Bert who asked us:

Second of all

Surely it should be 'second of all but one' seeing as 'first of all' has already dealt with the first one?

"Of them all, the first is" blah-blah = "First of all"

"Of them all, the second is" whatever = "Second of all"

So "second of all" is perfectly logical, Bert.   I wouldn't use it myself, because the unadorned "second" is quite sufficient in that context and "second of all" is kind of cumbersome, but it's not logically or grammatically wrong.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Ed T
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 01:13 PM

in order to,....why not just to?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 01:15 PM

There seems to be a belief among tv football commentators and commenters that "Goal" is an indelicate word in some way, and the euphemism "It's in the back of the net" is somehow more seemly. I don't think I have ever heard the word "Goal" on Alan Hanson's lips, for example.

Now, why do I find this so profoundly irritating?

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 01:39 PM

"Here, here!" instead of "Hear, hear!"
"It's a mute point" instead of "moot point"

I think the reason "Here, here!", "mute point", "peaked", "baited breath" and "forward" bug me so much is that by using homonyms, people are losing the original sense(s) of the word(s), along with a certain richness of expression (and even understanding) which accompany the "proper" spelling(s), and I regret that loss -- even while knowing it's inevitable.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Penny S.
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 03:35 PM

"Fascia" instead of "facia". Lost cause already. It's a bundle of things, such as ligaments in the foot, not a facing board.

And there's something else, but fortunately I have forgotten it.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Penny S.
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 03:40 PM

"Comprises of".

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: katlaughing
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 03:57 PM

"Go figure" in my neck of the woods usually means "Who would have thought it?"

We've always referred to it as the NYTimes and the Times of London as just the Times.

I can still hear Mrs. Worcester, my old English/Latin teacher, scolding any of us who used "like" when we meant "such as." It's a lost cause, it's even been deemed "acceptable," but it still bugs me, greatly! The best example of incorrect usage she used with us was the old "Winston tastes good like a cigarette should!" My, how times have changed.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 06:27 PM

"There seems to be a belief among tv football commentators and commenters that "Goal" is an indelicate word in some wa"

... because they associate it with the 'goal' spelling of 'jail'.... and don't want to upset the supporters?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: maple_leaf_boy
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 06:41 PM

"a$$hat" or "asshat" is a term I've heard used. An "ass" is a donkey,
so a donkey hat doesn't make sense to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 09:37 PM

How could I have forgotten?

"try and".

In the vast preponderance of circumstances "try to" is correct.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 09:39 PM

I agree my peeve doesn't make much sense, but I'm peeved by people who introduce themselves by simply walking up to another person and saying their own name. As in:

"Leeneia? Jonathan Bimblethwaite."

Apparently I am so unimportant that it's too much effort to say, "Hello, I'm Jonathan Bimblethwaite and..."

When someone does that, I stare at them and say "What about him?"

When I worked at the fabric store, pushy women would sometimes barge into somebody else's transaction with "Scissors?" or "Velcro?"

I didn't let them get away with it. The person I was helping deserved my full concentration.
=============
This isn't a peeve, but it gave us a good laugh. A novel involving concert violinists said that when premier violinist So-and-so performed, "there wasn't a dry seat in the house."

Obviously got 'wasn't a dry eye' mixed up with 'wasn't an empty seat.'

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Slag
Date: 03 Oct 10 - 11:44 PM

"The END of the DAY"! How about "after all is said and done" or "The bottom line is" or "To sum up" or " the net effect is" or "with the results being" or and the conclusion is" or "in the final analysis" or just about anything except "at the end of the day" Please!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Darowyn
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 03:52 AM

"Attendees"!
Someone who attends an event is an attender.
Someone who is 'attended to' is an attendee.
So at a gig the audience are the attenders, and the artists are the attendees.
The "..er" suffix is active. The "...ee" suffix is passive.
A referee is someone who is referred to. A referrer is someone who refers.
I saw a notice on a bus recently. It said "Seating capacity 56. Standees 12"
Standees must be people who have been stood up. How sad for them!
Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Wolfhound person
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 04:09 AM

nucular

Suggestions for use of this term welcome - it looks like a good word in its own right, but what does it mean?

Nuclear I understand already, thank you (when pronounced correctly)

Paws

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 05:23 AM

Whether it is X Factor, or an obesity fitness programme or anything people are lumped together to train and go through their paces 'boot camp' I hate that.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: s&r
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 05:59 AM

Dissect and cervical with long 'i'sounds. Questionnaire and quarter with no 'w' sound (eg courter). Don't like the affectation of an otel, but like even less an hotel with the'h' aspirated.

Stu

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: s&r
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 06:08 AM

And 'he gave it to John and I'

Stu

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Wyrd Sister
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 06:24 AM

'ahead of' meaning 'before'!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: GUEST,Nigel
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 08:02 AM

"You know" and "know what I mean" make me cringe. If I know, why tell me, and if I don't know what you mean then I'll tell you.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Hrothgar
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 08:32 AM

Surplus prepositions (if anybody needs to know what a preposition is, PM me and I'll explain without telling anybody) as in "signed off on". What's wrong with "signed"?

Nigel, I am of the opinion that anybody who is being interviewed should be cut off after ten "y'know" (or "y'knows?") in the interview, or possibly after five in the one sentence.

I have counted up to ten in one long, rambling sentence, Usually they seem to be preceded by "um". It appears to be a disease amongst those of the football persuasions, especially soccer and rugby league.

Yes, I'm a snob.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 08:59 AM

Can I be frank? (meaning they can justify how rude they are going to be).

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jeanie
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 09:30 AM

I find this very irritating in TV and Radio interviews with members of the public:

"I'm married to Mary" - or "This is Bert Johnson, and you're married to Mary, is that right, Bert ?"

as if there is only ONE person called Mary in the whole world ! It should be: "My wife's name is Mary" or "...and your wife's name is Mary...."

Another pet peeve of mine is a pronunciation issue: the use of an open "ay" sound for the rounded "o" sound. I actually stopped listening to my local radio station because the travel reporter annoyed me so much with his pronunciation: "All clear on the M25 say far" (instead of "so far"). The presenter of a recent archaeology programme on TV did the same, and kept talking about "stanes" and "banes". This would be fine if the rest of the pronunciation was "heightened RP" (i.e. Noel Coward-type English), but these random rogue vowel sounds amongst otherwise standard RP really irritate.

Another annoying pronunication issue amongst broadcasters in particular: the use of "-in" as the ending of a word, instead of "-ing" when this is not part of their native dialect - i.e. the rest of their pronunciation is standard RP. Do they think it makes them sound relaxed and cool ?

- jeanie

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 10:19 AM

I think it was S&R who declared:

Don't like the affectation of an otel, but like even less an hotel with the'h' aspirated.

So is "a hostelry" or maybe "an 'ostelry" better than those?

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Penny S.
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 10:36 AM

Putting "Without Prejudice" at the head of an offensive document intended to damage someone else. Only known one usage of it, and I don't know the correct meaning of the phrase.

Using the term "goodwill payment" of a payment from a debtor designed to cover a portion of expenditure by the group he was in debt to.

Same misuser of language in each case, and one who wouldn't, indeed didn't, recognise real goodwill when it was offered.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: s&r
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 10:45 AM

A Hostelry every time. The omission of the 'h' sound is a bizarre hangover from court pronunciation when French was the language of the court. Kestionnaire and onvelope are similar.

Stu

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: GUEST,CrazyEddie
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 10:51 AM

Patsy's "Can I be frank?" brings to mind a Goons' sequence

Gridpype Thynne: "I'll I be Frank?"

Moriarty: "Yes, I'll be Gladys"

(Sound of Thynne slapping Moriaty across the face)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 11:11 AM

Here are four expressions which deserve pet-peevehood. They are from a recent thread, but bear repeating.
========
picking his brains (what an ugly image)

diddley or diddley squat (Just act yourself what it really means.)

verbal diarrhea (I'm eating!)

anal, or anal retentive (meaning merely "More particular than I")

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 11:13 AM

I have to say that, at this particular moment in time, I can't think of any particular peeve's.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 11:18 AM

I lied. Do not say "albeit" within my earshot. And, yanks, there is no need whatever to say "London, England."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 11:26 AM

One of the commonest modern horrors is saying "prior to" when you simply mean "before."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 11:28 AM

liase

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 11:29 AM

I'm sure there's a London in Canada. And "albeit" is a perfectly proper word.

But people who say "Can I" when they mean "May I" are bad for my blood pressure.

And so are people who say "literally" when they mean the opposite.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 11:29 AM

pre-order

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 11:35 AM

"I'm sure there's a London in Canada."

Without wishing to sound imperialist, "London" on its own, to all sane people (except perhaps for those living in the vicinity of London, Canada), means London on the banks of the Thames. A qualifier would be needed for the Canadian one for most people who don't live in Canada, and even for some who do. Let common sense prevail.

"And "albeit" is a perfectly proper word."

In every circumstance it can be replaced by although, though or but. It is just pretentious. Literate people avoid it like the plague, as with clichés.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 11:39 AM

Unfortunately, Steve Wikipedia has:

London is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada along the Quebec City – Windsor Corridor with a metropolitan area population of 457,720; the city proper had a population of 352,395 in the 2006 Canadian census. The estimated metro population in 2009 was 489,274.[2] It was named after the city of London in England.[3] London is the seat of Middlesex County, at the forks of the non-navigable Thames River, approximately halfway between Toronto, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan. The City of London is a separated municipality, politically separate from Middlesex County, though it remains the official county seat.


Confused? You will be!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 11:41 AM

"Avoid like the plague"? perhaps...

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 11:42 AM

I was only going from what Richard said. Do they burn hospitals in London, Canada?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 11:46 AM

"Burn?" I meant "blow up."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 11:52 AM

"One pence"

~Michael~

"One pee."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 01:28 PM

"...'goal' spelling of 'jail' " (Foolestroupe - 03 Oct 10 - 06:27).

- the word is gaol. Pronounced the way it is spelled.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Penny S.
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 01:34 PM

"With respect", "With all due respect," "With the greatest respect," etc. You know that what follows is totally without it.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: s&r
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 01:38 PM

Pronounced as jail in my dictionary Kevin

Stu

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Howard Jones
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 01:43 PM

I am prepared to defend the use of "pee" for pence. It evolved quite spontaneously on decimalisation, when it became necessary to distinguish between "New Pence" (as they were then known) and the old penny, not just on paper but in speech. "One penny" was ambiguous, "one New Penny" a bit of a mouthful, so it became "one pee".

If "pence" was said in full, it was emphasised to make it clear it meant New Pence, whereas pre-decimal the emphasis was on the amount. So we lost the old contractions: "tuppence" (emphasis on the first syllable) signified 2d whereas "two pence" (with either equal emphasis or slightly more on "pence") meant 2p. Same with "thruppence". The "ha'penny" (1/2d) became "half-p"

Of course, in time people became used to the new coinage and there was less chance of confusion, but by then these usages had become established.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 01:44 PM

Pronounced the same way whichever spelling you prefer.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 01:57 PM

Half a pee

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Bill D
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 04:43 PM

'cop-speak'..."At this point in time the inebriated individual exited the vehicle"
I wonder if that is taught in police training?

(And I HEARD an announcer say on the radio, "This program was pre-recorded earlier.")

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 05:18 PM

A few years ago I heard a Beeb weathher forecaster on the telly say that at least the overnight rain had washed the humidity out of the air.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Joe_F
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 05:40 PM

All the following, not in themselves, but in their currently fashionable senses, which perhaps need not be specified: abuse, agenda, contradiction, define, denial, disorder, dysfunctional, excellence, existential, featured, feel, foundation, genocide, icon, identity, impact, incredible, international, issue, legacy, legendary, multicultural, narcissism, personality, potential, price tag, quality, reinvent, relatively, resolve, showcase, signature, total, who.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 05:58 PM

Hiccups rather than hiccoughs.

People who say 'I don't want to be rude/offend you/single you out but... because it always means they are about to be very rude, or offensive or pick on you for something. If you don't want to do it, don't do it!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: artbrooks
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 06:10 PM

'Decimate'. It means "reduce by ten percent". It is not a synonym for devastate. An army that has 10 soldiers in every hundred killed has been decimated. A city destroyed by an earthquake is devastated.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: GUEST,Bert
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 06:49 PM

'Decimalization' when they really mean centigesamalization (or however you spell it).

There IS no unit between the pound and the new penny. The term florin is obsolete.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 07:18 PM

Yeah Joe. "Existential": is it the most pretentious word of all? Or should we vote instead for "paradigm shift?"

"A city destroyed by an earthquake is devastated."

Indeed. But it is certainly not "razed to the ground" (or, even worse, "raised to the ground").

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 07:59 PM

"Half a pee"???

Man, you gotta see a doctor about that prostate!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 04 Oct 10 - 11:26 PM

As my frequent posts will show spelling is not a strong point of mine. That being said in the USA they intentionally spell words such as labour, harbour, honour, etc. incorrectly by dropping the silent "U". That is their right, I suppose, and I have no objection to that. What does piss me off though is when computer spell-checkers keep underlining these words when I spell them correctly! That's my rant on this! :-}

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Ed T
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 12:30 AM

asHphalt, pronounced that way.
Presently, when currently is meant.
I should have went,when gone is meant.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: GUEST,Songbob
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 12:56 AM

To illustrate a few of my pet peeves in spelling, may I say:

I would of told you that some folks are just loosers,
And the Internets filled with poor English users,
But noone ever said its easy
To express yourself as non-cheesy,
Without you become a language abuser.

Yeah, I know it's not much, but it's off the top of my head, so I couldn't be exhaustive in the listing.

Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 04:04 AM

"....in the USA they intentionally spell words such as labour, harbour, honour, etc. incorrectly by dropping the silent "U". That is their right, I suppose, and I have no objection to that. What does piss me off though is when computer spell-checkers keep underlining these words when I spell them correctly!...."

Agreed, Sandy ~ tho your 'incorrectly' might be queried as a bit if a relativist term here?. And WHY does it do so when one has opted for the UK setting in the computer toolbar-menu? I mean, what is the use of having this option if it doesn't recognise this distinction?

