Author Topic: Grammar that makes you cringe (Read 856937 times)

Auntie Helen · « **Reply #4350 on:** 26 October, 2016, 09:03:08 am »

I really don't think I like this sentence the chap says (talking about the new Heathrow runway):

Quote

He said many other airports around the world had built runways over motorways.

It would involve "a very gentle hill up which the planes can take off".

citoyen · « **Reply #4351 on:** 26 October, 2016, 09:18:11 am »

Quote from: Auntie Helen on 26 October, 2016, 09:03:08 am

I really don't think I like this sentence the chap says (talking about the new Heathrow runway)

It certainly doesn't win any prizes for elegance, but you can see why he has gone with it that way.

Auntie Helen · « **Reply #4352 on:** 26 October, 2016, 10:53:54 am »

A very gentle slope from which the planes can take off...

ElyDave · « **Reply #4353 on:** 26 October, 2016, 11:00:41 am »

Quote from: Auntie Helen on 26 October, 2016, 10:53:54 am

A very gentle slope from which the planes can take off...

or a runway that is sloped very gently upwards

remember you can also land on it.

T42 · « **Reply #4354 on:** 26 October, 2016, 11:22:22 am »

N.B. "he said". Nowadays reporters rarely presume to recast spoken remarks, even leaving in the ers and ums of their victims.

mattc · « **Reply #4355 on:** 26 October, 2016, 01:10:13 pm »

Quote from: T42 on 26 October, 2016, 11:22:22 am

N.B. "he said". Nowadays reporters rarely presume to recast spoken remarks, even leaving in the ers and ums of their victims.

Don't be daft - we can't start cutting people slack like that. There would barely be anything to post about!

T42 · « **Reply #4356 on:** 26 October, 2016, 01:28:28 pm »

BTW, when I was green and carefree, the verb "to snog" was intransitive. A and B snogged or A was snogging with B, but A never snogged B. Somewhere in the years between the action acquired a done-to as well as a doer and, to my ear at least, lost connotations of innocence and mutual consent. Sic transit gloria mundi, whoever she was.

Bledlow · « **Reply #4357 on:** 03 November, 2016, 09:41:00 pm »

Yes. I've only very recently noticed that modern usage, & it doesn't sound right to me.

Kim · « **Reply #4358 on:** 03 November, 2016, 11:22:48 pm »

I dunno, it's like you've never been unexpectedly snogged...

(TBH I wouldn't recommend it. As T42 says, mutual consent.)

jsabine · « **Reply #4359 on:** 03 November, 2016, 11:29:36 pm »

That aside (and surely a transitive verb doesn't preclude consent, let alone connote non-consent), I don't think the usage is that modern.

IME it's been about 60/40 trans/non since I've been conscious of the term (so quarter of a century or more ...).

T42 · « **Reply #4360 on:** 04 November, 2016, 10:48:42 am »

My wristbreaker Chambers (2006) gives only the intransitive, but their motto is "none stuffier" so I wouldn't rely on that.

Wiktionary's etymology paragraph is interesting:

Quote

From the Old Norse snókr ‎(“a snake”) or snákr ‎(“only in poetry; a snake”), from Proto-Germanic *snakô; cognates include the Swedish and Norwegian snok, Icelandic snákur ‎(“a snake”), English snake.

Overtones of the Garden of Eden, or did they just have long, squirmy tongues?

In French it's the rather delightful rouler une pelle (roll a spade) and tends to be transitive - at least, it takes the dative rather than the accusative. For some reason, when I hear it I always envision a pelle mécanique - a J.C.B.

Bledlow · « **Reply #4361 on:** 04 November, 2016, 11:56:49 pm »

Quote from: jsabine on 03 November, 2016, 11:29:36 pm

That aside (and surely a transitive verb doesn't preclude consent, let alone connote non-consent), I don't think the usage is that modern.

IME it's been about 60/40 trans/non since I've been conscious of the term (so quarter of a century or more ...).

