Grammar that makes you cringe

[Kim]

Prime opportunity to install a royal whoopee cushion, anyway...

[Cudzoziemiec]

 

[Moleman76]

Prime opportunity to install a royal whoopee cushion, anyway...

Time to start a "truly terrific jokes" thread

[Cudzoziemiec]

Apparently even the crowns are "recycled".

Previous consorts have always had a new crown commissioned, but Buckingham Palace is keen to emphasise the decision to recycle one from the family’s sprawling collection “in the interests of sustainability and efficiency”.

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/may/02/charles-ping-pong-ball-crown-shocking-history-royal-headwear-bling

Camilla to wear recycled crown without Koh-i-Noor diamond at coronation

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/feb/14/camilla-wear-queen-mary-crown-coronation

[Kim]

So using something you've been keeping in the cupboard is recycling now?   

[Cudzoziemiec]

On that basis, making lunch is recycling!

[Kim]

Eating lunch, meanwhile, is composting.

[rafletcher]

The Australians have an interesting way with words, apparently (it’s on the BBC website but I’m being generous and assuming it’s verbatim from the original) two salt water crocodiles were “euthanised” so they could be cut up and the body parts of a missing fisherman recovered.

[T42]

The Australians have an interesting way with words, apparently (it’s on the BBC website but I’m being generous and assuming it’s verbatim from the original) two salt water crocodiles were “euthanised” so they could be cut up and the body parts of a missing fisherman recovered.

I wouldn't blame the Ozzies for that one; I've seen it many a time in UK & US articles.

[toontra]

No disrespect, but - going forward - it would be advisable not to start sentences with the word "So".

This has been pissing me off for years (see upthread) and has reached epidemic status.  It's not just a filler word - "umm" would do just fine for that.  It's pretentious and deeply irritating.  It's even regularly cropping up in the written form.  Why?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65634829

[T42]

No disrespect, but - going forward - it would be advisable not to start sentences with the word "So".

This has been pissing me off for years (see upthread) and has reached epidemic status.  It's not just a filler word - "umm" would do just fine for that.  It's pretentious and deeply irritating.  It's even regularly cropping up in the written form.  Why?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65634829

When I was learning German the teacher told us that if we ever saw a car pull up and the occupants climb out, look round and exclaim "SO!" I could be sure they were German.  That was around 1968.

It's obviously a powerful meme with a long life.  Resistance is probably futile.

[toontra]

It started big-time in the UK only a few years ago, inspired by US tech MD's (forget who but I think Gates was one of them).  Then came the emulation, percolating further and further down the tech hierarchy and then spreading contagiously throughout middle-management everywhere

This more or less sums up my opinion:

Why do we start a sentence with so?
Some people start a sentence with "so" to indicate that the listener is a bit of a simpleton, so the speaker will use appropriately uncomplicated words. If this is so, more people should be annoyed. "So" may also indicate that the speech that follows has been rehearsed.

https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2019/may/13/so-starts-sentences-must-stop-20190513/#:~:text=Some%20people%20start%20a%20sentence,that%20follows%20has%20been%20rehearsed.

[T42]

Oh well. I started doing it back in the late 70s when I worked in Stuttgart.  Coincidentally, at around that time I bought a pair of Eurofisk wellies to go mushrooming in. When UK chums came to stay N years later they happily sneered "ooh, he's got green wellies!", much to my bemusement.  HTF could I know what the Windsor-worshippers were wearing back "home"? Dry eyes all round when they buggered off.  To be fair, the woman was OK but the bloke worked in marketing. And now my speech habit of 50-odd years reaps opprobrium? Piss on that. No, not from a great height: you can soak it more effectively if you're close enough to aim properly.

[Pickled Onion]

It seems the Post Office thinks that one of their greatest achievements is a racist document:

A Post Office spokesperson described it as a "historic document" but said the organisation did not tolerate racism "in any shape or form" and condemned the "abhorrent" language.

