Yet Another Cycling Forum

Off Topic => The Pub => Topic started by: peliroja on 01 May, 2008, 05:35:38 pm

Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: peliroja on 01 May, 2008, 05:35:38 pm
Just received this email...

Thank you for your email reply.  We do corporate rates for company’s and agent’s that use us on a regular bases, this are all; arranged through our Sales & Marketing Team.


Should you wish for me to pass you details over to them then please advise.

 :sick:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 01 May, 2008, 05:38:47 pm
All your Sales & Marketing Team are belong to us :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Regulator on 01 May, 2008, 05:39:07 pm
My pet hate...

the "10 items or less" signs in my local Sainsbury's.   >:(

I've been known to carry a marker pen around and correct them...  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Polar Bear on 01 May, 2008, 05:44:07 pm
You are Lynne Truss and I claim my five pounds  ;D

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mike on 01 May, 2008, 05:45:58 pm
what's wrong with "10 items or less"?  I've never understood that one.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Basil on 01 May, 2008, 05:49:11 pm
Fewer
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: little miss mac on 01 May, 2008, 05:50:38 pm
Should be "fewer", innit.

How I work it out: if you can count them individually, it's fewer (fewer people on the streets, fewer sweeties in the jar). If it's a quantity of something like flour, it's less (less beer for your buck).

I'm sure there's a scientific explanation though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 01 May, 2008, 05:51:31 pm
what's wrong with "10 items or less"?  I've never understood that one.

Fewer.

"Less" is used for a measurable quantity. 3kilos of flour, or less. 2.5 kilos is less than 3 kilos.

"Fewer" is used for a specific number. You can't have 9.5 items.

Edit: beaten to it by LMM. Flour - damned good example, LMM! :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mike on 01 May, 2008, 05:53:39 pm
thanks!  Another cloud lifted.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Salvatore on 01 May, 2008, 05:55:17 pm
My pet hate...

the "10 items or less" signs in my local Sainsbury's.   >:(

I've been known to carry a marker pen around and correct them...  ;D

M&S and Waitrose both use 'fewer'. Shop at either of these and save on marker pens.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Regulator on 01 May, 2008, 05:58:50 pm
My pet hate...

the "10 items or less" signs in my local Sainsbury's.   >:(

I've been known to carry a marker pen around and correct them...  ;D

M&S and Waitrose both use 'fewer'. Shop at either of these and save on marker pens.


I hate shopping at M&S - and their ads just make it worse.

We don't have a Waitrose near us - the closest is Oxford Street.  The attraction of the Sainsbury's is that it's a 'Sainsbury's Market' and all I have to do is turn left out of the front door...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: IanDG on 01 May, 2008, 06:07:28 pm
I have very poor spoken grammear, Mrs W is always correcting me
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Regulator on 01 May, 2008, 06:09:04 pm
I have very poor spoken grammear, Mrs W is always correcting me


Your spelling is not that hot either.... ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: IanDG on 01 May, 2008, 06:10:34 pm
I have very poor spoken grammear, Mrs W is always correcting me


Your spelling is not that hot either.... ;D

whoops  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tom B on 01 May, 2008, 06:13:01 pm
I was recently praised (by an older man) for using the word 'fewer'. Does it truly matter, tho? Failure to make the distinction doesn't obscure meaning, it can't be used to deceive. It's not the sort of thing that Orwell would cite, were we to resurrect him and have him write a noughties 'Politics and the English Language'.

Wouldn't the UK be a better place if we channeled our language ire towards those solecisms that mislead, obscure, debase or are simply downright ugly?

Or, even better, made a unilateral decision to use  cut speling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut_Spelling)   :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pete on 01 May, 2008, 06:14:49 pm
I have very poor spoken grammear, Mrs W is always correcting me

I shall refrain from adding a missing full stop.  Or substituting a colon or semicolon for the comma.  ;D

I don't see a problem with "less", when referring to countable items.  Indeed most other languages don't have separate words for "less" and "fewer".  Remember also that the English language is ever changing with the times.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: IanDG on 01 May, 2008, 06:16:40 pm
 :-[

I only just scraped my English O level, you can see why.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tourist Tony on 01 May, 2008, 06:17:08 pm
I have a small area of hell reserved for the signwriter who marked up a bus in Harwich with an advertisement containing the slogan "you're friendly local travel agent"
And "you'r"
And "your'e"
And "youre"


Space is also being held there for the people who paid him.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 01 May, 2008, 06:19:01 pm
Whilst fewer criminals would be good, I quite like the idea of less criminals.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pete on 01 May, 2008, 06:19:56 pm
:-[

I only just scraped my English O level, you can see why.

Honestly, it doesn't matter, Windy.  Strike out that  :-[ and replace it with a  ;D!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Regulator on 01 May, 2008, 06:22:39 pm
Sorry it does matter.  English is a wonderful language, in part due to its complexities and oddities.  I don't want it to become Leftpondian or txt speak.  Let's celebrate its diversity and quirks.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 01 May, 2008, 06:23:36 pm
On "The Apprentice" last night, one idiot spent four hours trying to contact a sub-ed at the Torygraph to confirm whether there should be an apostrophe in "National Singles Day".

I think they went without in the end, which was probably best since it's an invented title, but National Singles' Day would have been OK.



Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clifftaylor on 01 May, 2008, 06:26:15 pm
Whilst fewer criminals would be good, I quite like the idea of less criminals.

I saw a Fewer Spotted Woodpecker last weekend.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Polar Bear on 01 May, 2008, 06:29:30 pm
Sorry it does matter.  English is a wonderful language, in part due to its complexities and oddities.  I don't want it to become Leftpondian or txt speak.  Let's celebrate its diversity and quirks.

No, it really does not matter.   Let's celebrate the glory and diversity of the English language in the variety of use both spoken and written around the world.  There is no need to be pedantic as long as the meaning is clear in the context of everyday use.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Regulator on 01 May, 2008, 06:31:01 pm
Sorry it does matter.  English is a wonderful language, in part due to its complexities and oddities.  I don't want it to become Leftpondian or txt speak.  Let's celebrate its diversity and quirks.

No, it really does not matter.   Let's celebrate the glory and diversity of the English language in the variety of use both spoken and written around the world.  There is no need to be pedantic as long as the meaning is clear in the context of everyday use.

However, with the exception of Leftpondia, most English spoken around the world is 'traditional' English, with correct grammar and spelling. 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 01 May, 2008, 06:33:33 pm
There's a fine line between pedantry and smugness (I should know, I often cross it).

A colleague had obviously just read the Lynne Truss Book and simply would not shut the fuck up about it.

After a week of it we set him a quiz of twenty phrases to correct, all for things covered in the book. He got fewer than 6 right. He shut up.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 01 May, 2008, 06:34:12 pm
I suspect that standard "correct" modern English has many useages that would have been considered incorrect in our great-grandparents' time.

I'm as big a Lynne Truss as anyone, especially when it comes to semicolons and apostrophes, but I struggle to get exercised about One Less Car.  Or missing full stops - or indeed spelling - on internet fora.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pete on 01 May, 2008, 06:36:21 pm
I saw a Fewer Spotted Woodpecker last weekend.
More pedantry.  ;D
The words under discussion here are "fewer" and "less"; not "fewer and "lesser" which are not interchangeable.

Moreover, the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos minor) is so named because it is smaller than the Great Spotted Woodpecker (D. major).  Not because it has fewer spots.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 01 May, 2008, 06:37:46 pm
Indeed, because then, of course, it would be the lesser-spotted woodpecker - unless that was one that was just observed more infrequently ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pete on 01 May, 2008, 06:40:37 pm
Indeed, because then, of course, it would be the lesser-spotted woodpecker - unless that was one that was just observed more infrequently ;)
Which - as it happens - is true: it is quite a rare bird.  My wife saw one once in our garden, but that was a lucky break.  The Great Spotted Woodpecker, on the other hand, is fairly common.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tom B on 01 May, 2008, 06:41:17 pm
Quote
I suspect that standard "correct" modern English has many usages that would have been considered incorrect in our great-grandparents' time

Indeed. My 1926 edition of Fowler's 'Modern English Usage' is fascinating reading  :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 01 May, 2008, 06:41:42 pm
Some people, however, should know better:

Charles Clarke on Radio 4: "Education for its own sake is a bit dodgy . . . If we had less people studying philosophy I think that would be unfortunate."

He was Education Secretary at the time.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wendy on 01 May, 2008, 06:43:22 pm
My pet hate...

the "10 items or less" signs in my local Sainsbury's.   >:(

I've been known to carry a marker pen around and correct them...  ;D

On the other hand I'll stick to "One less car" because the alternative might be right, but it sounds and reads terribly.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tom B on 01 May, 2008, 06:45:41 pm
Quote
Which - as it happens - is true: it is quite a rare bird.  My wife saw one once in our garden, but that was a lucky break

break or brake (http://www.bartleby.com/61/11/B0451100.html)?  :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 01 May, 2008, 06:46:28 pm
I rather dislike "there's" as a contraction of "there are", but it's almost universal.  "Could of" is more annoying, though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: fred the great on 01 May, 2008, 06:54:25 pm
Sorry it does matter.  English is a wonderful language, in part due to its complexities and oddities.  I don't want it to become Leftpondian or txt speak.  Let's celebrate its diversity and quirks.

No, it really does not matter.   Let's celebrate the glory and diversity of the English language in the variety of use both spoken and written around the world.  There is no need to be pedantic as long as the meaning is clear in the context of everyday use.

However, with the exception of Leftpondia, most English spoken around the world is 'traditional' English, with correct grammar and spelling. 

Regretfully incorrect ::-) and also English versions overseas are more likely to be an American version. In Thailand we call it Tinglish :P
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Regulator on 01 May, 2008, 07:18:41 pm
Sorry it does matter.  English is a wonderful language, in part due to its complexities and oddities.  I don't want it to become Leftpondian or txt speak.  Let's celebrate its diversity and quirks.

No, it really does not matter.   Let's celebrate the glory and diversity of the English language in the variety of use both spoken and written around the world.  There is no need to be pedantic as long as the meaning is clear in the context of everyday use.

However, with the exception of Leftpondia, most English spoken around the world is 'traditional' English, with correct grammar and spelling. 

Regretfully incorrect ::-) and also English versions overseas are more likely to be an American version. In Thailand we call it Tinglish :P

I can assure you that, in the Commonwealth, British English rather than Leftpondian is the norm.  The British Council works very hard to ensure this, and this is why many countries still have their English exams set by UK examining boards.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Salvatore on 01 May, 2008, 07:33:55 pm
Quote
Which - as it happens - is true: it is quite a rare bird.  My wife saw one once in our garden, but that was a lucky break

break or brake (http://www.bartleby.com/61/11/B0451100.html)?  :)

Never mind its spots - it had a lucky beak.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: teethgrinder on 01 May, 2008, 07:50:01 pm

Never mind its spots - it had a lucky beak.

It had a lucky magistrate? ???
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Chris S on 01 May, 2008, 07:51:13 pm
Leverage as used (mostly) by Merkins, as a verb. Often used in conjunction with Made-up Words like "functionality" (another pet hate). Eg:

"This will help you leverage the functionality of your Deluxe Widget..."

Uh...  :sick:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 01 May, 2008, 08:00:56 pm
Sorry it does matter.  English is a wonderful language, in part due to its complexities and oddities.  I don't want it to become Leftpondian or txt speak.  Let's celebrate its diversity and quirks.

[fx: clears throat]

Having spent a considerable amount of time west of the Atlantic Ocean - where I believe lies this 'Leftpondia' of which you speak - I feel qualified to comment upon your remarks.

Rubbish!

Upon arriving in these blighted blessed Isles I was shocked and disgusted by the 'quality' of English.  From people on the pavements to signs in shops to internationally-respected newspapers, the English language is butchered.  I knew enough about the differences between the varieties of 'North American' English and 'British' English before arriving here. These don't qualify as butchery (though some may disagree).  I mean spelling, punctuation and grammar.

I would not be so foolish as to say that 'US' English is a better variant than 'UK', but in my experience the US locals seem to have a better grasp of their language.  Don't quote the current US president or soundbites and 'vox pop' interviews - that can cut both ways.

I quite enjoy winding up the locals when I'm criticised for using 'American' words like Fall instead of Autumn.  Do I need to point out which word is 'English' and which is 'foreign'?

There are times I would like to see more standardisation among the various varieties of English, but on the other hand I am not a supporter of American hegemony.

Live and let live, I say.  Viva la difference!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: fred the great on 01 May, 2008, 08:03:36 pm
But Regulator the Commonwealth is only a small part of the Regions to which I am referring. Having lived in the Middle East and Asia for more than 25 years you can rest assured that British English is not the norm. And students usually have American text books. In India for example the people I have worked with follow, speak and spell the American English way. The best British English people are the HongKong Chinese which is understandable. The Singaporean English by contrast is not very good. The British Councils are not very effective. One reason American English is so common is that many Graduates study in the USA. There are exceptions of course including a Thai that I know who speaks impeccable English but then all his Education was in the UK and he graduated from Cambridge University with a first class honours degree.

And of course this Programme that we use is an American/English one. It has already told me I can't spell honours and Programme ::-) :demon:

Anyway those are some of my experiences and I do not believe we will ever see British English spoken in the rest of the World.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: bobajobrob on 01 May, 2008, 08:03:57 pm
Often used in conjunction with Made-up Words like "functionality"

That one's actually in the OED.

Quote
Functionality, functional character; in Math., the condition of being a function.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Chris S on 01 May, 2008, 08:05:19 pm
Andrij - speaking as someone who has cycled alongside you a couple of times, I feel qualified in thinking of you as atypical when it comes to Merkins.

Not once did you use the word Leverage as a verb, even when the functionality of the gears on your bike was brought into question ;).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Chris S on 01 May, 2008, 08:07:49 pm
Often used in conjunction with Made-up Words like "functionality"

That one's actually in the OED.

Quote
Functionality, functional character; in Math., the condition of being a function.

 :o

Ain't nothin' sacred? What's next, Mel Gibson in a remake of Edge of Darkness? Puuuurleeeez  ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nutkin on 01 May, 2008, 08:08:32 pm
Or, even better, made a unilateral decision to use  cut speling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut_Spelling)   :D

Ah, this explains the reasoning behind incomprehensible Y9 essays...

Viva la difference!

That ain't English, mate!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tourist Tony on 01 May, 2008, 08:10:34 pm
Indeed, because then, of course, it would be the lesser-spotted woodpecker - unless that was one that was just observed more infrequently ;)
Which - as it happens - is true: it is quite a rare bird.  My wife saw one once in our garden, but that was a lucky break.  The Great Spotted Woodpecker, on the other hand, is fairly common.
...and the LSW is actually more striped than spotted....
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tourist Tony on 01 May, 2008, 08:15:28 pm
With regard to the awful American spelling reforms such as "color" and "center", I note they are the default in the E.U. I note that some people here seem to believe that they are Olde English spellings, as opposed to the reality that they are a modern invention. "Theater" was coined at the same time as "Nite" and "Thru".
My "favourite" such sign was in Karlsruhe: "English Car Center"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 01 May, 2008, 08:28:17 pm
Americans are actually quite strict about grammar (allowing for their own foibles).  Lynne Truss's* book is widely despised over there for the mistakes it contains.


*why is it Bridget Jones's Diary, but Levi Stubbs' Tears?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: little miss mac on 01 May, 2008, 08:34:00 pm
It's the goddamn Oxford comma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma) I can't bear. Working for a USAian firm it pops up in all the literature I have to use. It's like a grammatical speed hump at the end of a list and is guaranteed to induce read rage.  :sick:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Frenchie on 01 May, 2008, 08:38:09 pm
its vs it's
they're vs their
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Frenchie on 01 May, 2008, 08:40:10 pm
It's the goddamn Oxford comma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma) I can't bear. Working for a USAian firm it pops up in all the literature I have to use. It's like a grammatical speed hump at the end of a list and is guaranteed to induce read rage.  :sick:

I use it if I have groups in a list, u, v and w, and x. Otherwise I don't.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 01 May, 2008, 08:42:42 pm
I use it quite a lot, I must say.  But I know that I am doing so :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 01 May, 2008, 08:46:48 pm
Andrij - speaking as someone who has cycled alongside you a couple of times, I feel qualified in thinking of you as atypical when it comes to Merkins.

Not once did you use the word Leverage as a verb, even when the functionality of the gears on your bike was brought into question ;).

Just wait till he gets a puncture. Those tires will be leveraged before you can say "Rumsfeld". ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Frenchie on 01 May, 2008, 08:53:03 pm
Upon arriving in these blighted blessed Isles I was shocked and disgusted by the 'quality' of English.  From people on the pavements to signs in shops to internationally-respected newspapers, the English language is butchered.  I knew enough about the differences between the varieties of 'North American' English and 'British' English before arriving here. These don't qualify as butchery (though some may disagree).  I mean spelling, punctuation and grammar.

Live and let live, I say.  Viva la difference!

... to students and, on paper at least, well educated colleagues. I find myself spending a lot of time editing dissertations, papers and reports. Naturally I am not always right; but some of the mistakes and some of the approximations I see are shocking. One explanation I have is that I learnt English with a lot of grammar and I find that many native speakers seem to have a poor grasp of basic grammatical principles, which does not help them with writing.

[/retreat carefully]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: peliroja on 01 May, 2008, 09:13:54 pm
Frenchie: quel est ce mot 'shoking' dont tu parles? ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Frenchie on 01 May, 2008, 09:15:31 pm
Frenchie: quel est ce mot 'shoking' dont tu parles? ;)

Damned! Can we have the spell checker please!  :P :-[
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 01 May, 2008, 09:16:49 pm
Frenchie: quel est ce mot 'shoking' dont tu parles? ;)

Damn! Can we have the spell checker please!  :P :-[

Use the Firefox web browser and install as many dictionaries as you need.  :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Woofage on 01 May, 2008, 09:24:43 pm
Andrij - speaking as someone who has cycled alongside you a couple of times, I feel qualified in thinking of you as atypical when it comes to Merkins.

Not once did you use the word Leverage as a verb, even when the functionality of the gears on your bike was brought into question ;).

Just wait till he gets a puncture. Those tires will be leveraged before you can say "Rumsfeld". ;)

Time I posted to remind myself whether I remembered to add my signature line to this new profile ;).

My personal hate is the use of the plural form of verbs when the singular form is correct. For example "the Government have introduced legislation...", "the Company have a policy...", "the public take the view..." etc etc. One Government, one Company, one public FFS!

Bah humbug >:(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jezza on 01 May, 2008, 09:26:08 pm
I found a classic comma crime today, from a short story in the local rag:

Quote
"We shall soon know gentlemen" roared the Major. There were women present but the Major made no distinctions.

I would rather not know gentlemen, Major, especially if there are ladies present.