This refers to the  system; is it the same with other computers? And, for info, the word 'recognise' in the last line of previous para has acquired a red line because I didn't type 'recognize' ~~ which I categorically decline to do, Mr Macintosh!}

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 06:42 AM

I tend not to defend many things American, but I have to speak up for American spelling. English may well have started here in England but many more non-English than English people speak English these days and a big majority use American-English spellings. It's typically quirky (and very honourable) of the Brits to hang on for dear life to their own way of spelling, but it's a bit Canute-like to berate the Yanks for their system, which (I hate to say) is often more logical than ours. But who wants logic to enter into it!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 07:50 AM

Steve ~~ If that was addressed to me or Sandy McLean, one of whose points I was developing, I would point out that neither of us was in any way 'berating' the American system; merely querying the logic of spellchecks which mark our own spelling [which I am sure you will agree at least remains a viable option] as incorrectly spelt when we have opted for the UnionJack rather than the OldGlory logo in the computer toolbar. That seems to be a piece of poor programing at  HQ to me! And an implied beratement on THEIR part of OUR perfectly acceptable system.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 08:00 AM

It wasn't directed at anyone. Just something I've occasionally mused over for some time.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 08:10 AM

Any automated telephone message especially the 'your call is important to us' aaaah!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: GUEST,Dáithí
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 09:19 AM

My current pet hate...

refute when they mean deny... and from journalists, usually1
D

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: GUEST,Songbob
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 04:34 PM

If I'm not mistaken, some software packages allow the user to choose 'British English' vs. 'American English' for their documents. But what I haven't seen so far is an Operating System with the same choices. Perhaps those choices are there when you install the damned thing, I don't know. In any case, you could type 'colour' in Word and have it right, but in a chat room (or on the Mudcat, for that matter) it gets flagged as incorrect.

Someone needs to invent a universal "universe setting," that applies language rules to all the content, no matter the source. Now that would be handy!

Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 04:53 PM

I hate the phrase
ONE HUNDRED!"!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 05:04 PM

Both my 'on-the-fly' spell checker and the one in my Opera browser allow ME to add words to their list, so I don't get 'beeped' at when I decide to type thru instead of through.

As to UK spelling vs. American...we in the colonies are fairly thrifty, and so many of our spellings are shorter....(leaving out that 'u' must save...oh...tons (not tonnes)..of printing ink and megabytes of HD space every year... ☺

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Anne Lister
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 05:04 PM

I'm another wincer every time someone confuses few and less ... but the other irritant, which has me reaching for something to throw at the radio (which tends to be where I hear it most) is the phrase "mitigate against". Must be confusion with "militate against" but it makes no sense at all.
Oh, and the almost universal misuse of the phrase "beg the question".

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 05:19 PM

and.... it's **wreak havoc, not 'wreck' havoc.......arrrggghhhhh

(you want fun? Ask folks to provide the present tense of 'wrought'.
The are 2, depending on whether it's about God or material ...(wrought iron)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 06:26 PM

Gosh yes, beg the question. Awful. Unfortunately, the sense in which it is now commonly used, to raise the question (why can't people just say that!), is so prevalent that it is now recognised as acceptable by certain authorities. Degradation rules OK...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Wesley S
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 06:48 PM

Any establishment that offers "homemade" food. Unless the person who made the apple pie lives there it's not "homemade".

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 06:53 PM

affect & effect....if you do not know the difference, please look it up. Like insure & ensure,it is NOT irrelevant.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Ed T
Date: 05 Oct 10 - 08:07 PM

Stores that advertise fresh products....only to find they were "previously frozen", or "freshened", whatever that means. Fresh does not mean anything anymore?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Oct 10 - 02:50 AM

The use of "anyone?" ~~ as in, "Let's have a thread about language. Pet-peeves, anyone?"

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 06 Oct 10 - 04:18 AM

The café across the way from me, has paninis on the menu !!!!

Man went to see his doctor. He said, "Doctor, I've got a 'orrible 'eadache"
The doctor said, "I suggest you take a couple of aspirates"

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Anne Lister
Date: 06 Oct 10 - 04:19 AM

Now you've got me started ... "Sea change"/ "Step change".
Sea change must have started with Ariel's song in The Tempest but what it has to do with change generally I don't know, but now we also have "step change". Surely it's all just changes? Permanent changes, transient changes, small changes ...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Oct 10 - 05:16 AM

Indeed, Ariel's 'sea change' in The Tempest has been greatly misunderstood and over-interpreted to mean 'a profound change'.

No such thing. In its context in the play, it simply means 'a change into something connected with the sea': as Ferdinand's father lies "full fathom five", Ariel sings, his bones are turned to coral, his eyes to pearls, and everything else about him suffers a similar 'sea change'. But the phrase sounds sorta romantic, don't it eh?; so has been over-defined to death.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 06 Oct 10 - 06:35 AM

I get annoyed by "fresh" milk, that's been pasteurised and homogenised. If had fresh milk and it's had nothing done to it, and probably still warm.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 06 Oct 10 - 07:32 AM

People who say "decayed"(sic) when they mean "decade".

It's a noun so the stress is on the first syllable (very few exceptions in English). Other words that get mangled in the same way include "project" which often gets incorrectly pronounced the same way as the verb "to project" with the stress on the second syllable.

Rule of thumb: noun - stress first syllable, verb stress second syllable.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: DMcG
Date: 06 Oct 10 - 08:43 AM

Two of my favourites: "a quantum leap" - you mean we have made the smallest possible leap?

And an apostrophe one, such as I saw at the weekend "Coffee's and Teas"
If you can't decide whether there should be an apostrophe or not, at least have the courage to go one way or the other.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Sarah the flute
Date: 06 Oct 10 - 08:44 AM

My pet hates are....

Use of the word "There" by broadcasters. Why do they have to say at the end of the reporters piece ..."Fred Bloggs there" why not "Thankyou Fred Bloggs in Afghanistan" or wherever.

Use of the phrase "Give it up for....." Give what up ? Why not just say a round of applause for.

Weather forecasters using the phrase "as the day goes along" where is it going and along which route!!!

Sarah

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 06 Oct 10 - 10:44 AM

Something else about 'decade.' It's fuzzy and pretentious.

Why are journalists so in love with the word? They are supposed to get the facts.

So why do they write "Almost three decades have passed since Joe Blow was tried for the murder of Jim Dokes?" Why not say "Joe Blow was tried 28 years ago?" Even better, "in 1982."

That way, we know the reporter has checked the facts.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 07 Oct 10 - 09:36 AM

Adverts for special collections of CD'S in particular for a certain Rock compilation set and I wouldn't be surprised if the classic ones were similar. They insist that you can ONLY BUY IT HERE! surely that must be untrue when I know that I've had nearly every track on so many other compliations that I have either bought or have ever had bought for me. I think I must have about 5 or 6 albums with Boston's More than a Feeling and Free's Alright Now.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: GUEST,greymaus
Date: 07 Oct 10 - 09:45 AM

MY pet peeve? Everyone's apparent confusion when dealing with their/they're/there or whose/who's or your/you're.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Oct 10 - 10:01 AM

"People who say "decayed"(sic) when they mean "decade"."

Misuse of Latin words or phrases, particularly where their use is superfluous. Omission of italics and square brackets where required.


Heheh. That's the beauty of threads like this. You gotta be so careful...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 07 Oct 10 - 04:26 PM

"apparent confusion when dealing with their/they're/there or whose/who's or your/you're..."

I think most people understand these forms. Mistakes happen because people are typing fast.

John MacKenzie: I just got your joke about the aspirates.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Oct 10 - 05:30 PM

"Adverts for special collections of CD'S"

Tee hee. Watch those damned apostrophe's now!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Crowhugger
Date: 07 Oct 10 - 06:04 PM

Yes, Songbob, and there's even Canadian English option sometimes. It accepts labour and neighbour as correct, but also realize, digitize etc. And it won't object to the nouns pretence, defence and practice.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 May 19 - 12:06 PM

Ok:

There is no such thing as a stray bullet. It's not as if you left the door open and it got out.

NPR has started saying "in about 10 mn from now" -- pick one, people.

Merde alord I had several more in mind when I refreshed this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 May 19 - 12:06 PM

(alors)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 22 May 19 - 12:42 PM

One that always irks me is the way the news media, at least in North America, use the noun 'suspect'. It originally meant, 'a person suspected of having committed a certain crime'; now it would seem to mean, 'a person who has definitely committed a certain crime but who has not yet been convicted in a court of law' - so you get reports such as, 'The suspect broke into the house and killed two people. Police arrested the suspect, John Smith, yesterday." Kinda defeats the purpose of using the term 'suspect', doesn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Donuel
Date: 22 May 19 - 01:14 PM

For a dyslexic there are no pet peeves with language. It is more like a painful aneurism. We have to give 400% effort 25% of the time just to be average.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Joe Offer
Date: 22 May 19 - 02:22 PM

What word would you suggest instead of "suspect," meself? Seems to me, that until a person is proved guilty, he/she is still a suspect and should not be assumed to be the perpetrator. That's why we have courts.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Thompson
Date: 22 May 19 - 02:52 PM

Is there a rule that all American films (and it's beginning to infest others) must have the line "Listen up"?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 22 May 19 - 03:01 PM

So the report should say "The perpetrator broke into the house and killed two people. Police arrested the suspect ..."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 22 May 19 - 03:05 PM

... and as a contribution:

I am getting increasingly fed up with the use, in plays, soaps, and such like, of "Well good luck with that ...".

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 22 May 19 - 03:08 PM

Exactly, Jos. (Did you read what I wrote, Joe?). The 'unknown' (or at least, unconvicted) perpetrator is the - wait for it - 'perpetrator' (or 'offender' or 'criminal'). The 'suspect' is the person suspected of having been the perp. As I say, if you are saying that the suspect committed the crime, you are saying that the suspect committed the crime - so it defeats the purpose of calling them the 'suspect', which would be presumably to allow for the presumption of innocence.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 May 19 - 03:28 PM

Law and Order does not punish the offenders, as they claim, boom boom, but the suspects.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 22 May 19 - 03:50 PM

Exactly, Jos. (Did you read what I wrote, Joe?). The 'unknown' (or at least, unconvicted) perpetrator is the - wait for it - 'perpetrator' (or 'offender' or 'criminal'). The 'suspect' is the person suspected of having been the perp. As I say, if you are saying that the suspect committed the crime, you are saying that the suspect committed the crime - so it defeats the purpose of calling them the 'suspect', which would be presumably to allow for the presumption of innocence.

If the 'suspect' is unconvicted, then it isn't reasonable to describe them as the 'perpetrator', as that has yet to be confirmed.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 22 May 19 - 04:00 PM

Going back even further:
"apparent confusion when dealing with their/they're/there or whose/who's or your/you're..."
I think most people understand these forms. Mistakes happen because people are typing fast.
NO! people don't type 'fast', they type quickly.
'Fast' is an adjective (he was a fast runner) not an adverb (he ran fast).
It may only be used as an adverb when given the meaning "firm" or "solid", as in to "stand fast" or to "hold fast". Biblically "He hath made the round world so fast that it cannot be moved"

Yes, I know the language moves on, but changing the meaning of words dilutes the ability to make clear, unambiguous comments.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 22 May 19 - 05:17 PM

"If the 'suspect' is unconvicted, then it isn't reasonable to describe them as the 'perpetrator', as that has yet to be confirmed."


You're missing the point - which I realize I muddied with my parenthetical "(or at least, unconvicted)", but we don't have an 'edit' feature. The point is, if you say that a suspect broke in and killed somebody, and that John Smith is the suspect in question, you are saying that John Smith broke in and killed somebody. So much for 'presumption of innocence". It completely defeats the purpose of using the term 'suspect'. At the same time, you're saying, nonsensically, that whoever may have committed the murder is merely a 'suspect'. If, however, you say that a perpetrator/offender/assailant/criminal broke in and killed someone, and John Smith is the suspect, there is no confusion.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 May 19 - 08:02 PM

"Is there a rule that all American films (and it's beginning to infest others) must have the line "Listen up"?"

Dunno, but there does seem to be a rule that any rudely interrupted steamy sex scene in an American film betrays the fact that the woman is still wearing bra and knickers and the man is still wearing underpants...

Back to the topic...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 May 19 - 09:26 PM

There is a lot of overuse of "alleged" too. If you're caught doing it you are no longer the alleged doer.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 22 May 19 - 09:36 PM

Re: "Listen up!". These are among the first words spoken in The Revanant - set in the later 1700s. In fact, the expression has not been traced back to any earlier than 1930s, as far as I know.

Of course, the same movie gave us a fiddler playing Ragtime Annie - which has been traced all the way back to 1923, according to The Fiddler's Companion.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 23 May 19 - 02:34 AM

Oh, let's not start with movie anachronisms. In Amadeus, Mozart had an American accent that wouldn't develop for a century. (I didn't say let's not *continue* with the anachronisms...)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 23 May 19 - 02:51 AM

There seems to be a growing practice, among BBC presenters, to pronounce a leading ‘s’ as though it was followed by ‘h’ - so, ‘shtrong’, ‘shtudent’, ‘shchool’, etc.

Drives me nuts. Anyone else noticing it?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: DMcG
Date: 23 May 19 - 05:07 AM

A growing one for me is statement as an adjective, as in a recent John Lewis advertisement for 'a statement sofa'. My sofa can keep its statements to itself, thank you. The only statement I am happy for it to make is that I like to sit down occasionally.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Donuel
Date: 23 May 19 - 06:10 AM

Mrzzy is not a suspect. He is a person of interest, in a good way.
bearded bruce is a 'person of interest' in a bad way.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: G-Force
Date: 23 May 19 - 06:33 AM

One that gets me here in the UK is the pronunciation of the 'oo' vowel sound. When I was growing up (in the South East anyway) it was like 'oooh', whereas now it is commonly like the French 'y' or the German 'u-umlaut' sound. So for example 'food' sounds more like 'feud'.
This seemed to start about 20 years ago with young females - perhaps they thought they were sounding sexy, I don't know. But now it has spread - you hear it all the time on TV.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 23 May 19 - 11:23 AM

Misuse of "after" as in They died after being hit by a train. No, they were killed by a train. If you survive for a while you can die after. If you die right then, it isn't after.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 May 19 - 11:45 AM

What about the tendency for young people to fail to open their mouths properly when enunciating a word such as "book," thereby rendering it "berk"...and altering the short "i" sound at the end of words to "ee" as in "monee" and "societee" and industree"... And politicians who say "...going forward" deserve to be twatted right on the nose!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 23 May 19 - 12:11 PM

Using definitive when definite is meant.
Unravel when untangle is meant.
"The next level" What is that supposed to be?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 23 May 19 - 01:23 PM

...and altering the short "i" sound at the end of words to "ee" as in "monee" and "societee" and industree

But it IS "monee", "societee" and "industree", at least where I come from. I can't recall anyone saying "moni".