Though I wouldn't put it past the Beeb's editing, they have form for this, cf. "historic child abuse".

[Slave To The Viking]

No disrespect, but - going forward - it would be advisable not to start sentences with the word "So".

This has been pissing me off for years (see upthread) and has reached epidemic status.  It's not just a filler word - "umm" would do just fine for that.  It's pretentious and deeply irritating.  It's even regularly cropping up in the written form.  Why?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65634829

Idly inserting "so" as a vocal tic is maybe irritating and can sound a bit vapid, maybe, but only if delivered in a vapid voice. Pretentious though? Not really. At the very least, I'd say its fair to ask for a justification for that assertion.

Unfortunately, sentence-initial "so" has become one of those things that people are supposed to hate - and therefore openly and unthinkingly deride, to ensure they're identified among the ranks of the intelligentsia - like the addition of qualifiers to "unique" or the reverting to the traditional British spelling of "ize" (the one that the Americans never replaced with "ise").

There are various ways to announce that we're entering into a summation of what's been explained or discussed. One could say "All that being as it is, the following is probably worth considering", or a conversational "Right then, it appears we can conclude that..."

So, it would appear that - despite its harmlessness and semantic equivalence to acceptable turns of phrase - we must not begin a sentence thus.

[rafletcher]

We've been watching Springwach. They seem to have schooled Gillian Burke from starting virtually every sentence with "So..."

Now she (along with the other presenters, to be fair) just does the "go extinct" rather than "become extinct" thing (it may be grammatically correct, I'm no expert, but it grates) and "provision" and "provisioned" in place of "feed" and "fed".

[Pingu]

And why can't they say nommed instead of predated, hmm?

[hubner]

Conversation amongst inmates in a prison (UK film):

- Yes, but...
- Look, Kelly's a wrong 'un.


That's enough.


Yeah, but he's a marshal, ain't he?


So he gets a posse together, like.


And they all go up to this, um,
canyon sort of thing.


You know, up in the hills, like.


Clobber, I wonder if you could try
a wee experiment for me.


Oh, yeah, I'll do anything
for you, like, Pauley.


I mean, you're my mate, ain't you, like?


Well... Well, would you just try to complete
a sentence without saying "like".


You mean, like, uh...


- you don't want me to say "like"?
- Aye. Aye.

That's a 1960 film, The Criminal.

OED:

6. colloquial.

  a. Used conversationally to qualify a preceding (or in later use also following) statement, suggesting that the statement is approximate, or signifying a degree of uncertainty on the part of the speaker as to whether an expression is pertinent or acceptable: ‘as it were’, ‘so to speak’, ‘in a manner of speaking’. Also used simply as a filler, or as an intensifier used to focus attention on the statement retrospectively.
Overlapping with sense B. 6b   when used as an intensifier or filler.

1778   F. Burney Evelina II. xxiii. 222   Father grew quite uneasy, like, for fear of his Lordship's taking offence.
1801   ‘Gabrielli’ Mysterious Husband III. 252   Of a sudden like.
1815   W. Scott Guy Mannering I. vi. 96   The lady, on ilka Christmas night..gae twelve siller pennies to ilka puir body about, in honour of the twelve apostles like.
1840   T. De Quincey Style: No. II in Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Sept. 398/1   Why like, it's gaily nigh like, to four mile like.
1929   ‘H. Green’ Living vi. 57   'E went to the side like and looked.
1966   Lancet 17 Sept. 635/2   As we say pragmatically in Huddersfield, ‘C'est la vie, like!’
1981   W. Russell Educating Rita ii. iii. 44   There's always a like—erm—erm..a like vein.
2003   C. Birch Turn again Home x. 142   ‘'Preciate your concern, Nelly,’ he said, ‘only it's easier said than done, like.’


 

  b. Originally U.S. Used as a marker, intensifier, or filler in conversation or spoken discourse to introduce or focus attention on a following statement or question. Also used in written discourse which has an informal, conversational tone.