As for commas, Oxford or otherwise, The Economist has this to say:

Quote
Do not put a comma before and at the end of a sequence of items unless one of the items includes another and. Thus The doctor suggested an aspirin, half a grapefruit and a cup of broth. But he ordered scrambled eggs, whisky and soda, and a selection from the trolley.

http://www.economist.com/research/styleGuide/index.cfm?page=805695



 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 01 May, 2008, 09:39:02 pm
I love this language of ours.
This morning, I was writing a presentation ("Death by PowerPoint") about a computer product.  One of the bullet points was

Simple User Interface

Then I realised that the above could be interpreted as "Interface to Simple Users"

D'oh!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pete on 01 May, 2008, 09:50:46 pm
I love this language of ours.
This morning, I was writing a presentation ("Death by PowerPoint") about a computer product.  One of the bullet points was

Simple User Interface

Then I realised that the above could be interpreted as "Interface to Simple Users"

D'oh!

There's a story - possibly apocryphal - about a professor of physics who wrote an advanced textbook on subatomic particles, intended for postgraduate students.  He entitled it "Elementary Particle Physics".  The publishers sent it back and advised him to change the title to "Physics of Elementary Particles" to avoid it being bought up by first-year undergraduates and sixthformers who would have found it too difficult.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Deano on 01 May, 2008, 10:10:25 pm
The one which annoys me is over-use of the reflexive pronoun as if it's just a formal pronoun, eg "If ourselves my help you with anything...".

Ignorance and pretension in one compact package.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 01 May, 2008, 10:17:40 pm
Never use a preposition to end a sentence with.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 01 May, 2008, 10:30:41 pm
Never use a preposition to end a sentence with.
Quote from: Winston Churchill allegedly
Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nuttycyclist on 02 May, 2008, 01:31:22 am
Quote
I suspect that standard "correct" modern English has many usages that would have been considered incorrect in our great-grandparents' time

Indeed. My 1926 edition of Fowler's 'Modern English Usage' is fascinating reading  :)

Not just out great-grandparents time.

If I go into work tomorrow later today and announce that I hope to have a gay time this weekend I will be laughed at.  Yet 50 (??) years ago that would have been perfectly acceptable language to say that I was looking forward to a happy and fun weekend.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 02 May, 2008, 06:43:58 am
My personal hate is the use of the plural form of verbs when the singular form is correct. For example "the Government have introduced legislation...", "the Company have a policy...", "the public take the view..." etc etc. One Government, one Company, one public FFS!
I admit to that one, as I imagine them as a collection of people rather than a single sentient being.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Chris S on 02 May, 2008, 07:27:51 am
The title of this thread should be "Grammar what makes you cringe."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Frenchie on 02 May, 2008, 08:32:14 am
My personal hate is the use of the plural form of verbs when the singular form is correct. For example "the Government have introduced legislation...", "the Company have a policy...", "the public take the view..." etc etc. One Government, one Company, one public FFS!
I admit to that one, as I imagine them as a collection of people rather than a single sentient being.

Could someone explain that rule to me?

I was always taught: The police are...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pete on 02 May, 2008, 08:40:59 am
There is a serious side to the ability to distinguish between good and bad grammar.
Yesterday I received an E-mail, purportedly coming from my bank (it had the correct logo at the head of the E-mail, etc. etc.).  It asks me to click on a link, whereupon I shall be asked to confirm my login details, as part of a 'security upgrade'.   Blah blah blah...

When I visited my online banking via the normal login, there was no mention of any 'security upgrade'.

What aroused my suspicion is the bad grammar in the E-mail, and a liberal sprinkling of exclamation marks, unlikely to feature in genuine messages from the bank.

Certainly I shall be checking this E-mail directly with my bank.  Until then, no way am I clicking on the link in it!

So, you see, assessing grammar has its uses!

Could someone explain that rule to me?

I was always taught: The police are...
Both may be correct.  Grammatical rules can be and often are ambiguous.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Phil on 02 May, 2008, 08:53:02 am
I rather like the oxford comma - it makes the list read better in my head, and so I tend to use it. 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 02 May, 2008, 08:54:00 am

Could someone explain that rule to me?

I was always taught: The police are...

The others  - government, company etc - are all singular and would take an s if plural.  There's no such thing as polices. 

Usually when you say "the police" you are using it as a collective noun for a bunch of people with blue uniforms and the right to arrest you, so "are" is correct.  But it is an odd one also because it's not always used as an independent noun.  You can't have one police, or even two police; you can have a police officer, some police officers or a police force, but it is the officers or force that determine whether you use "is" or "are".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Frenchie on 02 May, 2008, 09:03:29 am
So the government does not refer to its members, correct?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 02 May, 2008, 09:09:10 am

Could someone explain that rule to me?

I was always taught: The police are...

The others  - government, company etc - are all singular and would take an s if plural.  There's no such thing as polices. 

Usually when you say "the police" you are using it as a collective noun for a bunch of people with blue uniforms and the right to arrest you, so "are" is correct.  But it is an odd one also because it's not always used as an independent noun.  You can't have one police, or even two police; you can have a police officer, some police officers or a police force, but it is the officers or force that determine whether you use "is" or "are".

I think you are trying too hard here. You would always say "the pair of them are going shopping", not "the pair is", although there is only one pair (and you can have several pairs).

There's a difference between collective and plural action. If I say "My team at work is doing a sponsored bike ride," that suggests a collective action enforced by management: I, as a member of the team, have no choice about being involved. If I say "My team at work are doing a sponsored bike ride," that suggests that the individuals in the team are jointly entered, but not that it's an action of the team as a whole---I might very well not take part.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 02 May, 2008, 09:11:32 am
Viva la difference!

That ain't English, mate!

1) Oviously, that's why it was put in italics.  Or is that not a convention taught in the UK?

2) In spite of the supposed animosity between the two peoples, the British do use quite a bit of French, much more so than Americans.

3) Maybe I should have added a  :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Sophie Days. on 02 May, 2008, 09:14:17 am
Weather presenters on the TV have recently begun to use 'the nightime hours' or 'daytime hours'.
I thought we had collective nouns for these; night and day?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 02 May, 2008, 09:24:00 am
On the other hand I'll stick to "One less car" because the alternative might be right, but it sounds and reads terribly.

"One car fewer" sounds fine to me.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Woofage on 02 May, 2008, 09:25:03 am

I think you are trying too hard here. You would always say "the pair of them are going shopping", not "the pair is", although there is only one pair (and you can have several pairs).

There's a difference between collective and plural action. If I say "My team at work is doing a sponsored bike ride," that suggests a collective action enforced by management: I, as a member of the team, have no choice about being involved. If I say "My team at work are doing a sponsored bike ride," that suggests that the individuals in the team are jointly entered, but not that it's an action of the team as a whole---I might very well not take part.

Well, there are always exceptions!

I take your points about collective vs. plural action. I would say that my examples are those of collective action, therefore the singular rule applies, surely?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 02 May, 2008, 09:27:05 am
I rather like the oxford comma - it makes the list read better in my head, and so I tend to use it. 

Except where used to aid clarity as illustrated by Frenchie and Jezza above, it's irrational. Lists are built from right to left:

red

yellow and red

blue, yellow and red

Why would you suddenly put a comma after yellow in the last example but not in the second?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nuttycyclist on 02 May, 2008, 09:28:02 am
On the other hand I'll stick to "One less car" because the alternative might be right, but it sounds and reads terribly.

"One car fewer" sounds fine to me.

I'm not fussed over "one car less".  It sounds ok, plus it could be taken to mean "a person without a car. e.g. a car less person.  You wouldn't use the word fewer in that case.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Regulator on 02 May, 2008, 09:30:49 am
Sorry it does matter.  English is a wonderful language, in part due to its complexities and oddities.  I don't want it to become Leftpondian or txt speak.  Let's celebrate its diversity and quirks.

[fx: clears throat]

Having spent a considerable amount of time west of the Atlantic Ocean - where I believe lies this 'Leftpondia' of which you speak - I feel qualified to comment upon your remarks.

Rubbish!

Upon arriving in these blighted blessed Isles I was shocked and disgusted by the 'quality' of English.  From people on the pavements to signs in shops to internationally-respected newspapers, the English language is butchered.  I knew enough about the differences between the varieties of 'North American' English and 'British' English before arriving here. These don't qualify as butchery (though some may disagree).  I mean spelling, punctuation and grammar.

I would not be so foolish as to say that 'US' English is a better variant than 'UK', but in my experience the US locals seem to have a better grasp of their language.  Don't quote the current US president or soundbites and 'vox pop' interviews - that can cut both ways.

I quite enjoy winding up the locals when I'm criticised for using 'American' words like Fall instead of Autumn.  Do I need to point out which word is 'English' and which is 'foreign'?

There are times I would like to see more standardisation among the various varieties of English, but on the other hand I am not a supporter of American hegemony.

Live and let live, I say.  Viva la difference!


I think you mean "Vive la difference!"   ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 02 May, 2008, 09:37:22 am
Should be "fewer", innit... If it's a quantity of something like flour, it's less...

Should be such as  :demon:

In comparisons, "such as" is inclusive and "like" is exclusive.

"I wish I had a bike like a Mercian or an Argos" means that I'd like a quality hand-built machine, but from a different brand.

"I wish I had a bike such as a Mercian or an Argos" means that they are two of the makes I am considering.

Hence the above sentence refers to any similar substance with the exception of flour itself.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Frenchie on 02 May, 2008, 09:39:24 am
This is a very interesting thread!  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Fab Foodie on 02 May, 2008, 09:39:44 am
I'm fairly hopeless with grammar and speeling.  I try hard but I never quite grasp it properly.  I am however interested in pedantry and etymology...
I find this useful!  Many thanks to the fair Arch of the CC parish for posting this many moons ago.


Rools ov Inglish…

"To start with, here are some short rules. The point is that each of them illustrates the common error that it describes. Read them carefully, and be sure that you can see the error.

1. Verbs has to agree with their subjects.

2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.

3. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction.

4. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.

5. Avoid cliches like the plague.

6. Also, always absolutely avoid and abjure annoying alliteration.

7. Be more or less specific.

8. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are (usually) inappropriate.

9. No sentence fragments.

10. One should never, ever generalise.

11. Contractions aren't necessary, and shouldn't be used.

12. Do not use no double negatives.

13. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.

14. Eliminate commas, that are, not necessary.

15. Never use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice.

16. Kill all exclamation marks!!!!!!

17. Use words correctly, irregardless of how others use them.

18. Use the apostrophe in it's proper place, and omit it when its not needed.

19. Puns are for children, not groan adults.

20. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out. "
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Frenchie on 02 May, 2008, 09:42:37 am
As a foreigner what I have learnt about writing in English, and what I enjoy about it, is that short, crisp sentences are best. In English (science and engineering at least) it is about being prescise and concise. This is of of the beauty of the language over Romance languages for example: simplicity and clarity.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Fab Foodie on 02 May, 2008, 09:46:13 am
I have very poor spoken grammear, Mrs W is always correcting me

I shall refrain from adding a missing full stop.  Or substituting a colon or semicolon for the comma.  ;D

I don't see a problem with "less", when referring to countable items.  Indeed most other languages don't have separate words for "less" and "fewer".  Remember also that the English language is ever changing with the times.
In Swedish they have a similar scheme for the word "More".  They have Fler and Mer.  You use Fler when you are referring to something countable or quantifiable, and Mer when unquantifiable  e.g:

Fler fragor? = more questions
Fler bil = more cars
Mer vatten = more water

I find it hard to grasp the construction of foreign languages because I have a poor grasp of my own's structure.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 02 May, 2008, 09:48:20 am
...Simple User Interface

Then I realised that the above could be interpreted as "Interface to Simple Users"
...He entitled it "Elementary Particle Physics".

In each case you have an adjective and a noun qualifying the final noun. To make the adjective qualify the first noun instead, hyphenate the first two words.


If they are not hyphenated, the basic assumption is that you mean the opposite:


Of course, such conventions only work to convey meaning if everyone agrees on them. That's part of the function of grammar :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 02 May, 2008, 09:49:30 am
Some English grammar no-nos, particularly the split infinitive and the preposition-at-the-end-of-the-sentence, are rather spurious.  They were based on an attempt to fit Latin grammatical rules onto a then new language in order to give it credibility.  In Latin it's impossible to split an infinitive.

It's acceptable to split infinitives nowadays, and the Churchill example is an excellent case for sometimes using a preposition to finish an sentence.

However*, rumours of whom's demise are greatly exaggerated and the really difficult subjunctive mood seems to be making a comeback.


*I particularly despise the use of "however" to join two sentences, however, lots of people do it  :hand:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 02 May, 2008, 09:52:55 am
In comparisons, "such as" is inclusive and "like" is exclusive.

"I wish I had a bike like a Mercian or an Argos" means that I'd like a quality hand-built machine, but from a different brand.

"I wish I had a bike such as a Mercian or an Argos" means that they are two of the makes I am considering.

Where do you get this from? I read "such as" as expository: " I wish I had a bike such as a Mercian or an Argos" is what you'd say to someone who knew Mercians and Argotes, but was a bit shaky about the more general concept of a bike.

If your other half is gazing in a window and says "I wish I had a bike like that", and you dive into the shop to haggle carefully over the closest possible match among their stock to the one in the window, but not the one in the window itself, your generous gesture will go astray...

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 02 May, 2008, 09:53:22 am
Personal pet hate (but highly debatable in terms of actual usage over many years): "different to" or "different than".

The roots of the word "different" are in the Latin "carry apart". "Carry apart to" is an oxymoron, and "carry apart than" just doesn't make sense at all, so anything but "different from" clashes in the mind.

Discuss...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 02 May, 2008, 09:55:27 am
Live and let live, I say.  Viva la difference!


I think you mean "Vive la difference!"   ;)

I stand corrected.  :-[

But I still think it was a good effort, especially considering how difficult French spelling can be.  Also, I have never studied that language, but that will change in a few weeks.  :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 02 May, 2008, 09:57:53 am
In comparisons, "such as" is inclusive and "like" is exclusive.

Where do you get this from?

You want me to justify my opinions? ;)

OK, I own up, that one is just the way I naturally read things. I may well have read it in Fowler, but I can't lay hands on my copy at present.

I'd just hope that the bike in the window was the wrong size ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 02 May, 2008, 10:00:54 am
OK, I own up, that one is just the way I naturally read things. I may well have read it in Fowler, but I can't lay hands on my copy at present.
It's not in Gower's second edition of Fowler. I can't lay hands on a copy of any other edition without going over to the other bookcase.  ;)

Fowler has some particularly scathing words for the superstitious avoidance of "different to"---it's certainly wrong in general to appeal to Latin for questions of English prepositional usage---and gives some examples of where "different than" is correct.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 02 May, 2008, 10:10:14 am
Shakespeare split infinitives and used double negatives, but then he wrote before rules of English were invented.

Grammar rules are useful as a basis for clear communication, and can be a blight on the language if slavishly followed.

Speech is often less formal than the written word, partly because context and inflexion reduce ambiguity. However the apostrophe is finding its way into print more and more, and forms such as 'I'm' and 'you're' seem to be more common than 'I am' or 'you are'. I'm not sure why this is.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 02 May, 2008, 10:15:54 am
I am a pretty equable chap, for a pedant. But I admit to a small cringe at hearing, as is now almost invariable, "may" for "might": "The failed bombers of 21 July may have killed several hundred people".  No they bleeding didn't.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: little miss mac on 02 May, 2008, 10:39:01 am
Should be "fewer", innit... If it's a quantity of something like flour, it's less...

Should be such as  :demon:


And to think I almost said I loved you for trouncing the Oxford comma  ;)

Well spotted. I actually dislike the use of "like" instead of "such as", so it just goes to show we can't all be perfect ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 02 May, 2008, 10:51:57 am
You would always say "the pair of them are going shopping", not "the pair is", although there is only one pair (and you can have several pairs).

But there you are using "the pair of them" numerically, in the same way as "the two of them".  You could also say  "the three of them", and it is a direct substituation for "they", but with numerical information

Yes you can have a pair, but you can't have a three or a two.

Quote
There's a difference between collective and plural action.

That is what I meant.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 02 May, 2008, 10:55:39 am
Evidence found :)

Here's an exposition of such as and like (http://gmat-grammar.blogspot.com/2006/06/like-vs-such-as.html) linked to the US business-school "Graduate Management Admission Test (http://www.gmac.com/gmac/thegmat/gmatbasics/)".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 02 May, 2008, 11:17:07 am
Evidence found :)

Here's an exposition of such as and like (http://gmat-grammar.blogspot.com/2006/06/like-vs-such-as.html) linked to the US business-school "Graduate Management Admission Test (http://www.gmac.com/gmac/thegmat/gmatbasics/)".
Your example is on a page which confuses "there" and "their", and cannot decide between a question and its answer: "Why the above sentence is wrong?". Do you really want to call it in evidence?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 02 May, 2008, 11:45:48 am
Incorrect use of Fewer and Less is either laziness or ignorance. One is excusable and the other can be dealt with through education.

There's a pet hate of mine in one of the Avatars on this thread. "Weather conditions". A tautology.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Deano on 02 May, 2008, 11:54:51 am
There's a pet hate of mine in one of the Avatars on this thread. "Weather conditions". A tautology.

Blame Durham County Council - ignorant and uneducated, in my opinion  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wendy on 02 May, 2008, 12:13:05 pm
I prefer to read "Your a muppet" on forums.  As wrong as it is, it sounds cooler and is more insulting, IMO.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 02 May, 2008, 12:46:16 pm
I rather like the oxford comma - it makes the list read better in my head, and so I tend to use it. 

Except where used to aid clarity as illustrated by Frenchie and Jezza above, it's irrational. Lists are built from right to left:

red

yellow and red

blue, yellow and red

Why would you suddenly put a comma after yellow in the last example but not in the second?

But what if I build my list as

red

red and yellow

red, yellow and blue

?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: iakobski on 02 May, 2008, 01:03:33 pm
Personal pet hate (but highly debatable in terms of actual usage over many years): "different to" or "different than".

The roots of the word "different" are in the Latin "carry apart". "Carry apart to" is an oxymoron, and "carry apart than" just doesn't make sense at all, so anything but "different from" clashes in the mind.

Discuss...

Ignoring "different than" because only Americans and people who watch too much telly would use that...

The analogy is with "similar to..." Presumably the roots of the word similar are similar, eg something like "bring together", so "bring together to" would be equally nonsensical. So the argument is that if we say "A is similar to B", we should say "B is different to C".

An equally good argument is that different is the opposite of similar, and from is the opposite of to, so if "similar to" is correct then "different from" would be correct.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 02 May, 2008, 01:13:11 pm
My partner's Ealing Polling card claimed that the polling station had a 'disabled entrance'. So how could the voters get inside to vote?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: iakobski on 02 May, 2008, 01:14:15 pm
I was recently praised (by an older man) for using the word 'fewer'. Does it truly matter, tho? Failure to make the distinction doesn't obscure meaning, it can't be used to deceive. It's not the sort of thing that Orwell would cite, were we to resurrect him and have him write a noughties 'Politics and the English Language'.


It can do.

Lots of intelligent people post in "The Pub", fewer intelligent people post in "Audax and Cyclosportive"

OR

Lots of intelligent people post in "The Pub", less intelligent people post in "Audax and Cyclosportive"


The Government wanted to employ less civil servants...