Well, I started snogging in the early 1970s, & had pretty much stopped using the word - or hearing it used - by a quarter of a century ago. As I recall, it was a rather youth-associated word when it became relevant to me.

drossall · « **Reply #4362 on:** 05 November, 2016, 07:14:54 am »

I thought all youth believed that that only related to them anyway, whatever you call it?

Bledlow · « **Reply #4363 on:** 05 November, 2016, 01:56:14 pm »

Good point.

ElyDave · « **Reply #4364 on:** 13 November, 2016, 08:33:35 am »

Not sure what the petrol station down the road has against baked confectionery, but they have a very strongly worded sign

Stop
Cake
Shop
Here

hellymedic · « **Reply #4365 on:** 18 November, 2016, 11:36:25 pm »

http://www.camdennewjournal.com/cheetah-dissection-live

Thankfully, it's a dead cheetah's dissection demonstrated live...

Wowbagger · « **Reply #4366 on:** 19 November, 2016, 10:30:53 am »

Regarding snogging and its derivatives, my first ever primary school class included a girl with parents hip enough to want to take her to Glastonbury for the week, which of course was in term time. I gave my permission.

On her return, when the class was writing their diaries for the previous few days, hers included the expression "got snogged". That was 1982 and she was 10 years old, and this implied that it was the male* who was the snogger and the female who was the snoggee.

*In my straight-laced naivety, I assume that it was a heterosexual snog.

T42 · « **Reply #4367 on:** 19 November, 2016, 10:44:25 am »

The snigger, not the snog.

Peter · « **Reply #4368 on:** 19 November, 2016, 10:52:58 am »

Staring Dick Bogart, possibly?

Bledlow · « **Reply #4369 on:** 16 December, 2016, 07:39:31 pm »

"Chef" for "cook". When did that happen? When did every cook become the boss? All chiefs, no Indians.

Ian H · « **Reply #4370 on:** 16 December, 2016, 08:04:03 pm »

In the "My calendar" section of the AUK website (when logged in).

Quote

You have no rides currently in you're calendar.

To add some go to the event details and either enter the event, or click the 'Add to my calendar' option.

Cudzoziemiec · « **Reply #4371 on:** 04 January, 2017, 10:50:23 pm »

Incent. As in "Can you incent an internal team to come up with what a start-up has done in a reasonable timeframe?" I think this sounds nicer than incentivise, though it's less logical. Still, logic is not king in language.

T42 · « **Reply #4372 on:** 05 January, 2017, 08:04:31 am »

While reading at the breakfast table this morning:

Me: I wish people wouldn't write 'racking' with a W.
Mrs: Unless it's about seaweed.
Me: "He had a seaweeding cough"?
Mrs: Then it's just ignorance.
Me: With a 'W' is common in America these days.
Mrs: So is ignorance.

Only it was Charlie Stross, who purports to be British; and who earlier on the same page had informed us that there were two chairs on either side of a table, and all three items were bolted down. Just goes to show that a university education does nowt against basic ignorance.

Cudzoziemiec · « **Reply #4373 on:** 05 January, 2017, 08:31:21 am »

According to OED they're variant spellings of each other, in the meaning of wreck. But the only sense it gives for rack as a verb is to draw off sediment from a barrel. What meaning is the intended one for 'racking cough' anyway? It could feasibly be drawing off sediment from the lungs, or it could be a comparison with being put on the rack, or it could be the idea of your lungs being twisted inside out, in which case it would be wrack.

Cudzoziemiec · « **Reply #4374 on:** 05 January, 2017, 08:37:04 am »

Quote from: Cudzoziemiec on 04 January, 2017, 10:50:23 pm

Incent. As in "Can you incent an internal team to come up with what a start-up has done in a reasonable timeframe?" I think this sounds nicer than incentivise, though it's less logical. Still, logic is not king in language.

I thought up a logical explanation for it. Incentive is often used to modify other nouns, as in incentive scheme, incentive payments, so it gets thought of as an adjective. Many adjectives in -ive are formed from verbs: select, detect, permit > selective, detective, permissive. Therefore the verb incent is a natural back-formation from incentive. And it saves five key strokes over incentivise!