BS: Language Pet Peeves

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Senoufou
Date: 23 Sep 22 - 06:56 AM

"It's not the cough that carries you off. It's the coffin they carry you off in."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Sep 22 - 06:47 AM

I'm very old-fashioned. I still call it a cist.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 23 Sep 22 - 06:18 AM

”And it was a coffin. Not a casket. Apparently this matters.”

Aaaahh, the old issue of ‘two nations divided by a common language’ rears its head once more! In the UK, where we tend to be less squeamish than the US about such things, the wooden box which contains the corpse is usually referred to as a ‘coffin’ - I don’t ever recollect hearing anyone here refer to it as a ‘casket’.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Senoufou
Date: 23 Sep 22 - 05:16 AM

After grinding my teeth at the words 'chester draws' on a website for mums, I've now just seen 'I need a rest bite' !!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 22 Sep 22 - 08:52 PM

Matters to to whom? As it was covered by the royal standard, not many people would know which one it was.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 Sep 22 - 08:32 PM

And it was a coffin. Not a casket. Apparently this matters.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Sep 22 - 11:57 AM

Quote from Liz Truss's Bible reading at THAT funeral: "If ye hath seen me, ye hath seen my Father also..."

Well I didn't know that his father was called Also! Makes sense, as Zarathustra's first and middle names were Also and Sprach. Also Sprach Zarathustra! I know this because I saw it on an album sleeve AND on the credits after 2001: A Space Odyssey!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Sep 22 - 11:42 AM

And we've had quite a lot of "And now the coffin is lying at rest." Gosh, it must have been exhausting for the poor old coffin, lugging the Queen around for days and getting stared at!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 19 Sep 22 - 08:57 AM

Ok, the Queen's ceremony cannot culminate in something that is to be followed by something else.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 30 Jul 22 - 02:16 PM

On American news shows, which I've watched far too much of over the last six years or so, far-right Democrats like Manchin and Sinema are called 'moderate Democrats' - so what are Democrats like Biden: 'extremists'? 'radicals'? 'militants?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Senoufou
Date: 29 Jul 22 - 02:54 AM

BobL you really made me laugh with those two hymns which aren't suitable for weddings! I nearly choked on my morning cup of tea! Haahaaahaaaaaaagh!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 28 Jul 22 - 07:52 PM

I wouldn't call those "mealy-mouthed euphemisms" - some of them are just underworld slang, and some are just - well, what's a better term for "crime boss"? "Former president", maybe? Or for "gunman" - "Second Amendment Activist"?

However, it does bring to mind a peeve of mine: journalists using underworld or street slang in otherwise straight-ahead reporting; e.g., "The bust went down this morning ..." (yes, I heard that on TV news).

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 28 Jul 22 - 04:36 PM

New topic. I just came across a YouTube video on the deaths of organized criminals, and the video proved to be a treasure trove of a particular peeve of mine - mealy-mouthed euphemisms that cover up the horror of crimes. Here's a list; I don't think I need to explain.

hit
hitman
rackets
took him for a drive
capo
lieutenant
enforcer
outfit
gunman
crime boss
took out
protection

============
To back up some, after an animal is butchered, it needs to be hung up for a while under refrigeration.

https://greatbritishmeat.com/blogs/butchers-blog/hanging-meat

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: BobL
Date: 17 Jul 22 - 03:00 AM

My generation held that there were two hymns unsuitable for weddings, one being "Fight the Good Fight."
The other, now consigned to history, was an advent hymn based on the parable in Matthew 25 of the wise & foolish bridesmaids:
"Behold the Bridegroom cometh in the middle of the night..."

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 16 Jul 22 - 06:23 PM

Oh, no! Now I'm thinking of things my grandparents would say that were double-entendres to the debauched generation of their grandchildren ... and wondering if they too were the victims of cruel pranks ... ! For that matter, I'd better review my own habitual turns-of-phrase ....

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 16 Jul 22 - 11:44 AM

This is so embarrassing, I hate to report it, but it just shows what can happen.

My grandmother was born in NYC in the 1880s. When she was in her 70's, she'd usually call the store to have groceries delivered.

When she talked to the butcher, she'd usually ask if the meat was "well hung."

This meant nothing to me as a child, but I was curious about what it meant.

She said that when she was a girl (around 1900) someone had told her that "You should always ask the butcher if his meat is well hung."

Decades later, I still cringe for her. I wish I could have croaked out a warning!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Senoufou
Date: 15 Jul 22 - 02:13 PM

I was doing a crossword this morning and one of the answers was 'dado'. It started me off giggling because I remembered a friend many years ago at a village bingo. All of us ladies were sat round a table, and during the interval, she announced loudly, "My husband has been putting up a DILDO rail in the hall!" There were shrieks of laughter all round, and someone had to explain to her what a dildo was.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 14 Jul 22 - 02:10 PM

So "the only woman to be appointed" doesn't imply anything about the future, but the "first woman..." does?

By the reasoning in previous posts, "only" should imply there'll never be another.

Just as "first" allegedly implies there will be another.