OR

The Government wanted to employ fewer civil servants...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 02 May, 2008, 01:37:13 pm
I prefer to read "Your a muppet" on forums.  As wrong as it is, it sounds cooler and is more insulting, IMO.
The canonical b3ta flame is "your all gay", which spawned its own website.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 02 May, 2008, 01:55:24 pm
My partner's Ealing Polling card claimed that the polling station had a 'disabled entrance'. So how could the voters get inside to vote?
Probably through "this door (which) is alarmed". As opposed to that one over there, which is terrified.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 02 May, 2008, 01:58:53 pm
"Bus stopping at next bus stop. Please stand well clear of doors."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 02 May, 2008, 02:01:01 pm
So the argument is that if we say "A is similar to B", we should say "B is different to C".

An equally good argument is that different is the opposite of similar, and from is the opposite of to, so if "similar to" is correct then "different from" would be correct.

IMHO the first argument fails because of the sense of movement in "different". The two are diversifying, or diversified, from each other. You can't move apart and towards each other at the same time.

If you tried to extend it, you'd have to conclude that because "A is joined with B" then "C is separated with D".

The second argument produces the "right" answer, but not necessarily for sound reasons.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: iakobski on 02 May, 2008, 03:01:37 pm
So the argument is that if we say "A is similar to B", we should say "B is different to C".

An equally good argument is that different is the opposite of similar, and from is the opposite of to, so if "similar to" is correct then "different from" would be correct.

IMHO the first argument fails because of the sense of movement in "different". The two are diversifying, or diversified, from each other. You can't move apart and towards each other at the same time.

If you tried to extend it, you'd have to conclude that because "A is joined with B" then "C is separated with D".

But A is not joined with B, it's joined to B! Obviously, C is separated to.... errrmm, whatever, it's definitely not separated than D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Si on 02 May, 2008, 03:08:58 pm
Fave at the mo:

"The winners are the ones that bring me the most amount of money."

I guess that if you've that amount of money no one ever corrects you as money talks louder than grammar.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: fruitcake on 05 May, 2008, 05:54:43 pm
Just heard:
"Shardlow has the most number of pubs"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 05 May, 2008, 09:04:51 pm
But A is not joined with B, it's joined to B!

It depends on the sense. A is joined with B implies the bringing together of two (approximate) equals, creating a greater whole. A is joined to B implies that B is pretty big and adding in A doesn't make an enormous difference. On the other hand, A is joined to B can also imply a very weak linkage.

For example, country A might be joined to country B by a narrow strip of land, but they would still have their separate identities.

You can certainly be joined with B in holy matrimony, even if some people feel that they are joined to ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 05 May, 2008, 09:22:08 pm
Uninterested and disinterested are commonly confused by writers who should know better.

Uninterested - don't give a toss
Disinterested - impartial
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 05 May, 2008, 10:57:56 pm
Oh, and momentarily - it means for a moment, not in a moment.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 05 May, 2008, 11:13:29 pm
I cannot abide weather persons who refer to "cold temperatures".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Quisling on 05 May, 2008, 11:14:59 pm
Please enlighten me - when should one use "them" instead of "those".

Kate Bush referred to "Them heavy people" which sounds wrong, though in fairness Girls Aloud didn't "need no good advice" did they?

Q
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 05 May, 2008, 11:16:16 pm
One that bugs the inner physicist is "quantum leap"used to describe a big/fundamental change
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Regulator on 05 May, 2008, 11:17:24 pm
I was recently praised (by an older man) for using the word 'fewer'. Does it truly matter, tho? Failure to make the distinction doesn't obscure meaning, it can't be used to deceive. It's not the sort of thing that Orwell would cite, were we to resurrect him and have him write a noughties 'Politics and the English Language'.



The Government wanted to employ less civil servants...

OR

The Government wanted to employ fewer civil servants...

Both of those are correct.  The Government employs fewer civil servant... and the ones they employ have definitely become less civil in my experience...  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 06 May, 2008, 09:41:19 pm
One that bugs the inner physicist is "quantum leap"used to describe a big/fundamental change

That always gets me too - glad I am not the only one. By definition, a quantum leap is surely the smallest advance possible, and one so small as to be immeasurable by all normal standards.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 06 May, 2008, 09:43:43 pm
I suppose that it is a step-change, a discontinuity - but as you say (usually) a very small one :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jon P on 06 May, 2008, 11:31:44 pm
Please enlighten me - when should one use "them" instead of "those".

Kate Bush referred to "Them heavy people" which sounds wrong, though in fairness Girls Aloud didn't "need no good advice" did they?

Q

'Them' is a pronoun ie a substitute for a noun phrase.

'Those' is a "demonstrative adjective"?  So "them" could refer to "those heavy people", but only if they are having something done to them, rather than doing something - pretty obvious eg "I saw those heavy people, they were crossing the road" but not "them were crossing the road", but "I saw those heavy people, people are weighing them."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 07 May, 2008, 04:03:32 am
Strictly, a semi-colon should be used in your examples, thus:

"I saw those heavy people; they were crossing the road."

"I saw those heavy people; people are weighing them."

In each case, you have two clauses that are themselves complete sentences, so they cannot be separated by commas. 'Those' is being used as an adjective, i.e. it refers to the noun 'people' that accompanies it.

Just to complicate it, though, 'those' can be used as a demonstrative pronoun, thus:

"He gave those to his fellow-rider."

In my example, 'them' could be substituted for 'those'; both are pronouns, i.e. they stand in place of nouns. For example, if 'those'/'them' refers to energy drinks, then the pronoun stands in place of the noun "drinks":

"He gave the drinks to his fellow-rider."

'Them' cannot be used as an adjective and, as you say, "them heavy people" will always be wrong.

As a pronoun, 'those' is slightly stronger than 'them'. It suggests 'those particular ones', where special effort has been made to define which ones:

"John bought some apples and gave them to his mother."

but:

"John picked out the best apples. He gave those to his mother."

This is why 'those' is a demonstrative pronoun and 'them' is not. However, this is just a shade of meaning, and in many cases either pronoun could be used.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 07 May, 2008, 10:22:30 am
By definition, a quantum leap is surely the smallest advance possible

Not quite. Whilst the energy involved in a quantum leap is considerably less than the energy required to completely free an electron from an atom, it doesn't necessarily mean it is the smallest possible quantity of energy.

As MV says, the "leap" in the term is used to indicate a set of discrete energy levels between which the electrons leap. Classical physics had a continuum of energy levels which quantum mechanics tore to pieces.

And this is why, I thought at least, it is sometimes used to refer to massive changes. Quantum Mechanics blew large holes in classical theories and forced lots of people to rethink how stuff actually works.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jellied on 07 May, 2008, 10:28:37 am
what is the opposite of flamable?

and why does flamable and inflamable mean the same?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: PeteB99 on 07 May, 2008, 10:29:07 am
This weekends horrible word courtesy of Clyde coastguard Gun and Subfacts broadcasts

Deconfliction

I think I know what it means but I'd never heard anyone say it before.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: PeteB99 on 07 May, 2008, 10:29:52 am
what is the opposite of flamable?

and why does flamable and inflamable mean the same?

Non flamable?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jellied on 07 May, 2008, 10:30:32 am
why is it not "unflamable"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 07 May, 2008, 10:32:53 am
what is the opposite of flamable?


Perfectly crafted with no opportunity for a troll to come back?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 07 May, 2008, 10:39:30 am
what is the opposite of flamable?

and why does flamable and inflamable mean the same?

It's lucky this isn't a "spelling that makes you cringe" thread ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Melbourne12 on 07 May, 2008, 10:41:34 am
This weekends horrible word courtesy of Clyde coastguard Gun and Subfacts broadcasts

Deconfliction

I think I know what it means but I'd never heard anyone say it before.

I first heard it in a military context, "to deconflict targets" meaning to make sure that two guns weren't both aiming at the same thing.

I guess it's American in origin.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 07 May, 2008, 10:46:19 am
what is the opposite of flamable?

and why does flamable and inflamable mean the same?

I think it's the case that 'flammable' is a modern construction because 'inflammable' was deemed to be capable of misinterpretation, but think of the difference between 'to inflame' and 'to flame'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jon P on 07 May, 2008, 12:16:51 pm
Quote
Strictly, a semi-colon should be used in your examples ...


Is this a grammar thread or a punctuation thread?  Using semi-colons would hardly make the (not very well-chosen) examples any clearer.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Thor on 07 May, 2008, 12:20:38 pm
Ad nauseum recorded message while queuing for a bank call centre operative "someone will be with you as soon as they are available"  >:(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rafletcher on 07 May, 2008, 02:06:21 pm
A couple of grammatical (or possibly ungrammatical) traits from the Emerald Isle that I find irritating...

Using "bring" in place of "take" as in "I'll bring you to the shops tomorrow" a la America...

Using "avail" to mean (which it may in fact do!) "take advantage of" or "benefit from" as in "to avail of this offer phone..."

Strangely I've readily adapted to the use of Euro (singular) in place of Euros (plural) when saying "10 Euro" and now the use of the plural sounds odd to my ears. 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 07 May, 2008, 02:23:21 pm

Strangely I've readily adapted to the use of Euro (singular) in place of Euros (plural) when saying "10 Euro" and now the use of the plural sounds odd to my ears. 

Is that the counterpoint of, "That'll be one pence, please."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 07 May, 2008, 02:37:26 pm
I rather like the optional rule that, for most wild animals (especially game animals) there is no separate plural.

"A herd of wildebeest"

"A school of fish"

"There are lion on these plains"

Sadly it doesn't extend to

"There was a great bunch of chav outside McDonalds".

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 07 May, 2008, 02:49:58 pm
what is the opposite of flamable?

Flame resistant.

and why does flamable and inflamable mean the same?

I spose it's cos the 'in' prefix does not mean not and is more akin to 'a' as in awake or abed (different language roots though).

<pedant>
It's flammable with a double m
<pedant>
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 07 May, 2008, 02:53:29 pm

Strangely I've readily adapted to the use of Euro (singular) in place of Euros (plural) when saying "10 Euro" and now the use of the plural sounds odd to my ears. 

Is that the counterpoint of, "That'll be one pence, please."

One pence has made me cringe for the last 37.245 years.

It never seemed to happen before decimalisation.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jon P on 07 May, 2008, 04:02:52 pm
Is this a grammar thread or an idiom thread?   :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 07 May, 2008, 04:08:44 pm
It's an idiomatic guide to grammar.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 07 May, 2008, 04:10:38 pm
Is this a grammar thread or an idiom thread?   :demon:

No, I think it's a pedant-who-subscribes-to-one-prescriptive-grammar  thread.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pete on 07 May, 2008, 05:27:06 pm
One pence has made me cringe for the last 37.245 years.

It never seemed to happen before decimalisation.
I think I'd be delighted to learn that some item cost just "one penny", or "one pence", or "1p", or whatever...  ;)  Seeing as you can scarce get on a bus these days without taking out a mortgage....

In the early days of decimalization we all said "one pee", "two pee" etc., which made a lot of folks cringe!  But that was mainly to reinforce the message that we were talking decimal, at a time when many folks were still thinking in terms of half-crowns, sixpences, threepenny* bits, and old pence (and ha'pence) with a 'd'...  Happily the "pee" practice seems to have died out now...

*And now a poser for our younger listeners - what was the correct pronunciation of "threepenny"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 07 May, 2008, 05:54:29 pm
I rather like the optional rule that, for most wild animals (especially game animals) there is no separate plural.

"A herd of wildebeest"

"A school of fish"

"There are lion on these plains"
And of course a mob of euro. Though I don't think anyone actually hunts Macropus robustus, and my marsupial books call them, en masse, euros.

But actually the usage of not pluralising units of currency is defensible and regular. You don't dig in your pocket for twenty quids.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jon P on 07 May, 2008, 06:07:34 pm
Is this a grammar thread or an idiom thread?   :demon:

No, I think it's a pedant-who-subscribes-to-one-prescriptive-grammar  thread.

Now, do you mean "prescriptive" or "proscriptive"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 07 May, 2008, 06:27:18 pm
One pence has made me cringe for the last 37.245 years.

It never seemed to happen before decimalisation.
I think I'd be delighted to learn that some item cost just "one penny", or "one pence", or "1p", or whatever...  ;)  Seeing as you can scarce get on a bus these days without taking out a mortgage...

You can't buy anything for 1p, but 'one pence change' adds to the pocket-ripping shrapnel after you've made your £*.99 purchase.


*And now a poser for our younger listeners - what was the correct pronunciation of "threepenny"?

Sorry, I'm not one of the younger readers...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 07 May, 2008, 07:22:24 pm
what is the opposite of flamable?

and why does flamable and inflamable mean the same?

It's lucky this isn't a "spelling that makes you cringe" thread ;)

But since it is a grammar thread, that 'does' should be 'do'. ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 07 May, 2008, 07:49:31 pm

*And now a poser for our younger listeners - what was the correct pronunciation of "threepenny"?

Thrupny?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pete on 07 May, 2008, 07:57:53 pm

*And now a poser for our younger listeners - what was the correct pronunciation of "threepenny"?

Thrupny?
:thumbsup:  I just wondered if anyone didn't know....
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 07 May, 2008, 08:14:53 pm
I'm old enough to have been very irritated when I first saw the word "flammable".

Inflammable comes from the verb to inflame. No doubt someone will be along in a moment to correct me, but the only verb "to flame" that I know is for a large group to shout down an individual by electronic means.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 07 May, 2008, 08:17:11 pm
In Ireland, 2d is pronounced "Two-penny", not "tuppenny".  As my father found out to his cost when teased about his pronunciation on coming to England in the '40s.

Yes, I am a second-generation economic migrant.  To be sure.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rafletcher on 08 May, 2008, 01:12:45 pm


But actually the usage of not pluralising units of currency is defensible and regular. You don't dig in your pocket for twenty quids.
[/quote]

But you would for twenty pounds. Or the same quantity of dollars.  But then the British would say "Five Francs" whereas the French would say "cinq Franc" and the Germans "funf Mark"  - well they would have, and now would use Euro not Euros - which is perhaps why the Irish follow suit.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pete on 08 May, 2008, 05:11:20 pm
I'm old enough to have been very irritated when I first saw the word "flammable".
Probably influenced by the fact that the word is prominently emblazoned across the back of the truck in the film Duel.


whereas the French would say "cinq Franc" and the Germans "funf Mark"
Maybe, but I think the French would be written "cinq Francs" but of course the 's' is silent, so it would sound like what you wrote.  As for the German, I think the plural of "Mark" is just "Mark", as with many German words which have no distinct plural ending.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tom B on 08 May, 2008, 05:17:06 pm
Quote
But actually the usage of not pluralising units of currency is defensible and regular

And standard in many parts of N England and quite possibly elsewhere
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 08 May, 2008, 09:16:13 pm
I'm old enough to have been very irritated when I first saw the word "flammable".
Probably influenced by the fact that the word is prominently emblazoned across the back of the truck in the film Duel.

I reckon I first noticed it in the mid 1960s. "Duel" was made in 1971.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: blackpuddinonnabike on 14 May, 2008, 05:03:33 pm
I've started documenting the bits of bad grammar I see (yes, yes, I know, my anorak is just over there...)

(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3087/2492019766_5a8e13d1c8.jpg?v=0)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Salvatore on 14 May, 2008, 05:09:56 pm
I'm old enough to have been very irritated when I first saw the word "flammable".
Probably influenced by the fact that the word is prominently emblazoned across the back of the truck in the film Duel.

I reckon I first noticed it in the mid 1960s. "Duel" was made in 1971.

The OED's earliest citation for 'flammable' is from 1813.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 14 May, 2008, 05:23:00 pm
In contradiction to PolarBear on page 1 of this thread:

You, blackpuddinonabike, are Lyne Truss AICMFP.

The Greengrocer's apostrophe is a pet hate of mine too.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Regulator on 14 May, 2008, 05:24:11 pm
I've started documenting the bits of bad grammar I see (yes, yes, I know, my anorak is just over there...)

(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3087/2492019766_5a8e13d1c8.jpg?v=0)

You should go into the shop and enquire (as the sign say's) "iPod's what?"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pete on 14 May, 2008, 05:51:19 pm
They only have one iPod, and it is available.  Or maybe "iPod" is the name of one of the young ladies of the establishment?

You should go into the shop and enquire (as the sign say's) "iPod's what?"
Ahem.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: peterh on 15 May, 2008, 12:40:53 am
I've started documenting the bits of bad grammar I see (yes, yes, I know, my anorak is just over there...)


You can use this if you want to  :)

(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2106/2492813301_a790b5d3fb.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 15 May, 2008, 07:42:20 am
[uber-pedant]
Technically, "Rank for 2 Taxi's" could be treated as correct.  The apostrophe indicates missing letters, because the sign is not big enough for

"Rank for 2 Taxicabs"

[/uber-pedant]
How do we find out if the sign-writer was thinking that when he wrote it? Or if he just thought "Oh - plural ending in a vowel, must put squiggle in!"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: geraldc on 15 May, 2008, 08:00:28 am
If they are referring to iPod as a brand, then it's correct.

E.g. 'Coke is available here', would be contracted to 'Coke's available here'.

If you were referring to iPods plural, it would be 'iPods are available here'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 15 May, 2008, 06:21:54 pm
Ah but that goes back to an earlier point. iPods are discrete units. Coke isn't. You have fewer iPods and less Coke :D

Therefore you can't entirely compare them.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 May, 2008, 06:23:45 am
In India for example the people I have worked with follow, speak and spell the American English way.
The people I work with, and everyone I speak to, in India, uses Indian English. It's definitely neither British nor American in grammar, syntax, vocabulary (obviously), or spelling. Nor in pragmatics come to that. However, most of the spelling used in official sources (government publications etc) is more British than American.

As for grammar that grates, but I nevertheless find increasingly acceptable, a new newspaper is being advertised with the slogan "Less words, more news".

In the context of cycling forums it makes me twinge - but not cringe - to see brake/break and pedal/peddle confused, even though the meaning is (so far at least) always clear.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 16 May, 2008, 06:41:51 am
The CTC sent me some junk mail yesterday telling me I could get my first three month's insurance free  :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 16 May, 2008, 01:39:58 pm
The CTC sent me some junk mail yesterday telling me I could get my first three month's insurance free  :D
Veering OT
I received that yesterday too and it made me VERY ANGRY!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 24 June, 2009, 03:28:41 pm
[uber-pedant]
Technically, "Rank for 2 Taxi's" could be treated as correct.  The apostrophe indicates missing letters, because the sign is not big enough for

"Rank for 2 Taxicabs"

[/uber-pedant]
How do we find out if the sign-writer was thinking that when he wrote it? Or if he just thought "Oh - plural ending in a vowel, must put squiggle in!"?


I've sometimes thought that photo's is defensible for the same reason.

One thing I've noticed increasing markedly is people using brought as if it were the past participle of to buy.  What's that about?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 24 June, 2009, 07:44:22 pm
One thing I've noticed increasing markedly is people using brought as if it were the past participle of to buy.  What's that about?
Not enough bring and buy sales any more!  Or are they bling and bry?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: tonycollinet on 24 June, 2009, 08:09:17 pm
I tried to read the whole thread - I really did. But then I felt my will to live slowly slipping away.

So if this has already been said - sorry. But not very sorry.

As my A level English student daughter delights in telling me whenever I correct her garmmar:

English is a living breathing language, in a constant state of evolution. What is correct usage now, was not previously, and what is not now, will be in the future. The process of "Regularisation" (through which exceptions to grammatical rules will be eliminated) will continue, and popular usage will become "correct" usage.