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 23 May 19 - 01:42 PM

'Misuse of "after" as in They died after being hit by a train'

The version of this (often heard in regional television news bulletins) thst worries me is: "They were killed after being hit by a car" - as if they were lying in the road in pain and somebody came along and finished them off.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 May 19 - 01:45 PM

I'm a northerner, Doug. We talk proper up yon.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 23 May 19 - 02:24 PM

I'm a northerner, Doug.

So am I.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: saulgoldie
Date: 23 May 19 - 03:24 PM

Well, for better or for worse (or worser) language is dynamic. Sometimes the new usages can be interesting and enriching. Others, they just represent devolution. We all have our favorites on either side.

A couple of my own "faves" are--
Raising one's pitch toward the end of a statement as if it is were question.
Inserting a letter "h" where it does not belong (mentioned earlier).
Dropping a "d" or a "t" Where it DOES belong.
These two seem to be some sort of affectation more prevalent among young women.
Extraneous or missing apostrophes, check.
Extraneous or missing commas, check.

Now, this is my YUGE big cahuna of all word misuses. It is YUGE not because it sounds stupid/lazy/whatever. But because Its misuse f-u-n-d-a-m-e-n-t-a-l-l-y changes the meaning. That is the use of "can't." Look, if you "can't" do something, it is something that you are INCAPABLE of doing. You do not have the physical strength or coordination to do whatever it is. It does NOT mean that you do not have PERMISSION.

If you are physically CAPABLE of doing something but there are consequences that you do not like, then you must acknowledge that you CHOOSE to not do it, rather than that you "can't" do it. People say "can't" so they can avoid taking responsibility for the CHOICE that they make to avoid the consequences.

This misuse is an example of devolution. This misuse does not clarify anything, and does not provide some new and novel way of illuminating a point.

Saul

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 May 19 - 04:04 PM

You could be Yorkshire, though, Doug. It's not proper north tha knows...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 23 May 19 - 05:08 PM

No, never Yorkshire but I have moved across the country from the Mersey to the Humber, via Manchester.

On reflection, my grandson, who was brought up in South Yorkshire, calls my wife "Granneh" and would probably say "moneh". I've never stopped to think about it - it's just the way he talks.

There was one TV advert, for gas central heating I think, that used the Carol King song "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" which opened with the line "Tonight you're mine completeleh" ARRRRG!

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 23 May 19 - 06:28 PM

Jos... Exactly.

People are hanged. Pictures are hung.

In that vein (sorry) the widow, not the wife, files for death benefits or whatever.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Bill D
Date: 23 May 19 - 07:57 PM

"vocal fry"

I was aware of it before I ever heard it explained. People make excuses for it and justify it in various ways, but it really wears on me.

As to usage: Certain military usages..like using 'contingency' when they mean 'contingent'... "To put down the uprising, we sent in a contingency of peace keepers." arrrgghh...

And media people who will NOT learn how celebrities pronounce their names.. It's Michael COHEN.. not 'Cone' or 'Cohn'. They are studying how to say 'Buttigieg', but can't say Cohen?

Also, media people who refuse to pronounce, as closely as possible, the names of foreign cities & countries. Some are very difficult, but Nicaragua has 4 syllables, not 5. The 'u' and 'a' are not separate syllables. Simply stating "that's how we've always said it." is not much of a defense. Yes, I'm aware my opinion is not likely to alter anyone's habits.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 23 May 19 - 09:52 PM

Well, when I am speaking English I pronounce things, like foreign things, in English. When I speak French it's PaREE, in English PAriss.
People's names are another thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 23 May 19 - 09:57 PM

Also pronouncing cache like cachet, as in, there was a cachet of arms. No, there wasn't.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Bill D
Date: 23 May 19 - 10:25 PM

No.. a cachet of arms would mean something like "my bomb is bigger than your bomb"...not something we want to test..

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Joe Offer
Date: 23 May 19 - 10:42 PM

Meself, I'll stick with "suspect." After all, the crime itself has not been proved until the trial. So, it is a "suspected" or "alleged" crime until the court has proved it.
But I'll still respect you in the morning....

-Joe-

And yes, I did read what you wrote. I just disagreed.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 24 May 19 - 01:09 AM

Do you really not see a significant difference between:

1) The suspect killed Bill Jones. The suspect is John Smith.

and

2) The assailant killed Bill Jones. The suspect is John Smith.

?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Joe Offer
Date: 24 May 19 - 01:57 AM

Hi, Meself - I will agree that assailant is a better term, but I think that "suspect" works reasonably well.
I'm a member of the "whatever works as long as it doesn't sound stupid" school. "Suspect" is common usage, and it doesn't sound particularly stupid. I'm not bound to pedantry, but I have to admit that your choice of the word "assailant" is damn good.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: DMcG
Date: 24 May 19 - 02:36 AM

media people who will NOT learn how celebrities pronounce their names

Not always as easy as it seems. My daughter was at school with Gemma Arterton, who pronounced her name A - er - t'n at the time.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 May 19 - 03:14 AM

"She married her husband in 2017." Considering how expensive weddings are, what a waste of money doing it twice...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 24 May 19 - 03:41 AM

"She married her husband in 2017."

Unless she was a vicar, registrar or other such appointed official, she got married to someone in 2017.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 24 May 19 - 07:40 AM

Doug, doesn't that make a nonsense of the well known question:

"Will you marry me?"

Somehow, "Will you get married to me?" doesn't have that special something ...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 May 19 - 07:59 AM

"Romeo, Romeo, where art thou Romeo?"

"Money is the root of all evil."

"Theirs but to do or die!"

"Beam me up, Scotty!"

"Elementary, my dear Watson."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: DMcG
Date: 24 May 19 - 08:10 AM

Quoting Shakespeare can be tricky:

"Uncle me no uncle" -- Richard II, Act 2 Scene 3.

I an not quite sure what part of speech that first 'uncle' is...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 May 19 - 08:55 AM

"Crisis? What crisis?"

"Let them eat cake."

"Not tonight, Josephine."

"It's life, Jim, but not as we know it."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 May 19 - 09:22 AM

Not as we know it, not as we know it. Great video, that.

I saw a headline (clickbait) that said Groom cries as bride reveals love for his spouse. What? Bigamy?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 24 May 19 - 09:31 AM

"Romeo, Romeo, where art thou Romeo?"

I'm not picking on you, Steve. It's just by chance that you are the one I keep disagreeing with - nothing personal - but the quote is:-
"Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?"

Wherefore, in this case, means "why". Why did you have to be a Montague?

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 May 19 - 09:46 AM

Er, I did know that, Doug. Are you sure you're getting me drift?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 24 May 19 - 09:49 AM

Doug, doesn't that make a nonsense of the well known question:

"Will you marry me?"

Somehow, "Will you get married to me?" doesn't have that special something ...

Of course, in every day usage, only a pedant would make the difference between the passive form of being married and the active form of officiating at the ceremony. However, we are in a thread called "Language Pet Peeves" where the distinction is being made between the status of the groom before and after the nuptials.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 24 May 19 - 09:51 AM

OK Steve! I'm easily confused.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Charmion
Date: 24 May 19 - 10:04 AM

Tautologies.

Today's irritant: "fellow classmates".

Aaaaargh!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 May 19 - 10:35 AM

Ooh yeah!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 May 19 - 06:27 PM

Me too, Doug. I'm thinking of getting meself analysed some time in the next thirty or forty years... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Raedwulf
Date: 24 May 19 - 07:32 PM

"Step foot". With apologies to the American contingent here, stupid Americanism!! Because it has been creeping into British English these last several years, I believe, from American English.

Step doesn't work like that. You can step up, step out, step back, step on; you step in a direction. You can take a step, and a foot is also a measure of length. But you don't "step inch / metre / whatever". You can set foot; you are putting your foot somewhere (in it, possibly...). But you don't "step foot". Stupid, meaningless, idiotic misuse of the English language, whether it's the American or British version!!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Bill D
Date: 24 May 19 - 07:56 PM

Interesting... I've been an adult American for 60 years, and I have never heard "step foot". I suppose it occurs when someone just doesn't hear 'set foot', but it's a new one to me. Next time, ask them where they got it.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 May 19 - 08:03 PM

Don't worry, Bill. Raedwulf will quite likely elucidate once he's had a good night's kip...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Donuel
Date: 24 May 19 - 08:17 PM

There are mornings I step foot
first in fresh cat puke stink
My tell tale foot steps lead to the sink
But I've never heard of step foot.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 25 May 19 - 02:34 AM

Reminds me of Teresa May at (I think) the last general election, who had been 'knocking on doorsteps'.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 25 May 19 - 02:45 AM

I have been increasingly annoyed by politicians going on about Brexit and what they think is the need to "get it over the line". Are they playing rugby, or American football, or shove ha'penny - who knows?
You would think the future of the country is too important to be reduced to a game.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 May 19 - 06:04 AM

"Delivering brexit" is almost as bad.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: DMcG
Date: 25 May 19 - 06:37 AM

Heard on Radio 4 this morning that some sportsperson's hand is "slightly fractured". A small fracture I understand...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 27 May 19 - 07:17 AM

In the last 60 years.... What used to be 'Would have.....could have.... and.... should have which when shortened became would've, could've and should've...........have become would of... could of and should of in the UK..... How on earth did we get there??? Poor teaching in schools to put it bluntly.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Charmion
Date: 27 May 19 - 08:44 AM

Georgiansilver, you have a good one there. This form of words is also dealing the last blow to the subjunctive of "have": "If she would of gone home on time ..."

While we're here, let's all yell Boo and Sucks to people who insist on using phrases from foreign languages without knowing how to pronounce them. Every time I hear "coo de grah" where "coup de grace" is meant, I wince rather too visibly and hiss rather too loudly.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 May 19 - 09:08 AM

Yes, the correct usage of foreign phrases is, for me, a sine qua non.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 27 May 19 - 10:09 AM

Three annoying/confusing ways in which people begin the answer to a question:

So ...

Yes no ...

The point is is ... (heard on Radio 4 only this morning)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 27 May 19 - 10:18 AM

People who say "If I would have ..." when they mean "If I had ...".


And in describing amounts:

"the most number of" instead of "most of"

and, for example:

"half of all the people in the country ..." instead of "half the people in the country ..."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 27 May 19 - 11:19 AM

Coo de gras, ew. Also bon appetiT.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 27 May 19 - 12:01 PM

'bonn zhaw'

'merci bokew'

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 27 May 19 - 01:48 PM

"Gunman." Just because some brute shoots somebody doesn't make him a gunman.

If I use a pair of scissors, do I become a scissorwoman? No, I'm still just a woman.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 27 May 19 - 03:22 PM

Not really a peeve, but interesting regarding guns, was an occasion some years ago when I heard a news report of the same incident on three BBC radio stations. On Radio 3 (mainly classical music), listeners were told that a man had been 'shot and killed'. On Radio 4 (news, documentaries, plays), the man had been 'shot dead'. On Radio 1 (pop music aimed at younger listeners), he had been 'gunned down'.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Bill D
Date: 27 May 19 - 08:47 PM

I lived in St. Louis for 6 months. There were several streets I was familiar with that had interesting names I'd never have encountered in Kansas: It took awhile for me to connect the spelling on maps & signs with how the locals referred to them.

Cabanne Place where I lived was 'Cabbany'

DeBaliviere was 'De Boliver'

Gravois was 'Gra-voys' (as near as I could tell)

There were others, all sounding as if they were being pronounced by someone from The Bronx. I...umm.. adapted

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 May 19 - 08:46 AM

Well near me there's a village called Wolfardisworthy. It's pronounced "Wolsery." The ancient capital of Cornwall, Launceston, is "Lanson" unless you're an emmet. Half a mile from my house there's Widemouth Bay. Say "Wide Mouth" if you want to provoke a splutter. It's "Widmuth."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: DMcG
Date: 28 May 19 - 08:53 AM

The comedian Dave Gorman in one of his shows says there is a sign on his station for "Loughborough University." He claims he is often asked how is is pronounced and says "Low-brow University" which he finds pleasing because "it is true and false are the same time.'

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 28 May 19 - 10:30 AM

New UVa grad students in psych had a whole orientation on pronunciation and language... Rio Rd is Rye-oh, not Ree-oh. Monticello is chello, not sello. Grounds, not campus; first second etc -years, not freshmen sophomores. The Corner is a neighborhood. I got used to the pronunciation, but still thought of my students as juniors. There was more...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 28 May 19 - 01:51 PM

That's a good observation about the shooting, Jos.
===========
There's a pompous habit that gets on my nerves. Example:

phone rings

Leeneia: Hello
Pompous twit: Leeneia? Arthur Fotheringay.

Not "This is Arthur Fotheringay." or "My name is Arthur Fotheringay, and I'm calling about..."

Apparently I am supposed to be so focused on the incredible Arthur Fotheringay that all he has to do is utter the two words, and I'm completely absorbed in his personality. Also, I am so unimportant that he cannot waste a few polite syllables on me.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 May 19 - 04:19 PM

Tommy Cooper:

The phone rang so I picked it up and said "Who's speaking, please?"

A voice said "You are."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 28 May 19 - 04:36 PM

Here's another language peeve of mine: people who put others down using the lingo of psychiatry or psychology when the situation doesn't merit it and they lack the qualifications to assess others.

In a thread about chords, somebody started a post with "The fixation on chord names..." Now a fixation is a serious problem in a damaged mind. Telling the world that So-And-So has a fixation is arrogant and uncalled for. Naturally the post was not well-received.

We hear other examples often. Calling somebody paranoid because they're more fearful than most. Calling somebody a nympho when she's sexier than most. It's dishonest, and I dislike it.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 28 May 19 - 05:55 PM

Yeah, as a psychologist I find the misuse of my jargon annoying.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 May 19 - 06:07 PM

Psychiatrist to neurotic patient "You have acute paranoia"

Neurotic Patient "I came here to be treated, not admired"

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 29 May 19 - 09:38 AM

Tommy Cooper:
The phone rang so I picked it up and said "Who's speaking, please?"
A voice said "You are."


So, in effect they were both wrong.
At the time Tommy asked "Who's speaking", he was speaking.
At the time the caller said "you are" the caller was also incorrect.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 29 May 19 - 05:08 PM

"Would of" and "Could of" and of course "Off of" were the common usage in Somerset schools in the 1960s despite constant corrections from the teachers.

