Grammar that makes you cringe

[clarion]

Shouldn't that be the launch of FFS?

[why1040]

This just turned up on a friend's facebook status:

"extra special early bday cake for a very special someone going in the oven shortly"

It genuinely took me a minute to figure out it wasn't the son that was going into the oven-but I may be tired!

[mattc]

This might appeal to fans of this thread:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19670686

There is little that irks British defenders of the English language more than Americanisms, which they see creeping insidiously into newspaper columns and everyday conversation. But bit by bit British English is invading America too.

...

[Peter]

Do you think it might be a dialect of English English (or English, as it used to be known)?

[Ian H]

Correct or not? Or perhaps just, does it sound right?

Surrey police confirms that Sir Jimmy Savile was questioned over allegations of child sex abuse in 2007, but the case was not pursued.

[Wowbagger]

Correct or not? Or perhaps just, does it sound right?

Surrey police confirms that Sir Jimmy Savile was questioned over allegations of child sex abuse in 2007, but the case was not pursued.

I'd say that that was unknowable because I think the word "police" can be both singular and plural

[Ian H]

Correct or not? Or perhaps just, does it sound right?

Surrey police confirms that Sir Jimmy Savile was questioned over allegations of child sex abuse in 2007, but the case was not pursued.

I'd say that that was unknowable because I think the word "police" can be both singular and plural

I found myself grimacing, even though, as you say, it ain't actually wrong.

[citoyen]

We've done this one before...

http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2205.msg1014879;topicseen#msg1014879

My Collins dictionary has this sense of police "functioning as plural".

d.

[Feanor]

Well, not grammar, perhaps but words...

1)  Floor vs Ground.

A floor is a man-made finished surface.
The ground is what you stand on.

The ground *may* be a floor, if you are indoors.
If you are indoors and land on your arse, you have landed on both the floor and the ground.
If you are out-doors and land on your arse, you do not end up on the floor.  You end up on the ground.

2) Drawers ( of the furniture kind! ).

The thing that slides in-and-out of an Ikea cabinet is a drawer, not a draw.
Is this error a result of southern Ingerland pronunciation suppressing the trailing R?

This is truth-by-assertion, the most basic axiom of logic, and you cannot disagree with it

[Wombat]

Not Southern England-ish, I don't think.  Being a S.Englandish person, its not something I've heard much of round here.  My first hearing of it was on "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" on TV, with reference to undergarments, so I suspect it may have crept across from that to other uses of the word "drawers".  Whatever the cause, it really, really pisses me off!  So maybe its hip black dude-speak?

[Nuncio]

I pronounce it to rhyme with ground floor.

[Wowbagger]

The BBC's use of apostrophes irritates me. For example:

• Italian bicycle sales 'surpass those of cars'
• Crowd backs Tunisia 'rape' woman outside court
• Hezbollah military commander 'killed in Syria'
• 'No proof' vitamin D stops colds

It's the fear of being seen to take sides, especially the wrong side.

Cars are good, bicycle are bad, so we mistrust anything which appears to favour cycling.

We can't be seen to say that this woman was raped: that imples that there's a rapist somewhere, and we know how unreliable supposed "rape" victims are.

Hezbollah is the enemy so we automatically suspect anything they say as lies.

Don't know about the last one.

Another one is "claim". Southend Councils says something so it must be true, even though they are a bunch of proven liars.

The anti-airport expansion group "claims" that Councillor Lamb made such-and-such an untrue statement, even though the paper themselves has already printed it and the evidence that he was lying.

[ian]

The BBC's use of apostrophes irritates me. For example:

• Italian bicycle sales 'surpass those of cars'
• Crowd backs Tunisia 'rape' woman outside court
• Hezbollah military commander 'killed in Syria'
• 'No proof' vitamin D stops colds

It's the fear of being seen to take sides, especially the wrong side.

Cars are good, bicycle are bad, so we mistrust anything which appears to favour cycling.

We can't be seen to say that this woman was raped: that imples that there's a rapist somewhere, and we know how unreliable supposed "rape" victims are.

Hezbollah is the enemy so we automatically suspect anything they say as lies.

Don't know about the last one.

Another one is "claim". Southend Councils says something so it must be true, even though they are a bunch of proven liars.

The anti-airport expansion group "claims" that Councillor Lamb made such-and-such an untrue statement, even though the paper themselves has already printed it and the evidence that he was lying.

Not really, they are actually quoting, so it's quite correct to use 'surpass those of cars', after all they're reporting that some other entity has said or written this (in this case La Repubblica). I think you're reading a little too much into it.