It is quite likely S's will be replaced with Z's in some cases in the future - due to popular usage initiated on line.

Lolspeak anyone?
 ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 24 June, 2009, 08:33:26 pm
As my A level English student daughter delights in telling me whenever I correct her garmmar:

English is a living breathing language, in a constant state of evolution. What is correct usage now, was not previously, and what is not now, will be in the future. The process of "Regularisation" (through which exceptions to grammatical rules will be eliminated) will continue, and popular usage will become "correct" usage.

That's the usual excuse from those who can't do it properly  ;)

"A" Level English always used to be more about literature than technical accuracy anyway.

Back on topic, I found myself very, very slightly irritated by one of my daughter's books, where the main character complains "I wish my cat was exciting."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 24 June, 2009, 10:29:02 pm
I'm inclined to agree. Some of the modern variations break rules, thus complicating things and creating exceptions.

An obvious and older example is "attendee". Normally, an "ee" is the indirect object of an action and the "er" or "or" is the actor. For example, that's how we know the difference between a lessor and a lessee, and a referee is the person to whom disputes are referred. Thus, an attendee is the object of the attentions of an attendant, and cannot be someone who goes to a meeting. Breaking such rules makes English harder, not easier.

As my A level English student daughter delights in telling me whenever I correct her garmmar:

And when you correct spelling her? ;D

...due to popular usage initiated on line.

Should be "owing to" ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: tonycollinet on 24 June, 2009, 10:57:04 pm
Hmm

That's not spelling - that is a clear typo.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 24 June, 2009, 11:09:25 pm
Yes, of course it is. I never thought otherwise. I'm sorry, it's just funny sometimes that the word in which we make a typo is so well-chosen. If you're talking about English, then after actually mis-spelling the word "spelling", mis-spelling "grammar" is the one.

But maybe it's just my sense of humour. I'll go off and sit in the corner for a bit :-[
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 25 June, 2009, 07:58:36 am
And when you correct spelling her? ;D

[Yoda]
Word Order Not Important Is.
[/Yoda]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Flying_Monkey on 25 June, 2009, 08:43:04 am
But drossal - most of the 'rules' were pretty arbtirary decisions by the eighteenth century grammarians who favoured etymology and consistent word order over commonly understood usage and communication. Often the aesthetics of the grammarian style (because it is a style), are horrible; as Winston Churchill commented: "This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put!"  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 25 June, 2009, 08:58:12 am
When did the written word start taking a much bigger part on our world? Could it have been in the 18th Century and could that be the main reason for favouring "etymology and consistent word order over commonly understood usage"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 25 June, 2009, 09:10:11 am
But drossal - most of the 'rules' were pretty arbtirary decisions by the eighteenth century grammarians who favoured etymology and consistent word order over commonly understood usage and communication.
"commonly understood usage" ?

Hmm. My experience seems similar to Drossall; breaking the rules generally makes things _harder_ to understand. Having 10 ways to spell 'bought' doesn't help anyone.

"Could of" ?
"Wich you" ?

Common perhaps, but not easily understood.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 25 June, 2009, 09:17:58 am


Hmm. My experience seems similar to Drossall; breaking the rules generally makes things _harder_ to understand. Having 10 ways to spell 'bought' doesn't help anyone.

"Could of" ?
"Wich you" ?

Common perhaps, but not easily understood.

There's a subtle difference between breaking the rules and making mistakes.

Informal usage is different from formal usage, but formal usage is becoming rarer. For instance, many serious publications now use apostrophised abbreviations.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: LEE on 25 June, 2009, 09:24:36 am
My pet hate...

the "10 items or less" signs in my local Sainsbury's.   >:(

I've been known to carry a marker pen around and correct them...  ;D

M&S and Waitrose both use 'fewer'. Shop at either of these and save on marker pens.

I prefer "Less".  It confuses the pedants and means there are less fewer less fewer (oh, what the f**k?) less people in the "10 items or less" queue
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Really Ancien on 25 June, 2009, 09:27:10 am
Good grammar places good words in a setting that helps them shine and sparkle like fine crystal and lifts ideas from the page. Most of what's written deserves to stay stuck to the page, out of harms way. I dedicate this sentiment to all those marking scripts in the fine weather, when they should be out on the bike, as I will be today.

Damon.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: LEE on 25 June, 2009, 09:31:31 am
Good grammar places good words in a setting that helps them shine and sparkle like fine crystal and lifts ideas from the page. Most of what's written deserves to stay stuck to the page, out of harms way. I dedicate this sentiment to all those marking scripts in the fine weather, when they should be out on the bike, as I will be today.

Damon.

Nicely put.

Shakespear would have been banned by grammar-nazis of his day.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 25 June, 2009, 09:32:30 am
Good grammar places good words in a setting that helps them shine and sparkle like fine crystal and lifts ideas from the page. Most of what's written deserves to stay stuck to the page, out of harms way.
Oh I say, well put sir :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 25 June, 2009, 09:32:44 am
Poor grammar and spelling, whether intentional or not, are like CAPITAL LETTERS. They slow down comprehension. Caveat Scriptor.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tourist Tony on 25 June, 2009, 09:36:50 am
Good grammar places good words in a setting that helps them shine and sparkle like fine crystal and lifts ideas from the page. Most of what's written deserves to stay stuck to the page, out of harms way. I dedicate this sentiment to all those marking scripts in the fine weather, when they should be out on the bike, as I will be today.

Damon.
;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 25 June, 2009, 09:40:36 am
Good grammar places good words in a setting that helps them shine and sparkle like fine crystal and lifts ideas from the page. Most of what's written deserves to stay stuck to the page, out of harms way. I dedicate this sentiment to all those marking scripts in the fine weather, when they should be out on the bike, as I will be today.

Damon.
;D
Pedagog paederast pedalo pedant.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 25 June, 2009, 09:41:24 am
Poor grammar and spelling, whether intentional or not, are like CAPITAL LETTERS. They slow down comprehension. Caveat Scriptor.

(Probably not a good example; that sentence makes it clear what capital letters are, thus aiding comprehension. ;) )
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 25 June, 2009, 09:52:19 am
There's a subtle difference between breaking the rules and making mistakes.

Amen to that.

I take the view that the rules are there to help you - they are an aid to clear communication. If you're a good writer with a feel for how language works, you can often get away with breaking the rules for the sake of style.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 25 June, 2009, 10:06:31 am
Breaking the rules v. mistakes: that is why I like phrases such as, "That made oi laugh," and, "I's 'appy, I is," but dislike, "Help me loose weight," and, "You should of peddled up that hill."

Whale putt.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: LEE on 25 June, 2009, 10:23:35 am
Breaking the rules v. mistakes: that is why I like phrases such as, "That made oi laugh," and, "I's 'appy, I is," but dislike, "Help me loose weight," and, "You should of peddled up that hill."

Maybe we should all buy that book by the bitter women who got shagged by an ungrateful and dyslexic Panda (I assume that's what it's about from the title).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Really Ancien on 25 June, 2009, 11:05:59 am
Good grammar places good words in a setting that helps them shine and sparkle like fine crystal and lifts ideas from the page. Most of what's written deserves to stay stuck to the page, out of harms way. I dedicate this sentiment to all those marking scripts in the fine weather, when they should be out on the bike, as I will be today.

Damon.
;D
That's punctuation, the apostrophe is an example of mutation, the pivotal problem there is the difference between 'it's',  i.e. 'it is' and 'its', the possessive. It's difficult to predict how this problem will meet its resolution.

Damon.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Flying_Monkey on 25 June, 2009, 12:20:41 pm
"commonly understood usage" ?

Hmm. My experience seems similar to Drossall; breaking the rules generally makes things _harder_ to understand. Having 10 ways to spell 'bought' doesn't help anyone.

That's only because you're at the fag-end of an educational system which has (often literally) beaten in an entirely constructed and elitist 'correctness' to generations of kids. It is the same mentality that regards Scots or Geordie as 'wrong' (rather than 'wrang'  ;) ) and thinks there is something good about 'received pronouciation' (as it that which is received in polite society - in other words, amongst snobs).

Thankfully, this is now changing again and we are once again recognizing English as the rich, messy thessauric stew which has made it so successful and adaptable a means of communication as well as a wonderful medium for song, poetry and prose.

Gan canny like, kidda.  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Flying_Monkey on 25 June, 2009, 12:26:38 pm
BTW, I recommend that everyone who thinks that there is such a thing as 'correct' English and immutable 'rules' has a gander at David Crystal's The Stories of English. That'll learn you. 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 25 June, 2009, 12:30:25 pm
That's only because you're at the fag-end of an educational system which has (often literally) beaten in an entirely constructed and elitist 'correctness' to generations of kids. It is the same mentality that regards Scots or Geordie as 'wrong' (rather than 'wrang'  ;) ) and thinks there is something good about 'received pronouciation' (as it that which is received in polite society - in other words, amongst snobs).

But there are plenty of 'snobs' who I think speak very unclearly.

(Slight tangent: Part of me thinks that the global mix of language across our planet is a nice thing that should be encouraged (perhaps even Welsh, but not Geordie). But then I remember that most conflict is due to people not talking. People who speak different languages are less likely to jaw not war. Would you fight for the right to speak funny?)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Really Ancien on 25 June, 2009, 12:50:13 pm
Diversity promotes vigour in language and unity promotes understanding. Idiomatic speech has its Shibboleths to weed out the interloper and written language acheives the same through grammar. Increasingly there is a schism between those who write as they speak and those who speak as they read and write. I do have thoughts which are ungrammatical, I call them feelings, and it's rude to burden folk with emotions which are not resolved enough to be correctly parsed.

Damon
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Flying_Monkey on 25 June, 2009, 03:53:47 pm
Diversity promotes vigour in language and unity promotes understanding.

That's a nice slogan but philosophically not robust at all! There is no necessary reason why we would all understand each other perfectly if we all spoke exactly the same way. It might create the superficial impression that we should, but that is a different thing. D'ya ken?

Quote
Idiomatic speech has its Shibboleths to weed out the interloper and written language acheives the same through grammar.

It simply isn't that clear cut - grammar is not designed 'to weed out interlopers' - because grammar in general is not the same as the concept of one kind of 'correct grammar'. Grammar is functional in all different kinds of ways, and had served different purposes throughout history. The creation of 'correct grammar' may well be designed to exclude and control - that has indeed been my argument. But not grammar in general - that is simply an emergent property of language.
Quote

Increasingly there is a schism between those who write as they speak and those who speak as they read and write. I do have thoughts which are ungrammatical, I call them feelings, and it's rude to burden folk with emotions which are not resolved enough to be correctly parsed.

That sounds rather like something Doctor Johnson would have said, it is every bit is witty and callous and ideologically loaded. So ironically it is an example of what you have said is not desirable - illogical and emotional, whilst at the same time being 'well parsed'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 25 June, 2009, 03:57:45 pm
... and unity promotes understanding.

That's a nice slogan but philosophically not robust at all! There is no necessary reason why we would all understand each other perfectly if we all spoke exactly the same way. It might create the superficial impression that we should, but that is a different thing.

Well, I have to admit that, despite using my own mother tongue, you have written something there that I do not understand at all. Explain yourself sir!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 25 June, 2009, 04:10:04 pm
"You and I" when it should be "you and me". Also see "He & I" in place of "him & me", etc.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Really Ancien on 25 June, 2009, 05:01:00 pm
Shibboleths are a good thing, I can safely ignore e-mails that say 'You Log-In details is faulty'.
English is one of the less rigorous grammars, languages such as 'Hoch Deutsch' erect higher barriers between the colloquial and the correct.
I was wondering what it is that makes Obama seem so 'Presidential'. We believe that he thinks in those rounded rhetorical phrases, and that it betokens the keen analytical mind of a law professor. In contrast George W Bush used a colloquial Texan designed to indicate native cunning. Outside the USA it just made him seem dim. There are horses for courses and it can pay to adopt a universal idiom to avoid ambiguities.
I'm all for diversity though. Nearly everyone speaks in fractured language, punctuated with particles of speech, just like Obama when he's ambushed with a question without prior notice.
Anyone who doesn't do that is perceived as a con-man.

Damon.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 25 June, 2009, 05:08:00 pm
"You and I" when it should be "you and me".

Ooh! That one really winds me up. You could argue that the error rarely leads to ambiguity and is therefore excusable, but what irks me about it is that there seems to be a widespread but misguided notion that "You and me" is always wrong, so people deliberately and consciously use "You and I" even when it is incorrect, thereby demonstrating that they haven't got a fucking clue about the simple grammatical rule behind it.

Dangling participles are another of my pet hates, although they can be unintentionally amusing.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 25 June, 2009, 05:31:32 pm
The creation of 'correct grammar' may well be designed to exclude and control - that has indeed been my argument. But not grammar in general - that is simply an emergent property of language.

I think there's a difference between what you might call "formal grammar" and "natural grammar". The latter is inherent in language and the same for all languages - what you get when you reduce language to pure logic. Formal grammar is an artificial construction, an arbitrary social code, a kind of verbal etiquette. (To be honest, I'm paraphrasing what bits I vaguely remember from studying Wittgenstein many years ago, and I suspect his ideas are considered out of date now anyway.)

We have to all do it the same to a certain extent, otherwise we wouldn't be able to understand each other, but a few misplaced apostrophes here and there aren't really all that important.

(FM, I think what I'm saying, in a very roundabout way, is that I agree with your comments.)

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Flying_Monkey on 25 June, 2009, 06:51:13 pm
"You and I" when it should be "you and me". Also see "He & I" in place of "him & me", etc.

Why does this actually matter? I mean, really? This is a perfect example of an obsession with 'correctness' over communication. There is no confusion of meaning here. 

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: eck on 25 June, 2009, 07:10:12 pm
"You and I" when it should be "you and me". Also see "He & I" in place of "him & me", etc.

Why does this actually matter? I mean, really? This is a perfect example of an obsession with 'correctness' over communication. There is no confusion of meaning here. 

Well, it depends what you mean by actually matter, I suppose. It may not actually matter to say something like, "Bad grammar makes you and I cringe", but would you say "Bad grammar makes I cringe"?

While I'm in pedant mode, I remember a nice illustration of why punctuation really matters (sometimes):
Don't stop.
or
Don't, stop.

All the same to you?  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 25 June, 2009, 07:26:00 pm
"Bad grammar makes I cringe"?

That's Bristolian, that is.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 25 June, 2009, 07:44:57 pm
"Bad grammar makes you and I cringe"
.. is an example of the meaning being totally mangled by using "I" rather than "me".  It's a perfectly acceptable sentence, with two verbs, joined with the conjunction "and".
I.e.  "Bad grammar makes you, and I cringe"
But it doesn't mean what was intended.

I like searching for the unintended meaning in what people say/write.  :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: eck on 25 June, 2009, 08:11:58 pm
I.e.  "Bad grammar makes you, and I cringe"
But it doesn't mean what was intended.

While I'm in pedant mode, I remember a nice illustration of why punctuation really matters (sometimes):
Don't stop.
or
Don't, stop.

All the same to you?  ;)
;)   :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 25 June, 2009, 10:11:28 pm
There's also an important difference between "fewer difficult problems" and "less difficult problems". In the first case, the number is reduced, and in the second, the difficulty.

Perhaps more commonly, though, good punctuation makes it easier to read, and assimilate, text quickly.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 26 June, 2009, 12:31:27 am
"You and I" when it should be "you and me". Also see "He & I" in place of "him & me", etc.

Why does this actually matter? I mean, really? This is a perfect example of an obsession with 'correctness' over communication. There is no confusion of meaning here. 
What smutchin said. The error is almost always a deliberate choice, rather than a simple mistake. What really winds me up about the misuse of "you & I" in place of "you & me" is that the people saying it think they're avoiding a lower-class error, but are substituting a different - and to my mind, worse - one. It's one of the many cases of effort put into doing something which would be better not done.

BTW, the remnants of cases preserved in pronouns are a relic of times when the difference really did matter, as case - and case only, not word order - indicated the subject & object of a sentence.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: LEE on 26 June, 2009, 01:31:16 am
"You and I" when it should be "you and me".

Ooh! That one really winds me up. You could argue that the error rarely leads to ambiguity and is therefore excusable, but what irks me about it is that there seems to be a widespread but misguided notion that "You and me" is always wrong, so people deliberately and consciously use "You and I" even when it is incorrect, thereby demonstrating that they haven't got a fucking clue about the simple grammatical rule behind it.

Dangling participles are another of my pet hates, although they can be unintentionally amusing.

d.


I'm sorry Smutchin but you seriously need to loosen up about this.  Who gives a shit?  We all know what they mean and it's snobbish to pretend, or care, otherwise.

Edit.  I think there's a case for following the example of Theodore Roosvelt and making "English" easier to spell.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 26 June, 2009, 08:01:49 am
Would "Inglish" be easier? ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 26 June, 2009, 08:05:58 am
I suppose he could have started with his name?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 26 June, 2009, 08:12:22 am
 ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 26 June, 2009, 09:21:02 am
I'm sorry Smutchin but you seriously need to loosen up about this.

Pfft. That might be true if I didn't have a sense of perspective about it.

Quote
Who gives a shit?  We all know what they mean and it's snobbish to pretend, or care, otherwise.

If I thought it mattered, I'd be more circumspect about discussing it in an internet forum.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 26 June, 2009, 09:47:07 am
What really winds me up about the misuse of "you & I" in place of "you & me" is that the people saying it think they're avoiding a lower-class error, but are substituting a different - and to my mind, worse - one.
I think you're being a bit harsh here. Two reasons:
- you shouldn't presume _why_ people do something (without good evidence).
- I suspect many people who make this mistake are just making a mistake. They 'remember' being taught this as the right way to do it. Is there any harm in _trying_ to do something the right way?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Thor on 26 June, 2009, 09:51:37 am
From this morning's Metro

Quote
One in ten people in Europe is drinking themselves to death

 ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Flying_Monkey on 26 June, 2009, 09:55:46 am
"You and I" when it should be "you and me". Also see "He & I" in place of "him & me", etc.

Why does this actually matter? I mean, really? This is a perfect example of an obsession with 'correctness' over communication. There is no confusion of meaning here.  

Well, it depends what you mean by actually matter, I suppose. It may not actually matter to say something like, "Bad grammar makes you and I cringe", but would you say "Bad grammar makes I cringe"?

While I'm in pedant mode, I remember a nice illustration of why punctuation really matters (sometimes):
Don't stop.
or
Don't, stop.

All the same to you?  ;)

You're not being a pedant, you're just confused! In fact you are confounding two completely different issues and trying to make them out to be the same.

If you read what I wrote, you will notice that I specifically mentioned that there was no confusion in meaning in the situation that annoyed Bledlow. And indeed there is not confusion of meaning to say 'bad grammar makes I cringe', in fact that is a not uncommon west country dialect usage (as Jaded noted). Just try and tell me that everyone who says that in the west country is 'wrong'...

You second example however is of a completely different situation - where punctuation can cause meaning to change leading to confusion. In that situation, as in the first, I am in favour only of avoiding such confusion.