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 May 19 - 06:09 PM

You really do have a problem, don't you, Nigel? :-) :-) :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 29 May 19 - 08:00 PM

Strangled means dead, also.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 29 May 19 - 10:00 PM

And if your spouse is dead you're the widow(er), not the wife/husband.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 30 May 19 - 11:13 AM

Hello, Mrrzy. I'm glad to hear that someone else gives thought to the bullying power of psych terms used carelessly.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 30 May 19 - 12:22 PM

Language is about communicating ideas. If someone pays too much attention to how "correctly" a communication is worded, then he/she is probably paying too little attention to the thought being communicated. It's analogous to valuing the packaging more than what's in the box.

Having said that, it still grates when my step-son tells a waiter he's going to "do" whatever dish he's ordering. I'm not sure if he's going to eat it, shoot it dead, or fuck it.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 30 May 19 - 01:22 PM

Don't blame the younger generation - AFAIK, that use of "do" emerged from hippy culture in the '60s, when people started to "do" rather than "take" drugs. That's when I first encountered that word-use; I remember the time and place ....

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 30 May 19 - 08:21 PM

Mis-placed/unnecessary apostrophes are top of my list, or not using them when they should be there.
Dey-ja voo (already you) instead of dey-ja vyu (already seen) for the other language ones. (phonetic spelling there!)
Complimentary and complementary: so often confused/used incorrectly.
Your and you're.
There, they're and their.
And, of course, could of, would of, should of.

There are a few Scots peculiarities too, such as people saying, and spelling the following word as definATEly. And it's quite commonplace to hear "he has went" instead of "he has gone".

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 30 May 19 - 09:53 PM

Voo, not vyu, is how I have always heard it...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 30 May 19 - 10:37 PM

Tattie, you must have learned your French in a different ecole from moi ... !

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: michaelr
Date: 30 May 19 - 11:24 PM

One that always gets to me is "one of the only..." No, it's either one of the few, or it is The Only.

Another is the misplacement of the word just, as in "You just can't come barging in here" when what's meant is "You can't just come barging in here".

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 31 May 19 - 08:09 AM

One that always gets to me is "one of the only..." No, it's either one of the few, or it is The Only.

It depends on the missing part of the sentence. e.g. "This is one of the only seven known to exist." would appear to be a correct use of the words.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 31 May 19 - 09:04 AM

One of the 7, I would think. I just am lovin' this thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 31 May 19 - 10:00 AM

It's not a peeve, but I'm amused by the word "ones." Example: He's one of the ones who trampled Mrs. Hardwick's petunias.

How can there be more than one one?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: beachcomber
Date: 31 May 19 - 10:02 AM

Politicians, in particular, but many other people use "grow" incorrectly, eg Some say "We will grow our economy...!"

I would like to ask the opinions of Mudcatters on the use of an "R" sound between a word that ends in a vowel and one that commences with a vowel, such as "Aston Villa (r) are the new Champions. Is this a correct figure of speech ?? I've even heard "I saw (r) him do it" ???

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: DMcG
Date: 31 May 19 - 10:25 AM

Just read on a tour guide leaflet :
"Here they stage traditional dance shows, local handicraft workshops and mythical ceremonies"

I might be interested in seeing a mythological ceremony. I think I would feel conned to pay to see a mythical one.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: John P
Date: 31 May 19 - 12:15 PM

I'm tired of being asked for detes.

Light isn't spelled "Lite". I even had a gas stove with "Lite" on the dial.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 31 May 19 - 02:30 PM

I am reminded of a friend who had a sign over his sink that said THINK! There was also a sign above the stairs that said THTAIRS!...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 31 May 19 - 04:42 PM

Well I'm a stickler for the use of good English, but I must say that many of the complaints here remind me of King Canute. Language is wot people speak, not wot professors of language profess. Whether we like it or not, what we often regard as linguistic outrages generally end up as standard English. "Begging the question," for example, which started out as one thing has become entirely another, and, as such, will be regarded even by naysayers as standard English in its new meaning. If we don't accept the changes we become as the dinosaurs did....

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 31 May 19 - 07:27 PM

What, birds? Ahahahaha sorry.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 31 May 19 - 08:00 PM

@mrzzy and meself: it is déjà vu, not déjà vous. Malheureusement, too many people pronounce the "vu" wrongly. The French pronunciation is definitely not "voo" as in "vous". There is not an exact English equivalent, but it is closer to "view" than "voo".
I learned my French at school, yes, but also by staying with a French family for several months; they would not have said "déjà vous"!!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: michaelr
Date: 31 May 19 - 09:33 PM

Nigel Parsons -- in that case it should be "one of only seven" - "the" is superfluous.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Neil D
Date: 31 May 19 - 10:58 PM

Mrrzy said: "People are hanged. Pictures are hung."
Reminds me of the scene from "Blazing Saddles" when Bart, who had recently been spared hanging and appointed sheriff, runs into an old acquaintance who says : "Bart, they told me you was hung". Bart responds "and they was right".

My pet peeve is intentionally misspelled word in products or company names. When I used to make meat deliveries in Cleveland, the two big grocery chains on the East Side were Bi-Rite and Sav-Mor. It drove me to distraction.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 01 Jun 19 - 03:04 AM

And what about "very unique". How can you have degrees of uniqueness?

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: DMcG
Date: 01 Jun 19 - 03:21 AM

Steve is right about how language evolves and changes, but it can be confusing. A moment ago I read Pixar has dropped a trailer for a new film. In 'old-think' that means the trailer has been cancelled, removed, has gone. In 'new-think' it means it is now available.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 01 Jun 19 - 05:43 AM

"People are hanged. Pictures are hung."

It is particularly grating in My Fair Lady, a film specifically about the correct use of English, when Rex Harrison sings (or, rather, says)

By law she should be taken out and hung,
For the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 01 Jun 19 - 09:13 AM

English-speakers can't pronounce the French "u" of vu, but nobody I've heard say it [Yogi Bera] pronounces it with a y (vyu). They [English speakers] do not differentiate vous (voo) and vu (voo).

As a native French speaker I have no problem with that. See Paris, above.

Maybe Higgins was singing tongue in cheek?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 01 Jun 19 - 09:24 AM

As far as I can see from Chambers and the Oxford Dictionary Online, people may be “hung” or “hanged” but the latter is rather more common.

The Oxford one goes on to explain:   

The reason for this distinction is a complex historical one: hanged, the earlier form, was superseded by hung sometime after the 16th century; it is likely that the retention of hanged for the execution sense may have to do with the tendency of archaic forms to remain in the legal language of the courts

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mr Red
Date: 01 Jun 19 - 10:55 AM

'The suspect broke into the house and killed two people. Police arrested the suspect, John Smith, yesterday." Kinda defeats the purpose of using the term 'suspect', doesn't it?

Yes and No. Languge is fluid and meanings morph.

Gay has meant, over a period of several hundred years, variously sexually active as in "brisk young widow" to happy about life with no sexual connotations, to the modern appropriation.

As Nigel Rees was won't to say in his books: "bad meanings drive out good"

Hung is ambiguous without context (sexual connotations rear up (sic) again), whereas hanged is more specific. And I am hanged if I know why!
I know which I prefer to be!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 01 Jun 19 - 01:39 PM

I don't usually take any notice of sports results, but I have noticed lately that instead of winning cups and trophies teams 'lift' them. It sounds as if they stole them.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 01 Jun 19 - 04:58 PM

How can there be more than one one?
In binary notation numbers are represented by a series of ones and zeros

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Jun 19 - 05:45 PM

You're all worrying far too much. What you should be worrying about is the fact that Nigel failed to insert a full stop in his last post.. Cheers! :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Bill D
Date: 01 Jun 19 - 09:12 PM

I despise the trend of *verbing* nouns... :"Our staff has surfaced some new data."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 02:12 AM

Like when an Olympic athlete fails to medal...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: DMcG
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 02:20 AM

Sort of, Bill. I would say it is one of the glories of the English language that we can use pretty much any word as a noun, verb, adjective, adverb ... and bring out a 'tone' that would otherwise go unnoticed. In the hands of a skilled poet or writer this can be wonderful.

Most of us, though, are not skilled poets or writers...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 03:10 AM

Maybe Higgins was singing tongue in cheek?

I think you are being too generous, Mrrzy. In any other film, poetic licence would allow the rhyming of hung with tongue - but not this one. The lyricist simply got it wrong and the director didn't pick it up.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 08:15 AM

Well, for off rhymes, Tom Lehrer wins. Uncut, and unsubt [riff] tle.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mr Red
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 10:47 AM

Mispronunciation and enjambed rhymes for comic effect are all the funnier. Mind you Cole Porter did it all the time to make the yric more fluid and flowing.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 06:41 PM

OK, Mrzzy, I did qualify my last post by saying that the French 'Vu" is not the same as "view". How we were taught to say it requires considerable oral contortions: put your lips forward as if you were going to say a "oo" sound, but then say "ee" instead, and you'll get that odd cross between the 2 sounds, for which there is no English comparison!
Parfait, ou non?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 Jun 19 - 07:37 PM

Nice! Turlututu chapeau pointu! (That was the exercise for the English speakers)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: JennieG
Date: 03 Jun 19 - 07:31 AM

Many newsreaders here add an extra syllable to words beginning with 'thr', perhaps for emphasis.....for example, "three" becomes "the-ree" and "threat" is now "the-reat", etc.

It is annoying. I have become one of those Olde Phartes who yells at the TV because of things such as this.

Also - when did a sporting match become a "clash"? Something else to yell about......

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 03 Jun 19 - 07:41 AM

Another that has been really getting on my nerves is "from the get-go"

(often pronounced "from the gecko").

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 03 Jun 19 - 08:58 AM

That extra syllable is highly folksong-y (the t-uh-rain pulled away on that g-uh-lorious night)... I have not yet had to yell at my radio over it. Yet.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 03 Jun 19 - 01:39 PM

@Jos: and if they don't win their match they "crash out"! (No, they just lost a game!!)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: JennieG
Date: 03 Jun 19 - 04:56 PM

When the news is sung they can add as many extra syllables as they like.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 03 Jun 19 - 07:23 PM

"Pet Peeves"?
You can't, he's a poltergeist, so incorporeal. (at least according to J K Rowling)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Jun 19 - 01:45 AM

You may as well give up on things such as get-go. It's standard English now. As a matter of fact, though I'd never write it, I quite like it and I use it all the time.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 04 Jun 19 - 10:47 AM

Yeah, I remember my dad saying get-go, and I'm old. Ish.

This reminds me of my sisters quizzing mom on modern (in the 60's) slang, and after each phrase, mom said That's over my head. Then they said something (I forget what) and mom says wait, I don't understand that one. "Went over her head" went over her head! We died laughing.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Jun 19 - 10:09 AM

Also why does ouster mean ousting?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 07 Jun 19 - 11:18 AM

"From the get-go" does not appear in print until the 1960s, apparently. Some think it morphed from the expression, "From the word 'go'"; personally, I think the similarity is coincidental (due to the opposing rhythmical stresses in the two expressions; 'the GET-go' would not naturally emerge from 'the word GO').

Another theory is that it is an abbreviated version of "Get ready, get set - GO!"

Yet another theory has it as coming from the clunky formation "getting going" - I think "get going" more likely.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jun 19 - 07:19 PM

Thing is, with us old fogies we'd tend to think that the old is better than the new. Therefore "from the word go" is better than "from the get-go." But I'm not so sure. Looked at utterly objectively, which is a very bad thing to do, both expressions are equally bad, or equally good. So I'm going with the flow. And you know me...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: SamStone
Date: 07 Jun 19 - 10:48 PM

luv it when the eastenders say "neiver" for neither

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: lefthanded guitar
Date: 08 Jun 19 - 02:11 AM

Prefacing a sentence with the inane phrase "Not for nothing, but......" Whatever the f*** does that mean?! I've even asked people who say it, and they don't know.


This is seconded in irritating language by the phrase " Not to talk about it... but...." And then, of course, they talk about it.

Shaddup. ;)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 08 Jun 19 - 06:04 AM

Similarly Whatever the f*** does that mean? is just a longer way to ask "What does that mean?"

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Jun 19 - 06:23 AM

No it doesn't. At least in the written word, one is a neutral request for an explanation. The other is highly-nuanced, and, depending on context, might imply surprise, derision, shock or outrage. In the spoken word, much would depend on how you express either.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Jun 19 - 06:24 AM

I meant "No it isn't." Grr.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Jun 19 - 06:30 AM

And if you want to know one of my pet peeves it's the use of asterisks in swear words. Even The Guardian doesn't permit them. I sometimes use them sarcastically, for example in the expression "Trump is a complete and utter b*ast*ard." That method also comes in handy on those websites that automatically replace your swear word with a different word.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 08 Jun 19 - 06:45 AM

I do wish people would say 'inspiring' instead of 'inspirational'.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 Jun 19 - 03:03 PM

There was a thing for awhile where one said So (something that can't be so), such (something that can't be such), wow. Took me forever to get it right. So effort, such wrong, wow. But now nobody uses it.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 08 Jun 19 - 07:58 PM

Well where have I been hiding? I have NEVER EVER in ma puff heard ANYONE say "from the get-go"! And yet you say it's commonplace?
Yes, I have heard, and would use myself "from the word go" or "from the off" but no, nay, never "from the get-go". Could be a song in that?.......

And it's no, nay, never, - - -
No, nay from the get-go
Will I play the go-getter
In your game of get-go

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: JennieG
Date: 10 Jun 19 - 02:28 AM

A turn of phrase which is cropping up more and more - here in Oz, at least - is "forced to do such and such". A news item yesterday about a boat sinking was "survivors forced to cling to wreckage". This morning's local rag has a front page story "police forced to taser man involved in brawl". That's just two instances of what are becoming more and more usages of "forced to".

The stories would be more succinctly told "survivors cling to wreckage" and "police taser man" but perhaps they would then lack a little drama, and some folk like to milk all the drama they can from their stories.

I know language is a living thing, constantly changing and evolving.....and while I do enjoy some current terms and words, I don't have to always like where it is going or some of the stops along the way.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mr Red
Date: 10 Jun 19 - 08:51 AM

And what about starting an answer with "So..........."

I find it distracting, in a way that "Ah" or "Well",** and "yes" isn't off-putting. Yet they serve the same purpose, a delay while the answerer (sic) can collect their thoughts - usually on a subject they know well.

So........... it is a modern affectation, and as Folkies, Traditionalists,** and old Fogies we find strange on our ears.

Language morphs all the time. Consider words for being "in fashion/good", hip, hot, cool,** and wicked - all words with contra contexts.

