Grammar that makes you cringe

[Deano]

Not really grammar, but the discussion reminded me of the GDS Style guide, especially the "Words to Avoid" section:

Plain English is mandatory for all of GOV.UK so please avoid using these words:

agenda (unless it’s for a meeting)
advancing
collaborate (use ‘working with’)
combating
commit/pledge (we need to be more specific – we’re either doing something or we’re not)
countering
deliver (pizzas, post and services are delivered – not abstract concepts like ‘improvements’ or ‘priorities’)
deploy (unless it’s military or software)
dialogue (we speak to people)
disincentivise (and incentivise)
empower
facilitate (instead, say something specific about how you’re helping)
focusing
foster (unless it’s children)
impact (don’t use this as a synonym for ‘have an effect on’, or ‘influence’)
initiate
key (unless it unlocks something. A subject/thing isn’t ‘key’ – it’s probably ‘important’)
land (as a verb only use if you’re talking about aircraft)
leverage (unless in the financial sense)
liaise
overarching
progress (as a verb – what are you actually doing?)
promote (unless you’re talking about an ad campaign or some other marketing promotion)
robust
slimming down (processes don’t diet – we are probably removing x amount of paperwork etc)
streamline
strengthening (unless it’s strengthening bridges or other structures)
tackling (unless it’s rugby, football or some other sport)
transforming (what are you actually doing to change it?)
utilise
Avoid using metaphors – they don’t say what you actually mean and lead to slower comprehension of your content. For example:

drive (you can only drive vehicles; not schemes or people)
drive out (unless it’s cattle)
going forward (it’s unlikely we are giving travel directions)
in order to (superfluous – don’t use it)
one-stop shop (we are government, not a retail outlet)
ring fencing
With all of these words you can generally replace them by breaking the term into what you’re actually doing. Be open and specific.

[Mr Larrington]

Not really grammar, but the discussion reminded me of the GDS Style guide, especially the "Words to Avoid" section:

[...]
Avoid using metaphors – they don’t say what you actually mean and lead to slower comprehension of your content.
[...]

One thing that literature would be greatly the better for
Would be a more restricted employment by the authors of simile and metaphor.
Authors of all races, be they Greeks, Romans, Teutons or Celts,
Can't seem just to say that anything is the thing it is but have to go out of their way to say that it is like something else.
What does it mean when we are told
That that Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold?
In the first place, George Gordon Byron had enough experience
To know that it probably wasn't just one Assyrian, it was a lot of Assyrians.
However, as too many arguments are apt to induce apoplexy and thus hinder longevity.
We'll let it pass as one Assyrian for the sake of brevity.
Now then, this particular Assyrian, the one whose cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold,
Just what does the poet mean when he says he came down like a wolf on the fold?
In heaven and earth more than is dreamed of in our philosophy there are great many things.
But I don't imagine that among them there is a wolf with purple and gold cohorts or purple and gold anythings.
No, no, Lord Byron, before I'll believe that this Assyrian was actually like a wolf I must have some kind of proof;
Did he run on all fours and did he have a hairy tail and a big red mouth and big white teeth and did he say Woof Woof?
Frankly I think it is very unlikely, and all you were entitled to say, at the very most,
Was that the Assyrian cohorts came down like a lot of Assyrian cohorts about to destroy the Hebrew host.
But that wasn't fancy enough for Lord Byron, oh dear me no, he had to invent a lot of figures of speech and then interpolate them,
With the result that whenever you mention Old Testament soldiers to people they say Oh yes, they're the ones that a lot of wolves dressed up in gold and purple ate them.
That's the kind of thing that's being done all the time by poets, from Homer to Tennyson;
They're always comparing ladies to lilies and veal to venison,
And they always say things like that the snow is a white blanket after a winter storm.
Oh it is, is it, all right then, you sleep under a six-inch blanket of snow and I'll sleep under a half-inch blanket of unpoetical blanket material and we'll see which one keeps warm,
And after that maybe you'll begin to comprehend dimly
What I mean by too much metaphor and simile.

[Wowbagger]

From a notice in a school lavatory:-

"The cost of blockages are very expensive to clear."

Where do you start with that one?

[hellymedic]

I had no idea childer was a real word. I thought it was just fboab family lore that the loinfruit of my parents are collectively known as childers.

'And slew the little childer' features in a well-known Christmas carol, I thought.

[Cudzoziemiec]

From a notice in a school lavatory:-

"The cost of blockages are very expensive to clear."

Where do you start with that one?

A flush.

[hellymedic]

From a notice in a school lavatory:-

"The cost of blockages are very expensive to clear."

Where do you start with that one?

A flush.

Just chop out 'The cost of'. Nothing lost. Easier when you are too dyspraxic to write quickly.

[drossall]

Is it true that there is only one lake in the Lake District?

That's OK. It's not the Lakes District

[T42]

I had no idea childer was a real word. I thought it was just fboab family lore that the loinfruit of my parents are collectively known as childers.

'And slew the little childer' features in a well-known Christmas carol, I thought.

Sounds real Christian. Let God sort 'em out.

[Andrij]

I had no idea childer was a real word. I thought it was just fboab family lore that the loinfruit of my parents are collectively known as childers.

'And slew the little childer' features in a well-known Christmas carol, I thought.

Sounds real Christian. Let God sort 'em out.