Let's get this straight, most of what is seen as 'correct' English is simply an imposed and artificial set of rather arbitrary rules imposed by a very small, self-selecting group of C18th grammarians who were trying to 'fix' the language in place and get rid of class and regional variation. They utterly misunderstood the way languages evolve and change.

Language does what language does. You can't make it stop or behave how you want. You can only speak and write how you wish and hope, if that is indeed your hope, that others might chose to do the same.

IMHO, y'all all jus chill now, d'ya hear?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: oncemore on 26 June, 2009, 10:04:07 am
Meaning rather than grammar, but I really dislike use of cannot when speaker means will not. Politicians particular culprits. "Government can't [do X]" when X is somthing that they COULD do and which Governments have done in the past. What they mean is "WON'T".

Bit like "can I?" and "may I?" Soon learned the difference at school. "Can I open the window, sir?" "Yes." Get up and do so...."Write out 100 times...."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Regulator on 26 June, 2009, 10:11:16 am
'Less' and 'fewer'... my personal bugbear.

Even the Beeb is failing on this these days.  Only Evan Davies seems to understand the difference.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 26 June, 2009, 10:22:05 am
Let's get this straight, most of what is seen as 'correct' English is simply an imposed and artificial set of rather arbitrary rules imposed by a very small, self-selecting group of C18th grammarians who were trying to 'fix' the language in place and get rid of class and regional variation.
So why do you choose to write 99% of your posts in this artificial and arbitrary fashion? Are you just showing off?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Flying_Monkey on 26 June, 2009, 10:23:37 am
Even the Beeb is failing on this these days. 

The Beeb has also historically been one of the worst offenders in trying to eradicate regional and class variety. It has also, fortunately, failed. Listeners schooled on this ridiculous elitism were apparently still objecting to Scottish accents on the radio in the 1980s...

These days however, the Beeb is more realistic about language realities and language chance. So much the better.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Flying_Monkey on 26 June, 2009, 10:25:23 am
Let's get this straight, most of what is seen as 'correct' English is simply an imposed and artificial set of rather arbitrary rules imposed by a very small, self-selecting group of C18th grammarians who were trying to 'fix' the language in place and get rid of class and regional variation.
So why do you choose to write 99% of your posts in this artificial and arbitrary fashion? Are you just showing off?

Is there any need to be so offensive?

The answer is obvious - I was brought up in the same tradition. But I am aware of it. And I am interested in the subject. And I do not try to impose my way of expressing myself on anyone else.

Thanks for your interest in me, now let's get back to the subject eh?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 26 June, 2009, 10:27:59 am
So why do you choose to write 99% of your posts in this artificial and arbitrary fashion? Are you just showing off?

Is there any harm in trying to do something the right way? ;)

I suspect FM is taking an extreme position for the sake of making a point. Grammar does matter up to a point but it's silly to be pedantic about the details, because they are just arbitrary rules and it's the underlying meaning that matters. If your meaning is clear, a misplaced apostrophe or two really isn't important.

I totally agree with all that, but this thread is titled "Grammar that makes you cringe". I like a well-formed sentence for the same reason that I'd rather hear a piano played properly than listen to someone bash out Chopsticks with two fingers.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 26 June, 2009, 10:29:54 am
'Less' and 'fewer'... my personal bugbear.

Even the Beeb is failing on this these days.  Only Evan Davies seems to understand the difference.

But most of that is impromptu speech such as in live interviews. It's much more difficult to be grammatically correct when you're speaking on the hoof.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Flying_Monkey on 26 June, 2009, 10:39:07 am
I suspect FM is taking an extreme position for the sake of making a point. Grammar does matter up to a point but it's silly to be pedantic about the details, because they are just arbitrary rules and it's the underlying meaning that matters. If your meaning is clear, a misplaced apostrophe or two really isn't important.

well, yes and no! Actually, I am pretty relaxed about the use of language so long as it communicates. I don't think this is an 'extreme' position, I think it's a recognition of reality. As I've said, the only concerns I have relate to miscommunication, and even then, if it isn't actually dangerous, these situations can be easily remedied by further discussion or just saying 'what did you mean?' (or perhaps that should be 'WTF' or  :-\ these days?  ;) )

The whole 'cringing' thing is interesting because it shows how much we are still under the thumb of those rigid and dried up old schoolmasters whether we like it or not!

Laters.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 26 June, 2009, 10:46:35 am
'Less' and 'fewer'... my personal bugbear.

Even the Beeb is failing on this these days.  Only Evan Davies seems to understand the difference.

But most of that is impromptu speech such as in live interviews. It's much more difficult to be grammatically correct when you're speaking on the hoof.

People also seem to get upset by stuff written on bbc.co.uk, forgetting that most of it is dashed off more quickly than we type posts on here.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moloko on 26 June, 2009, 10:52:29 am


The whole 'cringing' thing is interesting because it shows how much we are still under the thumb of those rigid and dried up old schoolmasters whether we like it or not!


I'll bet there's at least one person on here who had the difference between "less" and "fewer" drummed into
them pretty hard from a rigid schoolmaster.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 26 June, 2009, 11:06:03 am
Is there any need to be so offensive?
Didn't mean to be ...
Quote
The answer is obvious - I was brought up in the same tradition. But I am aware of it. And I am interested in the subject. And I do not try to impose my way of expressing myself on anyone else.

Thanks for your interest in me, now let's get back to the subject eh?
... I thought part of the subject was Why Do We Speak/Write The Way We Do. You've made various statements on the choices made by others, so I thought this was a relevant question. Mkay?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Really Ancien on 26 June, 2009, 11:26:22 am
I have grammar that makes me smile, that exalteth me in fact. There's a cadence in certain phrases that carries a whole series of meanings which derive from the way they're constructed. It's the source of much rhetoric and binds together much of the English speaking world. Probably the greatest exponent in recent times was Prince, 'I can see whomever I want; in 'Nothing compares 2 U' conveys a brittle feeling due to the too careful grammar. My favourite one of his songs reliant on the rhetoric of grammar is this one.
YouTube - Martika-Love thy will be done (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpOW4LLRRTA)
Music is a grammar as well of course.

Damon.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Flying_Monkey on 26 June, 2009, 11:49:39 am
... I thought part of the subject was Why Do We Speak/Write The Way We Do. You've made various statements on the choices made by others, so I thought this was a relevant question. Mkay?

Whatever...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 26 June, 2009, 07:31:58 pm
From this morning's Metro

Quote
One in ten people in Europe is drinking themselves to death

 ::-)

Is they reading this thread?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: oncemore on 26 June, 2009, 10:33:50 pm
"....drummed into them pretty hard from a rigid schoolmaster."

Ah, ol' skool!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 26 June, 2009, 11:23:26 pm
...Let's get this straight, most of what is seen as 'correct' English is simply an imposed and artificial set of rather arbitrary rules imposed by a very small, self-selecting group of C18th grammarians who were trying to 'fix' the language in place and get rid of class and regional variation. They utterly misunderstood the way languages evolve and change....
Naah - it's a lot more complicated than that. While you're right that old (though not all 18th century: it started before that) grammarians are guilty of a great deal, it's not all down to them. Fer a start, lotsa wot they thought was proper we now think wrong, both in spelling (we're far, far more rigid than they were) & in usage, where we say & write things they would have thrown up their hands in horror at, while rejecting as incorrect usages they considered correct. The language has changed, & our perceptions with it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Flying_Monkey on 27 June, 2009, 10:03:56 am
Naah - it's a lot more complicated than that. While you're right that old (though not all 18th century: it started before that) grammarians are guilty of a great deal, it's not all down to them. Fer a start, lotsa wot they thought was proper we now think wrong, both in spelling (we're far, far more rigid than they were) & in usage, where we say & write things they would have thrown up their hands in horror at, while rejecting as incorrect usages they considered correct. The language has changed, & our perceptions with it.

Of course it's more complicated than my couple of sentences - which is why I was trying to encourage people to read The Stories of English as a good readable account...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Really Ancien on 28 June, 2009, 03:15:05 pm
All ideas of what constitues grammar are of course redundant. We have more unmediated and unedited written language available to us than we could have imagined 20 years ago. Probably the most varied examples are comments on Youtube, these come from all over the world, often in a variety of languages. It's interesting to try to find some common thread in the way they are written, but difficult.
Any attempts to pin down grammar are doomed, because by the time you've put it into print, it can be undermined with a thousand examples. Textspeak is one example, now mutating into tweets. I think we will look upon the period when it was difficult to print and distribute words as a golden age. Without the idea of an Editor, we remove the inhibition of working to an internal Editor. If there are no objective standards, why put up with the bother of maintaining your own standards in an age when we are all our own vanity publisher?

Damon.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 28 June, 2009, 08:14:31 pm
...the only concerns I have relate to miscommunication, and ... these situations can be easily remedied by further discussion...

But surely the main worry is when the two parties both believe that the communication was clear, but the message taken away was not the same? There will then be no further discussion.

Also, it's inefficient to keep asking for clarification when clear messages would have made it unnecessary.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 30 June, 2009, 08:02:23 am
Let's get this straight, most of what is seen as 'correct' English is simply an imposed and artificial set of rather arbitrary rules imposed by a very small, self-selecting group of C18th grammarians who were trying to 'fix' the language in place and get rid of class and regional variation. They utterly misunderstood the way languages evolve and change.

If they1 misunderstood how languages change, how could their prescriptions be imposed?

Conversely, as languages do evolve and change, why does it matter to you how the rules of the language which we are using now were first introduced? What is "artificial"? Whence your snobbery?

There's no evidence that this set of rules limits what you can say---quite the opposite, as the existence of a formal register gives you the choice to switch into or out of it. Capeesh?

Also, you mean "Let's get this straight. Most of ...". You wouldn't want to mix your imperative and declarative sentences, now, would you?

1. They were most of them Scots, anyway, weren't they?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 30 June, 2009, 08:13:26 am
Let's get this straight, most of what is seen as 'correct' English is simply an imposed and artificial set of rather arbitrary rules imposed by a very small, self-selecting group of C18th grammarians who were trying to 'fix' the language in place and get rid of class and regional variation. They utterly misunderstood the way languages evolve and change.

Let's get this straight, most of what is seen as 'correct' in football is simply an imposed and artificial set of rather arbitrary rules imposed by a very small, self-selecting group of C19th officials who  were trying to 'fix' the game in place and get rid of random and regional variation. They utterly misunderstood the way games evolve and change.

They would hardly recognise it now. Works better to have rules at any one point though... :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 30 June, 2009, 08:29:17 am
Let's get this straight, most of what is seen as 'correct' English is simply an imposed and artificial set of rather arbitrary rules imposed by a very small, self-selecting group of C18th grammarians who were trying to 'fix' the language in place and get rid of class and regional variation. They utterly misunderstood the way languages evolve and change.

Let's get this straight, most of what is seen as 'correct' in football is simply an imposed and artificial set of rather arbitrary rules imposed by a very small, self-selecting group of C19th officials who  were trying to 'fix' the game in place and get rid of random and regional variation. They utterly misunderstood the way games evolve and change.


Some rules are more arbitrary than others: the off-side rule and the one against split infinitives both come to mind.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 30 June, 2009, 09:35:28 am
Now I see why the split infinitive rule isn't applied rigourously in lower league matches.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 30 June, 2009, 11:03:53 am
Let's get this straight, most of what is seen as 'correct' in football is simply an imposed and artificial set of rather arbitrary rules imposed by a very small, self-selecting group of C19th officials who  were trying to 'fix' the game in place and get rid of random and regional variation. They utterly misunderstood the way games evolve and change.

They would hardly recognise it now. Works better to have rules at any one point though... :demon:

On a similar theme, I watched some of the Twenty20 cricket the other day. I'm a lifelong cricket fan, but I didn't understand what was going on. What's all this "power play" nonsense?

I think Twenty20 is the sporting equivalent of Esperanto.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: little miss mac on 30 June, 2009, 11:43:45 am
More Colemanballs than poor grammar, heard on BBC News 24 yesterday:

"Barcelona are very keen either to re-sign Eto'o or to sell him to another club".

Well, you don't say.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 July, 2009, 07:08:55 am
When did the written word start taking a much bigger part on our world? Could it have been in the 18th Century and could that be the main reason for favouring "etymology and consistent word order over commonly understood usage"?
Probably earlier - in the 16th century, as a result of the move from Catholicism to Protestantism. This placed a greater emphasis on interpreting the word (or even the Word) and less on the visual and ritual. Indeed, it rejected much of that as idolatry, so instead of draping statues of saints with offerings we were encouraged to listen to long sermons and read the Bible.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 02 July, 2009, 08:25:03 am
"Barcelona are very keen either to re-sign Eto'o or to sell him to another club".
At least they didn't split the infinitive ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Flying_Monkey on 02 July, 2009, 09:01:09 am
Let's get this straight, most of what is seen as 'correct' English is simply an imposed and artificial set of rather arbitrary rules imposed by a very small, self-selecting group of C18th grammarians who were trying to 'fix' the language in place and get rid of class and regional variation. They utterly misunderstood the way languages evolve and change.

Let's get this straight, most of what is seen as 'correct' in football is simply an imposed and artificial set of rather arbitrary rules imposed by a very small, self-selecting group of C19th officials who  were trying to 'fix' the game in place and get rid of random and regional variation. They utterly misunderstood the way games evolve and change.

They would hardly recognise it now. Works better to have rules at any one point though... :demon:

Association fallacy alert!  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 02 July, 2009, 10:55:09 pm
Twenty20 could be accused of being poor grammar: tautology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tautology_(rhetoric)).

An example of true tautology would be a two-wheeled bicycle. Change one element of that and you get an oxymoron, such as a three-wheeled bicycle or a two-wheeled trike. By contrast a Twenty or a Twenty30 would be not so much oxymoron as one-sided match :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 02 July, 2009, 10:56:00 pm
Association fallacy alert!  ;)

I take it that that means that you don't agree?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 02 July, 2009, 11:08:04 pm
Let's get this straight, most of what is seen as 'correct' English is simply an imposed and artificial set of rather arbitrary rules imposed by a very small, self-selecting group of C18th grammarians who were trying to 'fix' the language in place and get rid of class and regional variation. They utterly misunderstood the way languages evolve and change.

Let's get this straight, most of what is seen as 'correct' in football is simply an imposed and artificial set of rather arbitrary rules imposed by a very small, self-selecting group of C19th officials who  were trying to 'fix' the game in place and get rid of random and regional variation. They utterly misunderstood the way games evolve and change.

They would hardly recognise it now. Works better to have rules at any one point though... :demon:

Association fallacy alert!  ;)

Is that why Americans manhandle the language, and Aussies have their own Rules?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 02 July, 2009, 11:49:47 pm
Twenty20 is right cos it is 20 overs from one and 20 overs from the other.

50 over match is wrong cos it is actually 100 overs.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: tonyh on 03 July, 2009, 07:21:01 am
Twenty20 could be accused of being poor grammar: tautology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tautology_(rhetoric)).

And the "Rhetorical"  tautology is worse than poor grammar, as it might look as if it has useful meaning when it doesn't, eg

"It is bad to drink too much water on a ride"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gandalf on 03 July, 2009, 08:09:31 am
Not grammar, but I have noticed that even within these hallowed portals there is a trend of spelling the word 'lose' as 'loose'.  Please make it stop.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: eck on 03 July, 2009, 08:13:08 am
Under way, or underway?

Two words, orone?
Does it really matter?

Disc uss.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 03 July, 2009, 08:16:25 am
Not grammar, but I have noticed that even within these hallowed portals there is a trend of spelling the word 'lose' as 'loose'.  Please make it stop.

I must admit I have to consciously think about that one and I suspect I get it wrong from time to time.  I know perfectly well the correct usage at an intellectual level, but for some reason it's not as hard-wired into my language brain as it should be.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Polar Bear on 03 July, 2009, 08:43:43 am

Is there any harm in trying to do something the right way? ;)


I appreciate your sentiment but, is there a right way?   

Rules evolved over time but human beings have communicated verbally for far longer, and, in many more varieties than the written languages portray.   Only last week I struggled to understand a local Orkney ferryman and yet his crew mate could understand every word.   Go to most corners of the UK, most regional housing estates, shopping centres, even schools and universities, and you'll find that the structure and use of words, phrases and punctuation differs from the codified set.     

As I understand it the rules are supposed to try and make it possible for example, for a Cornishman and a Shetlander to gain the same understanding.   However, even written English can be difficult to interpret as indicated by the fact that professions such as Law created extra rules to remove ambiguity within the profession.   

The rules do not reflect conversational English, the type of English used by many on this forum.   

Live and let live.

         
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wendy on 03 July, 2009, 08:46:24 am
Not grammar, but I have noticed that even within these hallowed portals there is a trend of spelling the word 'lose' as 'loose'.  Please make it stop.

Some of us may know the difference, even though occasionally using the wrong one due to slight dyslexia.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 03 July, 2009, 08:49:42 am
I agree with the posters who've mentioned the diversity of spoken English and the space for people to express themselves and play with the rules, but isn't all that a different thing from people who just can't be bothered to put sentences together properly ?

Though that argument doesn't hold up against the evolution of language one, I suppose.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 03 July, 2009, 08:52:20 am
The rules do not reflect conversational English, the type of English used by many on this forum.   
         
Yes they do. Most of us deviate from the rules to some extent much of the time,but most of our words, and many of our sentences, stick to the rules.

If we didn't you would have gibberish.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 03 July, 2009, 08:57:55 am
The rules do not reflect conversational English, the type of English used by many on this forum.   
         
Yes they do. Most of us deviate from the rules to some extent much of the time,but most of our words, and many of our sentences, stick to the rules.

If we didn't you would have gibberish.

I have seen posts (on other forums) where the language used plays so little heed to the rules that it's impossible to extract the meaning.  Not here though, I don't think.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Manotea on 03 July, 2009, 09:06:01 am
I agree with the posters who've mentioned the diversity of spoken English and the space for people to express themselves and play with the rules, but isn't all that a different thing from people who just can't be bothered to put sentences together properly ?

Though that argument doesn't hold up against the evolution of language one, I suppose.

I blame Australian Soaps (Neighbours & co).
 
Tracylene: "I went. To the shops. And bought some beans. And then I walked home. And I got wet.  Because it started. Raining."
All said with a dreaded rising inflection (http://www.bbc.co.uk/leicester/content/articles/2005/02/15/why_i_hate_the_rising_inflection_feature.shtml) at the end of each fragment.

I've had strong words with the Mini Manoteas for 'not speaking in sentences' / thinking about what they were going to say before they said it. Thankfully they've grown out of it now.

Reactionary? Moi?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: iakobski on 03 July, 2009, 09:11:46 am
Not grammar, but I have noticed that even within these hallowed portals there is a trend of spelling the word 'lose' as 'loose'.  Please make it stop.

With this and a few similar "errors" we are witnessing the changing of the language. On web pages and forums it is so often wrong it may well already be the majority. Now, when I see the word "lose" I get a mental jolt like when a word is wrong, then I realise it's actually correct. Even the BBC website regularly uses loose for lose and lead when they mean led.

Things like that won't be picked up by spellcheckers and they even follow spelling rules, just the wrong ones. If you make loose rhyme with choose then you're stuck when you want to say something is loose. It's an anomoly though, why doesn't lose rhyme with close?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Riggers on 03 July, 2009, 09:18:07 am
Or 'rough' with 'bough'. But that's an entirely different 'kettle of fish'.