** Pedants'*** corner - note use of the Oxford comma.

*** note use of the Oxford Grocer's**** apostrophe.

****yes, yes. There are more than one Oxford Grocer, but only one who misspells "'" AFAIK.





So.......... I'll get my côte

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: DMcG
Date: 10 Jun 19 - 09:06 AM

I don't worry at all about my spelling and grammar on Mudcat - I am not producing a work of literature, after all. But I do expect professional documents to be to higher standard. I got a bit of sales promotion that said this:

"Cruises here bring to your holiday a balance of both nature and elegant grounds."

There is *some* semblance to English...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: weerover
Date: 10 Jun 19 - 10:17 AM

I agree with DMcG on mistakes in general, we all make them, but I frequently find basic errors in textbooks intended for the teaching of English in schools, which I consider unforgiveable.

I am somewhat surprised that Tattie Bogle has never encountered "the get-go". I believe we are fairly close geographically, and I have heard it many times, though usually on TV.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 10 Jun 19 - 06:01 PM

This is more than a peeve. i am dismayed at parents of young children who are so absorbed in their electronics or their own conversations that they completely ignore their young child.

The process by which a little one (age one to five) acquires language is one of the most amazing things in all of nature. In addition it's interesting, gratifying or adorable to participate in.

Two days ago I pre-boarding an airplane, and two parents with a little girl were getting aboard just ahead of me. Her parents allowed her to step on the jetway, with its slope and its sudden steep ramps while staring at a small electronic screen. Soon she stopped looking at held up a hot pink teddy bear. Three times she asked, "Is this a stuffed toy?" Nobody answered the first two times. Finally her mother said yes.

If a parent had simply said "Don't interrupt" that would have been better than pretending she doesn't exist. And really, what is so important that you can't stop yacking long enough to see your child safely down a jetway and into the plane?

Then she asked three times, "What animal is it?" Her mother said "You figure it out." That's not going to teach her anything.

As we approached the door into the plane, they allowed her to pull on a metal bar covered with a bright yellow coating. Didn't observe what she was doing, didn't tell her to stop. Didn't explain that parts of an aircraft are not toys and are not to be touched. In short, no parenting was going on.
===============
Ya know, a lot of people are irritated by teen-agers' "up-talk." I think up-talk reflects the insecurity of young people who do not feel confident that an adult is listening to them. They put a question in every utterance because they are unconsciously asking "Are you paying any attention? Do you hear me? Are you there?"

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mr Red
Date: 11 Jun 19 - 03:52 AM

I see it all the time on buses. Pushchair facing the front and the mother behind, fixed on the phone.
Less than half of them put the chair facing back, which is the correct way in case of a sudden stop. And it affords eye contact parent & child.

As a non parent, I once read that engaging in what the child is interested in allows them to learn faster. Ignoring or deflecting them with other things, doesn't. When in the company of a toddler I tend to follow their interest, now.

Some understand, some don't. As Winston Churchill said "The two most important jobs in life are given to amateurs, parenthood & citizenship"

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 11 Jun 19 - 10:58 AM

Excellent points, Mr. Red.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 11 Jun 19 - 12:25 PM

Many years ago when I used to push a child along in a pram, the pram was designed so that the child would sit facing me, but did he want to sit and look at me? No, whenever possible (that is, when it wasn't raining) he liked to have the hood down so that he could turn round and see where we were going.

(There were no portable phones or electronic devices in those days, but even now I do not use one while walking along.)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 13 Jun 19 - 03:53 AM

"Get-go": I don't watch much TV which is maybe why I haven't heard it.
I prefer " My get-up-and-go has got up and went"!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 Jun 19 - 12:51 PM

Tattie, this is now a music thread!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 13 Jun 19 - 05:30 PM

I have no pet peeve with that!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 14 Jun 19 - 11:01 AM

Fox News, reporting on an awful incident where a pregnant woman was murdered and the fetus[before]/baby[after] was kidnapped, used the term "womb-raider" in headlines when the baby died.

I was horrified and kinda impressed at the same time.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 15 Jun 19 - 10:17 PM

I dislike that, Mrrzy. "Womb-raider" sounds too much like a term from science fiction. What a horrible crime, made slightly worse for the family when Fox News tries to be trendy about it.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Gurney
Date: 16 Jun 19 - 12:49 AM

BBCWrestler (if I may call him that)up there picked one of mine. I watch American Pickers on the TV, and Mike Wolfe often says "Very Unique."
It is or it isn't unique. There aren't degrees of uniqueness.

Another term that I thought was peculiar to Americans was the use of the term 'Careen' when they mean 'Career." One means to clean a ship, the other (among other meanings) to move erratically. I just checked on Wordweb, the (possibly American) computer dictionary, and even that useful application doesn't know the difference, although it claims both words to the 'move erratically' meaning. Also, it has jammed up on me for asking!

Many English speakers often use 'an' before a word that begins with 'H,' such as 'An horrific accident, An herb garden.'

Books generally have dispensed with speech marks " in favour of quotation marks '.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: JennieG
Date: 16 Jun 19 - 02:04 AM

Not only Americans, Gurney......Ozzies use 'career' meaning to move erratically, as in 'the car went careering down the hill'. 'Careen', not so much.

Considering that much of our speech patterns came from various parts of Great Britain rather than the U.S., it could point to an origin on the British side of the pond.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 16 Jun 19 - 09:02 AM

We call those single quotes and double quotes. They are used for different things. I have not seen singles used instead of doubles. I would object.

Leeneia, yes indeed.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 17 Jun 19 - 12:58 AM

This sentence describes how I've always known the word 'careen.'

" Whether it's an unsteady ship, a speeding bus, or a person who is woozy, use the verb careen to describe something that's teetering from side to side."

I particularly think of a running person careening down a hill.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 17 Jun 19 - 03:36 AM

Is that rule about single and double quotes being for either speech or quotations an American rule? It might work in a novel or story, but otherwise what happens if you are quoting what someone said?

All the publishers I have come across require either consistent use of double quotes, but with single for a quotation within a quotation, or consistent use of single quotes, but with double for a quotation within a quotation - this is more common with UK publishers.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 17 Jun 19 - 09:33 AM

Never heard of speech v. quote.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 17 Jun 19 - 11:26 AM

My rule is that my little fingers are quite small, and the double quote, which requires use of the shift key, is to be avoided. This is a new rule, and I'm not consistent.

Therefore, I should type:

The word "reticent" is often misused for "reluctant." [I do this to make the words qua words really stand out.]

However, quotations are usually self-evident, so I type

He exclaimed, 'You're not just beautiful, you're amazing.!'

I can make up rules just as well as the next guy.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Jun 19 - 11:36 AM

When typing in a forum such as this, my personal rule is to use standard quotation marks "...." for known exact quotes, but when there is a phrase I am not sure of, or that *I* claim as my own creation, I like to use single quote apostrophes '....'.

It's just my attempt to indicate in print what I would try to show in speech. Mudcat is great in allowing various HTML code to allow ^rising and _falling inflection etc....

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mr Red
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 03:41 AM

There aren't degrees of uniqueness.

I would agree lexicographically, but real life ain't binary. A standard Ford car might come in yellow, or red (please) or any colour as long as it's black. But if you paint it in psychodelia then it is unique, but you can still get the same tyres or windscreen wiper blades for it, which means it isn't (ha - hide yer eyes) that unique!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 04:54 AM

A standard car with unique features.

It takes very little effort to get it right.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 05:35 AM

There's more than a whiff of grammar policing going on here. A few decades ago, gay meant one thing. Now it means two things. That's language evolution for you. I'm quite happy to see people saying quite unique or fairly unique, etc, and would never insist on their rebuilding their sentence. What you're missing is the gentle morphing of the word into two forms. The one won't damage the other, so stop fretting!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mr Red
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 09:14 AM

A standard car with unique features.

Don't think I am being overly pedantic but.......

A standard car with unique decoration/colouring/appearance/presentation

A feature is functional and I can only think of one function for psychodelic appearance, and that is ego, or corporate identity if you are Mr Red.

Getting it right ain't so easy for pedant in the real non-binary world. Trust me, (:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Charmion
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 09:35 AM

Editor here. I do this for a living, and have for (literally) decades.

I have considerable patience with new meanings for old words (e.g., gay), but very little for self-inflicted grammar injuries (e.g., if I would of known). The former is evolution in the language; the latter is the bastard child of ignorance of verb forms and refusing to revise after writing by ear.

The great glory of English is its bewildering variety of vocabulary, so I shake my head in pity over a text that confuses "decimate" and "annihilate", "substitute" and "replace", "flaunt" and "flout". Today, I read in the Globe & Mail about a new law in the Province of Quebec that "bans public servants from" wearing outward and visible signs of religious belief -- irritating to me because one bans things (automatic weapons, for example) and activities (such as pissing in the gutter), not people. People are "forbidden to" do something, or "prevented from" doing it.

For the advanced class, we also have the gradual disappearance of the preposition "of" (representing the genitive or possessive case), now being overtaken by "for" (traditionally used to translate the dative case, and to indicate purpose or advantage). We used to have "centres *of* excellence", but we are now seeing "centres *for* excellence". In my youth, the oldies radio station in Ottawa would have been called "Ottawa's home *of* rock music", but lately it has become the "home for rock music". Why does that matter? Well, to me, the form using "of" indicates the actual presence of rock music, but the form using "for" indicates only the intention of providing rock music, but not necessarily the actuality. That distinction (admittedly subtle) has apparently disappeared while I was not looking.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 09:43 AM

The modern usage of decimate is perfectly fine. Only pedants are insisting on its one-in-ten meaning. You've lost that one.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 10:14 AM

I think that switch from 'of' to 'for' is deliberate. 'Excellence' isn't just sitting there, static; it's to be created (re: "to indicate purpose or advantage") - 'Centre for Excellence' is an abbreviated way of saying 'Centre for the Creation or Discovery of Excellence'. Similarly, 'the home for rock music' suggests more dynamism than does 'the home of rock music'; it conflates the sense of rock music coming to the station to find a home - rather than already being there sitting by the fire - and listeners coming to the station to find rock music.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 10:25 AM

"one bans ... activities" - To say that banning people from wearing something is 'banning people' rather than banning an activity ('wearing') may be correct in a strictly grammatical sense, I don't know - but, boy, it sure is subtle. Good luck with that one.

I do agree that 'forbidding' would be better, and it has a more menacing connotation, which suits the fascistic law it refers to.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jos
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 11:48 AM

Although people who use 'decimate' do not usually mean 'to destroy one in ten', they do not usually mean 'annihilate', meaning 'to reduce to nothing' (Latin 'nihil'). They may, however, mean 'to destroy a large proportion' such as nine out of ten.

I am annoyed by people saying 'just because [...] doesn't mean ...', when what they should be saying is 'just because [...] it doesn't mean ...' or 'just because [...] that doesn't mean ...'.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: robomatic
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 12:54 AM

using an apostrophe before the s in order to make a plural.

using any modifier to the word 'unique'. (Although apparently my position is hopeless "'very unique' is here to stay".

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mr Red
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 02:58 AM

using an apostrophe before the s in order to make a plural.

yea, it is gross, can't think of anything grocer ..................



I'll get my thesaurus.....

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: BobL
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 03:07 AM

Unique is like dead or pregnant - either you are or you aren't. Same qualifiers, more or less, can be applied to each.

However, one thing that really bugs me is people saying "quantum leap" (by definition, the smallest possible change) when they mean something more like a paradigm shift.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 09:08 AM

Or a sea change...

Now on the matter of unique, get a grip, chaps. I should think that a majority of people (only guessing) who use unique in everyday parlance add a modifier. What they are doing is using the word in a different sense to the one you wish to cling to. They are not saying the only one of a kind. They are saying special, different, outstanding, all words that can take a modifier. The word is undergoing a dichotomy of meaning. That's how language evolves and we should cheer it on. So far it's only a nice distinction (see what I did there...?), but you won't stop it growing.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 10:12 AM

Assonance means getting the rhyme wrong?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 01:17 PM

Today there was a headline about a woman being killed to death.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 01:44 PM

Was she razed to the ground? Or, worse (and I assure you I've seen it), raised to the ground?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 01:58 PM

A beauty spotted in the Guardian just now:

"Backers of Dominic Raab...flocked almost en masse to Johnson."


"almost"?? :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 02:26 PM

...en masse lite??

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 03:20 PM

There was a cartoon with a barbarian wedding, and the caption read It's about time they settled down and razed a village, and I laughed out loud in the doctor's office.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 03:53 PM

Did the doc have his hand under your t*est*ic*les at the time? Weren't you supposed to cough?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 20 Jun 19 - 10:09 AM

Calling a soldier a troop, as in "Insurgents attacked a truck and one troop died." A troop is a group, not a person.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Jun 19 - 10:16 AM

Ooh I was just about to post that one!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 20 Jun 19 - 12:59 PM

Similarly, an "elite" now can mean a single person who presumably belongs to an elite group, just as a "minority" can mean a single person who belongs to a larger minority. Those battles are lost, I'm afraid.

Although, I always did find the usage of "troop(s)" awkward - never used it to refer to one soldier, though.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mr Red
Date: 20 Jun 19 - 01:15 PM

call me an old fashioned pedant but

a troup is the group and troops is (sic) the soldiers therein. I make a distinction. A troup of soldiers (could be circus performers though) we treat as an entity. Troops is, in my parlance, any agglomeration of (pretty much exclusively) soldiers.

Dare I throw designer in to the ring, and watch the ripples?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 11:37 PM

Groom cries as bride confesses love for his spouse. Bigamy?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mr Red
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 02:28 AM

I am no expert but isn't bride or groom only applicable before the vicar pronounces "husband & wife"?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: BobL
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 02:58 AM

The happy pair continue to be bride & groom throughout the wedding, presumably right until they leave the reception. They cease, however, to be affianced.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 03:59 AM

Groom cries as bride confesses love for his spouse.

He was married to a narcissist?

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 12:08 PM

I am still trying to figure out how a groom (not of horses) can have a spouse at all...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 12:23 PM

Perhaps the groom lives in a Muslim-majority country where polygamy is legal and he is taking wife number 2, 3 or 4.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 01:34 PM

And his new bride is gay? Yeah, that would work.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 01:35 PM

My poem on American spelling, "For Better Or Worse"
.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 05:23 PM

I doubt it too!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 10:27 PM

This is not a peeve.

It has rained and rained here. The streams are rushing, farmers are worried that they will lose their crops, the tomato plants are half-drowned. People who used to end conversations with "Take care" or "Stay safe" are now saying "Keep dry."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Jun 19 - 12:10 PM

Free reign, or reign in. Internet sight. There are more...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Charmion
Date: 24 Jun 19 - 12:19 PM

I call that "writing by ear", Mrrzy. Spell-check doesn't care about homonyms.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Jun 19 - 03:13 PM

And why do Americans call football soccer?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Charmion
Date: 24 Jun 19 - 06:12 PM

“Soccer” derives from the “association” part of Association Football.

