Grammar that makes you cringe

[Andrij]

It's not just the grammar in this one:

The One Show (1900): Aired a short segment that looked at how during World War two Royal Engineers helped diffuse a 1000 ton bomb that fell near St Pauls Cathedral. This story was then juxtaposed by the equipment and training current bomb disposal units receive within the Royal Engineers and RLC.

Lord have mercy!  Whoever wrote that should be put out of our misery.

[Mr Larrington]

A 1000 ton bomb proves that the Nazis were reverse-engineering UFO technology and makes me wonder how they ever lost the war.

[Wombat]

Must be pretty difficult to "diffuse" 1000 tons of bombiness.... it must spread over quite a wide area.

[ElyDave]

was it tons or tonnes?

If it was the Germans, expect the latter being all metric and sensible etc.

[Bledlow]

It's not exactly a major difference. 2240 lbs or 2204.5. As long as the USsian 'ton' (called a short ton in real English, because it is) isn't meant, in which case don't go there. 907 kg IS NOT A TON!

[Legs]

Whereas tonne is pronounce "tunny" to avoid ambiguity...

[Legs]

The One Show (1900):

but John Logie Baird didn't invent the distascope until 1926?

[ElyDave]

It's not exactly a major difference. 2240 lbs or 2204.5. As long as the USsian 'ton' (called a short ton in real English, because it is) isn't meant, in which case don't go there. 907 kg IS NOT A TON!

when you're looking at 2 million tonnes of gas a year giving around 5million tonnes of CO2 it make enough of a difference that the regulators would be passing out hefty fines for your error

[T42]

Aye, but given that your million is an approximation anyway you might as well say ton.

[ElyDave]

my "million" is not an approximation when I'm dealing with the real numbers.  It's a metered quantity to a pretty low uncertainty.  The tonne/ton issue is an error which would propagate through other calculations and is quite different.

[Bledlow]

It's not exactly a major difference. 2240 lbs or 2204.5. As long as the USsian 'ton' (called a short ton in real English, because it is) isn't meant, in which case don't go there. 907 kg IS NOT A TON!

when you're looking at 2 million tonnes of gas a year giving around 5million tonnes of CO2 it make enough of a difference that the regulators would be passing out hefty fines for your error

Yes, but we weren't looking at that. Different context, different criteria.

[Wombat]

I can relate to that, ElyDave... The carbon factors I use in the Greenhouse Gas Emissions report I do annually are done to about 4 decimal places...  Luckily I've managed to largely automate the process, maybe I shouldn't have made it so easy for the person who takes over from me when my contract finishes very conveniently on 31st March.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I was well into my second decade of journalism before I found out that “enormity” is a synonym for monstrosity or wickedness – not hugeness.

I'm surprised you can go through over ten years of professional writing without knowing that. Also that someone in the same situation might not realise that order of adjectives is (more or less) set.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/13/sentence-order-adjectives-rule-elements-of-eloquence-dictionary

[Nuncio]

I didn't know (or didn't know I know) the adjective order thing (not that I'm a writer). Not that I think the 'rule' is as rigid as suggested. Nor did I know until recently that there is an underlying rule of vowel order in ablaut constructions, namely -i-, -a-, -o-, eg Bish bash bosh, tick tock, hiphop, ding-dang-dong, ping-pong, flim-flam, mish-mash etc. Though I suppose it makes sense, as the tongue moves from the front to the back of the mouth.

[Cudzoziemiec]

It also shows up in common verb patterns, ring rang rung. Though maybe that's coincidence.

[mattc]

I've just heard a TeamGB athlete refer to the "whole enormity" of the Rio experience 

[Legs]

Stephen King's use of 'for awhile' is irritating in the extreme.

[Nuncio]

I'm inured to It.

[Legs]

   I'm not, It absolutely terrified me.

Mrs Legs is lying awake at night these days nights, reading Insomnia. 

[T42]

I liked that book. Must read it again.

[Cudzoziemiec]

This is an exciting period for grammar
it might drive you dotty

Gotta love "very similar to spoken speech" even if it is a proofo

[Nuncio]

- So you’re disillusioned with teaching punctuation?
- Well, I’m fed up with teaching full stop.

[hellymedic]

Groan! Are you missing a comma after 'teaching'? 

[Cudzoziemiec]

Right, this one I think is actually wrong:

Not being able to eat when he chose was one of the freedoms Beard had left behind in the foolish south.

To my mind, the not contradicts the sense of the sentence. He's in Spitsbergen, he hasn't eaten all day and he has to wait till the research ship serves dinner, so the freedom he has left behind is being able to eat when he chose. But the sense is clear anyway.

[Paul]

I think the 'Not' shouldn't be there.