Grammar that makes you cringe

[Cudzoziemiec]

"Whenever I turned to her desk, she wouldn’t never be there."
This from someone whose speech confuses was and were, but this quote means exactly what it says - I never noticed her absence. Sometimes it's possible to be unclear with correctness!

[Crumbling Nick]

<snip>
I was just reading a Graun piece on the TdF and the commentator, one John Ashdown, used the wrong sort of peddle. He also named a town "Saffron Waldren". Surely these useless twats must do some homework?

Nice oxymoron Wow .

[Deano]

Name removed to protect the guilty.

[Gareth Rees]

"Banks can now borrow at low rates and on-lend that money."

On-lend? 

The OED has this meaning under sense 2, with citations from 1969:

onlend, v. Finance. To lend (borrowed money) to a third party.

Sense 1 is much older: the Doom Book of King Alfred (c. 893) says:

Gif hwa his wæpnes oðrum onlæne þæt he mon mid ofslea, hie moton hie gesomnian, gif hie willað, to þam were.
[If anyone lends his weapon to another that he may slay someone with it, they may join together, if they will, in the weregild.]

That Wendy Hurrell is a pretty enough gel but if she ever again tells me that the rain may lull in the early hours I will not be responsible for any subsequent defenestrations.

The OED has this meaning as sense 5b, with citations from 1850:

lull, v. 5. a. intr. Of the sea or wind: To become lulled, or gradually diminished in force or power. b. fig. To become quiescent or inactive.

[Nuncio]

Mr. Jaggers shook his head,—not in negativing the question, but in altogether negativing the notion that he could anyhow be got to answer it

My initial thought was 'Oh dear Charles, what were you thinking?'.  It turns out that the verb 'to negative' is perfectly cromulent. I've just never heard it or read it before.

[Mr Larrington]

I think you meant to see that Narcotics Anonymous encouraged you to "stick your head above the parapet, Davina.  Not the pulpit.

Preaching to the converted?

[Wowbagger]

Dez has been managing a webcast from somewhere transatlantic.

The Social Media landscape is bludgeoning as we speak

Perhaps this should be in the Management Speak thread, but this will have to do.

[Pickled Onion]

Not grammar, but on the wireless the other morning:

"What we are effectively doing is ..." (list of things they are actually doing)
"Then, effectively, we will ... " (description of what they intend to do)

I suppose, since literally no longer means literally a new word is required, so why not use the one that literally means the opposite?

[Mr Larrington]

On a fire exit:

Please refrain from propping this door open for your safety
and ours

Translation: Burn in hell, melonfarmer?

I don't know whether they'd done better grammar in the French, German, Spanish or Navajo translations underneath.

[Ian H]

Here's a point of view that doubtless is intended to be controversial.

[quote from Will Self on Orwell]
Orwell...established once and for all in this essay that anything worth saying in English can be set down with perfect clarity such that it's comprehensible to all averagely intelligent English readers.

The only problem with this is that it's not true - and furthermore, Orwell was plain wrong...
[/quote]

[citoyen]

Saw a billboard ad for Volkswagen this morning, proclaiming their new safety features, with the sign off line: "Drive confident."

 

Thinking of starting a campaign for the preservation of adverbs.

[red marley]

Thinking of starting a campaign for the preservation of adverbs.

It could have the strapline "You wouldn't let it ly!"

[HTFB]

They want to say "be confident as you drive", I think.

[citoyen]

It could have the strapline "You wouldn't let it ly!"

[αdαmsκι]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc

[citoyen]

Here's a point of view that doubtless is intended to be controversial.

[quote from Will Self on Orwell]
Orwell...established once and for all in this essay that anything worth saying in English can be set down with perfect clarity such that it's comprehensible to all averagely intelligent English readers.

The only problem with this is that it's not true - and furthermore, Orwell was plain wrong...

[/quote]

I enjoyed that. Yes, clearly intended to be controversial, and broadly rhetorical but he makes some good points - although I would suggest that Orwell has been displaced in recent years as the Supreme Mediocrity by Stephen Fry.

[Ian H]

Here's a point of view that doubtless is intended to be controversial.

[quote from Will Self on Orwell]
Orwell...established once and for all in this essay that anything worth saying in English can be set down with perfect clarity such that it's comprehensible to all averagely intelligent English readers.

The only problem with this is that it's not true - and furthermore, Orwell was plain wrong...

I enjoyed that. Yes, clearly intended to be controversial, and broadly rhetorical but he makes some good points - although I would suggest that Orwell has been displaced in recent years as the Supreme Mediocrity by Stephen Fry.

Pink carpet slippers.

(and I believe I was trying too hard to be clever with the quote box back there)

[Bairn Again]

"I was sat" and "Im sat"

now appear to be official BBC parlance. 

ditto "stood"

I blame their move to Manchester. 

BBC R5L are now worse than Talk Sport. 

[mattc]

Will Self on Orwell

...

...

I enjoyed that. Yes, clearly intended to be controversial, and broadly rhetorical but he makes some good points - although I would suggest that Orwell has been displaced in recent years as the Supreme Mediocrity by Stephen Fry.

My bold - in which I detect some irony

[citoyen]

Not really. I was hoping I might find some agreement among the present constituency.

Maybe I overestimated you.

[Biff]

[Cudzoziemiec]

Guardian article on eggcorns here.

It strikes me that while some of the examples they give have just as much, or as little, explicit meaning as the original, some have a meaning which is far removed from what is intended. Social leopard and damp squid seem just as appropriate as social leper and damp squib, but far-gone conclusion and internally grateful both have a clear meaning which is very different from foregone conclusion and eternally grateful, for instance.

[citoyen]

I had a letter about eggcorns published in the Guardian several years ago. Hmph.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I think it was only after the TV series came out that I realised the phrase was not 'splitting image'. Frankly, neither 'splitting', spitting nor 'spit and image' carry any intrinsic meaning that I can discern, and I think it's that lack of 'logic' in the phrases that might be one reason for eggcorns.

Though eggcorn itself is a funny one.

[Polar Bear]

"I was sat" and "Im sat"

now appear to be official BBC parlance. 

ditto "stood"

I blame their move to Manchester. 

BBC R5L are now worse than Talk Sport.

I blame it on the introduction into the mainstream media of the likes of Savage and Claridge,.   You know...