We have too many kinds of footie over here to let the kind you play without a helmet be called just “football”.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 24 Jun 19 - 06:36 PM

It's not only Americans who refer to association football as soccer. The term may also be used for football in the UK if there is need to distinguish it from rugby.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mr Red
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 05:24 AM

continue to be bride & groom throughout the wedding - so bride/groom/intended coexist with husband/wife/spouse for as long as they await a formal reception?

I can live with that. But I couldn't live with my ex-wifey. Though I did not divorce, I was divorced against.

Free reign, or reign in - Well free reign would make sense referring to someone "lording" it around, the case for reign in is far more tenuous.

in the UK if there is need to distinguish it from rugby - in NZ there is only one type of football - and it is "All Blacks". Soccer is played by the "All Whites".

And what about the Yorkshire** use of while in the context of until? Can easily cause confusion.

** other colours of rose are available.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 09:03 AM

It didn't phase him.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 09:12 AM

The principle sat in their cubical.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mr Red
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 05:02 PM

Well you can stand on your principles.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 06:52 PM

From Facebook today: someone talking about whiskey, when they mean whisky, then going on to talk about whisky's (plural, so drop the e and add an apostrophe??)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 26 Jun 19 - 04:00 PM

Also worthy/sufficient *enough* - just a redundancy but in news or science writing...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 01 Jul 19 - 06:13 AM

'like' But maybe it's to avoid saying 'er' or stammering.

This like bus came round the like corner and like stopped.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 01 Jul 19 - 08:33 AM

I actually saw childs instead of children in a headline yesterday. Sigh.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: clueless don
Date: 02 Jul 19 - 07:12 AM

I'm rather late to this party, but ...

It has actually been a number of years since I first encountered it, but a usage I despise is to use the verb "to plate" to mean "to put food on a plate", as in "Your meal will be quickly plated and served to you." Are they going to coat the food with gold?

Now I'll open myself to the collective abuse of the forum: I have long thought that if there were only two of something in the world (e.g. two surviving individuals if a species of animal), each one of those two could be correctly described as "almost unique". Yes, yes, I know that this idea could be expressed in some other way in order to avoid this usage of "unique", but that doesn't make this usage wrong. Let the flaming begin!

Don

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 02 Jul 19 - 07:21 AM

I do get annoyed by people using a noun as a verb, of which this is a good example. Also airline pilots using route as a verb. Route is a now, root can be used as a verb. But mostly in Australia.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Charmion
Date: 02 Jul 19 - 09:20 AM

Clueless Don, if I were writing about the world's last two anything, that fact about them would surely be worth a comment more precise than "almost unique". For example: "The last two white rhinoceroses in the world met yesterday in Kruger National Park. Unfortunately, both of them are male."

The French loan word "route" generates other problems in Canada, where we live with inexorable cultural pressure from our southern neighbours. We still use the French pronunciation, a homonym of the verb "root", as noted by David Carter(UK). Americans pronounce it as a homonym of "rout", which I understand as a verb that means "scour", "extract" or "put to flight" and is most often applied to defeated armies.

A piece of computer equipment called a "router", so called because it directs wireless signals to the correct receiving device, is American in origin (like most computer equipment), and is therefore pronounced like what happens to defeated armies. Unfortunately, this confuses people (like me) who (a) know what the thing does; and, (b) know about power tools, including the machine carpenters use to make fancy edges on boards and molding.

I wish that were my only problem with the United States of America.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 Jul 19 - 11:29 AM

Charmion, me too.

Speaking of there being only two of things, it bugs me if people use Both or (N)Either for larger groups. As in, both rhinos, deer and goats have horns. Argh.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 03 Jul 19 - 12:39 AM

Many people are inconsistent in their pronunciation of "route." On YouTube videos about pronunciation, they say that a highway is called a "root", but that in the stock phrase "If you want to go that route..." they make it rhyme with "out".

Such people are from both sides of the pond. I do it too.

Long ago there was a TV show called "Root 66." I bet its theme song had a lot to do with the preference for the oo sound today.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 03 Jul 19 - 09:29 AM

I remember someone asking me out loud How do you pronounce root? I said root. Turned out she meant route, which I pronounce rout.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 04 Jul 19 - 04:05 PM

Using the terms former and latter, so I have to re-read to see which is which. Like Rabbit, who got frustrated trying to count how many pockets he would need to carry his young in, I haven't the time.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 04 Jul 19 - 04:07 PM

'respectively'

Jack fell down and broke his crown,
and Jill came tumbling after, respectively.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 04 Jul 19 - 05:13 PM

Leenia, I am so with you on former/latter. Violates the Don't Make Your Reader Work rule.

And I don't mind language changing, I just wish somebody had told me when edgy went from meaning nervous to pushing the envelope (an expression I hate but what is better?)!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 04 Jul 19 - 06:06 PM

Heard on Radio Scotland tonight, said by a senior health (infection control)official: "It is absolutely incredulous that we would open this hospital....."
It is incredIBLE
I am incredULOUS

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 06:27 AM

Some time in the 1960s, my school's prize night, Bolton town hall, pompous mayor of Bolton in closing speech (imagine broad Bolton accent): "I've found this evenin' to 'ave bin most educative..."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 01:42 PM

He was brung up proper then!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Jul 19 - 03:42 PM

Oh, and the terms vulva and vagina are neither synonymous nor interchangeable.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jul 19 - 04:55 PM

Why are you fannying around with stuff like that, Mrrzy? :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Jul 19 - 08:47 PM

Hah!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: mayomick
Date: 08 Jul 19 - 09:25 AM

My neighbour and his friends were out camping in the Dublin mountains last week .They all got eaten alive by midgets .

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Charmion
Date: 08 Jul 19 - 11:10 AM

I was listening to a podcast about philosophy the other day, but turned it off the third time the reader said "tenants" when the script (I hope) meant "tenets".

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 08 Jul 19 - 06:32 PM

Anatomical misnomers: as described by Mrzzy above, and also the common misuse of the other part of female anatomy, so often these days erroneously applied to anyone of either gender that one does not like/agree with one's own views: i.e. that one which rhymes with a certain PM candidate. Cannae bring masel' tae type it oot, but ye'll ken whit ah mean!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Jul 19 - 08:50 PM

Are you talking about the man who's his own Cockney rhyming slang? As with James Blunt??

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 10 Jul 19 - 05:38 PM

Probably, but then there is a possible un-scanning rhyme with Boris!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 11 Jul 19 - 11:01 AM

Staunch is not stanch, either.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 08:59 AM

The phrase "the cold vacuum of space" in any article on science.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 12:31 PM

Video shows Coast Guard leaping onto submarine carrying 17,000 pounds of cocaine

Wow.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 15 Jul 19 - 09:04 AM

Today incent was a verb.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: BobL
Date: 16 Jul 19 - 02:42 AM

I didn't even know it was a word.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 16 Jul 19 - 10:56 AM

Newsies make things up to peeve me. Watch me verb that noun.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 16 Jul 19 - 11:23 AM

"Newsies"?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 16 Jul 19 - 02:38 PM

Newspapers, radio news. Not those of us who read/listen to them!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 16 Jul 19 - 11:18 PM

It just seemed a little ironic in the context.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 19 Jul 19 - 01:29 PM

I first heard to "incent" in 2006.

It's all too real.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Joe_F
Date: 19 Jul 19 - 09:32 PM

Revolver words

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Jul 19 - 10:21 PM

Ooh JoeF, excellent. Also all other psychological jargon being misused.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 20 Jul 19 - 03:37 AM

I'm getting tired of massive

massive landslide
massive attack
massive explosion.

'Massive' seems to have replaced 'awesome' as the adjective meaning 'rather noticeable'.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 20 Jul 19 - 03:48 AM

And the sappy language of the pet-rescue world.

mom, dad = owner
sister = fellow female dog
forever home

Ten years ago the house next door had a bad fire. A neighbor pounded on our door in the middle of the night and woke us up. Our houses are only eight feet apart, and the smoke and flames were terrifying. I called the cat, but she had hidden herself somewhere. I had to leave her.

I never would have left a child, but the cat was not my child, and I wasn't her mom.

After half an hour, the firefighters told me I could go back in my house, and I found the cat, put her in a crate, and sat in the car with her on my lap till it was almost over.

When people refer to me as my cat's mom, I wonder if they have any idea of the dedication which parenthood demands.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Jul 19 - 05:24 AM

Speaking of massive, a much-misused word is "enormity." And what about "epoch-making"? And don't get me started on alternative/alternate. I blame the Monkees.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Thompson
Date: 21 Jul 19 - 02:31 AM

And the way parts of speech are leaking, so people who mean respectful say respectable, and similar leaks across other words.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 21 Jul 19 - 04:03 PM

Leeneia, ever hear "fur child," "fur kid," or "fur baby"?

I suppose they could be applied to hamsters and the like as well as to cats and dogs.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 22 Jul 19 - 12:21 AM

Yes, I believe I have. I suppressed the memory.
==================
I have decided to ignore the experts who distinguish meteors, meteorites and meteoroids.

From now on, for me a rock that you see in the sky or a rock that has fallen from the sky is a meteor.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Jul 19 - 06:24 AM

But that isn't right. The distinctions are useful. A meteoroid is a small lump of rock in the solar system. How small? "Anything smaller than an asteroid" is as close as you'll get. A meteorite is one of those lumps of rock that has made it as far as the ground. A meteor is the same thing as a shooting star, the momentary streak of light from a small lump of rock, more likely a grain or speck of dust, that we see burning up as it rushes into the atmosphere. There is no such thing as a meteor on the ground or in a museum. They're meteorites every time.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 Jul 19 - 08:38 AM

Ok check this: puppie. Really. As in the singular of puppies.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Jul 19 - 11:22 AM

Someone scrawled an explicative on the statue of Lee in Charlottesville...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Jul 19 - 06:30 PM

Leeneia, I wish you hadn't mentioned Massive. It is *everywhere,* I now see.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 25 Jul 19 - 02:40 PM

I don't buy it, Steve. Wherever it is, it's the same thing, a lump of rock. Using all those different names for meteors is like using different names for a horse that's in the stall, a horse that's galloping, and a horse in a photograph.
==========
I have another peeve. Words like (gawd I can hardly type it) labradoodle. i.e., hybrid names for crosses between dog breeds which never should have been crossed. Peekapoo, for heaven's sake!

My brother once owned a dog which was a cross between two kinds of spaniel. One was bred to point game birds, the other to jump into water and retrieve game birds. The result was that when the dog saw a bird, it suffered something like a mild seizure, unable to figure out what to do - to point or to jump.
=============
Mrzzy, thanks for the confirmation.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 25 Jul 19 - 05:52 PM

Welcome, but sorry sweetie, a meteor is in the air and a meteorite is on the ground, Steve is right about that. Jargon rather than English...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 26 Jul 19 - 12:23 PM

Don't you grasp the concept of rebellion? I am rebelling against the pointless distinctions. I have the right - I have a meteor in my rock collection.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: BobL
Date: 27 Jul 19 - 03:26 AM

Like many technical terms, the fine differences are perhaps unimportant outside the discipline concerned. Short, long and metric tons. Dray, cart and race horses. And you'd be surprised how many different versions of the mile there are.

But did the Gloster Meteor jet aircraft become a Meteorite if it crashed?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Jul 19 - 05:24 AM

Pointless distinctions are only pointless if they're pointless, not if they're useful.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 27 Jul 19 - 10:06 AM

You go, leeneia!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 27 Jul 19 - 12:47 PM

Thanks!

I just learned about the Great Meteor Hotspot. How exciting to learn that a hotspot, which I usually associate with faraway places and tropical climes, has left volcanic remnants and low mountains across eastern Canada and New England, then gone across the northern Atlantic.

The name is flashy, but it turns out to come from the name of the German research vessel which discovered the last seamount in the chain. The vessel was named the Meteor.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 31 Jul 19 - 12:26 PM

Ooh and how about people writing dialect phonetically... She died of a fever and noone could save her rhymes because fever as pronounced... Not written... Fayver.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 31 Jul 19 - 12:34 PM

Had she been overweight at her funeral they could have made it rhyme: "She died of the fever and no-one could heave her..."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 31 Jul 19 - 02:33 PM

She died of a fever and noone could save her rhymes because fever as pronounced... Not written... Fayver.

When I sing it, I sing it as written and make no attempt to force a rhyme by pretending I am "oirish".    -ver and her are enough of a rhyme for me.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 31 Jul 19 - 03:09 PM

I can't help but sing in the accent I heard...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 01 Aug 19 - 12:43 AM

I have a song book published in Ireland which says

She died of a fever
and none could relieve her...

I like it that way.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: BobL
Date: 01 Aug 19 - 02:59 AM

And in the Sans Day Carol we find cross/grass and coal/all, which only rhyme in the West Country.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 01 Aug 19 - 09:50 AM

Fever rhymes with relieve her in an Orosh accent too... Nice.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 03 Aug 19 - 01:26 AM

"Journey" when no one is going anywhere. Started with "your credit journey" from my bank. I just noticed a video on "My ear-stretching journey." I didn't watch; I didn't want to know.

I think I've seen "journey" in other places, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 03 Aug 19 - 10:02 AM

Orosh. People who don't proofread, argh!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Aug 19 - 11:28 AM

People who say "Is it wine o'clock yet?" when what they really mean is "Is the sun below the yardarm yet?""

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 03 Aug 19 - 10:07 PM

Um, above the yardarm?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Monique
Date: 04 Aug 19 - 02:56 AM

The sun is over the yardarm.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Aug 19 - 03:47 AM

The sun over the yardarm indicates that it's time for the first morning drink. Here in Bude were a moderate lot who don't drink until evening, therefore the saying is modified in order to give us permission for the first evening drink.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 04 Aug 19 - 11:08 AM

Ah. Posh lot.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Aug 19 - 01:00 PM

Ah, 6 PM I see. It's gin o'clock...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 05 Aug 19 - 11:43 AM

Back to pet peeves:

The lack of understanding that:
"ALL the idiots aren't in the U.S." is not the same as "not all the idiots are in the US".