"I'm going to have a row with my wife!"


"… but on the lake". What a pickle our language can snare us in type-thing.



Stop Rigby. Stop!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moloko on 03 July, 2009, 09:20:17 am


"I'm going to have a row with my wife!"



Oops upside your head
I say oops upside your head.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Flying_Monkey on 03 July, 2009, 09:28:44 am
Association fallacy alert!  ;)

I take it that that means that you don't agree?

There was nothing of substance to agree or disagree with. You tried to make an association with something that appears superficially similar but in fact has nothing to do with what we were talking about. I don't think there's a lot more to say on this thread anyway. It is now starting to repeat itself...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Polar Bear on 03 July, 2009, 09:41:37 am
The rules do not reflect conversational English, the type of English used by many on this forum.   
         
Yes they do. Most of us deviate from the rules to some extent much of the time,but most of our words, and many of our sentences, stick to the rules.

If we didn't you would have gibberish.

I'd suggest that the codification of language followed on from the spoken word and thus it is the codification which is limited in structure rather than the spoken word.  
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 03 July, 2009, 10:14:22 am

...If we didn't you would have gibberish.

I'd suggest that the codification of language followed on from the spoken word and thus it is the codification which is limited in structure rather than the spoken word.  

Perfect example!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 03 July, 2009, 10:26:57 am

...If we didn't you would have gibberish.

I'd suggest that the codification of language followed on from the spoken word and thus it is the codification which is limited in structure rather than the spoken word. 

Perfect example!

Yes indeed.  Without the Oxford comma after "word" it makes no sense whatsoever ;)

Quote
I'd suggest that the codification of language followed on from the spoken word, and thus it is the codification which is limited in structure rather than the spoken word. 


Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Polar Bear on 03 July, 2009, 10:31:42 am
Thanks chaps.   ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 03 July, 2009, 10:32:00 am
So we've got a choice between codification and cod-ification.  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 03 July, 2009, 11:12:57 am
Even the BBC website regularly uses loose for lose and lead when they mean led.

Things like that won't be picked up by spellcheckers and they even follow spelling rules, just the wrong ones.
I have no evidence, but I'm pretty sure spellcheckers are to blame for this.

Writers infer correctness because their spelling has been passed "OK".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 03 July, 2009, 11:16:36 am
So we've got a choice between ...

Ooh, ooh, there's another one!

I would prefer
"So we have a choice between ... "

;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Thor on 03 July, 2009, 11:22:41 am
So we've got a choice between ...

Ooh, ooh, there's another one!

I would prefer
"So we have a choice between ... "

;)

Isn't "there's another one" tautological?  Since "there's" (there is) is singular?  So you could say "There's another."  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 03 July, 2009, 11:25:30 am
Should it be:

We can choose between...?

;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 03 July, 2009, 11:58:38 am
This thread is turning into one of extreme excellence!  ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 July, 2009, 12:23:44 pm
Twenty20 could be accused of being poor grammar: tautology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tautology_(rhetoric)).

An example of true tautology would be a two-wheeled bicycle. Change one element of that and you get an oxymoron, such as a three-wheeled bicycle or a two-wheeled trike. By contrast a Twenty or a Twenty30 would be not so much oxymoron as one-sided match :D

Oxymoron: spot cream for chavs.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 03 July, 2009, 01:25:13 pm
a Twenty30 would be not so much oxymoron as one-sided match :D

...or something to do with the Duckworth Lewis method.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 03 July, 2009, 01:27:26 pm
Who were in  session on the Radcliffe & Maconie show last week :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 03 July, 2009, 01:51:07 pm
So we've got a choice between ...

Ooh, ooh, there's another one!

I would prefer
"So we have a choice between ... "

;)

Isn't "there's another one" tautological?  Since "there's" (there is) is singular?  So you could say "There's another."
Fair cop!

Actually the 'got' thing has gotten out of hand. Fine in informal conversation, but I received a document recently with something like:
"Before you start you've got to get ..."
which surely could have been:

" ... you need ... "
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Zipperhead on 03 July, 2009, 01:54:48 pm
a Twenty30 would be not so much oxymoron as one-sided match :D

...or something to do with the Duckworth Lewis method.

d.


I personally prefer the Scaryduckworth Lewis (http://scaryduck.blogspot.com/2009/05/on-scaryduckworth-lewis-method-for.html) method.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: PhilO on 03 July, 2009, 03:43:52 pm
Actually the 'got' thing has gotten out of hand.

And there's one of my pet-hates: The past tense of 'got' is 'got'  :demon:

 ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: little miss mac on 03 July, 2009, 03:46:54 pm
Actually the 'got' thing has gotten out of hand.

And there's one of my pet-hates: The past tense of 'got' is 'got'  :demon:

 ;D

If you take it a bit further back, it's arguably the USians who are correct on this one. "Gotten" is an archaic past participle of "get", and we Brits could be said to have corrupted the language in our dropping of it...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 03 July, 2009, 03:52:44 pm
Actually the 'got' thing has gotten out of hand.

And there's one of my pet-hates: The past tense of 'got' is 'got'  :demon:

 ;D
Sometimes one's posts can be _too_ subtle ... ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: little miss mac on 03 July, 2009, 03:56:18 pm
 ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Regulator on 03 July, 2009, 04:01:33 pm
Actually the 'got' thing has gotten out of hand.

And there's one of my pet-hates: The past tense of 'got' is 'got'  :demon:

 ;D

If you take it a bit further back, it's arguably the USians who are correct on this one. "Gotten" is an archaic past participle of "get", and we Brits could be said to have corrupted the language in our dropping of it...

Not that archaic.  It is still present in other words... e.g. forgotten, begotten.   :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: robbo6 on 03 July, 2009, 04:05:03 pm
In some parts of England, "gotten" was not dropped completely.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: PhilO on 03 July, 2009, 04:16:43 pm
Ok, ok! I'll get my coat!  :-[

(I still find it inexplicably irritating, though!  :smug:)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 03 July, 2009, 04:56:29 pm
Reminds me...

Twitter from BBC Sports Reporter Caroline Cheese at Wimbledon...

http://twitter.com/carolinecheese/status/2385954961
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 03 July, 2009, 07:01:13 pm


If you take it a bit further back, it's arguably the USians who are correct on this one. "Gotten" is an archaic past participle of "get", and we Brits could be said to have corrupted the language in our dropping of it...

Someone complained publicly about the use in this country of the 'americanism' Fall instead of Autumn. But anyone who lives in Dorset will know it's an old English word. These things are often complicated.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 03 July, 2009, 08:23:23 pm
You tried to make an association with something that appears superficially similar but in fact has nothing to do with what we were talking about.
Not an association. Simply an application of the same line of argument to an unrelated area, to see whether it made sense there. If it didn't, there could be a problem with the line of argument.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 July, 2009, 04:02:47 pm
Following on from got/gotten and other common but "irregular" verb patterns, it's interesting (to me at least!) the way my son (5) confuses these. For instance, the past of "shoot" may be "shotten", on the pattern of "forgot, forgotten", but he's unlikely to say "shooted", even though that would seem to be a more obvious "mistake". Neither does he say "shot" until I correct him.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: CAMRAMan on 05 July, 2009, 08:29:26 pm
My principally (for the time being) Hungarian-speaking son applies the perfectly sane logic of adding "-ed" to the end of every verb when applying the past tense. Put becomes putted, for example, and see becomes seed. Doesn't exactly make me cringe, but it's deeply ingrained and taking time to correct.

(He also occasionally adds "leg-" to superlatives as well, as in Hungarian, so fastest becomes legfastest)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 05 July, 2009, 10:47:53 pm
Dear all, especially newscasters, may and might are not the same. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: PeteB99 on 05 August, 2009, 09:00:36 pm
From todays Email about the companies half year results

'Negative goodwill credit'

AKA a loss

The management bullshitter who came up with that should be shot >:(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 05 August, 2009, 09:04:32 pm
Not that archaic.  It is still present in other words... e.g. forgotten, begotten.   :demon:
And ill-gotten gains.

The American past participles that really grate are "dove" (rather than dived) and "fit" (rather than fitted) - the last one just looks like using the wrong tense:

Those shorts fit me perfectly until I ate too many pies.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 05 August, 2009, 10:49:56 pm
Oh but surely it would be the bizarre:

"That short fit me perfectly..." :hand:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tourist Tony on 06 August, 2009, 03:38:27 am
The Aussie rising inflection: so many of them go up at the end of their sentences bacause their ancestors went down at the start of theirs....
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Basil on 06 August, 2009, 07:38:47 am
Not actually grammar, but

I can't remember which one it is, but one of R4's Today program chaps insists on telling me that it is "Huff past seven".
Don't know why it annoys me, but it does.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 August, 2009, 12:43:56 pm
Little Cudzo uses "wan" as the past tense of "win", which means the past of "fit" is "fat".  :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: PhilO on 06 August, 2009, 01:21:00 pm
...the past of "fit" is "fat".  :)

Funny - I've found that 'fit' is the past of 'fat'!  ;)

***ponders waistline***
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Zoidburg on 06 August, 2009, 01:29:43 pm
People who say "o" instead of "zero" to represent the figure 0.

Number.

Not a letter. >:(

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 06 August, 2009, 01:34:40 pm
People who say "o" instead of "zero" to represent the figure 0.

Number.

Not a letter. >:(


That will be around 99% of the people in Great Britain.  :(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 06 August, 2009, 03:00:40 pm
Folk who say 'Korta' instead of 'quarter'.  It's just an affectation.

Edit:

And the word is 'vulnerable'.  I know the 'l' is dark, but not pitch black!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 06 August, 2009, 03:04:01 pm
People who say "o" instead of "zero" to represent the figure 0.

Number.

Not a letter. >:(



Room one-zero-one.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: gordon taylor on 06 August, 2009, 03:09:55 pm
I love some changes: like when young people use "aks" instead of "ask."

It sounds really cool and I wish I could do it naturally.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Manotea on 06 August, 2009, 03:15:20 pm
People who say "o" instead of "zero" to represent the figure 0.

Number.

Not a letter. >:(


Go directly to Room 101, do not pass...

Edit: Dammit, Ian beat me to it!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: iakobski on 06 August, 2009, 03:16:38 pm
It's an affectation they think makes them sound Jamaican.

It's also how Chaucer wrote it  :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Zoidburg on 06 August, 2009, 03:54:06 pm
I love some changes: like when young people use "aks" instead of "ask."

It sounds really cool and I wish I could do it naturally.
When you reach 80 and all your teeth have gone I am sure you will be able to old chap.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 06 August, 2009, 10:49:36 pm
...one of R4's Today program chaps insists on telling me that it is "Huff past seven".
Don't know why it annoys me, but it does.

Don't get in a half about it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: gordon taylor on 07 August, 2009, 06:02:56 am
I love some changes: like when young people use "aks" instead of "ask."

It sounds really cool and I wish I could do it naturally.
When you reach 80 and all your teeth have gone I am sure you will be able to old chap.

 ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 07 August, 2009, 06:29:40 am
Miss Z ote all her dinner, or so she tells me.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moloko on 07 August, 2009, 11:40:40 am
"Lose" "Loose" "losing" "loosing"???

Put 'em together and what have you got
bippity-boppity-boo.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Zipperhead on 07 August, 2009, 03:49:59 pm
Burglarized.
Monetized.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: iakobski on 07 August, 2009, 04:09:45 pm
On the train, every night, different staff, same phrase:

Anyone dining for dinner this evening?

Plus:
... in the vistibbles at the end of each carriage
... please hesitate to ask.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 07 August, 2009, 07:33:07 pm
Burglarized.
Monetized.

Hospitalised: a witch waved her wand and turned me into Great Ormond Street.

Burglarised: I was honest till I met you, but you've turned me into a thief.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 07 August, 2009, 07:39:23 pm
Speaking of which:-

"Controlled" used as a verb with respect to Audaxes, as in:-

"We controlled at the petrol station on the outskirts of Wibbletown."

It just makes me cringe for some reason.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 07 August, 2009, 07:49:04 pm
On the train, every night, different staff, same phrase:

Anyone dining for dinner this evening?

Plus:
... in the vistibbles at the end of each carriage
... please hesitate to ask.

The NEEA trains' staff use an irritating turn of phrase as well. "We will soon be arriving in Ipswich." Surely not. We will soon be arriving at Ipswich station. I'm happy for the word "station" to be omitted - after all, it would be a surprise if the train arrived at Ipswich Town Football Ground - but the preposition should remain the same.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 07 August, 2009, 07:52:13 pm
I hate the expression "contact telephone number".

What else is a telephone number for?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 07 August, 2009, 08:20:13 pm
"We controlled at the petrol station on the outskirts of Wibbletown."

It just makes me cringe for some reason.

It's because "to control" is a transitive verb and the sentence lacks an object.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 07 August, 2009, 09:21:15 pm
Then there is the abuse of "-ee" words. Normally, the "-ee" is the object of the action and the "-er" is the subject. For example, a referee has disputes referred to him (or her), and a lessor lets a property to a lessee.

So what is a conference attendee? Presumably, the person to whom the attendant at the event serves drinks?

And a retiree is someone who has been retired, presumably against his will by an aggressive HR department? If it was his own choice, he'd be a retirer, obviously - or maybe the HR manager is the retirer, because he or she creates all the retirees? ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 07 August, 2009, 09:24:21 pm
Mortgagee is the most frequently-confused.  The borrower is the mortgagor; they mortgage their house to the lender, who is the mortgagee.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gasman on 07 August, 2009, 10:54:37 pm
Surely the attendee is the conference itself.  Those who attend are attenders or attendants.

Similarly I had head in hands at a sign on a bus; "2 standees only"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 07 August, 2009, 11:39:53 pm
Drunk, obviously. Had to be stood up by others.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Thor on 08 August, 2009, 01:28:07 pm
"Controlled" used as a verb with respect to Audaxes, as in:-

"We controlled at the petrol station on the outskirts of Wibbletown."

When such "speak" is creeping into the Audax world, there can be no hope.  :-\
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Julian on 09 August, 2009, 09:20:19 am
BBC NEWS | England | Hampshire | Polish priest helps murder police (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/8191223.stm)

Rilly?  :o

The article says that the priest helps the police investigate a murder. which is slightly different.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 09 August, 2009, 09:22:24 am
Our (very) local paper really did have an article titled "Antique clocks under the hammer"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 09 August, 2009, 09:31:28 am
There was a classic one from the DM or the News of the Screws (I forget which), decades ago:

LUCKY MAN SEES PALS DIE
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: CAMRAMan on 09 August, 2009, 10:16:45 am
"Controlled" used as a verb with respect to Audaxes, as in:-

"We controlled at the petrol station on the outskirts of Wibbletown."

When such "speak" is creeping into the Audax world, there can be no hope.  :-\

Isn't this just a bastardisation of the verb "control" which is a homonym for the verb "check" in several European languages?

It should still be used in the passive though, surely?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 09 August, 2009, 02:30:45 pm
No, not (necessarily) in the passive, but as I said it is a transitive verb and needs an object. You cannot control; you have to control something. You can even control yourself, but there must be an object even if it is you yourself.

Passive use implies that you are the object in the active sense; I control you, so you are controlled (by me).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 10 August, 2009, 08:57:02 am
Hmmm. How about:

He is very controlling.

That is either wrong, or there is an implied subject (either people in general, or maybe the speaker!) ?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: CAMRAMan on 10 August, 2009, 09:33:05 am
Isn't it just the word "control" being used as an adjective? Then it is being used to describe someone/thing, which removes the need for a subject/object.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 10 August, 2009, 09:49:13 am
Of course it is - doh! Must stick to the easy stuff on Monday mornings ...

(So are we in agreement that The Audax Usage should be taken out and shot?!?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 10 August, 2009, 09:52:30 am
Medalled. pah!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 10 August, 2009, 09:57:56 am
Writing that is comprehensible and thoughtfully composed is good. If it's also witty, that's even better. Good grammar is made by people who write well.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 10 August, 2009, 10:03:52 am
Re control/medal, may I remind you all of the useful axiom:

There isn't a noun that can't be verbed.

And the intransitive verb "to control" has a different meaning to the transitive verb "to control".

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 10 August, 2009, 10:07:27 am
I winced when I heard a BBC sports reporter saying that 'Britain has four medals in the pool'.  Eh?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: eck on 10 August, 2009, 10:11:23 am
I winced when I heard a BBC sports reporter saying that 'Britain has four medals in the pool'.  Eh?
But not as bad as "four Brits have medalled".  :sick:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kathy on 10 August, 2009, 10:23:51 am
I winced when I heard a BBC sports reporter saying that 'Britain has four medals in the pool'.  Eh?
But not as bad as "four Brits have medalled".  :sick:


And on that subject: "Dug deep". Will be heard at least twice in every post-event interview, and four times in the actual commentry of the event.  :sick:

"Wiggins has really dug deep here; he's giving it all he's got..."

He's not digging! There is no spade, and no allotment! He's cycling, not earth-moving!!!! >:( >:( >:( >:(

Even more annyoingly, I've heard it in swimming race commentry, when the term "digging deep" could potentially be used to describe the arm-stroke. If so, it would be an inefficient and poor technique, but the phrase has been used as if "digging deep" is a good thing! ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: alan on 10 August, 2009, 10:24:12 am
When some says or writes..
"should of"
instead of
"should have"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 10 August, 2009, 10:30:35 am


And on that subject: "Dug deep".

As a contraction of "Dug deep into his/her reserves", which I think is where it came from,  it's probably OK, if you like that sort of thing.  Better than "gave 110 %" anyway.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 10 August, 2009, 10:41:05 am
"The first person to compare a woman's lips to a rose was possibly a genius. The second was was certainly an idiot."


(points for attribution).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 10 August, 2009, 11:09:25 am
Ok, it's not grammar, but I heard Griff Rhys Jones use that awful word "staycation" on Rivers last night.
 :sick:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: onb on 10 August, 2009, 12:00:30 pm
I hate missuse of their and there also where and were the rest I can live with .Apologies if mentioned upthread .
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: peliroja on 10 August, 2009, 12:02:49 pm
I hate misuse of its and it's.

I may have mentioned this before.  :-[

I also hate it when people talk 'around' an issue. Grr. I hope they make themselves dizzy.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Zoidburg on 10 August, 2009, 12:52:22 pm
I hate it when people use the word "issue" instead of "problem"

A problem is something that needs to be solved or fixed, by saying that there is a problem though you quite rightly indicate that something has gone wrong, which in the end is something a good manager should hold up his or her hand up to. Sadly they don't so the weasle word "issue" is used instead.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 August, 2009, 04:05:15 pm
I winced when I heard a BBC sports reporter saying that 'Britain has four medals in the pool'.  Eh?
But not as bad as "four Brits have medalled".  :sick:


I'll see your "medalled" and raise you a "I hope to podium in $EVENT"

If it hadn't been Victoria Pendleton who said it, I might have found myself re-inventing the instep borer.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jellied on 10 August, 2009, 04:12:42 pm
I hate it when people use the word "issue" instead of "problem"

Like wise "software bug" instead of a FAULT. Don't try and dress up the fact that the programmer made a MISTAKE - there's a problem and it's needs fixing, not some cute cuddlely bug that needs dealing with.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 10 August, 2009, 04:18:52 pm
I hate it when people use the word "issue" instead of "problem"

A problem is something that needs to be solved or fixed, by saying that there is a problem though you quite rightly indicate that something has gone wrong, which in the end is something a good manager should hold up his or her hand up to. Sadly they don't so the weasle word "issue" is used instead.

