Grammar that makes you cringe

[mattc]

I don't think "almost correct" is good enough for the contributors to this thread!

[Cudzoziemiec]

I reckon we could use that construction for a few threads:
Cringe yourself pedantic
Rant yourself happy
Fettle yourself shiny
Ride yourself somewhere
Baton yourself woody

[citoyen]

I reckon we could use that construction for a few threads:
Cringe yourself pedantic
Rant yourself happy
Fettle yourself shiny
Ride yourself somewhere
Baton yourself woody

 

I particularly like "Fettle yourself shiny".

[Guy]

I reckon we could use that construction for a few threads:
Cringe yourself pedantic
Rant yourself happy
Fettle yourself shiny
Ride yourself somewhere
Baton yourself woody

I might be forced to nick that'n

[Greenbank]

"St John's Ambulance"

Hint: http://www.sja.org.uk/sja/default.aspx

[clarion]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/FC939SwIsuE&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/FC939SwIsuE&rel=1</a>

[Wowbagger]

Dunno if it's cringeworthy or more suitable for a full-on rant.

expedia.co.uk

Just what the @#~ %>} is "Travel yourself interesting" supposed to mean?

These days it seems possible to verb any noun.

[hellymedic]

Yebbut verbing weirds language innit?

[Cudzoziemiec]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/FC939SwIsuE&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/FC939SwIsuE&rel=1</a>

Do you think Bobb would like those red shorts?

[Pickled Onion]

Um, before you move that to the "Spelling that makes you cringe" thread, can I just point out that the author of that quote is almost certainly dyslexic.

[Guy]

Dunno if it's cringeworthy or more suitable for a full-on rant.

expedia.co.uk

Just what the @#~ %>} is "Travel yourself interesting" supposed to mean?

Thinking about this last night (sad, I know) I wonder if the EDL use the same advertising agency to come up with classic slogans like "SPORT ARE TROOPS"

[Cudzoziemiec]

Grammarians that make you cringe:

A while ago I was on a proofreading course (not terribly useful as it turned out) and one of the attendees, who was using the course as an opportunity to plug her firm, mentioned that she had just moved to Folkestone and was standing in the county council elections there. She came across as a bit of a grammar peever, even more than might be expected in the context - she'd love some of this thread! I've just looked her up and she was standing for UKIP. Somehow I'm not surprised.

[hellymedic]

Yebbut it is possible to be a grammar pedant without being a racist bigot.
I believe.

[Cudzoziemiec]

It's also possible to be a UKIP candidate without being a racist bigot. I think.

[Biff]

Audaxers who keep saying they've been to "Menai" - there's no such place. The name of the town is "Porthaethwy".

 

The town of 'Menai Bridge' doesn't exist?  Genuine q.

[mattc]

There are definitely road signs to "Menai Bridge" - but not "Menai", that I've seen anyway.

(Of course they may refer to the bridge itself.)

EDIT: Gmaps is convinced it's a place (on Anglesey). For what it's worth!

[Wombat]

I always have been of the opinion that such signs did indeed refer to the bridge itself, as its a moderately wondrous thingy.  The mere concept of such a thing as a town, on Anglesey seems mildly amusing.  I suppose Holyhead sort of counts...

[Greenbank]

Ordnance Survey maps say "MENAI BRIDGE / PORTHAETHWY".

And if you stick "LL59 5DD" into Royal Mail's Address finder then example addresses look like:-

Auckland Arms Hotel
13 Water Street
MENAI BRIDGE
LL59 5DD

[Bledlow]

"The Regional IT Support Analyst will respond to and resolute incidents involving Information Systems and related equipment used at the workplace."

The firm advertising has 2500 employees, & a turnover of several hundred million pounds.

[Cudzoziemiec]

He will be resolute in finding a resolvsion?

[Cudzoziemiec]

English includes many words originally press-ganged from latin, which have changed their grammatical type.

‘Stamina’ and ‘agenda’ are two well-known ones, and ‘media’ is apparently becoming one. Separately from its botanical sense, a ‘stamen’ was the warp of a fabric, or figuratively some essential element of a thing; the word ‘stamina’ now refers to a completely different concept, which has no need, and no room, for a singular form – it makes no sense to speak of one of the things of which stamina is the plural.

Surely 'stamina' is singular (and uncountable)? As in "Stamina is what you need in long distance cycling." I'm not sure the author doesn't think so too, because he goes on to say:

We can even watch the word changing its grammatical ‘number’, from plural to singular. In the list of OED usages for this sense (3a) of ‘stamina’ – from ‘her stamina could not last much longer’ (the earliest, in 1726) to ‘his stamina is gone entirely’ (1834) – we see a century or so where the word is used in contexts where its number is ambiguous; and in the first case in this list where its number is clear, it is clearly singular, and the word is being used in its modern sense. The OED's last spotting of the relevant sense of ‘stamen’ used as a singular is in 1794.

A bit confusing. Not that it matters anyway!

[mattc]

Isn't that 1726 example ambiguous?

[Cudzoziemiec]

Yes - that's what he says too.

[Pickled Onion]

From the Standard, is this correct? It certainly grates:

A quarter of all rush-hour traffic in central London is now bicycles...

The transport editor preferred this way of saying it (different article, same day):

The biggest ever census of bike use in the city reveals one in four road users during the morning rush hour is a cyclist

[mattc]

Well, as you mentioned 'grating':
the first does grate, but I don't think 'are' instead of 'is' would help. It's just an awkward phrase.

the 2nd grates too - _I_ would have written " are cyclists" - cos we know there are more than one. (It would be a stoopid census if there were exactly one IMHO).

(I have no idea of the 'correct' wording.)