Grammar that makes you cringe

[Auntie Helen]

I emailed the publishing company that produced the book I quoted from earlier and got this response: "Thank you for your message.  I apologize about the errors in the book and have made a note for the reprint.  We do have proofreaders and we are trying to tighten up on this."

I would, of course, have preferred 'apologise' to 'apologize'...

[Bledlow]

They're using Word with the default spellchecker, because they know no better.

[Auntie Helen]

Found this interesting site about differences in spelling between American and English: UK vs US spelling

[Greenbank]

They're using Word with the default spellchecker, because they know no better.

Or they're doing it on purpose because they're based in America, were American educated or work for an American publisher.

All of our documentation is produced in American English so I have to make sure I use spellings such as 'color' and 'optimize' all over the code/docs.

Some differences are easy to get used to (it helps that I lived over there for a couple of years) but some things just blend into one; I can never remember which tyre/tire spelling is which for example, and I only once said to some US colleagues that I was "just popping out to get some new trainers as mine were getting tatty".

[Nuncio]

I would, of course, have preferred 'apologise' to 'apologize'...

I use -ize rather than -ise and frequently have to defend myself against the charge that -ize is American and -ise is English.  I'm English, by the way.  My defence is fortified by Fowler and a Collins Gem (which, for instance, only gives -ize for 'organize').  The fortifications may be a bit crumbly, though, as both were published in the 60s and I suspect the battle has since been lost.

[PhilO]

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..."

Not really grammer, but I hate that use of 'up to', as well. 'Up to 25 times'? So it could be double, or even identical numbers of fish, then?

[L CC]

<snip>.. please see your doctor. They may ask you to start taking your tablets again and come of them more slowly.

I haven't started taking them yet, but I doubt very much I'll ever need to come of them.

Grrr.

[mattc]

And the Telegraph:

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

Not really grammer, but I hate that use of 'up to', as well. 'Up to 25 times'? So it could be double, or even identical numbers of fish, then?

(Upto) +1

I would bet that this crops up every single day in the major newspapers. Utterly misleading

[Cudzoziemiec]

That one is not so much sloppy grammar as sloppy thinking. In fact, quite a lot of what gets taken as bad grammar or bad writing is probably just unclear thinking or incomplete understanding.

[tatanab]

In a similar way "less than" confuses me greatly, as in "Product A costs 10 times less than product B".

If product B costs a pound, then one times less than a pound is nothing at all.  So if product A is 10 times less then product B does it mean they are giving them away by the bucket full?

Or if you like; product A has 3 times less fat than product B --- similar logic.  They even do this with percentages, eg 400% less than.

I know they mean a tenth or a third (in the examples given), so why can they not write in plain simple English?  It even uses fewer words.

[Cudzoziemiec]

It's advert speak, now widespread in other contexts. "Ten times" sounds more impressive than "a tenth" and "less than" emphasises "ours is cheaper".

[drossall]

It's just that you're left hoping that the people who designed the product thought more clearly than the people who sold it to you

[Cudzoziemiec]

When designing and manufacturing, clear thought is a virtue, even a necessity. When selling, it seems not to be.

[Giraffe]

Good example of dimsalesdroidspeak: "-50% discount". That's quite a surcharge!

[Keith]

Many, many years ago I complained to the ASA about a Colgate toothpaste claim of "Up to 30% fewer fillings" on the basis that it was misleading and the phrase "Up to" was scientifically incorrect. I believe that Colgate were the first to use this form. The complaint was upheld and the advertisement withdrawn. Now they are all doing it, and I bet a similar compalint these days would be met with the response that this is "common useage". Sigh, I feel tired. Still, is anybody fooled really do you think? Maybe just fools are.

[drossall]

We're getting quite OT now, but...

There's lots of talk of relationship marketing these days. Companies don't want to sell me things; they want to form a relationship with me as a customer. Given that, I'm slightly puzzled by anyone who tries to start a relationship on the basis of saying things to me that are plainly slightly misleading, as above. If I can see that someone is, shall we say, less than committed to being honest with me from the start, how am I ever going to trust anything else that they say?

Of course, it may be that they just don't understand what they are saying, which has much the same effect

[Eccentrica Gallumbits]

I was at the hairdresser last week and we were chatting and he told me that he once had a bet with his friend in a pub. His friend had said that he could do 50 press-ups, and my hairdresser said he could do between two and three hundred. His friend didn't believe Kenny could do so many, so they had a £50 bet. Kenny got down on the floor in the pub and did four press-up, said "four is between two and three hundred" and won the bet.

I said he should have made the other guy do 50 first.

[rogerzilla]

I hate "up to 50% off", "reductions of up to 50%" or "up to 50% off and an extra discount of 15% today".

(a) the first two are meaningless, and the retailers know this.

(b) is the 15% off the already-reduced price, or off the full price?  So if there was a product with 50% off, is it now 35% of the original price or only 42.5%?

And worst of all, there's the "up to half price sale".  Does this mean prices are no higher than 50% of the original price, or no lower than 50% of the original price?  In other words, are the prices up to half original price or are the discounts up to half original price?

[citoyen]

I notice some shops have taken to wording it as "better than half price", which is a valiant attempt to avoid the faux-pas but still nonsense.

d.

[Giraffe]

'Sale' or 'Discount' on goods that are available only from one company and the price is set by that company - meaningless.

As for the 'up to...'! Even applied to 'all or nothing' such as shampoo: if there's even 1 flake it's 0% flake-free.

[citoyen]

'Sale' or 'Discount' on goods that are available only from one company and the price is set by that company - meaningless.

Oh yes, another reason not to shop at DFS. Sofa reduced from £999 to £499 then further reduced to £399? What a bargain! Except it was only worth £399 in the first place and was never on sale at £999 (ISTR it was DFS or someone similar who once fell foul of trading standards on that one).

d.

[rogerzilla]

Or offers where "if you find the same product on sale elsewhere at a cheaper price, we'll refund the difference".  Normally applied to own-branded goods, or those for which the retailer has an exclusive distribution deal in the UK.  But now we're getting OT.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I hate "up to 50% off", "reductions of up to 50%" or "up to 50% off and an extra discount of 15% today".

(a) the first two are meaningless, and the retailers know this.

(b) is the 15% off the already-reduced price, or off the full price?  So if there was a product with 50% off, is it now 35% of the original price or only 42.5%?

And worst of all, there's the "up to half price sale".  Does this mean prices are no higher than 50% of the original price, or no lower than 50% of the original price?  In other words, are the prices up to half original price or are the discounts up to half original price?

I always assume this means the latter, i.e. you will pay between 50% and 99% (or even, theoretically, 100%) of the original price. But I think the only way to find out is to ask the current price for each item, as the sales staff can't be relied to understand the difference. 

[citoyen]

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[iakobski]

That's not really fair as it was written by a German.