Grammar that makes you cringe

[Mr Larrington]

Oi, Act-tor!  I do not think a dispute should be described as both long and lengthy.  Kindly report to the Department of Redundancy Department to be punished with a suitable punishment.

[citoyen]

the Department of Redundancy Department

 

[Cudzoziemiec]

R U overstimulated?

With its several references to "extraverts" I can't help wondering if this has been published two days too early. 

[Andrij]

Extravert?

[citoyen]

Fwiw, the spelling preferred by Jung when he invented the term was 'extravert'.

I don't know if its pedantic literalism or careless sub-editing that's behind the 'extrovert' spelling in the Eysenck quote.

[Cudzoziemiec]

  The OED does give extravert as an accepted spelling. Not intravert though.

[Ruthie]

When I was given some education in such things a gazillion years ago, the spellings were introvert (intro = inward) and extravert (extra = outward).

I get a little twitch in my eye every time I see 'extrovert'.

[orienteer]

Larger detached houses around here are often demolished and replaced by apartment blocks.

One current reconstruction I pass has a notice saying 12 bespoke apartments - 50% sold.

[T42]

AVG just informed me that its scan had completed.  A crossword puzzle, doubtless.

[Vince]

A sign at the local tip recycling centre

Use Both Lanes

So I did

[citoyen]

Flewby?

[Ian H]

Flewby?

That's in Norfolk, isn't it?

[citoyen]

If not, it ought to be.

[Mrs Pingu]

Back on the subject of weather - 'hill snow' really gets Pingu's goat.

[Nuncio]

If not, it ought to be.

No, Oughterby's in Cumbria.

[billplumtree]

*applause*

[T42]

Something I find cringeworthy is the growing use of words that don't mean what the author intended but work more or less. E.g. in Seveneves, Neal Stevenson uses the phrase "slatternly tarps".  A slattern being a woman of dirty or untidy habit, it's hard to imagine a tarpaulin being particularly female. He probably meant slovenly, but thought the two were interchangeable or simply couldn't recall it (he's middle-aged, after all).  Similarly, yesterday I read of someone "robbing the bottle cages" off his old bike.  I always understood that you could rob a bank, a pillar-box or a person, but bottle cages and bullion you stole. Maybe robbing a bottle cage is OK in some dialects, but I think it's just wrong.

[Mr Larrington]

"Robbing" is certainly in common usage for "stealing" on Merseyside.  They've probably got two hundred words for theft, though

[Peter]

How many for stereotype?! 

[clarion]

Rob is perfectly acceptable in that context.

[Vince]

Something I find cringeworthy is the growing use of words that don't mean what the author intended but work more or less. E.g. in Seveneves, Neal Stevenson uses the phrase "slatternly tarps". 

I'm not sure it is such a bad use. There is a slatting sail, one where it isn't hauled in properly and is flapping fiercely.
The origin of slattern is from German meaning to hang loosely, which would certainly apply to a tarp. [/I was away the day they taught grammar]

[red marley]

I thought 'robbed' was used to describe an unfavourable scoreline at the end of a football match. It is paired with its own easily remembered conjugation rule: Alway prefix with 'was'.

[orienteer]

Robbing parts is a standard expression in maintenance, where parts might be taken from one piece of machinery to keep another going.

[Mr Larrington]

Oh does your heroin lose its glamour on the washboard overnight?
When your mother says “Don’t do it” do you crank it up in spite?
Do you rob your brother’s Giro? Do you talk a load of shite?
Does your heroin lose its glamour on the washboard overnight?

[Kim]

Robbing a bottle cage would mean stealing the bottle or the bolts in my dialect, but northerners use it as a synonym for 'steal', and it's not usually ambiguous.

I'd certainly rob machine A for parts to repair machine B, but I *stole* that PSU from machine A, I didn't 'rob' it.