Grammar that makes you cringe

[citoyen]

Fine tooth-comb

I thought that fine and tooth are adjectives describing the comb and, as such, it would be a fine toothed comb. Similarly, box set, as in a box set of CDs or DVDs, I would instead describe them as a boxed set.

Do I need to correct my understanding and my grammar?

I've had the same thought about fine-toothed but fine-tooth is more conventional and it's hardly ambiguous. Note, however, that in the interests of doing pedantry properly, you need the hyphen either way.

The OED has given in on this one and now lists toothcomb as acceptable usage. Presumably a fine toothcomb is one made out of gold or something.

[T42]

If you want to describe the material, workpersonship etc., fine comb is sufficient: combs have teeth, otherwise they're sticks or full of honey. If you're referring to the spacing of the teeth it's a fine-toothed comb.  Beware of elisions and cheaply-sourced botched jobs.

The funny thing is, no cliché-monger pronounces it that way: it's always a fine toothcomb.

Heigh-ho. (Now why does that take a hyphen?)

[Kim]

'Kudo' and general treatment of 'kudos' as a mass noun.  I blame the USAnians for mispronouncing it.

[ian]

I do some work with a company called Kudos. They have a great time in the US.

I was talking to an American doctor about respiratory medicine the other day. She was pulling that funny face Americans do when they don't understand. Oh, respiratory, she finally says. I confess, though I'm quite good at switching between British and American English, I've somehow never noticed that one.

[T42]

Just discovered a great new way to spell hole: u-n-a-u-t-h-o-r-i-z-e-d-a-c-c-e-s-s-p-o-i-n-t, according to Wednesbury police.  "Releasing more details of what happened, police said the boys had entered the depot through an unauthorised access point in the depot's fence."

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-40205147

[PhilO]

That reminds me of a line in one of Tom Sharpe's farces. ISTR the it was something along the lines of, "Talk about calling a spade an earth-inverting agricultural implement."

[Mr Larrington]

The "hexaform rotatable surface compression unit" is US Armyspeak for the thing that goes on the end of a bolt.  Trufax.

[Kim]

I was talking to an American doctor about respiratory medicine the other day. She was pulling that funny face Americans do when they don't understand. Oh, respiratory, she finally says. I confess, though I'm quite good at switching between British and American English, I've somehow never noticed that one.

I'm sure I've reported previously on how, back when it was new and interesting, my parents got halfway through the first episode of ER before switching off in frustration at all the medical jargon being in USAnian.  (Not just pronunciation, it also tends to suffer from a combination of the words-for-things-invented-in-the-first-half-of-the-20th-century problem; the firkin/furlong/Fahrenheit problem and a reliance on completely different brand names.)

[Bledlow]

I was talking to an American doctor about respiratory medicine the other day. She was pulling that funny face Americans do when they don't understand. Oh, respiratory, she finally says. I confess, though I'm quite good at switching between British and American English, I've somehow never noticed that one.

Wow, that's weird!

I'd not noticed it either, so I just had a listen online.

[Moleman76]

US Armyspeak

In days of considerable yore, I was clad in a "Shirt, Man's, Fire-Resistant Cotton" when sent out to extinguish burning sagebrush.

[Jakob W]

words-for-things-invented-in-the-first-half-of-the-20th-century problem

Is this a superseded names thing, or something else?

[Cudzoziemiec]

In a sides-of-the-Atlantic context, might it be that that's the time when the two sides were most fiercely established as separate?

Going back to respiratory, it strikes me that in general Americans are more likely to pronounce a word, particularly a technical word, nearly as it's written, whereas the British pronunciation will swallow a syllable or two.

[ian]

Oh-bee-gee-why-en. Possibly Americans don't like saying gynaecology. Or maybe obstetrics just asks for a contraction. I shall collect my outer garment now.

[Mr Larrington]

Oh-bee-gee-why-en. Possibly Americans don't like saying gynaecology. Or maybe obstetrics just asks for a contraction. I shall collect my outer garment now.

Is it a "labratory" coat?

[hellymedic]

In a sides-of-the-Atlantic context, might it be that that's the time when the two sides were most fiercely established as separate?

Going back to respiratory, it strikes me that in general Americans are more likely to pronounce a word, particularly a technical word, nearly as it's written, whereas the British pronunciation will swallow a syllable or two.

Uh?