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 06 Aug 19 - 02:42 PM

Thank you, Nigel - I thought I was the only one in the world who was seriously bugged by that one. (It seems to have become widespread only in the last few years, hasn't it?)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 06 Aug 19 - 03:12 PM

I am wondering about that difference. Latest misuse of After is The plane crashed after landing.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jeri
Date: 06 Aug 19 - 03:54 PM

Not to nitpick, but...aw hell, to nitpick:
A plane can certainly crash after landing. Plane lands, careens off the runway, and BOOM! Plane lands, flips over, and BOOM! Plane lands, fails in the attempt to perform the Chatanooga double-shuffle, and BOOM!

On the other hand, crashing before landing would be a bit more complicated.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 06 Aug 19 - 04:17 PM

Plane crashing after landing could be with a tree, or a building.
Similarly plane crashing before landing could be with a flock of birds, a drone, or another plane.

But these are exceptions, and rarely what is meant by someone trying to avoid saying either "the plane crashed" or "the plane crash-landed".

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 06 Aug 19 - 11:13 PM

Jeri, those all seem to be *during* the landing, but yeah, taxi to gate then crash into terminal, ok. But I would day Crashed taxiing, not crashed after landing...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jeri
Date: 07 Aug 19 - 07:51 AM

I was thinking of "landing" as touching down. Coming to land (the ground). Cambridge English Dictionary: "1. the fact of an aircraft arriving on the ground or a boat reaching land".

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Aug 19 - 10:32 AM

It is interesting, as an aside, that in French one only lands (aterrir) on land. You sea on water (amerrir) and moon (alunir) on the moon...
Hey double entendre!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 07 Aug 19 - 04:47 PM

Mrzzy:
If you 'moon' on the moon your suit will quickly run out of breathable air. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Aug 19 - 06:04 PM

Never said it was smart...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 08 Aug 19 - 06:56 AM

Talking of 'mooning': Never said it was smart...

I know, "no-one likes a smart arse", although I did agree with Kylie Minogue winning "Rear of the year".

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 10 Aug 19 - 08:50 PM

Here's a peeve of mine: baby-talk conjunctions in professional writing.

"The cause might be heavy rainfall or impervious surfaces or poorly-designed revetments."

instead of

"The cause might be heavy rainfall, impervious surfaces or poorly-designed revetments."

To me, the first way is how children talk. They start a sentence, then they add elements with "or" or "and" as they think of them. A professional should think ahead.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Aug 19 - 10:09 AM

Well I sometimes use that construction for emphasis. Nowt wrong with it in m'humble.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 11 Aug 19 - 10:29 AM

Oxford comma arguments, anyone?

I agree about the baby talk. Ever heard a small child run out of breath midsentence?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: kendall
Date: 12 Aug 19 - 04:36 PM

People who don't know the difference AMONG to, two and too.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Aug 19 - 06:43 PM

Apparently, kendall, it's ok to use "between" there. I don't like that and I'm with you, but we can't stop the tide...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Aug 19 - 09:40 PM

Cop talk... "At that point in time, the intoxicated individual exited the vehicle."

Why not "Then the drunk got out of the car"?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 13 Aug 19 - 01:43 AM

people who mix up:

reticent and reluctant
vice and vise
definite and definitive
untangle and unravel

There's another one going around, but I can't think of it right now.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: BobL
Date: 13 Aug 19 - 03:51 AM

Insure and ensure?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Aug 19 - 04:32 AM

Expresso. Heheh...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 Aug 19 - 10:49 AM

Their, they're. Feel better?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 13 Aug 19 - 11:25 AM

Sorry, Mrrzy. It's not they're and their. That is a perfectly natural mistake caused by fingers going too fast. I do it myself, though I try to fix it each time.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 13 Aug 19 - 12:02 PM

That was the joke. They are both There's.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 13 Aug 19 - 02:13 PM

How about, the worse the crime, the more respectfully the suspect/convict is spoken of: "the gentleman bit the dog repeatedly", "Mr Epstein trafficked minors", "President Trump had the children taken from their mothers and put in cages"?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 14 Aug 19 - 01:22 PM

Ok, in today's search for mussels recipes, one said to add a bay leave. Sigh.

Did I mention I am craving mussels?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 15 Aug 19 - 11:34 AM

Today; grounding when they meant grinding. Yes, if you grind it, it's ground, but you didn't ground it. Sigh.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: DMcG
Date: 15 Aug 19 - 01:07 PM

An interesting article of relevance. I particularly liked the comments on being disinterested.

Perhaps it is important to keep peevishness in perspective!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 15 Aug 19 - 03:39 PM

My peevishness is in perfect, 3D perspective. Ha! Now to read the article.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Aug 19 - 04:00 PM

DMcG, I've earmarked that for a good read tonight once Mrs Steve's hit the sack. I'm a bit ambivalent about the way language seems to change so fast, but I'm also fairly relaxed about it. My command of speling, grammer and punkchewasian is pretty good but I'm a bit of a lingo-liberal at heart. But I love it when resident mudcat twits try to pick me up on the niceties of English. That's when I'm at my best and worst.

And "ambivalent"...anyone else hear that superb Radio 4 programme?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 16 Aug 19 - 09:35 AM

Good article. I peeve about what I read in newspapers, not what those kids say. So grammar, such written, wow.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 16 Aug 19 - 11:56 AM

No matter how many people (read men) tell me that my opinions about English have no foundation, I don't pay attention to them.

Language is important. It can be dishonest, manipulative, or insulting if we let it. It can also waste our time. And so we have every right to pay attention to it and talk about it.

Here's an example of a major language problem that bothers me. I love geology, and recently I borrowed a book on the geologic history of the Alps. Ordinarily, this would be right up my alley - an exciting tale of collisions and destruction.

Unfortunately, the book had been published by the Cambridge University Press (or similar), and its prose was absolutely stultified. You know, the kind of writing you get when a down-to-earth (no pun intended) man thinks, "O god, I've got to write so as to sound intellectual."

The result was that I could not keep awake while reading the book. The struggle to find the message amidst a tangle of over-decorated clauses was too much for me.

If I (who can sleep all I want) can't keep awake while reading it, how can an over-worked student be expected to? What about the person for whom English is not the native language? Why should such a reader have to beat the way through 18th-Century sentence structures?

Writing like that defeats the purpose of the book. That's why I said language can waste our time.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Aug 19 - 11:59 AM

"We dispatched a contingency of Marines to quell the uprising."

I have heard that usage several times by military personnel.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Aug 19 - 12:53 PM

"Comprised of." Grrr...

And I can't say it often enough: never say "prior to" or "albeit" within my earshot...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 16 Aug 19 - 01:05 PM

I remember the cachets of arms in Iraq. It was funny, then.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 16 Aug 19 - 03:12 PM

Here's a new one: stealing dog puppies. Not cat puppies or elephant puppies...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 16 Aug 19 - 04:33 PM

Here's a new one: stealing dog puppies. Not cat puppies or elephant puppies...

Dog (male) as against bitch (female) puppies.


DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 16 Aug 19 - 09:34 PM

Steve, I'm with you on comprised. This word has become so misused that I don't use it at all. And if you don't like "prior to", you probably share my distaste for "subsequently" when "after" would do.

Today I remembered another mixed-up word pair:

Gourmet (having to do with fine cooking) vs gourmand (a glutton)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 16 Aug 19 - 11:36 PM

My current pet peeve is the growing practice, especially by BBC presenters, of referring to “The x-year anniversary”. Why introduce the redundant ‘year’? What’s wrong with “The xth anniversary”?

And I was gobsmacked recently to hear a radio presenter refer to ‘the three-month anniversary’. WTAF?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: BobL
Date: 17 Aug 19 - 02:48 AM

Obviously never heard of a luniversary...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Aug 19 - 04:49 AM

And the first decade of this century referred to as the noughties. Grrr again...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Aug 19 - 06:13 AM

"On a daily basis." Argh.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 17 Aug 19 - 08:09 AM

I kinda liked the Aughties...

Black boots held at gunpoint turned out to be black boys, but that's just bad proofreading.

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

Black boy is the name the Aussies give to a big tufted wild plant, at least in WA. Not nice, I told 'em...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Bill D
Date: 17 Aug 19 - 08:02 PM

"This program was previously recorded earlier.".. and variations on the theme.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 17 Aug 19 - 11:50 PM

A live audience. What, other shows are filmed before corpses?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Aug 19 - 05:50 AM

Pre-order. Pre-book. Pre-select. Pre-choose. Presuppose. Pre-grrr.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Aug 19 - 08:50 AM

Ha ha. I've just posted a joke in the recession thread that contains the word "pre-declined"...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 18 Aug 19 - 10:19 AM

Thinking about "prior to" and "subsequently", I really can't see what there is to object to. They are, in turn, perfectly understandable and unambiguous alternatives to "before" and "after". Life would be pretty boring if communication was restricted to an approved list of basic words. Variety is the spice of life.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Aug 19 - 11:36 AM

I have never seen a case of "prior to" in which it couldn't have been perfectly well replaced with "before." Likewise, I've never seen "albeit" used where "though" wouldn't have been just as good. "Subsequently" can carry nuance that makes it useful, but generally I share Leeneia's objection to it. The objection isn't that they're not standard English, rather that they are used in order to make the user sound clever. In fact, they make the user sound pompous.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 18 Aug 19 - 12:16 PM

Subsequently, to me, means After and because of, whereas after means After.

Saw "due" for Do today. Subsequently, I was annoyed.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 18 Aug 19 - 03:11 PM

In fact, they make the user sound pompous.

Not to me, they don't. You might as well object to someone saying "pail" when they mean "bucket" but that, of course, would be nonsense.


DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Aug 19 - 08:12 PM

Not exactly a comparable case, Doug.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: michaelr
Date: 18 Aug 19 - 08:21 PM

I was recently informed that one should not begin a statement with "Actually" because it makes one sound like a know-it-all. I was referred to an article that said "Actually is the word that you use when you're actually saying, 'You are wrong, and I am right, and you are at least a little bit of an idiot.'"

I'm inclined to call BS on that. What do you think?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 18 Aug 19 - 08:31 PM

When you start a sentence with 'actually', you usually are indicating that your interlocutor is wrong, or at least lacking in information. It may well mean "'You are wrong, and I am right, and you are at least a little bit of an idiot.'" So - what's wrong with that? Are you supposed to refrain from correcting others - or are you supposed to come right out and call them 'idiots' while you're doing it?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Aug 19 - 08:42 PM

Well I must admit that I use "actually" quite a lot. I'll try harder...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 18 Aug 19 - 08:46 PM

"Actually" is often used in an apologetic way, as in "Actually, I never did put gas in the car." But I do hear people use it to soften a factual statement.

"The capital of New York state is Albany, actually."

==============
fortunate (lucky) vs. "fortuitous" (coincidental)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 18 Aug 19 - 08:54 PM

Actually and Just (actually, he's just being ignorant) do kinda sound smarmy, now that you point it out.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 19 Aug 19 - 08:03 AM

I put ‘actually’ and ‘basically’ in the same category - they are ‘starter-words’ intended to put the other party(ies) in a conversation on the back foot.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Aug 19 - 09:54 AM

Also, Technically.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Aug 19 - 08:13 AM

And, I just read, "with all due respect" usually means the opposite. I have never liked that phrase.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Aug 19 - 02:35 PM

"Basically" is awful. I've just thought of something else: pretentious gits who begin their opinion-expressing with "I have to say..."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 20 Aug 19 - 04:21 PM

This is turning into Monty Python. But do carry on .....

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Aug 19 - 05:50 PM

"At the end of the day..." - heheh!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Aug 19 - 05:51 PM

"If I'm honest"...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 20 Aug 19 - 09:56 PM

Right, "to be honest" = "I will now lie."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Aug 19 - 02:48 AM

"Going forward..." Grrr...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 21 Aug 19 - 03:46 AM

IMHO

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Aug 19 - 05:00 AM

IMNSHO. At least that's a bit more honest. I rather like "in m'humble...". Very Stephen Fry-like!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 Aug 19 - 10:46 PM

Ooh love Stephen Fry.

Today someone said Toleration, and several of us asked, Tolerance? Apparently, not necessarily. Phooey. I am intolerational of toleration.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 23 Aug 19 - 11:12 AM

"and I use the term advisedly..."

I never have understood that phrase.

another one is "as it were"

What does that mean?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Aug 19 - 05:57 PM

Now come on, yanks: "If you will..." :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 24 Aug 19 - 02:08 AM

Also for you Epstein-story watchers, there is no such thing as a "doctoral-level psychologist" - either you are a doctoral- level *grad student* in psychology, or you have a doctorate and are a psychologist. If it was a grad student, just say so. If it was a psychologist, don't hedge. My guess is it was a grad student and they are hedging because it should have been a psychologist.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 25 Aug 19 - 11:58 AM

Ok, let's talk about Injury vs. Wound. They are not synonymous to me. There are two dimensions: on purpose, and openness. So if I fall and break my arm, I am injured, not wounded. If I am shot, I am wounded (and also injured). This came up when the headline was about lighning "wounding" rather than "injuring" people. What do y'all think?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 25 Aug 19 - 12:38 PM

I agree, Mrrzy. For me, a wound involves a break in the skin and bleeding.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Stanron
Date: 25 Aug 19 - 01:04 PM

There is an interesting interplay between using language precisely and using it as creative tool. Language changes. Our language is a cobbled together mish mash of Celtic. Latin, Early German (?) Norse and not a little French thrown in as well. If we could time travel 500 years we would struggle to understand and be understood. Apparently there are Asian versions of English that we would struggle to understand today.

On a slightly different tack on one Mudcat thread there was an anecdote where Peggy Seeger was amused by some one singing an American song with a Cockney accent. It probably wasn't Railroad Bill, but for the sake of argument let's pretend it was. What amuses me is the fact that back in the 19th Century Railroad Bill himself might have been born a Cockney and might have spoken with a Cockney accent. OK he might equally have been from Ireland or Scotland or France or Germany, but my point is that what now passes as as American accent may not have even existed back then. Language changes and accents change. Viva the whateveryoucallit.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 25 Aug 19 - 02:55 PM

This came up when the headline was about lighning "wounding" rather than "injuring" people

Being struck by lightning is quite likely to cause severe burns. Even if the skin remains intact, if the burn is sufficient to cause blistering, I would count that as a wound.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 25 Aug 19 - 03:17 PM

Yeah, see, I wouldn't. An injury can be severe (compound fractures come to mind) without being a wound, which to me involves intent. People wound; objects injure. Did I make that distinction up out of whole cloth? Not that I'd be surprised if I did...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 25 Aug 19 - 05:07 PM

For me, a wound involves a break in the skin and bleeding.

