Grammar that makes you cringe

[Cudzoziemiec]

American usage of "through" seen on a sign in the road in front of Buckingham Palace.

It's Anglicised (or should that be Britannicised?) A true Americanism would be "thru". 

[Auntie Helen]

Typo in an ebook I am currently reading.

Woman has broken down at the side of the road, tow truck man arrives:

He moved around her and went to his truck. He started preparing her car to be towed, doing technical things with wenches, and hooks...

[Auntie Helen]

No, and I did think that as I wrote it but as I was using the iPad I couldn't be bothered to write that the woman's VW Beetle had broken down...

[Peter]

American usage of "through" seen on a sign in the road in front of Buckingham Palace.

American use of "through" seen on a sign in the road in front of Buckingham Palace - unless you're American, possibly!

[mattc]

Woman has broken down at the side of the road, tow truck man arrives:

And there was me thinking that if this woman has broken down at the side of the road she needs a counsellor, not a tow truck man. But that wasn't the grammer you were pointing out, was it, Helen? Silly me!

As this is the "grammar" thread, I think I'm allowed to point out the lack of grammar defects in the passage. (or indeed grammer defects).

Still bloody funny!

[Auntie Helen]

Yeah but I wasn't sure if there was a 'typos that make you cringe' thread. I come across such disasters regularly in my reading.

[mattc]

Helen's is part of a more elite group - typos that are not spellos or grammos, but lead to an amusing unintended meaning. [Listeners send lots of great ones to R4 News Quiz.]

[Arch]

Helen's is part of a more elite group - typos that are not spellos or grammos, but lead to an amusing unintended meaning. [Listeners send lots of great ones to R4 News Quiz.]

I remember one about a village that were going to erect a commemorative plague on the village green....

[Jaded]

Here's a t-shirt for you.

http://www.shotdeadinthehead.com/product_view.aspx?pid=4398

Warning, contains some words.

[hubner]

American usage of "through" seen on a sign in the road in front of Buckingham Palace.

American use of "through" seen on a sign in the road in front of Buckingham Palace - unless you're American, possibly!

Certainly you can use "use", but "usage" sounds OK to me as well.

"Usage" from OED:

7

a. The established or customary manner of using a language; the way in which an item of vocabulary, syntax, or grammar is normally used, esp. by a specified group or in a particular domain or region.

c1400  (1380)    Chaucer tr. Boethius De Consol. Philos. (BL Add. 10340) (1868) iv. pr. vii. l. 4184   Wilt þou‥þat I proche a litel to þe wordes of þe poeple so it seme nat to hem þat I be ouer moche departid as fro þe vsage of man kynde?
1572   J. Bridges tr. R. Gwalther Hundred, Threescore & Fiftene Homelyes xxx. 220   Thys worde generation, according to the vsage of the Hebrues, is taken as well for the age of a man, as for his posteritie.
1697   D. Defoe Ess. Projects 236   The Voice of this Society should be sufficient Authority for the Usage of Words.
1700   E. Howard Remarks New Philos. Des-Cartes ii. 135   Vulgar usage of Words is, and will be more practicably Retain'd, by the generality of Mankind, than any Concise, or Philosophical Language of the Schools.
1785   W. Paley Moral & Polit. Philos. iii. 158   All senses of all words are founded upon usage, and nothing else.
1806   W. Cruise Digest Laws Eng. Real Prop. VI. 367   To make words stand for ideas, in opposition to the sense which usage had put upon them.
a1831   Encycl. Metrop. I. 132/1   When we speak of nouns and verbs, we only conform to the established usage.
1875   W. D. Whitney Life & Growth of Lang. xii. 231   As to the common name by which they shall be called, usage is very diverse.
1937   S. F. Armstrong Brit. Grasses (ed. 3) x. 207   Its old common English name was ‘Ray-grass’, but in general usage the word became corrupted to Rie-grass and so to Rye-grass.
1967   Adv. in Immunol. 7 277   At the present time it is generally agreed that correct usage includes the following terms.
2005   S. Elmes Talking for Brit. ii. 45 (Gloss.),   ‘My lover’ is Bristol usage, but also found quite widely in the West Country.

b. An instance of such language use; a word, phrase, construction, etc., used in a particular or characteristic way by a group, in a region, etc.