 

From the Christmas Carol, “Unto us is born a Son”. “...This did Herod sore affray, / And grievously bewilder, / So he sent the word to slay / And slew the little childer.”

source

[Wowbagger]

Oo and aargh and aargh and oo
Cantibus in choro!

Archers version.

[T42]

The Archers went to Porterhouse?

[CrinklyLion]

That's one of my two absolute favourite poems.  I even used it in an observed year 5 lesson when I was on placement during teacher training!


(The other one is "The Flying Bum", by the way)

[jenhunt]

when people use Been instead of Being... and even worse, on a public notice! That, and inappropriate apostrophe use/misuse/lack of use.

where my regular running route crosses the car park for the local racecourse (which is open for dog walkers to use) there is a sign which reads:
"Failure to pick up your dogs mess will result in the gate been locked"   

this makes me quite cross

[T42]

That's one of my two absolute favourite poems.  I even used it in an observed year 5 lesson when I was on placement during teacher training!


(The other one is "The Flying Bum", by the way)

Fly Bum excellent, ta. Shall pass it on to vegetarian missus. Please contact CID if I do not post tomorrow.

[Mr Larrington]

PM bod was interviewing some African-USAnian fellow about the church mass shooting yesterday.  The interviewee allowed as how he was familiar with said church because one of his relatives had been funeralized there.

I was on yhe M25 at the time and thus unable to throw anything at the motor-car radio.

[T42]

PM bod was interviewing some African-USAnian fellow about the church mass shooting yesterday.  The interviewee allowed as how he was familiar with said church because one of his relatives had been funeralized there.

I was on yhe M25 at the time and thus unable to throw anything at the motor-car radio.

Now if you'd had a handy bowl of cereal...

[red marley]

when people use Been instead of Being... and even worse, on a public notice! That, and inappropriate apostrophe use/misuse/lack of use.

where my regular running route crosses the car park for the local racecourse (which is open for dog walkers to use) there is a sign which reads:
"Failure to pick up your dogs mess will result in the gate been locked"   

this makes me quite cross

How do you feel about starting sentences with a capital letter and ending them with a punctuation mark?

 

[jenhunt]

when people use Been instead of Being... and even worse, on a public notice! That, and inappropriate apostrophe use/misuse/lack of use.

where my regular running route crosses the car park for the local racecourse (which is open for dog walkers to use) there is a sign which reads:
"Failure to pick up your dogs mess will result in the gate been locked"   

this makes me quite cross

How do you feel about starting sentences with a capital letter and ending them with a punctuation mark?

Fair point there - I'm afraid that my ire got the better of me. It had nothing to do with secretly typing on my mobile during a meeting, at all, I promise!

 

[Paul]

In my view, a sentence using "favorite" as a verb is already clunky and inelegant - and American.  However, I can see you are in a difficult editorial position if you are going to use articles which contain internet-speak.

I don't see it as a difficulty. Many nouns become verbs through common use and eventually take hold in more formal language despite resistance.

Ask yourself this: are you resisting the usage on strong grammatical grounds, or simply because it's a neologism?

For reasons I can't explain I was disturbed last night by the verb to trouser (as in "Karl trousered a massive wedge before the bubble burst"*). I was trying to think of the correct verb and could only come up with 'pocketed' which verb, I speculate, someone wrote a similar complaint about 20 or so years ago.

(*I say "as in" as if this is a well known expression. Really, I just made it up for this post, but that's not to say that no one has ever said/written it before. Please feel free to google type it into a search engine to check if you wish.)

[T42]

I reckon you can use any word you like as a verb as long as it's comprehensible, not excruciating, and not pompously overblown (as in "gifted").  I could imagine Karl trousering a massive something or other before opening the front door to the vicar, like that passage in "I want it now" when the bloke has to pay a taxi-driver over his shoulder.

To pocket has been around for centuries. Click.

...And for once we win one over the UShaveA*: Karl panted a massive... doesn't work.

* since they continually use of instead of have in I'd have.

[drossall]

That use of gifted fails the comprehensibility test, however. A gift, by definition, comes to the recipient with no personal cost. To gift yourself a piece of technology is to admit having stolen it.

[L CC]

I'd say treat myself.
As in, I've treated myself to a shiny new wheelset.
There's a significant difference between just buying something and it being a present to yourself.
Gifted is just awful.

[citoyen]

Seen by a friend at the Nike 10k in 'Ackney today...



Tbh, I'm more offended by the vacuousness of the slogan itself than the grammar error. Your limits are things you can't pass. That's what makes them limits. Idiots.

[T42]

NYT on Francis's late encyclical reported him as saying that global warming results in people being dislocated. Makes a change from the old method with a horse at each corner.

[Mr Larrington]

I reckon you can use any word you like as a verb as long as it's comprehensible, not excruciating, and not pompously overblown (as in "gifted").

Once you removed words that fall into one of these categories, though, that doesn't leave many   Albeit that the overblownity or excruciatitude is entirely subjective.

"Gifted" might work in a discussion between Alan Shearer and Gary Lineker about a particularly feeble piece of defending resulting in the simplest of tap-in goals, but not in most circumstances descibed in this thread.  Trousering has been around for yonks and to me has conveyed the meaning than the sum of money trousered is rather more than just small change, which would be pocketed instead.