Grammar that makes you cringe

[citoyen]

It was a feeble message but the Académie Française burst a few arteries and several members died of shock (although in their case it was some time before any difference was noticed).  After that it had to pass into everyday use.  Nowadays you hear people saying "il faut positiver", meaning make the best of it.

Proof that advertising does what it says on the tin. Does anyone in France still use "vachement" as in "vachement bon"?

[Exit Stage Left]

Daughter, who is at a (supposedly) good university has been given an essay in which she is asked to describe how a situation has been 'problematized'. WTF does that mean?

I suppose an example would be where language conveys meaning to the reader, but a caste of 'experts' attempts to occupy the space between the writer and the reader, by identifying 'problems', which only they can solve.

Once a problem has been created, there's a market for a solution. I believe universities would term this 'the dialectic', and it's a con-job that's been running for a while.

Some years ago Carrefour came up with an ad in which a woman proclaimed "Avec Carrefour, je positive" - meaning, supposedly, "with Carrefour I benefit". It was a feeble message but the Académie Française burst a few arteries and several members died of shock (although in their case it was some time before any difference was noticed).  After that it had to pass into everyday use.  Nowadays you hear people saying "il faut positiver", meaning make the best of it.

I could imagine "positivize" making into everyday English.

For 35 years that sentiment has been expressed in song. 'Always look on the Bright of Life, ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum.'

[drossall]

Can't remember whether we've covered this, but I'm shuddering at the constant references in the media to "protesting" and "appealing" decisions. You protest and appeal against things (or sometimes for them, which is one of the reasons why the "against" is important).

[T42]

It was a feeble message but the Académie Française burst a few arteries and several members died of shock (although in their case it was some time before any difference was noticed).  After that it had to pass into everyday use.  Nowadays you hear people saying "il faut positiver", meaning make the best of it.

Proof that advertising does what it says on the tin. Does anyone in France still use "vachement" as in "vachement bon"?

Certainly. Related to saying "c'est vache", i.e. hard-nosed or underhand.  19th century according to some - siege of Paris etc. Nowt to do with advertising.

[Mr Larrington]

To the person responsible for the subtitles¹ on an episode of "Ice Road Truckers" - irrespective of how ghastly the weather may be conditions are not libel to get worse.

1: USAnians mumbling over CB radio in noisy lorries during a gale-force blizzard.

[citoyen]

Certainly. Related to saying "c'est vache", i.e. hard-nosed or underhand.  19th century according to some - siege of Paris etc. Nowt to do with advertising.

Ah! I was told it came from the "vachement bon" slogan for La Vache Qui Rit in the 60s.

[Steph]

Certainly. Related to saying "c'est vache", i.e. hard-nosed or underhand.  19th century according to some - siege of Paris etc. Nowt to do with advertising.

Ah! I was told it came from the "vachement bon" slogan for La Vache Qui Rit in the 60s.

That was a reverse-engineered pun. Vachement is indeed still used freely, along with that delightful Frog expletive "Whore!"

One of my books is written as being the work of a French girl who believes she speaks fluent English, so I was able to have fun with the style. I particularly liked inserting unnecessary definite articles (oo-er) and translating the swearies literally.

[T42]

Death of my life and sacred blue (Harry Flashman).

Re vachement, somewhere we have a reproduction of a Paris Illustré, dating from the last 30 years of the 19th century, which sports the photo of a sway-backed horse with the caption "future saucisse".  Eating horsemeat was promoted during the Siege of Paris: I'm wondering if, given the French penchant for irony, saying "c'est vachement bon" over a fillet of filly wasn't responsible for elevating vachement from meaning hard-nosed to merely meaning extremely.

[T42]

My own cringe yesterday was afforded by a phrase in an NYT article by Paul Krugman: "wracked by low wages and unemployment".

Wrack is seaweed.  The instrument of torture was the rack.

His Nobel was for economics, after all.

[pcolbeck]

Pythonesque cod-Yorkshire to me.

Not cod-Yorkshire. Anyways is used a lot in North / East Yorkshire at least.

[clarion]

Whereas, being West Riding, I'd use 'Any road', or 'Any road up'.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Funnily enough, I do sometimes imagine it as "anyways up".

[pcolbeck]

"being because" is a weird one that I had never heard before moving to the Wolds. It might be just a Malton expression but possibly its all over East Yorkshire I don't know. It's used thus:

"being because the car had a flat tyre I was late"

You would never hear it in York only 20 miles away.

[Mr Larrington]

I spent much time in Pocklington as a young Mr Larrington and I don't recall "being because".  Paging Crinkles...

[CrinklyLion]

Nope, not heard that one in Pock.

[Ian H]

There's much more wrong with this than the grammar (and spelling). Enjoy!

[Andrij]

I lost the will to live before I finished the first paragraph.

[hellymedic]

No compliments to complement their malaprops.

Too many word, insufficient content.

Why do you need so much verbiage for a SIMPLE café?

[T42]

Pretty good for a non-native speaker.

[Cudzoziemiec]

You probably won't be using that one as an audax control, then.

[Ian H]

You probably won't be using that one as an audax control, then.

Not when my local, just a little further on, is planned to reopen as a 24hr cafe (though closed Friday evening to Sunday morning to avoid the drunks).

[Cudzoziemiec]

A 24hr cafe! When I am ruler of the whole entire complete total world and universe, I shall make there be 24 hour cafes at Strategic Intervals. They shall have gallons of cake and lashings of strong tea. No, wait, that should lashings of cake and gallons of tea. Hang on, are we allowed to talk about 'lashings' nowadays? Well, they shall also have beans on toast and, oooh, a lot of other stuff.

[billplumtree]

Whereas, being West Riding, I'd use 'Any road', or 'Any road up'.

I've done some of pizzicatooff's audax events in t'West Riding.  It's true, any road is up round there.

[T42]

Tell you what annoys me most mightily: seeing a usage that makes me cringe, then going into the dictionary and finding that it's marked [c16] at the bottom of the entry. Case in point: today I saw legitimate used as a verb.

[hubner]

Dictionaries only record usage, you can still disagree with a certain usage if you don't like it.