Ah, but you need a label for things that SOME think are a problem, but others think are By Design, Not Fixable (for software), Matter of Personal Taste,  etc ...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 10 August, 2009, 04:24:48 pm
I hate it when people use the word "issue" instead of "problem"

Like wise "software bug" instead of a FAULT.

Take it up with Thomas Edison:-

"
It has been just so in all of my inventions. The first step is an intuition, and comes with a burst, then difficulties arise — this thing gives out and [it is] then that 'Bugs' — as such little faults and difficulties are called — show themselves and months of intense watching, study and labor are requisite before commercial success or failure is certainly reached.
"

Written in 1878. Source: Software bug - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_bug#cite_note-2)

"Fault" is a somewhat overused term in computing. It's most common meaning relates to "page faults" which aren't issues or problems :)

A software "bug" isn't considered cute or cuddly, it has just the same implied lack of care by the programmer as "software fault". Calling them "glitches" is usually the programmers way of trying to shirk responsibility for the problem by making it sound like something other than his/her fault.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: peterh on 10 August, 2009, 04:27:25 pm
Saw a TV trail yesterday on C4 or More 4 for a programme called 'My monkey baby'  :o

The voiceover promised that it would be about 'three very unique families'.  Wrong in several ways!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 10 August, 2009, 04:28:18 pm
What does he know?  Edison's biggest problem was when there wasn't a proper inventor around to plagiarise ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: eck on 10 August, 2009, 04:29:57 pm
I winced when I heard a BBC sports reporter saying that 'Britain has four medals in the pool'.  Eh?
But not as bad as "four Brits have medalled".  :sick:


I'll see your "medalled" and raise you a "I hope to podium in $EVENT"

If it hadn't been Victoria Pendleton who said it, I might have found myself re-inventing the instep borer.
Ha!
I'll see your "to podium" and raise you an intransitive verb of any colour medal of your choice:
"Sharon is expected to silver in the $EVENT".  :smug:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Zoidburg on 10 August, 2009, 04:50:35 pm
What does he know?  Edison's biggest problem was when there wasn't a proper inventor around to plagiarise ;)
"Working out the bugs" = "Fighting a patent court case"

He was a git.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 10 August, 2009, 04:50:59 pm
;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: fred the great on 10 August, 2009, 05:07:32 pm
And two awful words, prolly and bawked.

They make me cringe so much that I ignore all the following threads
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 10 August, 2009, 05:10:45 pm
And two awful words, prolly and bawked.

They make me cringe so much that I ignore all the following threads

It's asherly "b0rked", which has a reasonable etymology, like "teh internets"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 10 August, 2009, 05:11:46 pm
lappy

*bang*
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wendy on 10 August, 2009, 05:20:42 pm
And two awful words, prolly and bawked.

They make me cringe so much that I ignore all the following threads

It's asherly "b0rked", which has a reasonable etymology, like "teh internets"

Unless he meant the mis-spelt baulked?  I can't imagine him using or knowing b0rked.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: fred the great on 10 August, 2009, 05:49:43 pm
No, I meant bOrked.

I have only seen it used on YACF even though I am a Member of three other English speaking Forums.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wendy on 10 August, 2009, 05:56:35 pm
*amazed*

OK, b0rked is perfectly fine as Mal Volio says.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Martin on 10 August, 2009, 05:57:05 pm
O2 shop window today (an official O2 sign too)

Now open on Sunday's

Sunday's what?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 10 August, 2009, 06:06:43 pm
No, I meant bOrked.

I have only seen it used on YACF even though I am a Member of three other English speaking Forums.

You need to get out more. A quick google should show you how prevalent its use is.

Especially if you "spell" it correctly, the second character is a zero (0) not a capital letter o (O).

It's a corruption of the Swedish word for 'away' as used by the Swedish Chef in the Muppet Show, he used to shout "Bork! Bork! Bork!" whilst throwing kitchen implements around.

"Bork!" was corrupted as "b0rk!" and it went from there.

It's even a supported "language" on google: http://www.google.com/intl/xx-bork/ (http://www.google.com/intl/xx-bork/)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 10 August, 2009, 06:19:49 pm
No, I meant bOrked.

I have only seen it used on YACF even though I am a Member of three other English speaking Forums.

You need to get out more. A quick google should show you how prevalent its use is.
<SNIP>

It's even a supported "language" on google: http://www.google.com/intl/xx-bork/ (http://www.google.com/intl/xx-bork/)

I think saying:
You should really know about this - look, there are entire websites about it!

...is about as robust as saying:
Of course I expect people to understand it - it's entirely grammatically correct Klingon!

(Of course, I may be missing the subtle irony in your statement
"You need to get out more". In which case - you got me :) )
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: fred the great on 10 August, 2009, 06:24:32 pm
No Greenbank, I'll stay in if you don't mind :P

I will never use it, spell it again or try to get used to it, thank you.


Ignore it, YES! :smug:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 10 August, 2009, 06:25:00 pm
New recruits at our place are now subject to "onboarding"  :sick:

D'you think it's anything like waterboarding?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 10 August, 2009, 06:33:51 pm
Tue 11 Aug 2009      09:00      BBC Radio 4

Fry's English Delight (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lv1k1)

Quote
Stephen Fry explores the highways and byways of the English language.

Stephen examines how 'wrong' English can become right English. For example, nowadays, more people use the word 'wireless' in a computer context than in a radio one. With help from a lexicographer, an educationalist, a Times sub-editor and a judge, Stephen examines the way in which usage changes language.

He applauds the council leader who claimed the services provided by her local authority should be seen as strawberry-flavoured and castigates attempts at banning government jargon like step change and synergie. Banning words is fruitless; he favours blue sky thinking, and strawberry flavouring.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: LEE on 10 August, 2009, 06:37:06 pm
New recruits at our place are now subject to "onboarding"  :sick:

D'you think it's anything like waterboarding?

I doubt it.

Waterboarding is performed by sick, power-crazed, individuals whereas..no wait, this doesn't work.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 10 August, 2009, 07:02:36 pm
Re control/medal, may I remind you all of the useful axiom:

There isn't a noun that can't be verbed.

As Calvin said, verbing weirds words.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Zoidburg on 10 August, 2009, 07:11:48 pm
That filthy Americanism

"Do the math"

Bloody colonials.

 ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: peliroja on 10 August, 2009, 07:28:49 pm
But I'd really like to reach out and engage around the key learnings and takeaways of this thread...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Zoidburg on 10 August, 2009, 07:31:06 pm
Onboarding of the issues no doubt...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 10 August, 2009, 07:32:35 pm
But I'd really like to reach out and engage around the key learnings and takeaways of this thread...

Fish'n'chips will do me. Who's paying?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 10 August, 2009, 07:41:19 pm
I hate misuse of its and it's.

But it takes a special skill to get the expansion (rather than the contraction) wrong:-

(http://www.greenbank.org/misc/IMG_0238.JPG)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 10 August, 2009, 08:21:02 pm
That filthy Americanism

"Do the math"

Bloody colonials.
"Look, I've been harvesting all day and I'm tired, OK? You do the math."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Martin on 10 August, 2009, 08:29:55 pm
New recruits at our place are now subject to "onboarding"  :sick:

D'you think it's anything like waterboarding?

naah waterboarding's reserved for those staff who don't manage to get existing customers off the BMR  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 10 August, 2009, 09:56:37 pm
We've got onto software and words instead of grammar now, so we've got to give a star mention to salesmen who offer you a software "solution" when you didn't know you had a problem...

Usually it isn't even a solution, just a starting point that you can use.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Julian on 10 August, 2009, 10:16:51 pm
UK Border Agency

Nobody "is appeal rights exhausted."  Okay?  That is not a sentence.  You mean "he has exhausted his avenues of appeal."

"Your letter of 6 May refers."  Refers to what?  Hm?  Or did you mean "I write with reference to your letter of 6 May"?

"He was applied for a Judicial Review."  No.  He did apply for one.  He applied for one.  He was applied means something entirely different.  In context:  I (wish I) was applying the Cluestick to UKBA's semi-literate representative.

And that's just from the first page of your letter, and I'm not going to start going through the abysmal punctuation.  I will say, though, that commas are not hundreds-and-thousands, used for decorative purposes.

*scream*
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 10 August, 2009, 11:51:23 pm
Tue 11 Aug 2009      09:00      BBC Radio 4

Fry's English Delight (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lv1k1)

Quote
Stephen Fry explores the highways and byways of the English language.

Stephen examines how 'wrong' English can become right English. For example, nowadays, more people use the word 'wireless' in a computer context than in a radio one. With help from a lexicographer, an educationalist, a Times sub-editor and a judge, Stephen examines the way in which usage changes language.

He applauds the council leader who claimed the services provided by her local authority should be seen as strawberry-flavoured and castigates attempts at banning government jargon like step change and synergie. Banning words is fruitless; he favours blue sky thinking, and strawberry flavouring.

Bloody Trefusis. Donald always was a provocative git, & his alter ego also likes stirring just for the fun of it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 11 August, 2009, 10:04:50 am
Bloody Trefusis. Donald always was a provocative git, & his alter ego also likes stirring just for the fun of it.

But he makes an important point. Not all neologisms are necessarily A Bad Thing. Many of the complaints in this thread just sound reactionary for the sake of it.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 11 August, 2009, 10:10:09 am
...I will say, though, that commas are not hundreds-and-thousands, used for decorative purposes.


Whereas I'm always impressed by the complete lack of commas in official legal English.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 11 August, 2009, 10:16:06 am

But he makes an important point. Not all neologisms are necessarily A Bad Thing. Many of the complaints in this thread just sound reactionary for the sake of it.

d.


His most important point is that the creation of neologisms is unstoppable. It was an interesting to hear about the divergence between official regulated French as it appears in print, and colloquial spoken French.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Polar Bear on 11 August, 2009, 10:20:12 am
I've spent the last couple of days reviewing a Disability Access Report.   Lots of curbing where kerbing was really intended!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 11 August, 2009, 10:22:07 am
Bloody Trefusis. Donald always was a provocative git, & his alter ego also likes stirring just for the fun of it.

But he makes an important point. Not all neologisms are necessarily A Bad Thing. Many of the complaints in this thread just sound reactionary for the sake of it.

d.

Not all neologisms are created equal. We have a right to throw out the bad!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Charlotte on 11 August, 2009, 10:26:39 am
But I'd really like to reach out and engage around the key learnings and takeaways of this thread...

Perhaps if we sit down together, I can leverage some of your competency and together, we can really grow some fresh value and monetize our collaborative output?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kathy on 11 August, 2009, 10:43:38 am
But I'd really like to reach out and engage around the key learnings and takeaways of this thread...

Perhaps if we sit down together, I can leverage some of your competency and together, we can really grow some fresh value and monetize our collaborative output?

Going forward, I feel we need to action on your blue-sky thinking.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 11 August, 2009, 10:47:52 am
We need to enact the factualisation on the ground.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 11 August, 2009, 10:52:01 am
Be the bridge, guys, be the bridge.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 11 August, 2009, 10:59:03 am
I see you are all moving forward to a fulfilling cliche experience.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 11 August, 2009, 11:08:48 am
Indeed.  Taste the strawberry.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 11 August, 2009, 11:12:24 am
Single phrases are easy. There are people here who can talk for *hours* without conveying a single fact or making a single useful point. It's an art.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 11 August, 2009, 11:19:44 am
Back to grammar:-

Quote
The Business League is looking for you to build the Business League know how into new clubs and become Chairpersons of new branches of our well-proven Business Networking and Support Club and its great ethos to parts of the South and South West of England

You would be responsible for the formation and initial well being of new clubs and its members using a well established format and gaining good support from The Business League Head Office and Area Manager in the region.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Charlotte on 11 August, 2009, 11:36:15 am
Tautologies definitely count.

"Planning ahead" makes me twitch.

When people refer to "ATM machines", I get all stabby.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: peliroja on 11 August, 2009, 11:37:54 am
So, shall we traffic-light that principle?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Polar Bear on 11 August, 2009, 11:38:15 am
Tautologies definitely count.

When people refer to "ATM machines", I get all stabby.

They'll be using their PIN numbers too   ::-)

Edit:  beaten to it.  
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Charlotte on 11 August, 2009, 11:39:32 am
So, shall we traffic-light that principle?

How about we phase in a trial implementation of RAG reporting?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: peliroja on 11 August, 2009, 11:44:36 am
how about an all-hands to deep-dive and bake that in; do you have the bandwidth?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Butterfly on 11 August, 2009, 11:45:18 am
The more I read, the happier I am that the last time I worked in an office was 1989 ;D.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: peliroja on 11 August, 2009, 11:46:51 am
So Butterfly, the high-level overview is that it's not a hi-pri for you? ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Regulator on 11 August, 2009, 11:50:08 am
STOP IT YOU LOT!

Before I go postal with an AK47 and Mr Shovel....  >:(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: peliroja on 11 August, 2009, 11:52:12 am
So, Reg, I'm sensing some pushback. Can we sync-up offline to engage around the ten-thousand foot view?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: peliroja on 11 August, 2009, 11:53:06 am
... and identify your pain points?

(OK enough now ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Charlotte on 11 August, 2009, 11:53:33 am
how about an all-hands to deep-dive and bake that in; do you have the bandwidth?

I say we sunset that idea.  You're a team player, but we're going off-piste where there's a lot of powder so expect some avalanches.  

It's about time we all started eating some reality sandwiches, so let's helicopter this one around the room...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 11 August, 2009, 11:54:47 am
I have Dilbert for this stuff - I don't need YACF doing it too!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: peliroja on 11 August, 2009, 11:57:10 am
Have your people ping my people.  ;)

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Polar Bear on 11 August, 2009, 11:57:39 am
Well, now you have double bubble and it's a win win situation  :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: PaulF on 11 August, 2009, 12:15:54 pm
Ping me when you get this and we'll touch base an strategize.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: spesh on 11 August, 2009, 12:33:13 pm
<pouring petrol on already flaming waters>

Seeing as we've plunged past the shallow waters of mere bad grammar into the foetid ooze at the bottom of the business bullshit barrel...  :sick:

Obligatory disclaimer:
I can't claim the credit for this, and I am certainly not claiming any responsibility for blunt force trauma received as a result of executing the following liguistics matrix strategy whilst in dialogue with your colleagues.  :demon:

</pouring petrol on already flaming waters>

Acquire instant managerial and/or computer expertise! Careful use of this list can create 4096 important and technical-sounding phrases for your reports! No one will have the remotest idea of what you're talking about, but the important thing is that they are not about to admit it!

Simply choose any three-digit hexadecimal number between 000 and FFF, and extract the word corresponding to each digit from the table below. (Example: B31 = Scalable Reciprocal Flexibility.)

1st digit
0   Integrated
1   Total
2   Systemised
3   Parallel
4   Functional
5   Responsive
6   Optional
7   Synchronised
8   Compatible
9   Balanced
A   Automatic
B   Scalable
C   Intuitive
D   Modular
E   Professional
F   Interactive


2nd digit
0   Management
1   Organisational
2   Monitoring
3   Reciprocal
4   Digital
5   Logistical
6   Transitional
7   Incremental
8   Third-generation
9   Policy
A   Tactile
B   Pre-processing
C   Hyperbolic
D   Re-entrant
E   Boolean
F   Recursive


3rd digit
0   Options
1   Flexibility
2   Capability
3   Mobility
4   Programming
5   Concept
6   Welfare
7   Projection
8   Hardware
9   Contingency
A   Feedback
B   Architecture
C   Logic
D   Process
E   Debugging
F   Effectiveness


The procedure is simple. Think of any three-digit number; then select the corresponding buzzword from each column. For instance, number 257 produces "systematized logistical projection".

For an even more professional approach, and especially when a memorable sequence of letters or an intelligible acronym has been found, just use each word’s initial letter. For example: "This project will be undertaken using ABL and TOP".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Charlotte on 11 August, 2009, 12:39:54 pm
Could we interlock brain spaces in my work area?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: peliroja on 11 August, 2009, 12:42:32 pm
put in some f2f time?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 11 August, 2009, 12:54:07 pm
Could we interlock brain spaces in my work area?

YA Gus Hedges AICMFP.

Quote from: Peter Ellis
First they came for the verbs, and I said nothing because verbing weirds language1. Then they arrival for the nouns, and I speech nothing because I no verbs.

1 - The use of this phrase or saying is Strongly Deprecated.  Repeat offenders may be subject to one, or more, of the menu of available options:

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Regulator on 11 August, 2009, 01:21:48 pm
So, Reg, I'm sensing some pushback. Can we sync-up offline to engage around the ten-thousand foot view?

If you all don't stop it, I shall use Google to google 'Google' and break the interweb...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 11 August, 2009, 01:59:52 pm
Tautologies definitely count.

"Planning ahead" makes me twitch.

When people refer to "ATM machines", I get all stabby.
So "The Algarve" is a no-no, then. ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 11 August, 2009, 02:04:25 pm
What about the River Ouseburn, or Pendle Hill, which are doubly tautological?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Regulator on 11 August, 2009, 02:06:41 pm
What about the River Ouseburn, or Pendle Hill, which are doubly tautological?

Or Mount Fuji... or the River Ouse, or Lake Tanganyika?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 11 August, 2009, 02:07:10 pm
But he makes an important point. Not all neologisms are necessarily A Bad Thing. Many of the complaints in this thread just sound reactionary for the sake of it.

d.
Bah. What's wrong with proto-Indo-European?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 11 August, 2009, 02:09:32 pm
What about the River Ouseburn, or Pendle Hill, which are doubly tautological?

Only one tautology each, I'm afraid.

Interestingly, all these words derive from the one for 'river':

Ouse
Aire
Wharfe
and, apparently, Stour.

Or Mount Fuji... or the River Ouse, or Lake Tanganyika?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Charlotte on 11 August, 2009, 02:16:31 pm
LCD display
sufficiently adequate
new innovation
in this day and age
Significant milestone
close proximity

Aghhhhhh!!!!!!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 11 August, 2009, 02:26:46 pm
LCD display
sufficiently adequate
new innovation
in this day and age
Significant milestone
close proximity

Aghhhhhh!!!!!!

"ABS system"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 11 August, 2009, 02:31:54 pm
http: //yacf.co.uk/forum

(Do I get a prize?)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 11 August, 2009, 02:32:32 pm
What about the River Ouseburn, or Pendle Hill, which are doubly tautological?

Or indeed the quadruply tautological Torpenhow Hill (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpenhow_Hill)

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 11 August, 2009, 02:33:42 pm
Very good - didn't know that one, but surely, since you need two to make the tautology, that's an example of a triple?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Regulator on 11 August, 2009, 02:36:17 pm
LCD display
sufficiently adequate
new innovation
in this day and age
Significant milestone
close proximity

Aghhhhhh!!!!!!