I say we can't tell the future and both words are equally (il)logical and (in)correct.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 14 Jul 22 - 11:59 AM

How about "The First Annual ..."? And, perhaps, not quite as black-and-white, but news reports are always telling us about 'historic' events that happened five minutes ago or are about to happen - seems a little unfair not to let History decide what is historic ....

"until there is a second, is an Only" - That thought always crosses my mind when there is a report of "the first woman to be appointed ... ", etc. ... but I think we've lost that one.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 14 Jul 22 - 07:43 AM

And firsts aren't firsts till there is a second.

Right now we have a Pope Francis. When there is a second one, this one will become Francis I.

As Encyclopedia Brown pointed out, it wasn't the first battle of Bull Run till there was a second one.

What you have, until there is a second, is an Only.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 12 Jul 22 - 01:15 PM

.... On reflection, perhaps someone conflated "best yet" with "first ever"; quite possibly me. I've got chronically mischievous ears, which are an everlasting source of amusement and material for a punslinger (and hell on wheels to anybody else in range).

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Lighter
Date: 12 Jul 22 - 10:23 AM

Don't confuse "best ever known" with "eternally best."

Oxford recognizes no less than eight numbered senses of the word "ever."

Fascinating.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jul 22 - 08:58 AM

You've clearly never eaten an M&S Best Ever prawn sandwich...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 12 Jul 22 - 07:43 AM

Right, then, a fresh peeve: the use of "best ever" when what is meant is "best yet", notably in the context of the first James Webb telescope picture. The expression "best ever" is two-sided, and suggests there'll never be another one at least as good, let alone even better, in due course.

I accuse NASA, in the press release, with an advertising meme.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 11 Jul 22 - 06:14 PM

I often read stuff such as "he married his wife in 1982...". So he married her twice then...just to make sure...?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Mrrzy
Date: 11 Jul 22 - 06:02 PM

Still snickering over Steve Dhaw and his secret yank.

"Woman dies after drowning." No, woman drowns.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 10 Jul 22 - 01:11 AM

In what I believe the TV newspeople call "the crawl" - that moving strip of text at the bottom of your screen on some news shows - an item today on one of our (Canadian) national broadcasters began as follows: "61% of Canadians think Canada is on the wrong track, as opposed to the right one, when it comes to ...." I, for one, appreciated that clarification!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Senoufou
Date: 09 Jul 22 - 05:02 AM

You're all very kind, but it's all I can manage to turn the blooming laptop on! Funnily enough, my errant husband, who is very techno-savvy, types without using accents, and his French isn't as good as mine (boast). But as his first language is Malinke, I use that as well. (My Malinke vocabulary is rather limited, but I manage.)
I'm far too pedantic, without starting on other languages as well.
Thank you all for your offers of technological help, but it would be like trying to teach a dog to quote Shakespeare!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 09 Jul 22 - 04:43 AM

Sen,
Try typing it in Microsoft Word, if you have it, then copy and paste into your email. The proofing language can be selected and accents are easily entered using keyboard shortcuts. I could send you the list of keyboard shortcuts by PM if that would help.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 09 Jul 22 - 04:19 AM

AZERTY. You could probably tell your computer that your existing keyboard has an AZERTY layout but I think you would need to be able to touch type with that layout to use it.

Your email program may well allow you to add a French dictionary for spelling checks.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Senoufou
Date: 09 Jul 22 - 04:07 AM

Sorry Bob, I don't know what that is. I'm the biggest idiot where Internet technology is concerned!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: BobL
Date: 09 Jul 22 - 03:49 AM

Would an AZERTY keyboard help?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Senoufou
Date: 09 Jul 22 - 03:03 AM

Hee hee Doug, I was thoroughly ashamed of myself. Maybe it was 'karma'. When I was a primary schoolteacher, if a pupil made a spelling mistake I often made them write the word down correctly perhaps twenty times.
Now that my husband and I don't live together, we communicate in French via e mails. My laptop doesn't seem to accept this, and every single word I type is underlined in red. It makes the text look as if it's covered in blood! Also, my keyboard doesn't 'do' accents such as acute, grave, cedilla etc. It looks like the composition of a 'bottom-group' first-year pupil to me!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Jul 22 - 07:21 PM

And the ould spellchecker can trip one up, especially when you're not wearing your reading glasses. Insertion of unwanted apostrophe's is one it's worst traits.

I say, to he'll with spellcheckers!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 08 Jul 22 - 06:46 PM

I'm sure that most of us try to avoid spelling errors, Steve, but mistakes slip through. I'm thinking of Senoufou's recent efforts to correct a mis-spelling of "iridescent" in the "BS: Mad Swans, blue tits, and others" thread. She knew perfectly well how to spell it but somehow her brain wasn't connected to her fingers. It can happen to the best of us.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 08 Jul 22 - 05:30 PM

Doug, I edit my posts before hitting send. I hate spelling errors. If I'm not sure, I check with a dictionary. I do that every day. If you find a spelling error in my posts, let me know. I regard it as only polite to do my best to express myself clearly and avoid mistakes. That does not mean that I'm excessively clever. It means that I want to be represented by clear and accurate posts. My opinions, on the other hand, are another matter...