1799   Monthly Rev. June 141   When general practice has established any given manner of writing or uttering a word, this usage, even if inconsistent with analogy or internal etymology, ought perhaps to be considered as the binding law.
1833   Penny Cycl. I. 449/1   For other American usages which are somewhat peculiar, the reader may refer to the following words in Webster: to wagon (waggon), [etc.].
1895   H. Rashdall Univ. Europe in Middle Ages II. ii. xii. §9. 558   At Cambridge‥the more usual name was Hospicium or Hostel—not the only instance in which a Parisian usage has been preserved more faithfully at Cambridge than at Oxford.
1930   G. B. Johnson in B. A. Botkin Treasury Southern Folklore (1949) iv. iii. 697   Ax, ask. Not a Negroism, but a usage which was once good English.
1968   G. Jones Hist. Vikings iii. iv. 245   Similarly they translate Liudprand's Nordmanni as Normans, meaning Northmen, Scandinavians, a customary Russian usage.
2005   J. Kozol Shame of Nation v. 115   The term‥is ‘front-loading children,’ a usage that appears to have originated in the world of capital investment.

And of course there's "Fowler’s Modern English Usage", "A Dictionary of Modern English Usage" etc.

One definition of "through" from the OED:

U.S. Up to (a date, a number, a specified item, etc.) inclusively, up to the end of, up to and including, to, until; often correlative to from.

1798   T. Holcroft Jrnl. 4 Aug. in Mem. (1816) III. 31   Continued the opera through scene 9, Act 3.
1930   H. Brown (title)    Rabelais in English literature through Sterne.
1932   Atlantic Monthly May 538   Mr. Heffernan was mayor for four years, from 1927 through 1931.
1942   M. Kraitchik Math. Recreations vi. 130   Poisson calculated this probability, taking into account the cards dealt in the first hand. His result does not differ through the third decimal place.
1950   H. Craig Hist. Eng. Lit. 250   Spenser treats of England from the Reformation through the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
1967   N.Y. Times (Internat. Ed.) 11 Feb. 1/6   At a background briefing early in November, the American command made available infiltration figures covering the year through Sept. 30 and a rough estimate for October.
1971   Physics Bull. Dec. 738/1   In the review copy pages 1469 through 1472 are already loose which does not say too much for the quality of the binding.
1977   Time 8 Aug. 19/3   We will continue to govern through the end of our term.
1981   L. Deighton XPD xliii. 342   A‥notice stating that deliveries were only accepted between eight and eleven Monday through Friday.

Also re spelling:

thru: now used informally as a reformed spelling and abbreviation (chiefly) in N. Amer.

[Peter]

h., I didn't say it was wrong, per se, although the references you cite refer, in the main, to a habit of language rather than to the equivalence of use with usage.  I'm not being a pedant, merely posting in the spirit of the thread title, because it makes me cringe!

Another I can't stand is "signage" for signs.  How about you?

Cheers

Peter

[pcolbeck]

I don't mind "signage" when its referring to a general class of things  but if it's particular then "signs" is better. So "we need to design some signage for the motorway system" against "we need to install thirty stop signs" .

[Zipperhead]

He moved around her and went to his truck. He started preparing her car to be towed, doing technical things with wenches, and hooks...

I like doing technical things with wenches - it stops them getting out of the restraints.

[Peter]

I don't mind "signage" when its referring to a general class of things  but if it's particular then "signs" is better. So "we need to design some signage for the motorway system" against "we need to install thirty stop signs" .

pc, I agree you can just about make a case for that (just about!) but what irks me is an exhortation to "follow the signage" or "the regulations are clearly dsplayed on the signage" and so on.  It's an example of people trying to make something sound more impressive or technical when there is no need and perfectly adequate language already exists.

