BS: Language Pet Peeves

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 30 Sep 23 - 11:44 AM

I think it does imply just that.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 30 Sep 23 - 04:09 PM

Well let's take another look, shall we? Here's the bit that you three have homed in on:

"Lady Gaga won a Brit in 2010 for best international female artist, not artiste, chanteuse, or songstress."

The Guardian is quite clearly steering its writers (it's their style guide, don't forget) away from outmoded sexist terms for women performers. It's telling its contributors not to lapse into sexist (chanteuse, songstress) or incorrect (artiste, which has nothing to do with "artist," and if you use that word for a female artist not only are you being sexist but you are also dead wrong). That's the sentiment of that sentence whether you like it or not. There is no hint in that sentence whatsoever that the Guardian thinks that "artiste" means, or has ever meant (it hasn't) "female artist." Two things. Look up the definitions of artist and artiste in a dictionary, and have a good read of the Guardian style guide. It's actually very entertaining and it fully reflects modern thinking on how we must be careful with terminology. Go on, I dare you.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 30 Sep 23 - 05:43 PM

I would argue the point with you, Steve, but there is no point once you have made up your mind. Others can read the words and decide for themselves.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 30 Sep 23 - 06:39 PM

Nonsense, Doug. I can't help it if I engage with the issue more than you do. I'm very flexible and quite indulgent when it comes to use of language, and I'm always firmly on the side of non-bullshitters.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Oct 23 - 12:30 PM

A couple of days ago meself mentioned a bloke referred to as a widow. I looked this up and it seems that, in newspapers at least, "widow" crops up as much as 15 times more often than "widower." Am I being woke in suspecting that this reflects something unequal in the way we see women in relationships differently to the way we see men? Anyway, a good read, though more than ten years old, in the Guardian: "Women and men are still unequal – even when they are dead" [Matt Mills]

And men are not "widowered," are they?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 01 Oct 23 - 04:56 PM

'And men are not "widowered," are they?' I've found myself wondering that on occasion. It sounds clunky, but you would think there'd be a simple way to get that idea across ... ?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Oct 23 - 07:33 PM

Pretentious foodie things. "Compote" (mushed up fruit). "A medley of vegetables" (a load of boiled broccoli, carrots and peas piled up in a dish). "Artisanal" ( same as your other stuff but at twice the price). "Fine dining" (fourteen courses of cold, tiny portions on huge plates, often with a "theme" - I once endured such a "feast" in which thinly sliced radishes appeared in at least half the dishes).

If you're somehow persuaded to go to a "fine dining" restaurant, take my advice and make sure that there's a good chippy on your way home.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Thompson
Date: 01 Oct 23 - 09:41 PM

Came across a use of "than" when "as" would be correct. It's in The Atlantic:

The cultivated apple-tree was first introduced into this country by the earliest settlers, and it is thought to do as well or better here than anywhere else.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 02 Oct 23 - 04:15 AM

To my hearing, "as" has not been replaced by "than". It is simply missing. The correct form should be:

.... as well as or better than ....


DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 02 Oct 23 - 04:23 AM

Mine too, Doug.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 02 Oct 23 - 05:52 AM

I can't see much wrong with the original sentence.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 02 Oct 23 - 09:48 AM

After another look I kind of agree with Doug. Better still, a rebuild of the sentence might have worked. It's one of those things that wouldn't matter much if you said it but which looks awkward in print.

The cultivated apple-tree was first introduced into this country by the earliest settlers, and it is thought to do as well or better here than anywhere else.

"The cultivated apple tree, first introduced into this country by the earliest settlers, is thought to do at least as well here as anywhere else."

I left it in, but I'm not keen on "is thought..." as it's tantamount to weasel words (thought by who?) but hey ho, and "apple tree" does not need a hyphen.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 02 Oct 23 - 01:31 PM

There was a cartoon a few years ago in the "New Yorker" that showed a hip young couple passing a storefront advertising "Artisinal Kick in the Butt! Really Painful! Ruins Your Day!"

The young woman says, "Ooooh! Artisinal!"

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 02 Oct 23 - 09:46 PM

Hmmm on widow/widower. Both are widowed, though.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Oct 23 - 05:56 AM

If you read the (rather old) Guardian piece, you'll see that bereaved men are far less likely to be referred to as widowers than bereaved women are referred to as widows.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Oct 23 - 07:50 AM

Advisor. This is not the traditional spelling of this word, which should be spelled "adviser." I can't claim that "advisor" is incorrect, as it's used so much that it's now standard English, but it grates. Yanks may beg to differ, though even the NYT uses "adviser." I blame Trip Adviser.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 06 Oct 23 - 08:01 AM

Merriam-Webster:

"[T]here are some cases in which one tends to be used more often than the other. Some people feel that 'advisor' is more formal, and it tends to be found more often when applied to official positions, such as an advisor to a president. When referring to someone who is serving in a military role, especially when using the term as a euphemism (as when claiming that troops are actually military 'advisers'), then 'adviser' is somewhat more common."

