 sj |
||
|
||
BS: Language Pet Peeves
|
|
|
Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves From: Steve Shaw Date: 20 Oct 23 - 05:21 AM You don't "prove" theories. That's not allowed for in the scientific method. It's all about accumulating evidence to get ever nearer to the truth. Theories are there to explain the phenomena we encounter, but science is humble enough to leave the quest for truth ever-open. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves From: meself Date: 28 Aug 23 - 02:23 PM Another one I've been hearing lately from TV/radio journalists: the confused use of "blamed on" for "blamed for", as in this, just heard: "Technical issues are blamed on the delay of the flight". |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves From: meself Date: 06 Sep 23 - 07:12 PM "Inflation has become the boogeyman - um - boogeyperson - ...." A TV journalist yesterday. It's important that we recognize that women can have the quality of "boogey" just like men ...! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves From: meself Date: 10 Sep 23 - 07:17 PM Much as it pains me to be seen to be defending trump in any way, I agree with Lighter on the matter of what trump said: in the interview in which he was alleged to have said 'bigly', it is hard to make it out precisely, but I saw another interview somewhere in which he clearly uses the term 'big league' in the exact same way, which convinced me that that is indeed what he said in the interview in question. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves From: meself Date: 20 Sep 23 - 12:20 PM How about "the ball and chain"? Or should it be "MY ball and chain"? Or, "she who must be obeyed"? |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves From: meself Date: 29 Sep 23 - 01:31 PM Just heard this one in a radio discussion of some TV show (why are you promoting your competition?): "He's a widow". This was repeated a few times, with no one correcting the guy who kept saying it. Is "He's a widow" a 'thing' now?? |
|
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: 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: G-Force Date: 12 Sep 23 - 04:07 AM A recent decision by TfL in London has been described as 'incredulous'. So what's wrong with 'incredible'? |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves From: G-Force Date: 30 Sep 23 - 03:54 AM It's a bit like Santa Claus. It drives me mad when people call him Santa as if that were his name. His name is Claus, (short for Nicholas), ferchrisake. Santa means Saint. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves From: Stanron Date: 11 Sep 23 - 06:11 AM Why bring me into this? |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves From: Stanron Date: 20 Sep 23 - 12:13 PM From UK TV; 'er indoors She who must be obeyed The Management |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves From: BobL Date: 08 Sep 23 - 03:48 AM I suppose "lacksadaisical" could be considered a portmanteau of "lackadaisical" and "lax". This excuse also covers one of my pet hates, "irregardless". I'm not adding either to the spellcheck list. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves From: BobL Date: 20 Sep 23 - 03:51 AM How about "other half", whether "my" or "the"? |
|
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: BobL Date: 13 Oct 23 - 04:02 AM One of my cookbooks contained a reference to a "very moderate" oven, no degrees or regulo number. Is that supposed to be hotter or cooler than just plain "moderate"? |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves From: BobL Date: 20 Oct 23 - 04:30 AM "Correct theory" Call me pedantic, but I would argue that you can have a correct theory. However, it shouldn't be called correct until proven so, at which point it ceases to be a theory. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves From: Senoufou Date: 21 Sep 23 - 02:55 AM My husband has coined a new expression for this : "Madame Yapp-Yapp"! |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves From: MaJoC the Filk Date: 06 Sep 23 - 10:17 PM .... why *do* so many people lack daisies? |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves From: MaJoC the Filk Date: 07 Sep 23 - 06:27 AM > “Restaurateur“ Good grief: Collins's (the aforesaid first edition) and Wictionary both agree with you. The latter gives an interesting etymology, and the usage notes are, ahem, noteworthy. Note to self: remember to distinguish between etymology (words) and entomology (eg insects). That's today's second embarrassing discovery, and it ain't even dinnertime yet. