Grammar that makes you cringe

[Ian H]

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 ...

Can anybody suggest a name  for this kind of figure of speech.

[Chris L]

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 ...

Can anybody suggest a name  for this kind of figure of speech.

I think they're filed under Colemanballs in The Eye (He literally ran his legs off out there this evening), but I agree, the 'literally' thing deserves a subcategory of its own.

[Jaded]

In the library, of all places, today

"What will the changes mean here?"

"We'll be open less hours" 

[red marley]

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 ...

Can anybody suggest a name  for this kind of figure of speech.

I love those 'literally' expressions. It reveals a tiny mind that has just grasped that the metaphor they have just got their head around really does have some parallels with the thing it is being compared with.

My favourite though is the increasingly common "It was like literally...". One word drags the rest of the sentence into the realm of imagery while the next brings it back to reality with a sudden bump. It's like (literally) a matter-antimatter annihilation where the two words negate each other causing a little puff of verbal energy to be released into the conversation.

[Ian H]

There are a variety of services ...

Are or is? My logic tells me that variety is a word that groups the various things being mentioned into a single entity and therefore should be: There is a variety of services ...

The clue's in the indefinite article, denoting a singular noun.

[iakobski]

"[The company] is expecting to be back in the black after a couple of years of redding"

 

[Tourist Tony]

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 ...

Can anybody suggest a name  for this kind of figure of speech.

I love those 'literally' expressions. It reveals a tiny mind that has just grasped that the metaphor they have just got their head around really does have some parallels with the thing it is being compared with.

My favourite though is the increasingly common "It was like literally...". One word drags the rest of the sentence into the realm of imagery while the next brings it back to reality with a sudden bump. It's like (literally) a matter-antimatter annihilation where the two words negate each other causing a little puff of verbal energy to be released into the conversation.

May I refer to Loudon's song "Cobwebs". "about a little word that used to mean 'as if' "

[Cudzoziemiec]

Try it with different phrasing, and perhaps an American accent.

It was, like, literally,...

[hellymedic]

From BBC News (Wales) website:

<<It means all children travelling home on a bus have to leave by a different exit than those who walk home.>>

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-13580846

[drossall]

I prefer "from" with "different", but I'm not sure that "than" is the the main problem. That whole construction, whilst quite common these days, seems awkward to me. "Different" is usually about a comparison. That sentence compares children with an exit, which doesn't make much sense. You'd have to re-write it completely:

It means that all children travelling home on a bus and those walking home have to leave by different exits.

It means that all children travelling home on a bus have to leave by an exit different from that used by those who walk home.

Re-ordering the "different" to be next to "from" flows better (IMHO) because "different from" is describing the exit. I've removed "all" because the whole sense is that the transport home determines the exit, so that would naturally apply to all the children concerned.

[Thor]

A new Thai takeaway service is opening locally.  The menu scores a full house for grocers' apostrophes...



 

[red marley]

That's a classic. Still, I suppose it's better to have culinary expertise than grammatical excellence when selling food. Unlike, this repro service I spotted in Leicester last week who offer printing of invitations for Party's. Extra points too for some gratuitous Comic Sans and comedy spelling of the firm's name.

[hellymedic]

That's a classic. Still, I suppose it's better to have culinary expertise than grammatical excellence when selling food. Unlike, this repro service I spotted in Leicester last week who offer printing of invitations for Party's. Extra points too for some gratuitous Comic Sans and comedy spelling of the firm's name.

That's only a short way from where I lived as a small and learned to ride a bike...

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Leicester&aq=0&sll=51.205378,-2.183189&sspn=0.081416,0.153122&g=Warminster&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Leicester,+United+Kingdom&layer=c&cbll=52.623521,-1.109966&panoid=8WGq7aEzPv9t05HP1ZSpFQ&cbp=12,176.69,,0,-13.48&ll=52.623522,-1.109764&spn=0.001426,0.004823&z=18

[Wendy]

How do you say this properly?

"I have a list of thank yous that I must go through."

Is thank yous right?

[border-rider]

I must thank a number of people.

[Ian H]

How do you say this properly?

"I have a list of thank yous that I must go through."

Is thank yous right?

I suppose you'd call it informal spoken, but you probably wouldn't wish to write it. As reported speech it would look better with a hyphen.

[Mr Larrington]

That's a classic. Still, I suppose it's better to have culinary expertise than grammatical excellence when selling food. Unlike, this repro service I spotted in Leicester last week who offer printing of invitations for Party's. Extra points too for some gratuitous Comic Sans and comedy spelling of the firm's name.

There used to be an avert for a signwriting firm in Stoke Newington.  Among the things they'd put your logo on were vans and canapés   Sign appear to have gone though.

[clarion]

I quite like that idea.  The advertising potential of finger food has barely been tapped.  What next - flyers with your vol-au-vents?

[Wowbagger]

Lack of capitalisation can sometimes lead to problems.

Mother asked Deirdre "Will you help your Uncle Jack off his horse?"

[RJ]

(From papers for a meeting I attended yesterday)

"{the animal} died of sceptic shock"

There's a Far Side sketch in there somewhere

[hellymedic]

Lack of capitalisation can sometimes lead to problems.

Mother asked Deirdre "Will you help your Uncle Jack off his horse?"

A comma, between 'Jack' and 'off', would prevent Mother being accused of being one colluding with pervy bestiality...

[Cudzoziemiec]

I'm always amused by the blurb on the packaging of some Waitrose products. "We believe that great flavour and exceptional quality should come as standard." If it's exceptional how can it be standard?

[Wowbagger]

Lack of capitalisation can sometimes lead to problems.

Mother asked Deirdre "Will you help your Uncle Jack off his horse?"

A comma, between 'Jack' and 'off', would prevent Mother being accused of being one colluding with pervy bestiality...

But that would be grammatical incorrect.

Insert the word "climb" or "get" before "off" and you're in the clear, or perhaps just use "dismount".

[Simonb]

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

Temperatures are struggling. WTF?

[drossall]

We had a supplier try to "reach out" to us twice in the same email today. We are thinking of calling the police.