Makes sense. Not.

In my brain, an "adviser" simply advises, but an "advisor" occupies a paid position to do so.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: gillymor
Date: 06 Oct 23 - 08:40 AM

Trump as Speaker would be like pouring gasoline on an already blazing dumpster fire.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Oct 23 - 12:54 PM

But we don't need two words for it, Lighter. And you're talking American. Ever been called Lightor?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 06 Oct 23 - 01:27 PM

Around here they're pronounced the same. Same word, alternative spellings.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Oct 23 - 04:26 PM

Advise and advise, practice and practise, different words with different meanings. Advisor, adviser, same word, same meaning (whatever you say) so no need for two spellings. It's mostly an American thing, isn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Oct 23 - 06:06 AM

Pee and poo. Just stoppit now. It's piss and shit, two beautiful words so redolent of the stuff/action involved. We've used them since the 1300s. Out with twee euphemisms, say I!

It's quite interesting, however, that grown men and women even in mixed company, even if they don't know each other very well, will often say things like "Hang on a minute, I just need to go for a wee," the norm round here. You don't hear "Hang on, I'm just going for a shit," presumably because most healthy adults will have dealt with that before leaving the house.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 07 Oct 23 - 01:06 PM

Advise and advise, practice and practise

What is the difference between 'advise' and 'advise'?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Oct 23 - 01:20 PM

Wow, didn't spot that. I meant advise and advice. It was the autocorrect thingie. It's just done it to me again in this post three times in a row! To he'll with spellcheckers!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Oct 23 - 10:02 AM

My spellchecker just follows me around and beeps at me. It can be added to or corrected to MY choices. It recognizes both advise and advice, so I can use either...depending on context.

https://tinyspell.com/

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Oct 23 - 03:22 PM

I just watched a YouTube thing where some guy was telling about a man who suffered ridicule when you was young... he was reading from some script, and he pronounced it re-DIC-you-el!|

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Oct 23 - 03:46 PM

Oi, Bill, we hear a lot from you guys talking about Eye-ran and Eye-raq, not forgetting Dubya with his "noo-queue-ler"!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Oct 23 - 03:55 PM

Ha! I yell at them every chance I get...And I remember a Brit news guy talking about
Nic-uh-RAG-you-uh.

And everyone in Australia pronouncing 'pain' and 'pine' the same way.

No wonder the English language bewilders foreigners.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 08 Oct 23 - 04:20 PM

…and don’t well-known British TV and radio presenters talking about ‘Eye-bee-fah’

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 08 Oct 23 - 04:36 PM

“…and don’t forget well-known…”

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Oct 23 - 05:03 PM

I love Strictly (shoot...), but the judge Motsi, who is brilliant, has this irritating habit of prefacing her judgements with "For me,..." Grr!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 10 Oct 23 - 02:00 PM

I thought adviser was just misspelled...

Still working on eliminating Stray Bullet.

Still working on atheism being an absence of belief in diety, not a faith-based position that no gods *can* exist.

Both of those came up recently.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 10 Oct 23 - 02:21 PM

…or should that be ‘ætheism’, Mrrzy? ;-) :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Oct 23 - 03:59 PM

Atheism is neither of those things. It's not an absence of anything (why should I be defined in the negative?), neither is it faith-based. It's a sort of shrug of the shoulders in the face of irrational affirmations.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Bill D
Date: 10 Oct 23 - 04:59 PM

Well, we philosophers will always point out differences between atheism, 'faith based' assertions of the impossibilities of 'gods', militant agnosticism and simple refusal to think about it all.
   A long thread on 'creationism' awhile back added another idea to the burbling pot... and now a few cosmologists want to re-introduce the idea that our 'reality' is merely a projection from another realm of being! (One more level above quarks and Higgs bosons, electrons and positrons, atoms, molecules, animal, vegetable and mineral, consciousness...etc...)

