Grammar that makes you cringe

[citoyen]

Is malaria plural? I thought it was literally 'bad air', from the Italian, for which the plural form would be arie rather than arias.

Pox is plural too. Apparently, the singular form 'pock' predates it - I used to think it was a more recent back-formation.

[hellymedic]

Most 'plural' diseases have multiple swellings or spots.

Singular entities are usually generalised ailments though may have other names in plural.

[ElyDave]

I read soemwhere that malaria had a similar origin as the french from a bastardisation of mal = bad, aria = air, thought to be contracted from breathing the rank air of marshes

[andytheflyer]

The Victorian parts of Indian cities have streets with names like Eighty Feet Road and Hundred Feet Road (referring to the width of the road). It sounds wrong and I assumed it was an Indian-ism, but no, it turns out to have been Victorian practice to use a plural in those circumstances. The lesson here could be not to trust engineers with words.

Round here, the opposite seems to apply, Sixteen Foot Bank, Ten Mile Bank etc

and the Forty Foot Drain up near my old home town of Boston, in the Fens.

[T42]

Is malaria plural? I thought it was literally 'bad air', from the Italian, for which the plural form would be arie rather than arias.

Yes. I was thinking of a Latin neuter plural. Tain't.

Pox is plural too. Apparently, the singular form 'pock' predates it - I used to think it was a more recent back-formation.

Yes. And it's poxes in the modern plural, like the cringe-worthy medias.

[citoyen]

I read soemwhere that malaria had a similar origin as the french from a bastardisation of mal = bad, aria = air, thought to be contracted from breathing the rank air of marshes

If you consider French to be a bastardisation of Italian, then yes, that's exactly right.

[ElyDave]

I read soemwhere that malaria had a similar origin as the french from a bastardisation of mal = bad, aria = air, thought to be contracted from breathing the rank air of marshes

If you consider French to be a bastardisation of Italian, then yes, that's exactly right.

Mal = bad = French, non?

Aria = air = italiano, no?

If they can't make up their minds....

[citoyen]

Mal = bad = French, non?

I believe it’s the Italian male rather than the French mal, but icbw.

[T42]

Yup. Chambers derives it from mal' aria. Which could also be Piers Brosnan singing, according to Il Groanio.

[Mr Larrington]

Pierce "Pick A Note - Any Note" Brosnan, as TV's Mark Commode Kermode called him the other day.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Nothing to say about the cap or the typo but I note the use of IPA.
https://road.cc/content/review/245947-saikel-chevrons-cap

[hellymedic]

Auntie, surely a mural is, by definition on a wall and does not need to be described as a 'wall mural'?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-45054525/a-look-at-the-uk-s-largest-wall-mural

[citoyen]

Auntie, surely a mural is, by definition on a wall and does not need to be described as a 'wall mural'?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-45054525/a-look-at-the-uk-s-largest-wall-mural

Ooh, that one really does make me cringe. Although the internet reckons a mural can also be on a ceiling or 'any other permanent surface'.

The internet is an idiot.

[Nuncio]

I'd always thought that the omnipresent 'for sure' and 'super' (used as a go-to intensifying adjective - 'super-nice'/'super-hard'/'super-full-gas') was something so habitual with (non-British) European pro cyclists that their British counterparts have just absorbed it through proximity. But I mentioned this to my son after picking him up from the station last night and he checked his previous week's text messages and found he'd used the 'super' construction 10 times. And he's not a pro cyclist, nor a cycling fan (at least until a fortnight ago). He also said he had, that very day, caught himself 'for sure'-ing and didn't know why he had used it and was worried that his interlocutor may have thought he was being sarcastic. He's going to be taking some time out from the Eisteddfod today to witness Geraint Thomas' triumphant homecoming, so I told him to keep an ear out for them.

Is a 'super' tsunami, linguistically speaking, on its way?

[citoyen]

I'd always thought that the omnipresent 'for sure' and 'super' (used as a go-to intensifying adjective - 'super-nice'/'super-hard'/'super-full-gas') was something so habitual with (non-British) European pro cyclists that their British counterparts have just absorbed it through proximity.

Funny you should mention that - I was listening to Tao Geoghgan-Hart being interviewed on the Cycling Podcast yesterday and when he described one of his colleagues as 'super-nice', I made exactly the same assumption.

[T42]

Auntie, surely a mural is, by definition on a wall and does not need to be described as a 'wall mural'?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-45054525/a-look-at-the-uk-s-largest-wall-mural

Ooh, that one really does make me cringe. Although the internet reckons a mural can also be on a ceiling or 'any other permanent surface'.

The internet is an idiot.

Yebbut what do you call a mural on the ceiling?  Or on the floor, come to that.

Heh. When we moved in here the landing floor was unfinished, and I thought it would be fun to do a trompe l'oeil so that you'd think there was no floor there and you were looking straight down into the hall. Mrs T wanted oak parquet. We have oak parquet. <sigh>

[Cudzoziemiec]

I didn't think 'super nice' etc was anything to do with cycling or cyclists, but a general and recent Americanism. Whatever its origins, it fits in with the British (and elsewhere?) trend over the last ten years (or more?) to use superlatives and intense adjectives in all situations. Nothing is 'nice' or 'good' it's 'amazing' or 'incredible'.

[citoyen]

Yebbut what do you call a mural on the ceiling?

A fair question... plafondal?

Maybe 'ceiling mural' is OK for want of a better term, but walls are the default location for murals so shouldn't need the qualification.

[Pingu]

...Is a 'super' tsunami, linguistically speaking, on its way?

For sure.

[citoyen]

I didn't think 'super nice' etc was anything to do with cycling or cyclists, but a general and recent Americanism.

It's not so much a cycling thing as a European thing, and not a recent thing either - I probably first noticed this phenomenon when I had a summer job in a language school many years ago. IIRC the German students were especially prone to it.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I was thinking last ten years or so, but maybe it's not even that 'recent'. Definitely heard it from various Americans, but of course they could have picked it up from Germans too!

[Paul]

I'd always thought that the omnipresent 'for sure' and 'super' (used as a go-to intensifying adjective - 'super-nice'/'super-hard'/'super-full-gas') was something so habitual with (non-British) European pro cyclists that their British counterparts have just absorbed it through proximity.

I thought that European cyclists (and non-cyclists) used 'super' in lieu of 'very'. I wondered if there was a translation dictionary somewhere that translated 'very' (in foreign) to 'super' in English.

In the sense that super can mean 'above' or 'beyond', is it entirely wrong to use it as described above?

[pcolbeck]

Germans/Austrians use "super" all the time as an exclamation and have done for years.

Its time to leave work, super!
Shall we go for a drink? Super!

Its sort of an equivalent of "OK" and "great" but then just to confuse things they sometimes combine it "OK super!"

[ian]

I say 'super' a lot. It's quite addictive. It's super-fun, I find.

[pcolbeck]

This German teacher reckons using "super" is the best way to sound German:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Kon_NzVD0M