Grammar that makes you cringe

[Cudzoziemiec]

I've discovered an entirely new use of the Grocers' Apostrophe!

Written on a whiteboard in the lock-up at work is a list of tools that need repairing. Some spades, a rack, a hoe and then:

"A'nother spade"

It's to indicate that something is missing - the thing you use the spade for:
A hole nother spade.

 

[Arch]

I've discovered an entirely new use of the Grocers' Apostrophe!

Written on a whiteboard in the lock-up at work is a list of tools that need repairing. Some spades, a rack, a hoe and then:

"A'nother spade"

It's to indicate that something is missing - the thing you use the spade for:
A hole nother spade.

 

 

[hellymedic]

I Am Finding It Slow Going Reading An Article Where Every Word Starts With A Capital Letter. Why?

Source: Coefficients

Microsoft call this 'Title Case'.

IMO (I am no reading expert) it is because every upper case letter causes your reading to pause and restart, making an obvious delay.

ALL UPPER CASE is slow because word shapes are less distinctive cos there are no risers or descenders

Title case is fine for titles, road signs and route sheets.

It is wrong in block text, as you have discovered

[peliroja]

Using 'so' to start sentences. Grr.

[Nuncio]

Using 'so' to start sentences. Grr.

Toontra agrees. As do I.  

[citoyen]

So do I.

d.

[clarion]

So how would you like them to start their sentences?

[mattc]

Using 'so' to start sentences. Grr.

Toontra agrees. As do I.  

Look,  this really isn't a big issue

[mattc]

Good spot. (I reckon "against a parked car" might have been best)

[Phil]

I nearly shat myself and stacked my bike into a parked car

I thought you stack things in a pile and therefore you would stack your bike on a car not into a car.

Get with it, grandad!

[clarion]

'Yeah, no...'

Just start talking when you know what you want to say, OK?  This dreadful construction was sent up by the comic creation of the crap cricketer Dave Podmore years ago, but I heard a posh woman say it this morning, talking about what it was liek to live in a castle.

Stop it.

[Andrij]

'Yeah, no...'

It is more confusing fun internationally:

In Slovak yes is áno and yeah is no, so no means yes, the opposite of English.

In Greek you nod your head once up or once down depending on whether that is a nod to say yes or no (and I have forgotten which one is which). To say no with a nod means you nod your head vertically not side to side. Again, the opposite of English.

Greek word for 'yes' is 'ne' (ναι), which in Slavic languages is basically a negation prefix.
 

[Ian H]

'Yeah, no...'

It is more confusing fun internationally:

In Slovak yes is áno and yeah is no, so no means yes, the opposite of English.

In Greek you nod your head once up or once down depending on whether that is a nod to say yes or no (and I have forgotten which one is which). To say no with a nod means you nod your head vertically not side to side. Again, the opposite of English.

Greek word for 'yes' is 'ne' (ναι), which in Slavic languages is basically a negation prefix.
 

This is how wars start.

[Mr Larrington]

It is of course well known that careless talk costs lives, but the full scale of the problem is not always appreciated.

For instance, at the very moment that Arthur said, 'I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle,' a freak wormhole opened up in the fabric of the space-time continuum and carried his words far far back in time across almost infinite reaches of space to a distant galaxy where strange and warlike beings were poised on the brink of a frightful interstellar battle.

The two opposing leaders were meeting for the last time.

A dreadful silence fell across the conference table as the commander of the Vl'hurgs, resplendent in his black jewelled battle shorts, gazed levelly at the G'Gugvuntt leader squatting opposite him in a cloud of green sweet-smelling steam, and, with a million sleek and horribly beweaponed star cruisers poised to unleash electric death at his single word of command, challenged the vile creature to take back what it had said about his mother.

The creature stirred in his sickly broiling vapour, and at that very moment the words, 'I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle' drifted across the conference table.

Unfortunately, in the Vl'hurg tongue this was the most dreadful insult imaginable, and there was nothing for it but to wage terrible war for centuries.

Eventually, of course, after their galaxy had been decimated over a few thousand years, it was realised that the whole thing had been a ghastly mistake, and so the two opposing battle fleets settled their few remaining differences in order to launch a joint attack on our own galaxy---now positively identified as the source of the offending remark.

For thousands more years the mighty ships tore across the empty wastes of space and finally dived screaming on to the first planet they came across---which happened to be Earth---where due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was accidentally swallowed by a small dog.

Those who study the complex interplay of cause and effect in the history of the universe say that this sort of thing is going on all the time, but that we are powerless to prevent it.

'It's just life,' they say.

[Cudzoziemiec]

'Yeah, no...'

It is more confusing fun internationally:

In Slovak yes is áno and yeah is no, so no means yes, the opposite of English.

In Greek you nod your head once up or once down depending on whether that is a nod to say yes or no (and I have forgotten which one is which). To say no with a nod means you nod your head vertically not side to side. Again, the opposite of English.

Whereas in India you nod your head from side to side with a vertical twist at each end to say "I'm trying to give the impression I'll do whatever you want, but I don't know what you want so I'll do it my way anyway." 

[Nuncio]

Thanks for following the latest developments with the BBC. Here's a quick upsum of Wednesday's news.

Is that new?  (I'll have a go: "BBC - here's a quick upthrow in response").

[citoyen]

Upsum? Doubleplusungood.

[Wendy]

LOL, on holiday we'd often do 6-800 miles in a day. Not so easily achievable here in the UK though.

[Mr Larrington]

In the course of my 2009 holibobs I averaged over 330 miles per day; during the middle one of the three weeks it was only about 100 mpd...

I've managed ~3000 miles in three days in the UK a couple of times, but that was just being silly.

[Pingu]

Hi D.....

I try to phone you about the query below.

We have staff meet this afternoon. So I try after 2:30pm.

Regards,
D....

<grunt>

Me like mamoot

</grunt>

 

[L CC]

For the boys it is essential they bring plain swimming trunks of a length that finishes above the knee and a towel. Any boy who has hair which intrudes their eye line must also come equipped with a swimming cap to wear. Goggles are strongly recommended for both boys and...

You what?

[Mr Larrington]

BBC Weatherdroid!  Speaking of the fresh breezes which afflicted the Frozen North yesterday, pray do not say "lighter winds than what we had yesterday".  Your "what" is superfluous.  Come to that, so is your "we had".  So, Liam Dutton, you said it three times in two minutes at eight this morning on R4.  Do it again and I'll drop you from a great height through the blades of my gardener's helichopter.  Crunt.

[mattc]

Ah, weatherfolk are fair game are they? Right; yesterday, met office expert on Iceland:

The cloud of ash is being literally cartwheeled over to Europe by ... blah ... blah ...

[Cudzoziemiec]

But it is a cartwheel! It's part of Vulcan's chariot. 

[RainOrShine]

"the band of rain will move its way north..."