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 08 Jul 22 - 07:31 AM

I was told, very early in my engineering apprenticeship, that, “Him what never makes a mistake never does sod-all”. Even with the double-negative, I think the message is pretty clear…

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 08 Jul 22 - 06:57 AM

That's why you won't find spelling errors in my posts.

Is that a challenge? It's certainly a very bold statement.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jul 22 - 06:50 PM

Do that with an infinitive, weerover. There's a challenge for you!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jul 22 - 06:47 PM

Well I use the time-honoured method, chiefly for brevity and clarity. I mean, it isn't exactly as if I made up the ploy...

You say that I should make a huge and polite effort to correct an error. In the case in question, I'd suggest that the perpetrator of the error made that error lazily, and does not deserve the time and effort it would take for me to do that. I mean, has he not heard of dictionaries? Dunno about you, Joe, but if I'm ever unsure about a word, I look up the spelling. That's why you won't find spelling errors in my posts. It's not that I'm incredibly clever or anything, it's more that I make the effort to get it right. The man who types "supercede" and "supream" clearly doesn't do that. Shoot at the right target, Joe!

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Joe_F
Date: 07 Jul 22 - 05:28 PM

Steve Shaw: I think, in the situation you describe, I would correct the error but enclose the corrected words in square brackets.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: weerover
Date: 07 Jul 22 - 04:58 PM

Steve says you can't split a single word. Abso-fucking-lutely you can: it is called "tmesis" and is a recognised rhetorical device, like many such from Greek.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jul 22 - 04:21 PM

Know wot ah mean, like?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: meself
Date: 07 Jul 22 - 02:34 PM

Among large swathes of Canadians, "eh?" used to be common - now you'll find Canadians who claim they've never heard it (which I don't believe), let alone used it. In the past decade or so, "right?" has largely replaced "eh?".

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: leeneia
Date: 07 Jul 22 - 01:01 PM

When I was growing up in Milwaukee, many working-class people said 'aina?', short for 'ain't it?.' These did not seem to be American country people (users of ain't), and I thought that 'aina' was a replacement for the German 'nicht wahr?" Thus it would resemble England's 'innit?'.

I haven't lived there for a long time, so I don't know if it has died out.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: BobL
Date: 07 Jul 22 - 03:40 AM

Better "innit" than "right", especially when giving directions - "then you take the next left, right?"

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Senoufou
Date: 07 Jul 22 - 02:22 AM

I've mentioned on here before how much I love that word 'innit?'. (Used at the end of seemingly irrelevant statements, for example: "He looks cool in them trousers, innit?" I suppose it could be 'translated' as 'Is that not so?'.
Well, I've got to know a black chap who lives down my road with his white wife. He's of Caribbean origin but lived most of his life in West London, where I spent my childhood. (We discovered we'd been born in the same hospital in Hillingdon!) He uses 'innit' without let or hindrance, and has me in stitches! I think it's my favourite word, innit?

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 07 Jul 22 - 02:09 AM

.... Apologies: I should have added that I was distracting myself from the dire news, so may have been inadvertently firing off my mouth from the hip (again). As for said dividing line, it's even harder to know where it is if you don't know the reader's context; so I suggest we say "everybody has their own line in the sand", and (erm) draw a line under it. I will now go and write "I will always take an hour extra before I click Submit" four hundred times.

"Quick, Jeeves! my asbestos mail-reading long johns!"

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Jul 22 - 06:00 PM

I must have posted dozens of times with the expressed sentiment that language is fluid, should be allowed to be fluid, must not be in the hands of grammar police and must go with the popular flow. It's wot the people say, not wot grammarians dictate. You hit on a classic example in your post. The people who like to constantly rail against "splitting the infinitive" are not only wrong (people have chosen to routinely "split the infinitive" for hundreds of years with impunity), but they don't actually know what an infinitive is. The scholarly take is that a true infinitive is a single word, and you can't exactly split that. You'll have to look that up if you're bothered.

However, the sentiment that language should be fluid and allowed to evolve in no way excuses blatant errors and sloppiness. Ignorance should not be the driver of language evolution. Claiming that your misspelled word or inelegant phrase is all part of the language evolving is both ignorant and vexatious. It's hard to know where the dividing line is.

Subject: RE: BS: Language Pet Peeves
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 06 Jul 22 - 05:28 PM

.... I used to use "licence" for both noun and verb, until I had to deal with licences and licensing (and Murrkin software) a lot.

Meta-peeve: Old English was (approximately) the result of mixing Anglo-Saxon with Old Norse, then there was a violent collision with Norman French; then Dr Johnson and co-conspirators overlarded it heavily with late Latin (including the wrong sort of grammar); and only then did spelling start settling down. Then the language pedants started making educated mistakes, like never permitting one to boldly split an infinitive; and we started picking up words from all over the Empire, and getting those wrong too. And you expect such a magpie language to be consistent? humph.

End of core dump.