There is a tendency to assume that if there is a noun, it must refer to 'something'. Bah!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Oct 23 - 06:04 PM

Well I've seen cod-atheists asserting that God is impossible. Real atheists never say things like that. I think I know that there's no Loch Ness monster. Of that I'm pretty certain (did you notice the two caveats there?) Even Richard Dawkins says that he can't be absolutely sure that there's no God (as defined by the major religions). If you ask me if I believe in God and I answer no, you've hoodwinked me into allowing the conversation to move firmly on to your territory, and I'm not having it. The best answer is that you're asking me an illegitimate question. So "Do you believe in God?" is a pet peeve of mine!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 10 Oct 23 - 07:32 PM

.... simple refusal to think about it all.

To my mind, the most appropriate response to "Do you believe in God?" would be "Does it matter?". No matter how strong a mere mortal's belief may be, either for or against, it would have no bearing on the existence or non-existence of a supernatural being.

I don't know if it's a real word, but I describe myself as an apothet - it makes no difference one way or the other. I try to live my life as a polite, caring, socially aware and responsible citizen, not because I fear eternal damnation, but because it's the way I choose to live.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Oct 23 - 08:09 PM

"Does it matter?" legitimises the question. Not only that (another peeve coming up...), the word "believe" is grossly overused. If you assert that you believe in something you're absolving yourself from being challenged for evidence. Especially if God is involved.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: BobL
Date: 11 Oct 23 - 04:07 AM

If you assert that you believe in something you're absolving yourself from being challenged for evidence.

Not at all, Steve. For example, I believe I truly am the natural-born son of the married couple by whom I was raised and whom I regarded as my parents. If necessary I could refer to my birth certificate in support of this belief, and would not object to a DNA test.

The evidence behind my religious beliefs is circumstantial and subjective, but it exists.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Oct 23 - 05:13 AM

You are able to provide rock-solid evidence for your parentage, which no-one can deny. Whatever evidence you think you have for your religious beliefs may be sufficient for you and good luck with that. That's a respectable position. Air that evidence in public when there are a few thinking atheists around and not only would your evidence be in peril of being debunked but it would also likely be shown to not be evidence in the strict sense at all. Best to keep your belief private. I've been saying just that to folks of a religious persuasion for decades. ;-) So your parentage need not be stated as a belief at all. Morrisons are currently selling a highly rated Spanish red wine. Do you believe me? Well here's the wine with their logo on the label and here's the receipt I got for it this morning, and you can find its high score, the sum of thousands of customer reviews, on Vivino. You don't have to believe me. In fact, I'd rather you didn't say that you do!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 11 Oct 23 - 07:38 AM

If you have no principles, avoid moderation:


https://tinyurl.com/36b5kev8

"Republican state Rep. Craig Williams has been trying to build internal party support for an undeclared 2024 bid for Pennsylvania attorney general, but he got some unwelcome news when a powerful national party group [the Republican Attorney Generals Association] trashed him as dishonest and 'very moderate, unprincipled and opportunistic.'"

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 11 Oct 23 - 12:09 PM

So whaddya think: is 'very moderate' an error - typo or misusage - or is being 'moderate' as egregious a characteristic as being 'unprincipled' and 'opportunistic' in the modern GOP? Hard to know ....

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 11 Oct 23 - 12:24 PM

Errrrmmm…Language Pet Peeves????

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 11 Oct 23 - 01:07 PM

No, Steve, for the extreme populists of the Republican party (now about 90% of it) "moderation" in the pursuit of their version of liberty is, to paraphrase Barry Goldwater, "no virtue."

Moderates, in that view, are just fast-talking cowards.

Bonus peeve: "cowardly" being used as the preferred synonym for "treacherous" (no matter how daring) and "coward" for "miscreant" or "monster (ditto).

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Thompson
Date: 11 Oct 23 - 04:08 PM

Oh dear. Even this thread had been captured.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 11 Oct 23 - 04:26 PM

Captured by what? Pejoration of "moderate" is a linguistic development explicable by politics.

Traditionally the word has had neutral or positive connotations.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Oct 23 - 04:38 PM

Whaddya mean, Lighter, " No, Steve?" I haven't waded in on that one! :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 11 Oct 23 - 05:27 PM

No "No, Steve," Steve. Obviously, I would have thought!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Oct 23 - 06:29 PM

"So "Do you believe in God?" is a pet peeve of mine!"

Oh yes! Phrased that way, it assumes a "God" in the very construction.

A better question is, "Do you believe in some sort of god or gods?"

Either way, I can only shrug and say, "I have no personal experience with any."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 12 Oct 23 - 12:26 PM

Here's a peeve of mine: categorically, as in "I categorically deny that I broke the windows."

What is it supposed to mean? I believe the speaker wants to convey "emphatically" or "without a doubt," because how do categories enter into it?