According to my first aid manual, wounds can be open or closed.

Open wounds include:- puncture wounds; incisions; thermal, chemical and electrical burns; bites and stings; gunshot wounds; abrasions; lacerations; skin tears.

Closed wounds include:- contusions (eg bruising); blisters; seroma; haematoma (blood blisters); crush injuries.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 25 Aug 19 - 06:26 PM

DC, what about injuries?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 26 Aug 19 - 04:15 AM

My manual isn't specific about injuries. An on-line US site MedilinePlus gives:

An injury is damage to your body.

Wounds are injuries that break the skin or other tissues.

"Other tissues" would allow for bruises, blood blisters and the like. Whether bone counts as tissue is up for discussion.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Aug 19 - 05:12 AM

Bone is definitely tissue.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 26 Aug 19 - 08:37 AM

If nothimg is broken, not skin nor other tissue, what is injured?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 26 Aug 19 - 11:14 AM

Strains and sprains may involve the the tearing of muscle or ligaments but could involve only stretching, without tearing. This would still be an injury, and very painful at that.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: DMcG
Date: 26 Aug 19 - 03:21 PM

Just noticed in an advert that some supplement or other had been 'Scientifically researched'.

That's nice.

Scientifically proven? ... "we don't claim that."
Scientifically demonstrated to be safe? ... "We only researched it. Maybe, maybe not."
Or,at least as good as a placebo? "Not telling you"

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 27 Aug 19 - 10:36 AM

Good point, DMcG.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 27 Aug 19 - 10:41 AM

Man-bag or man-bun. It's a bag or a bun, no matter what the shape of the skin between your legs. If you carry a purse it's a purse, regardless of gender. Of the carrier thereof.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 27 Aug 19 - 10:45 AM

I sometimes dislike the common names which the American Ornithological Union assigns to birds.

Northern cardinal. Why? There is no southern cardinal. There's pyrroluxia, (sp) which could quality as a southern cardinal, but as far as I know, they haven't even given poor pyrroluxia a name.

House finch. A delightful little bird, brave and chipper. The male has a lovely wash of rosy pink on his breast. Why such a prosaic name? I have a friend who calls them raspberry sparrows.

Yellow-rumped warbler. We still call them myrtle warblers. I have a deal with the birds that I won't talk about their rumps if they won't talk about mine. In Florida, where they are rather common, I have heard them called butterbutts.
=========
Gotta go.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 27 Aug 19 - 04:50 PM

Well, speaking as a botanist and wildflower man, I appreciate the urge to impose vernacular names on wild animals and plants. We try to make the distinction between old country names and invented ones, but it's a distinction that can get blurred. Quite often, invented names are very attractive, and, let's face it, the alternative can be rather arcane Latin nomenclature, which few people appreciate and which, though scientifically invaluable, can sound pretentious and jargonistic. So I'm defending friendly-sounding made-up names for birds, beasts and wildflowers. And I do have a degree in botany...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 28 Aug 19 - 11:52 AM

The Union meets every five years and standardizes the vernacular names of birds. This is nothing to do with scientific name versus vernacular name.

It peeves me that some of the names they assign are ugly or illogical.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Aug 19 - 12:39 PM

I suppose we don't have to use them. I know the Latin names of most of our wild flowers but even professional botanists, generally averse to jargon, often resort to to folk names or invented names. There are exceptions in the bird world. The wren will always be Troglodytes troglodytes to me, and the blackbird, even better, is Turdus vulgaris... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 28 Aug 19 - 12:42 PM

Logic is a little bird tweeting in the wilderness. Logic is a bunch of flowers, which smell *bad* [I paraphrase]...

Sorry, I could not help it.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 29 Aug 19 - 11:51 AM

Ooh and the way the media are still treating Puerto Rico as if it were not just as American as whatever states are about to have hurricanes.
When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 04 May 20 - 10:16 PM

IMDB description includes: okay western with a theme that's been done before in other films, namely "Duel at Diablo" several years later.

Time travel?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: The Sandman
Date: 05 May 20 - 11:44 AM

but sometimes both names are wonderful, eg birds foot trefoil and eggs and bacon.
the use of the words fucking and cunt unless you are derek and clive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYGy-j_oH5Q

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 05 May 20 - 12:37 PM

This isn't a peeve, just a confusion.

My church is having services via computer, and I just bought a micrunophone for that purpose. Meanwhile, we've all got used to the use of "un" as the all-round prefix to mean the opposite of an action.

So the screen had an icon of a microphone to show the mic is on. Good, so far. Under the mic is says Mute, meaning turn it off. Later it says Unmute meaning to turn off having the microphone turned off.

Then they drew a slanting red line through all that, apparently meaning Do Not Touch the thing that turns off the turning-off. in which case, why buy a mic?

I had to wait for a non-sacred moment to barge in and ask if people heard me.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Barb'ry
Date: 05 May 20 - 02:16 PM

Probably already been mentioned but 'at this moment in time' drives me mad. We aren't (usually) talking about a moment in a circle. Then there is 'could of, would of' instead of 'have' and people saying, 'she gave it to myself'.
I could go on...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 May 20 - 02:40 PM

Well, Barb'ry, I've said it many times before, but if you're ever in my presence do NOT utter "prior to", "on a daily basis" or the shocking "albeit"... And as for "going forward"...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Reinhard
Date: 05 May 20 - 02:54 PM

Uh, Steve I was just going forward to confess that prior to your rant I was using proper grammar on a daily basis, albeit marred by not being a native English speaker. So there.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 05 May 20 - 04:05 PM

Some NPR people have stopped saying In 10 mn from now, which somehow makes those that still do more infuriating.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 May 20 - 04:16 PM

You're a genius, Reinhard! :-)

Now don't get me started on "paradigm shift", "touching base" and "low-hanging fruit"...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Bill D
Date: 05 May 20 - 09:21 PM

Just to be sure all those who share concerns about usage stay busy...

https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=89383

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Reinhard
Date: 06 May 20 - 01:41 AM

Sorry Steve, can't and won't do that. I already picked all the low-hanging fruits in my last post. Now I would have to be touching base with my severely lacking creativity to achieve a paradigm shift to intelligently worded sentences. So I'd better stop here before I get in over my head.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 May 20 - 02:43 AM

has anyone heard the phrase.. going backwards

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 May 20 - 02:48 AM

Get in over your head, Reinhard? D'ye mean that this is above your pay grade?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 06 May 20 - 04:54 AM

Any mangling of the correct way of stating numbers and amounts.
This is not thread half-a-thousand.

It is FIVE HUNDRED

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 May 20 - 07:01 AM

It's a bit complicated is that one. It's less than four hundred miles from Bude to Manchester: good. Mrs Steve walked four miles yesterday but I walked only three, so I walked less miles than she did. Not so good...?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 06 May 20 - 08:53 AM

....so I walked less miles than she did

...so I walked fewer miles than she did, I would have thought.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 May 20 - 08:58 AM

yes, or, I walked less than she did. How about this Potato's

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 May 20 - 09:10 AM

I agree with you, Doug, more or fewer... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 06 May 20 - 09:20 AM

This is not thread half-a-thousand.

It is FIVE HUNDRED

And yet,
       "He bought a house for half a million pounds"
and
       "He bought a house for five hundred thousand pounds"
are equally acceptable.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 06 May 20 - 09:40 AM

Never thought about that but you're right, half a thousand is not a number but half a million is. Half a hundred is poetic (never saw a door shut so tight...)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Reinhard
Date: 06 May 20 - 09:40 AM

No Nigel, this is thread 132499, see the url. Your posting in this thread may have been number five-hundred.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Charmion
Date: 06 May 20 - 09:41 AM

I'm an editor, so my peeves are cast in bronze and carved in stone. Never cast in stone.

I guess my current biggest language peeve is the ubiquitous "passed away" and its even mincier little brother "passed". "In the midst of life we are in death," wrote dear old Tom Cramner, but not any more if you're a "nice" person.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 06 May 20 - 09:56 AM

... half a thousand is not a number but half a million is

The eggs that I buy in the supermarket come in boxes of 6 or 10. If I wanted someone to get me a small box, I would ask them to get me half a dozen. If I wanted a large box, I would ask for a box of ten, never half a score.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 06 May 20 - 01:08 PM

1) decade. I see sentences like this in the media all the time:

"Slightly less than two decades ago, she was the happy mother of four..."

The writer is a journalist and presumably has the facts. If it was 19 years, say so. Better yet, say "In 2001, she was the happy mother..."

2) Most where almost should be used. "Most everybody enjoys ice cream." arrgh!   

3) Alright instead of all right. I guess alright was born of its visual similarity to already, but already isn't the same as all ready.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 06 May 20 - 02:47 PM


"Slightly less than two decades ago, she was the happy mother of four..."

The writer is a journalist and presumably has the facts. If it was 19 years, say so. Better yet, say "In 2001, she was the happy mother..."

It might not have been 19 years ago. 18 yrs and 9 months would still qualify as "slightly less than 2 decades". It might not have been 2001. Anything after June 2000 would be less than 2 decades.

Our language is full of synonyms. Just because you prefer one doesn't make the others wrong. As I said somewhere up-thread, life would be pretty boring if communication was restricted to an approved list of basic words. Variety is the spice of life.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: weerover
Date: 06 May 20 - 05:11 PM

"cast in stone" works for me. The mould could be carved from stone and molten metal poured into it.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Joe_F
Date: 06 May 20 - 09:43 PM

leeneia: "Alright" has been made into a mark of illiteracy, but this IMO is one case where the illiterates have the better of the argument. Just as "already" is not the same as "all ready", so "they were alright" (they were acceptable) is not the same as "they were all right" (all of them were right). Note the difference in pronunciation.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 06 May 20 - 11:23 PM

Good point about half a dozen v score!

There's a limerick there but that would be thread drift.

Anyway, also visualize is not see, it is imagine you see, or use technology to see. But seeing is seeing, not visualizing.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: robomatic
Date: 07 May 20 - 01:05 AM

I'm not sure what is wrong with half-a-thousand.

On the other hand, if you say thousand and a half, do you mean:
1,500.
Or
1,000.5

???

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 07 May 20 - 01:31 AM

I wouldn’t say “A thousand and a half”, I’d say “One-and-a-half-thousand”.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 May 20 - 05:10 AM

I find the confusion between singulars and plurals to be a very disturbing phenomena.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 07 May 20 - 05:21 AM

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 May 20 - 05:47 AM

Was it I who rendered you speechless, Doug?

Don't get me started on the gross misuse of "alternate" when what is meant is "alternative." It's become so common that dictionaries are even including it as valid. I blame The Monkees. Them and their "Alternate Title"...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 May 20 - 05:48 AM

Or is that a mute point?


Grrr...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 May 20 - 09:44 AM

Since the dictionary decided to define literal as figurative rather than list that as a common misuse, I don't trust dictionary definitions.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 May 20 - 10:57 AM

It's not the role of dictionaries to decide what is correct usage or misuse. They are there to reflect how people use language. They may refer to slang or colloquialism or informal use of words, but no decent dictionary ever passes judgement on what is "correct usage."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 May 20 - 11:13 AM

It *is* the job of a dictionary to define words correctly. They can say "often used to mean Literally" but not define it as such.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 07 May 20 - 11:22 AM

This one really is a "pet" peeve, as I suspect that it is me that is out of step, rather than everyone else, but it still irritates me when I hear it:-

If the Bank of England announces an interest rate rise from, say, 2.25% to 2.5%, I would say that there has been a rise of a quarter of a per cent. The BBC would announce that there has been a rise of a quarter of one per cent. All the other TV channels do the same, which makes me think that I am wrong but I don't care - I am going to carry on saying it the way I want to.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: robomatic
Date: 07 May 20 - 11:23 AM

There was a series of highly popular and historically well loved detective books following the career of highly sequestered master solver Nero Wolfe. They were written during his lifetime by Rex Stout, and in one of them, Wolfe is tearing apart a newly released dictionary for confusing 'infer' with 'imply'. He is then feeding it to his wastebasket in which he has a small fire. I'm pretty sure it was a real dictionary, a real conflation, and Rex Stout was putting his opinion into his work, probably justifiably (other than the indoor fire aspect).

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Senoufou
Date: 07 May 20 - 12:07 PM

This may already have been mentioned - I haven't read through the whole thread. But it always makes me smile when people use the word 'literally' in the wrong context.
For example, "She was literally on fire with anger."
Or, "He must literally have been turning in his grave..."
Makes me literally foam at the mouth!!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 May 20 - 12:37 PM

Yes but Doug, there is no such thing as "a per cent." "A quarter of a per cent" simply doesn't make grammatical sense. I know it's used, and we're accustomed to it. Saying "a quarter of one per cent" may sound like a lugubrious way of putting it, but at least it's grammatically correct. And I'm certain of that one hundred and ten percent...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 07 May 20 - 02:10 PM

Robomatic:
You're probably right: "They were written during his lifetime by Rex Stout," I don't believe he wrote anything posthumously.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: BobL
Date: 08 May 20 - 03:23 AM

Referring back to earlier posts, "half a thousand" may well mean five hundred, but to an engineer, "half a thou" doesn't!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: G-Force
Date: 08 May 20 - 05:53 AM

What about people who say 'fine toothcomb', with the stress on 'tooth', as if it were a device for combing teeth! What they mean is 'fine-toothed comb', with the stress on 'comb'.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: weerover
Date: 08 May 20 - 06:19 AM

G-Force, this used to be one that really grated on me, but when I looked up Chambers Dictionary to prove my point I found it does have the word "toothcomb", defined as "a fine-tooth(ed) comb".

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 08 May 20 - 08:48 AM

They keep reporting on coronavirus being in men's semen. I guess women's semen is still safe, and children's?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 08 May 20 - 10:37 AM

Me, I'm sick of the phrase "tough love." It's been around since 1968, and I suspect it's used to disguise mean and immature behavior.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 11 May 20 - 08:54 AM

That it is. Right along with This hurts me more than it does you.

Also correcting use of regular English to mean only what a jargon term means. For instance anyone in armed forces is, in plain English, a soldier, but in military jargon that term excludes the navy, air force, marines and coast guard.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Donuel
Date: 11 May 20 - 09:42 AM

Tough love is usually torture

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 May 20 - 10:35 AM

I thought tough love was when you couldn't win any points in tennis for ages.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 12 May 20 - 03:46 AM

... anyone in armed forces is, in plain English, a soldier ...

In plain English, a soldier is not a sailor and a sailor is not a soldier.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Charmion
Date: 12 May 20 - 07:13 AM

I’m with Doug on the