[Deano]

I don't mind "signage" when its referring to a general class of things  but if it's particular then "signs" is better. So "we need to design some signage for the motorway system" against "we need to install thirty stop signs" .

pc, I agree you can just about make a case for that (just about!) but what irks me is an exhortation to "follow the signage" or "the regulations are clearly dsplayed on the signage" and so on. It's an example of people trying to make something sound more impressive or technical when there is no need and perfectly adequate language already exists.

See also: excessive usage use of the reflexive pronoun, eg "I am writing to ask yourselves..."

Incidentally, while googling for a suitable example, I found this bit of hokum:

http://coa.ender.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=37559

[hubner]

h., I didn't say it was wrong, per se, although the references you cite refer, in the main, to a habit of language rather than to the equivalence of use with usage.  I'm not being a pedant, merely posting in the spirit of the thread title, because it makes me cringe!

Another I can't stand is "signage" for signs.  How about you?

Cheers

Peter

"Signage" sounds like a made up and unnecessary word to my ears, whereas "usage" in regards to language is well established and sounds perfectly normal, at least to me.

However I can't stand "utilise" and "utilisation", when "use" means the same thing exactly.

[mattc]

I don't mind "signage" when its referring to a general class of things  but if it's particular then "signs" is better. So "we need to design some signage for the motorway system" against "we need to install thirty stop signs" .

pc, I agree you can just about make a case for that (just about!) but what irks me is an exhortation to "follow the signage" or "the regulations are clearly dsplayed on the signage" and so on.  It's an example of people trying to make something sound more impressive or technical when there is no need and perfectly adequate language already exists.

In general, using "more impressive" language is to be deplored, I agree.

However, although "signs" would almost certainly do the job here, there is a possiblity that just 1 sign would do the job suffice; hence "signage" would cover all scenarios. <pushes specs up nose>

[mattc]

Meanwhile:

(and by association the dangerising of cycling)

[Peter]

Sensational, Dean!  More abusage than usage, I feel, though whether or not the language of people who don't exist can be regarded as incorrect I don't know!  It may be some specially mutated form of English in which mastooks are actively encouraged (or undisincentivised).  This is very popular in supermarkets and primary school "mission statements".  (Oh heck, I've just made myself cringe again!)

[docsquid]

Ah, the apostrophe pixie (not to mention the absence of commas or any other kind of punctuation pixie) strikes again in this comment on one of my photos on a web site

Wow just awesome love it! Wow you can actually see it’'s tiny eye’'s..

[drossall]

"Signage" sounds like a made up and unnecessary word to my ears, whereas "usage" in regards to language is well established and sounds perfectly normal, at least to me.

However I can't stand "utilise" and "utilisation", when "use" means the same thing exactly.

"Componentry" where "components" would do? I accept a subtle difference, but Plain English wins every time.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Meanwhile:

(and by association the dangerising of cycling)

In the context, I think it was a pretty good word. I can't think of any other single word that could be used to give the same meaning, "making something appear to be dangerous".

[mattc]

... assuming it is a word, that is.

[Arch]

I just heard an American on TV use the word 'burglarise'.

Or 'burgle' as we say in English.

[LEE]

I just heard an American on TV use the word 'burglarise'.

Or 'burgle' as we say in English.

They'd have used a "z" in that I think.

Also, I think it's a legitimate US word. 

You realise that the French also have different words for things right?  You know.... different countries...different words?


I think it's a slippery slope to take the piss out of countries who use different words.  It means you need to take a look at every word you use, to make sure you aren't using one of their words in common parlance.

Are you sure you never use Americanisms?  They are incredibly common you know.  America has influenced the English language significantly in the last century.

Also, it's worth remembering that many American words are actually old English words, that we stopped using but they didn't.


(Nothing personal, I just like to revisit this thread occasionally, to remind me how pathetically pedantic it is).