Author Topic: Grammar that makes you cringe  (Read 835146 times)

Tourist Tony

  • Supermassive mobile flesh-toned black hole
Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #625 on: 02 February, 2010, 11:35:14 am »
I read a lot of things like online journals, and have become used to (but not happy with) the stupidity of using "your" for "you're"
What seems to be happening now is the use of "you're" for "your"
Possibly on the assumption that if it has an apostrophe it is a possessive....as in the sign at work, "Welcome to Gatwick and it's new terminal extension"

Auntie Helen

  • 6 Wheels in Germany
Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #626 on: 02 February, 2010, 12:22:23 pm »
Talking about airports, I remember being irritated beyond belief by a recorded announcement whilst waiting in the queue for security at Stansted. It was a woman's voice, not very BBC English for a start (rather Estuary), and she was saying something like "In order to get through security quicker, please remove your coat and shoes..."  She repeated this every five minutes or so as I was queuing (for probably half an hour) and it made me want to scream "MORE QUICKLY!"
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citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #627 on: 02 February, 2010, 12:45:27 pm »
it made me want to scream "MORE QUICKLY!"

I would prefer "sooner" in that situation, but I would consider it acceptable to use "quicker" adverbally - indeed preferable to "more quickly", which just sounds clunky even if it is "correct".

You've reminded me of another pet peeve, though, which I don't think I've mentioned already: the use of "more well known" instead of "better known" or (which is worse) "less well known" instead of "lesser known" (surely "less well" is a contradiction?). And indeed any other similarly clunky comparative forms of compound-adjectives.

d.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #628 on: 02 February, 2010, 01:07:51 pm »

Noone expects the Spanish Inquisition.









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Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #629 on: 02 February, 2010, 05:23:01 pm »
Presumably it comes from treating "well known" as one compound adjective, "well-known". In fact, I can't really see anything wrong with "more well-known" though I agree "better known" is less clunky. As for "less well-known", well, "lesser known" is great but might be considered a little formal at times.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Gandalf

  • Each snowflake in an avalanche pleads not guilty
Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #630 on: 03 February, 2010, 06:47:33 am »
Another one is "least amount" as in "whoever gets the least amount of votes".  WTF can't they simply say the fewest votes?

Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #631 on: 03 February, 2010, 08:16:03 am »
Or even, "least votes". Except that that would imply that there had been a flood of votes, too many to count. Which is kind of dodgy in terms of establishing the result ;D

hellymedic

  • Just do it!
Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #632 on: 03 February, 2010, 09:51:07 am »
Another from the Beeb...
"Top 20 London universities are attracting the most number of ethnic minority students, a study finds."
Eek!

Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #633 on: 03 February, 2010, 11:02:15 am »
A crappy looking shop is now opening in the village named "Round a pound"

WTF? Do you mean around a pound, or round about a pound?

Round a bloody pound makes no sense!

mattc

  • n.b. have grown beard since photo taken
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Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #634 on: 03 February, 2010, 12:11:58 pm »
Round a bloody pound makes no sense!
Is it a beer shop?
Has never ridden RAAM
---------
No.11  Because of the great host of those who dislike the least appearance of "swank " when they travel the roads and lanes. - From Kuklos' 39 Articles

Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #635 on: 03 February, 2010, 12:20:13 pm »
No, is going to be a most stuff is about £1 shop I think.

Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #636 on: 03 February, 2010, 12:23:14 pm »
No, is going to be a most stuff is about £1 shop I think.

"about £1" or "around £1" ?
"Yes please" said Squirrel "biscuits are our favourite things."

Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #637 on: 03 February, 2010, 12:29:24 pm »
Argh!!!!

Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #638 on: 03 February, 2010, 01:54:20 pm »
Hell is other people's notion of good enough. What does the jury think of "increasingly rarer":

"Serious infections are rare and getting increasingly rarer thanks to vaccinations."

Surely, "increasingly rare" is "rarer" (so "increasingly" is redundant, making "increasingly rarer" recursive), grumble, grumble.

hellymedic

  • Just do it!
Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #639 on: 03 February, 2010, 03:41:18 pm »
Hell is other people's notion of good enough. What does the jury think of "increasingly rarer":

"Serious infections are rare and getting increasingly rarer thanks to vaccinations."

Surely, "increasingly rare" is "rarer" (so "increasingly" is redundant, making "increasingly rarer" recursive), grumble, grumble.

Agreed.
 :sick:

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #640 on: 03 February, 2010, 08:41:42 pm »
Increasingly more rarer...
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Jaded

  • The Codfather
  • Formerly known as Jaded
Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #641 on: 04 February, 2010, 12:16:21 am »
It is all to much.
It is simpler than it looks.

iakobski

Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #642 on: 04 February, 2010, 09:21:22 am »
Another from the Beeb...
"Top 20 London universities are attracting the most number of ethnic minority students, a study finds."
Eek!

And the Telegraph:

"...coral reefs near mangrove forests contained up to 25 times more fish numbers than those without mangroves nearby..."

clarion

  • Tyke
Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #643 on: 04 February, 2010, 09:23:28 am »
Fish numbers is what you eat with alphabetti spaghetti.
Getting there...

Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #644 on: 04 February, 2010, 09:28:38 am »
Bring back sub-editors and compositors.

Legs

Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #645 on: 04 February, 2010, 09:44:59 am »
Hell is other people's notion of good enough. What does the jury think of "increasingly rarer":

"Serious infections are rare and getting increasingly rarer thanks to vaccinations."

Surely, "increasingly rare" is "rarer" (so "increasingly" is redundant, making "increasingly rarer" recursive), grumble, grumble.

Surely 'increasingly rare' is first derivative - equivalent to 'rarer' - and by the same token 'increasingly rarer' is second derivative; there is an acceleration in the rareness?  However, I don't think this was what's meant!

Legs

Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #646 on: 04 February, 2010, 09:46:54 am »
Another thing that irks me is 'however' at the beginning of a sentence without a comma (when it doesn't mean 'howsoever').

Auntie Helen

  • 6 Wheels in Germany
Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #647 on: 04 February, 2010, 09:58:28 am »
Don't get me started on commas... I'm so tuned in to them and their placement/misplacement (in my opinion - I'm not a fan of the Oxford Comma) that I can't switch it off. I'm currently reading a book for review and the copy editor is regularly failing to put in commas and it's driving me WILD. Here are some examples, all from the second paragraph in the whole book!:

"All too often those having to respond to attacks on religion..."

"From the partition of India through the troubles in Northern Ireland to civil war in Iraq religion is identified..."

"Rid the world of religion it is suggested, and the world will be rid of a major obstacle..."

And in that same paragraph, a typo: "He quotes Mussolini: 'Facism is not only a party..." plus we have a misspelling of Baron von Clausewitz on the next page to Baron von Clansewitz." Where are all the copy editors/proof readers?
My blog on cycling in Germany and eating German cake – http://www.auntiehelen.co.uk


Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #648 on: 04 February, 2010, 10:03:16 am »
I notice that Alan Bennett is a comma minimalist. I assume that's his choice rather than an editor's.

Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
« Reply #649 on: 04 February, 2010, 02:35:27 pm »
Where are all the copy editors/proof readers?
Fired. No longer wanted. Typos, poor grammar, & misspellings are now preferred to paying people to prevent them.

A pity: it's a job I'm good at, & I've done on some software manuals, & I could do with a job.
"A woman on a bicycle has all the world before her where to choose; she can go where she will, no man hindering." The Type-Writer Girl, 1897