I thought the American said respratory and Brits said resPIRatory.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Yes: by stressing the second syllable the sound following it becomes a schwa, giving the Brits syllable-SYLLABLE-schwa-syllable, whereas the Americans have SYLLABLE-syllable-syllable-syllable-syllabe

re SPIR a tree – RE spir eh ta ree

respiratory
adjective [ before noun ] UK ​ /rɪˈspɪr.ə.tər.i/ US ​ /ˈres.pə.rə.tɔːr.i/
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/respiratory

[Kim]

In a sides-of-the-Atlantic context, might it be that that's the time when the two sides were most fiercely established as separate?

Yeah.  Hence very different vocabulary for things developed in the 19th and early 20th centuries.  Cars.  Railways.  Modern clothing.  That sort of thing.  It all changed very quickly after the second world war, as USAnian culture was exported to the world and the English vocabulary that developed around new technologies was much more global, so we get spelling and pronunciation differences, sometimes habitual preference for one related (but equally understood) term over another, rather than completely different words for the same thing.

Though in the context of medicine, I think this effect is much less significant than that of brand names and different measurement units.  Acetaminowhat?

[T42]

Some of it's because they buggered up the spelling. If they spelt palæontology correctly they wouldn't pronounce it pale. The bloody thing is, Brits copy them.

[ian]

In a sides-of-the-Atlantic context, might it be that that's the time when the two sides were most fiercely established as separate?

Going back to respiratory, it strikes me that in general Americans are more likely to pronounce a word, particularly a technical word, nearly as it's written, whereas the British pronunciation will swallow a syllable or two.

Uh?

I thought the American said respratory and Brits said resPIRatory.

No we flatten it out (as Cudzo's links show). I was curious because she didn't understand my pronunciation and I'd somehow never noticed the American pronunciation (and I used to work for a major respiratory society in Europe, and have spent a significant chunk of my life living in the US, so have no excuses).

It's another example of the cognitive gap that American's teeter on for what can be for only a (still perceptable) few milliseconds to entire minutes, on encounting English accents (more so when they vary from RP). We're inculcated by constant culture immersion so American accents and pronunciations don't phase us.

I'm thinking that the next time I board our Philadelphia mothership I switch to the East Midlands accent of my childhood home town for the entire time I'm aboard, delivering presentations in pure ey-up-me-duck Erewashian (mind you, I've not understood a word my dad has said for at least thirty years).

[Cudzoziemiec]

Well, today I'm trying to make sense of a bunch of Americans talking about respiratory disease! They're mostly saying "RESpraTORee". It's part, I think, of a general difference in stress on polysllabic words. Americans tend to a forward stress, often with a secondary stress later in the word, whereas Brits tend to a single stress. Hence they're also talking about "the REGulaTORee authorities" and doing "REsearch". Though I don't think even the most British of Brits says "pulMONary".

[Palinurus]

At work, ordering stuff.

"Quick Quote provides you the possibility, to order articles, which are not part of the suppliers electronic catalog. Quick Quote enables you to send a request directly to the supplier and ensures a save and Quick Quoteing process, from requesting a good untill it's ordering."

I will rework your copy for money (within 60 days, from 28th of the month)

[Pingu]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-40286318

Also, the Dunfallandy Stone in Pitlochry, Perthshire.

It may have words and punctuation, but it's not a sentence.

[T42]

chaff 1
noun
1 the husks that form the outer covering of cereal grain, and are separated from the seeds during threshing.
2 chopped hay or straw used as animal feed or bedding.
3 worthless material.
4 thin strips of metallic foil fired into or dropped through the atmosphere in order to deflect radar signals and so prevent detection.
[Anglo-Saxon ceaf.]
chaff 2
noun light-hearted joking or teasing.
verb (chaffed, chaffing) to tease or make fun of someone in a good-natured way.
[19c: probably from chaff 1.]


chafe
verb (chafed, chafing)
1 tr & intr to make or become sore or worn by rubbing.
2 to make warm by rubbing.
3 intrans (also chafe at or under something) to become angry or impatient : chafe at the rules.
noun an irritation caused by rubbing.
[14c: from French chaufer to heat, ultimately from Latin calere to be warm + facere to make.]

Get it right, for fuck's sake!

[hellymedic]

I read of the unfortunate demise of a man who has fallen about 100 feet to his death.

He apparently worked as a a sports masseuse in Brighton's Grand Hotel.

Males are masseurs, n'est-ce pas?

[T42]

In theory.  But are all employees female?