1950   Neurotica Autumn 45   Like how much can you lay on [i.e. give] me?
1959   She May 21/2   Like wow…wonderful.
1971   Black Scholar Apr. 26/1   Man like the dude really flashed his hole card.
1976   National Observer (U.S.) 17 July 1/3   Like, this was at 11 or 12 years old.
2011   S. Webb Love & Other Drama Ramas (2014) iii. 28   ‘Everyone, like, back,’ Annabelle,..commands in her recently acquired quasi-Californian accent.


 

  c. spec. Used with a verb introducing reported speech or thoughts reported as if speech (cf. think v.2 1b). Now esp. in to be like at Phrases 8.
Often presented as distinctive of the speech of Valley Girls (see valley n. Compounds 1a(b)   and cf. quot. 1982 at Phrases .

1970   Time 31 Aug. 19   Afterward, a girl came up to me and said, ‘You kinda look interested in this; did you know there are civil rights for women?’ And I thought like wow, this is for me.
1978   Proc. 6th Southwest Areal Lang. & Linguistics Workshop 71   She goes like, ‘Yeah, you got one minute.’
1993   J. Deppa Media & Disasters i. ii. 53   I said like ‘No, no way,’ and he said, ‘Yes.’
2003   A. G. Koss Cheat 162   But I go, like, ‘Get a life, twit. It's got nothing to do with you!’

[toontra]

Idly inserting "so" as a vocal tic is maybe irritating and can sound a bit vapid, maybe, but only if delivered in a vapid voice. Pretentious though? Not really. At the very least, I'd say its fair to ask for a justification for that assertion.

Perhaps patronising would be a better description than pretentious.  It implies that the user is about to impart information that may need to be simplified in order for the listener to comprehend.  That is certainly its origin in the tech industry.

 BTW, it's clearly not used as "a summation of what's been explained or discussed" when it's used at the start of any and every answer to any question about anything.

[rafletcher]

And why can't they say nommed instead of predated, hmm?

   Worse still, they say “predated on”   

[rafletcher]

Idly inserting "so" as a vocal tic is maybe irritating and can sound a bit vapid, maybe, but only if delivered in a vapid voice. Pretentious though? Not really. At the very least, I'd say its fair to ask for a justification for that assertion.

Perhaps patronising would be a better description than pretentious.  It implies that the user is about to impart information that may need to be simplified in order for the listener to comprehend.  That is certainly its origin in the tech industry.

 BTW, it's clearly not used as "a summation of what's been explained or discussed" when it's used at the start of any and every answer to any question about anything.

Whether it’s just a verbal tic - as with the example I gave of Gillian Burke - or patronising surely depends on the tone and body language employed. It can be either. And if stressed can be used as a similarly stressed “right”.

[toontra]

It may be a tic, acquired by repeated parroting, but that doesn't lessen its impact on the listener.  It is a word, after all, with meaning and associations.  It has no relevance in 99% of its current usage and shouldn't be tacked on meaninglessly to the start of every answer to every question.

[Pickled Onion]

People don't like silence between the question and answer, but you need a second or two to gather your thoughts. This is especially true in a group setting where someone else might jump in if you haven't started saying something. So filler words are used, like "Well, " or "Right, " or nowadays, "So, ".

It's mildly irritating, but not as irritating as the Q&A session I attended recently where the person preceded every single answer with "That's a really good question, ". Every single answer, for an hour.

[toontra]

It's mildly irritating, but not as irritating as the Q&A session I attended recently where the person preceded every single answer with "That's a really good question, ". Every single answer, for an hour.

For some reason "well" and "right" don't bother me nearly as much because they don't have the slightly patronising air of "so".  But I completely agree - "That's a really good question" takes it to a whole new level of irritation.   

[ian]

“That’s a really good question” seems to be everywhere. I even caught myself saying it the other days. I stuck a pencil in my eye as penance.