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves From: MaJoC the Filk Date: 18 Sep 23 - 08:12 AM > Heavily pregnant That's shorter than "very obviously about-to-pop-at-any-moment pregnant", and marginally less insensitive. It also acknowledges, and sympathises with, the extra strain on the mother-to-be's back and feet. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves From: MaJoC the Filk Date: 18 Sep 23 - 11:49 AM > Perhaps we could stick with "great with child." Agreed: it has a subtle gentlemanly charm, with just a hint of eau de KJV. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves From: Mrrzy Date: 26 Oct 23 - 10:56 PM Um, no, it doesn't stop being a theory when (might as well be) proven. See relativity, gravity, evolution. All well-established, well-demonstrated, theories. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves From: Doug Chadwick Date: 26 Oct 23 - 07:26 PM If B thinks doing X will help A, and does X anyway without asking, resulting in a positive outcome for A, then it is benevolence. If B thinks doing X will help A, and does X anyway without asking but, in fact, hinders rather helps A then it is interference. DC |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves From: Doug Chadwick Date: 26 Oct 23 - 07:39 PM Even if B's actions achieved the outcome that A would have hoped for, left to themselves, it would still be interference if A would have preferred to get there by their own efforts. DC |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves From: Lighter Date: 27 Oct 23 - 12:52 PM I first met "to be like" = "to think or say" in NYC in 1984. (Part of my job was to notice such things.) It isn't the "like" that Steve is thinking of: not a pause but part of a novel verb phrase. Compare: "I was, like, really surprised. Like, what do you think?" (= pause or "well.") "I was like 'Want to eat?' and she was like 'OK.'" (= "said.") Don't care for it myself, but that's life. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves From: Steve Shaw Date: 27 Oct 23 - 05:43 AM It might amaze you to hear that I'm fine with "like." It's in the same linguistic family as "well," "know what I mean?" "so..." and "er..." (eh bien? alors??). Such things have a time-honoured home in spoken language, though not in writing I think. They enable the speaker to lubricate their sentences without resorting to awkward pauses while they collect their thoughts. I've corrected and adjusted several things so far in this typed message as I've gone along that you don't see, because all you're getting is the finished product. You can't do that in speech when you're thinking on your feet. Know what I'm sayin'? :-) |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves From: Steve Shaw Date: 27 Oct 23 - 01:21 PM It may not be real life, but it's life like (see what I did there?) |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves From: BobL Date: 27 Oct 23 - 04:24 AM If B thinks doing X will help A, then discusses it with A before doing it, this is, I suggest, co-operation. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves From: Senoufou Date: 27 Oct 23 - 03:01 AM I expect this has been brought up before on this thread, but I just had to post this:- Husband and I were in a Costa café yesterday having a nice cuppa. At the table next to us were two young women having a natter (rather loudly). What struck me was the incessant repetition of the word 'like'."I was ..like...why?" "So she was ...like...I don't know" etc etc ad nauseam. Wouldn't it be simpler to use the word 'said'? For example, "I said, "I don't know." and so on. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves From: MaJoC the Filk Date: 25 Oct 23 - 11:00 AM > Whoopi Goldberg: "I’m an actor – I can play anything." I'd like to see her play the young lad in Equus. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves From: MaJoC the Filk Date: 25 Oct 23 - 11:41 AM > You don't "prove" theories. That's not allowed for in the scientific > method. Correct. The word "proof", after all, originally meant "test", as in "degrees proof" of alcohol, and the true meaning of "proof of the pudding", and of "the exception proves the rule". As it happens, I've just been re-reading Simon Singh's Fermat's Last Theorem, in which he points out that the scientific theory is the poor relation of the mathematical theorem. The latter is absolute (admittedly the underlying axioms are accepted as true).* The same is true for proofs. * Shut up at the back there, Gödel. |
|
Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves From: MaJoC the Filk Date: 26 Oct 23 - 10:13 AM Strictly speaking, this may not belong here,* but it peeves me summat rotten that I don't know the answer:
I open the query to the floor. Have at it, gentlecatters. * And I may well have asked this elsewhere already. I blame bit rot in the wetware. |