[citoyen]

Yes and no, ian. The use of quotes in this way is entirely disingenuous. It's a way of reporting a claim made by someone else as fact while also distancing yourself from the claim. The Daily Mail are past masters at this.

See also: phrasing headlines as questions, eg Does cycling give you cancer? - The simple rule to remember with any headline phrased as a question is that the answer is always no.

d.

[Auntie Helen]

Near the bottom of this article about the X Factor, which I have never watched: http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/19867751

"He just text me to say..."

Nooooooooooooooöooooooo! The past participle is 'texted', not 'text'.

I hate it!

[Cudzoziemiec]

Oh dear AH, if you were a purist you would be ranting about the use of 'text' as a verb!

[Auntie Helen]

Oh dear AH, if you were a purist you would be ranting about the use of 'text' as a verb!

Well I don't mind that in this case as "send a text" is quite longwinded. Plus I am always impressed by the Germans' facility in inventing new verbs (they have 'SMSen' or 'Simsen' which is to send an SMS), but the Germans at least largely stick to the grammatical rules, so it'd be "ich simse, du simsest" etc etc. It's the lack of understanding that 'text' as a verb needs to be declined that drives me bonkers.

[Auntie Helen]

If you say, "He just text me to say...," fast enough the 'ed' syllable can become less pronounced.

Well that is how people say it, they don't use the 'ed' at all at the end (I hear it a lot when I wander around this bit of Essex). I just thought that on the BBC News website, albeit the Yoof section, they might have corrected it...

[Wowbagger]

Oh dear AH, if you were a purist you would be ranting about the use of 'text' as a verb!

Well I don't mind that in this case as "send a text" is quite longwinded. Plus I am always impressed by the Germans' facility in inventing new verbs (they have 'SMSen' or 'Simsen' which is to send an SMS), but the Germans at least largely stick to the grammatical rules, so it'd be "ich simse, du simsest" etc etc. It's the lack of understanding that 'text' as a verb needs to be declined that drives me bonkers.

May I be a grammar pedant and point out that nouns decline but verbs conjugate? Or would that send us into NSFW territory?

[Auntie Helen]

Oh dear AH, if you were a purist you would be ranting about the use of 'text' as a verb!

Well I don't mind that in this case as "send a text" is quite longwinded. Plus I am always impressed by the Germans' facility in inventing new verbs (they have 'SMSen' or 'Simsen' which is to send an SMS), but the Germans at least largely stick to the grammatical rules, so it'd be "ich simse, du simsest" etc etc. It's the lack of understanding that 'text' as a verb needs to be declined that drives me bonkers.

May I be a grammar pedant and point out that nouns decline but verbs conjugate? Or would that send us into NSFW territory?

Good point. Clearly I have been away from language studies too long (5 months...)

[Cudzoziemiec]

Oh dear AH, if you were a purist you would be ranting about the use of 'text' as a verb!

Well I don't mind that in this case as "send a text" is quite longwinded. Plus I am always impressed by the Germans' facility in inventing new verbs (they have 'SMSen' or 'Simsen' which is to send an SMS), but the Germans at least largely stick to the grammatical rules, so it'd be "ich simse, du simsest" etc etc. It's the lack of understanding that 'text' as a verb needs to be declined that drives me bonkers.

Just to be clear, I'm completely in favour of turning nouns into verbs in cases like this. As you've given a German example, I'll mention that Poles have reduced 'SMS' to 'eska' - onomatopoeia diminutivised! That's a noun though, I think you can say 'esemesować' as a verb but as in German, it would conjugate - esemesuję, esemesujesz, etc - but it looks a bit odd written down.

[citoyen]

Oh dear AH, if you were a purist you would be ranting about the use of 'text' as a verb!

If you accept "text" as a verb, you also have to accept the possibility of it being an irregular verb.

Bid, for example. The preterite of which is...

Bid.

d.

[mattc]

May I be a grammar pedant and point out that nouns decline but verbs conjugate?

Many posts here have been about the sad decline in our nouns.

[Auntie Helen]

I don't think new verbs are allowed to be irregular. Irregularity is only for old, popular verbs! 'Text' does not fit into that scheme.

[hubner]

Oh dear AH, if you were a purist you would be ranting about the use of 'text' as a verb!

If you accept "text" as a verb, you also have to accept the possibility of it being an irregular verb.

Bid, for example. The preterite of which is...

Bid.

d.

Maybe it's because "text" already sounds like a past tense word, like taxed, boxed, cast etc.

I think it should be written as text and texted but pronounced the same, ie in one syllable "text".

http://phonetic-blog.blogspot.de/2009/10/texting.html
http://david-crystal.blogspot.com/2011/07/on-texted-vs-texed.html