Just to be pedantic, 'close proximity' is not necessarily a tautology.  Although 'proximity' is derived from French and Latin words the word for 'nearest', it may also be used in the sense of a measurement in time and space.  'Close proximity' being something that is close, 'wide proximity' being some which is further away.

I blame the scientists, particularly the astrophysicists, for bastardising the language...  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 11 August, 2009, 02:43:55 pm
D

And, while it isn't tautology, "Baby-changing room," just doesn't sound right. What would I want to change my baby for? Should it not be a nappy-changing room?

It's not baby-changing room, it's baby changing-room.

I can't read this thread any more. It's worse than Dan Brown.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 11 August, 2009, 02:46:51 pm
D

And, while it isn't tautology, "Baby-changing room," just doesn't sound right. What would I want to change my baby for? Should it not be a nappy-changing room?

It's not baby-changing room, it's baby changing-room.

I can't read this thread any more. It's worse than Dan Brown.

[Fine] tooth-combe.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 11 August, 2009, 03:13:46 pm
Aaaarrrrgggghhhhh!!!!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 11 August, 2009, 04:11:27 pm
What about the River Ouseburn, or Pendle Hill, which are doubly tautological?

Or Mount Fuji... or the River Ouse, or Lake Tanganyika?
Mount Fuji? Mrs B doesn't think so.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Regulator on 11 August, 2009, 04:50:53 pm
What about the River Ouseburn, or Pendle Hill, which are doubly tautological?

Or Mount Fuji... or the River Ouse, or Lake Tanganyika?
Mount Fuji? Mrs B doesn't think so.

Sorry - Mount Fujiyama is the tautology.  It means Mount Fuji-mountain...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Zoidburg on 11 August, 2009, 04:57:28 pm
What this thread needs is some blue sky thinking.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: eck on 11 August, 2009, 09:19:41 pm
Again, maybe not quite grammar, but why (oh why  ::-))  are the prices of stuff, esp cycling stuff, always expressed as "Only...."

A Dura Ace cassette is not "Only £158.85". It's "£158.85. FFS  :o"

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 11 August, 2009, 09:33:17 pm
No, it's not an "automatic door" if you need to press a button to open it.  It's a POWERED door.

An automatic door would require no manual operation whatsoever.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 11 August, 2009, 10:04:41 pm
Not strictly grammar but...

Was listening to Radcliffe & Maconie this evening talking about Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5. I was amused that Maconie said something along the lines of how interesting the Jackon 5's career was in light of the "enormity" of what Michael Jackson went on to do.

It's possible that he really meant that, bearing in mind the rumours and allegations that surrounded Jackson in his later life, but I suspect not.  ;D

d.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 12 August, 2009, 10:04:45 am
I dunno.  maconie chooses his words more carefully than you might at first imagine ;D

Meanwhile, I was reminded of a pet hate sign this morning:

Vehicle Continuously Stopping
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 12 August, 2009, 10:23:18 am
weather conditions. pah!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: tonyh on 12 August, 2009, 10:48:18 am

Too much of this is a bad thing.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: spesh on 12 August, 2009, 12:15:31 pm

Too much of this is a bad thing.

Regarding the management bovine pasture consumption byproducts spattered up-thread, I'd agree.  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 12 August, 2009, 12:28:34 pm

Vehicle Continuously Stopping

There's nothing worse than a vehicle stopping ungrammatically.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: teethgrinder on 12 August, 2009, 12:33:45 pm
I suppose there is the opposite of tautology, contradiction.

Hurry up and stop, or slow down faster.
Can't you see that you are blind?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 12 August, 2009, 12:44:50 pm

Can't you see that you are blind?

P1ss off!




 ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: spesh on 12 August, 2009, 12:47:11 pm
Surely, the definition of grammar that makes you cringe is the old dear planting a sloppy kiss on your chops when you visit.

And you wished she'd stopped doing that when you were 8 years old.



Ayethangewe!  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: teethgrinder on 12 August, 2009, 12:51:29 pm

Can't you see that you are blind?

P1ss off!




 ;)

That wasn't aimed at you.
If it was aimed at you I'd have said something like, "Remember you're a womble that your memory is real bad."



But I didn't because I'm good. O:-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 12 August, 2009, 12:58:29 pm

If it was aimed at you, I'd have said something like, "Remember, you're a womble that your memory is real bad."

But I didn't because I'm good. O:-)

I've got the memory of an elephant...




...it was in a circus somewhere.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 13 August, 2009, 09:43:19 am
...US military sources can become intelligent ...

Although they have shown no sign of it whatsoever....
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wendy on 13 August, 2009, 09:55:19 am
...US military sources can become intelligent ...

Although they have shown no sign of it whatsoever....

Same goes for the British military of course.

Roadrunner's complaint is wrong, since intelligence is also news or information.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Regulator on 13 August, 2009, 10:49:03 am
...US military sources can become intelligent ...

Although they have shown no sign of it whatsoever....

Same goes for the British military of course.

Roadrunner's complaint is wrong, since intelligence is also news or information.


Actually, news or information is exactly that - news or information.  Intelligence is the assessment of that news or information.

Therefore, road-runner is correct.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 13 August, 2009, 10:52:03 am

Actually, news or information is exactly that - news or information.  Intelligence is the assessment of that news or information.

Therefore, road-runner is correct.

Not according to the OED. It's an old use of the word that's coming back into use.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 13 August, 2009, 10:53:56 am
I believe that Shakespeare uses the transitive verb intelligence, as in 'He intelligenced me that...' for informing, but I can't remember where it was.  It may, of course, have been Milton or Jonson, or even Pope, for that matter, :-[ but I know it's quite an old usage, and it stood out when I read it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wendy on 13 August, 2009, 10:55:02 am

Actually, news or information is exactly that - news or information.  Intelligence is the assessment of that news or information.

Therefore, road-runner is correct.

Not according to the OED. It's an old use of the word that's coming back into use.

*GASP*  Regulator is wrong?  Well I  never...

 :demon: ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Regulator on 13 August, 2009, 10:57:34 am

Actually, news or information is exactly that - news or information.  Intelligence is the assessment of that news or information.

Therefore, road-runner is correct.

Not according to the OED. It's an old use of the word that's coming back into use.

Care to give the full definition from the OED?  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 13 August, 2009, 11:04:15 am


Care to give the full definition from the OED?  ;)

Just the relevant bits (actually from the Shorter OED):-

Mutual conveyance of information; communication, intercourse. Now rare or obs. 1531.

Information, news, tidings 1450.

A piece of information or news -1750.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wendy on 13 August, 2009, 11:10:44 am
Since it's regularly used as such, why bother arguing the point, Reg?  Does it hurt so much to be wrong once in a while?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Regulator on 13 August, 2009, 11:11:54 am
Since it's regularly used as such, why bother arguing the point, Reg?  Does it hurt so much to be wrong once in a while?

The fact that it's used doesn't make it correct.  Just like when people say 'less' instead of 'fewer'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 13 August, 2009, 11:17:15 am
Refer to Mr Fry.   Sad though it is, our language evolves and, for many people, 'less' is a synonym for 'fewer', and they will be understood.

The corruption/evolution of language (for example the attachment of 'loony' to 'left' or the replacement of 'respect' with 'political correctness', or, for that matter, the debasement of the word 'respect' itself) is something I might regret, but have not the defences to resist.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 13 August, 2009, 11:17:37 am
why bother arguing the point, Reg? 

It's one of his preferred forms of intercourse; and who are we to judge?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Regulator on 13 August, 2009, 11:18:48 am
why bother arguing the point, Reg?

It's one of his preferred forms of intercourse; and who are we to judge?

I have other preferred forms of intercourse. Fnarr, fnarr....




IGMC for falling for such an open goal.  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moloko on 13 August, 2009, 11:19:31 am
  Just like when people say 'less' instead of 'fewer'.


If it upsets people enough to make them carry 'marker pens' into supermarkets, then I'm all for it.  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Regulator on 13 August, 2009, 11:22:10 am
  Just like when people say 'less' instead of 'fewer'.


If it upsets people enough to make them carry 'marker pens' into supermarkets, then I'm all for it.  ;D

I have been know to amend offending supermarket signs.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moloko on 13 August, 2009, 11:24:52 am
  Just like when people say 'less' instead of 'fewer'.


If it upsets people enough to make them carry 'marker pens' into supermarkets, then I'm all for it.  ;D

I have been know to amend offending supermarket signs.

Serif?  Oh, of course darling.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 13 August, 2009, 11:47:16 am
  Just like when people say 'less' instead of 'fewer'.


If it upsets people enough to make them carry 'marker pens' into supermarkets, then I'm all for it.  ;D

I have been know to amend offending supermarket signs.

Heh. Middle class criminal damage.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: David Martin on 13 August, 2009, 01:25:53 pm
I believe that Shakespeare uses the transitive verb intelligence, as in 'He intelligenced me that...' for informing, but I can't remember where it was.

Brilliant. I will have to verify that then use it in a seminar...

..d
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 13 August, 2009, 01:47:15 pm
Good luck in finding the source.  I suspect it ain't easily goooooglable :-\
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: iakobski on 13 August, 2009, 02:14:06 pm
Good luck in finding the source.  I suspect it ain't easily goooooglable :-\

Those books will all be in plain text in the Gutenberg project.
It's not in the complete works of Shakespeare, tho'.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 13 August, 2009, 02:24:58 pm
Good luck in finding the source.  I suspect it ain't easily goooooglable :-\

Putting double quotes around a word stops google trying to be clever and correcting it for you and searching for intelligence.

I can't find any references to use by Shakespeare, only using it whilst discussing Shakespeare's work.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 13 August, 2009, 09:02:56 pm
I have been know to amend offending supermarket signs.

Fewer/less in supermarkets actually offends me less than "colleague announcements", which are an abomination. Call a spade a digging implement, even when it's a person, and stop mucking about with the language.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: fruitcake on 05 September, 2009, 11:14:40 pm
Them cats that get photos of themselves and put words with it.  Their grammar's real bad.

I Can Has Cheezburger? (http://icanhascheezburger.com/2009/06/09/funny-pictures-fur-disneyworld/)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 06 September, 2009, 08:33:20 am
Them cats that get photos of themselves and put words with it.  Their grammar's real bad.

I Can Has Cheezburger? (http://icanhascheezburger.com/2009/06/09/funny-pictures-fur-disneyworld/)
(http://www.funnyphotos.net.au/images/lolcat-i-question-the-general-assumption-that-feli1.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: delthebike on 06 September, 2009, 11:05:02 am
Has this thread improved you grasp of grammar? It has made mine more better.  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moloko on 06 September, 2009, 08:00:20 pm
(many from the forum)

*Collective gasp*

(http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p65/flyingfixie/police.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 06 September, 2009, 09:18:43 pm
Use of the verb "peddle" where the correct usage is "pedal".  Particularly in the red-top newspapers.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 07 September, 2009, 09:30:43 am
Use of the verb "peddle" where the correct usage is "pedal".  Particularly in the red-top newspapers.


Reminds me I've got a tandem to peddle. Must stick it on Ebay.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 07 September, 2009, 08:10:43 pm
Stupid usage (caption on photo a opening ceremony for cyclists' shortcut):
'Paul cuts ribbon and local residents'
http://www.flickr.com/photos/camdencyclists/3798827602/in/set-72157621970830750/ (http://www.flickr.com/photos/camdencyclists/3798827602/in/set-72157621970830750/)

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 13 September, 2009, 06:53:49 pm
In Swindon they say "You're shitting me", so I wouldn't really know.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 13 September, 2009, 07:03:19 pm
Both "shitting me" and "joking me" are just examples of intransitive verbs being used as transitive verbs.

This is not uncommon in English. I'm sure there are plenty of verbs we use transitively today that a Victorian, say, would expect to be used exclusively in an intransitive way (can't think of an example of the top of my head, though).

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 13 September, 2009, 07:08:01 pm
Formerly intransitive verbs (http://www.171english.cn/html/grammar/00345.html)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 13 September, 2009, 11:00:04 pm
The latest free edition of my local paper has "masterbate", "infact", & "joint collaboration".

I despair.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 13 September, 2009, 11:04:40 pm
The latest free edition of my local paper has "masterbate", "infact", & "joint collaboration".

In the same sentence ?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 13 September, 2009, 11:21:39 pm
The latest free edition of my local paper has "masterbate", "infact", & "joint collaboration".

In the same sentence ?
That would have been impressive!

Unfortunately not. Three articles, on different pages.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 14 September, 2009, 06:29:09 am
The latest free edition of my local paper has "masterbate", "infact", & "joint collaboration".

I despair.
Does Razzle pass for a local paper now?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 14 September, 2009, 08:54:14 am
I've been to a lot of parties in which joint collaboration has taken place.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 14 September, 2009, 01:18:54 pm
THe omission of the word "against" after the verbs "to protest" and "to appeal".

I don't protest climate change, I protest against its causes.

People don't appeal a verdict, they appeal against a verdict.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 14 September, 2009, 01:47:06 pm
THe omission of the word "against" after the verbs "to protest" and "to appeal".

I don't protest climate change, I protest against its causes.

People don't appeal a verdict, they appeal against a verdict.
... at which time, they may well be
protesting their innocence !
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: iakobski on 14 September, 2009, 01:58:56 pm
THe omission of the word "against" after the verbs "to protest" and "to appeal".

I don't protest climate change, I protest against its causes.

People don't appeal a verdict, they appeal against a verdict.
... at which time, they may well be
protesting their innocence !

Which the OED regards as correct:

Quote
  • verb 1 express an objection to what someone has said or done. 2 take part in a public protest. 3 state emphatically in response to an accusation or criticism: she protested her innocence.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 14 September, 2009, 02:01:34 pm
I like the way this thread is nuancing.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 14 September, 2009, 02:02:09 pm
That's interesting* - I mentioned that usage because I thought it was correct, but I didn't realise that
innocence
is the only thing you can protest (directly).





* d'ya see what I did there?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 14 September, 2009, 07:02:05 pm
Americans.... (http://www.yesbutnobutyes.com/archives/2009/09/22_misspelled_p.html)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 15 September, 2009, 07:47:47 am
That's interesting* - I mentioned that usage because I thought it was correct, but I didn't realise that
innocence
is the only thing you can protest (directly).
* d'ya see what I did there?
You can also protest your faith. I keep double-taking at headlines like NEONAZIS PROTEST ISLAM.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 15 September, 2009, 11:10:31 am
Ban generic plurals!

A great piece in the language log blog today:
Language Log - Mandatory treatment for generic plurals? (http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1737)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 15 September, 2009, 11:30:12 am
Ban generic plurals!

A great piece in the language log blog today:
Language Log - Mandatory treatment for generic plurals? (http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1737)

You would say that. It's well known that all Kentish cyclists dislike being tarred with the same brush.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 15 September, 2009, 11:27:46 pm
Americans.... (http://www.yesbutnobutyes.com/archives/2009/09/22_misspelled_p.html)

There is a big roadside banner, pointing to a farm, just west of Grants Pass, OR.  It reads "SWEET CRON" and I'm told has done so for years.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 15 September, 2009, 11:46:57 pm
UNIX geeks.  ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 21 September, 2009, 12:01:57 am
...I didn't realise that innocenceis the only thing you can protest (directly).

It's because to protest means (roughly) "to hold forth in public" - to make a public statement. You can state your innocence (or your faith) in public, but if you tried to state the verdict it would mean something rather different from what people are trying to mean by "protesting a verdict".

Thus, to protest a verdict is to publish it widely. If you don't actually agree with it, you do rather need to protest against it...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 21 September, 2009, 12:26:59 am
In tonight's Waking The Dead, Dr Grace Foley referred to a suspect's extreme "aquaphobia".

Any fule kno that "aqua" is from Latin and "phobia" is from Greek.

The word she was looking for is hydrophobia.

I feel a stiff letter to The Times coming on.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: softspeaker on 21 September, 2009, 07:08:37 am
In tonight's Waking The Dead, Dr Grace Foley referred to a suspect's extreme "aquaphobia".

Any fule kno that "aqua" is from Latin and "phobia" is from Greek.

The word she was looking for is hydrophobia.

You'll have watched that on the teleopsis, then. Or was it the proculvision?

 

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 21 September, 2009, 08:31:20 am
In tonight's Waking The Dead, Dr Grace Foley referred to a suspect's extreme "aquaphobia".

Any fule kno that "aqua" is from Latin and "phobia" is from Greek.

The word she was looking for is hydrophobia.

I feel a stiff letter to The Times coming on.

d.


Bet you're a Radio4 listener.  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: TimO on 21 September, 2009, 08:56:29 am
UNIX geeks.  ::-)

Well, they are bound to fsck things up. ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 21 September, 2009, 09:08:08 am

Any fule kno that "aqua" is from Latin and "phobia" is from Greek.


'Television'?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 21 September, 2009, 09:10:05 am
It'll never catch on with a name like thatTM
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 21 September, 2009, 11:53:57 am
You'll have watched that on the teleopsis, then. Or was it the proculvision?

Yeah, OK, point taken.

And to be fair, I've looked it up and it seems that aquaphobia and hydrophobia are recognised as two different conditions. So Dr Grace was right after all.

 :-[

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 21 September, 2009, 02:08:40 pm
You'll have watched that on the teleopsis, then. Or was it the proculvision?
Farseer. Or is that the tube with lenses in?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 October, 2009, 05:58:20 am
Just come across "to fellowship" in a "Christian" movie. Surely the -ship suffix makes it a noun? Oh, hang on, Christians "worship" so I suppose it's possible as a verb, but it certainly sounds wrong.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tourist Tony on 19 October, 2009, 08:19:58 am
In tonight's Waking The Dead, Dr Grace Foley referred to a suspect's extreme "aquaphobia".

Any fule kno that "aqua" is from Latin and "phobia" is from Greek.

The word she was looking for is hydrophobia.

I feel a stiff letter to The Times coming on.

d.

Perhaps chosen so as not to confuse it with hydrophobia--rabies?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SandyV on 20 October, 2009, 10:56:53 am
I'm seeing "as such" used incorrectly in lots of reports by graduates - very irritating (probably just as irritating as me changing it every time)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 October, 2009, 11:12:48 am
Example?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 20 October, 2009, 11:14:27 am
Perhaps chosen so as not to confuse it with hydrophobia--rabies?

Indeed. When I looked it up, I discovered that aquaphobia is "abnormal and persistent fear of water" whereas hydrophobia is "the physical property of a molecule that is repelled from a mass of water". As a symptom of the latter stages of rabies, it refers to being physically incapable of swallowing water.

It's a useful distinction, I suppose, but the mixed Latin and Greek still grates. I admit I've never had a problem with "television" but that's because it's a word I grew up with and was familiar with before I knew much about Latin and Greek. But now that it has been brought to my attention, I am mildly irritated by it.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: tatanab on 20 October, 2009, 11:46:57 am
Lots of trendy grammarisms have grated over the years - such as "I, myself, personally", "I will send a copy to yourself", "I have to actually physically do something".

The one that riles me at present is the use of "I am" in examples such as "I am liking this forum".  So, you like it now but you didn't yesterday and will not tomorrow.  This one started less than a year ago.  I wonder how long before it fades into yesterdays outmoded trendy speak, but I also wonder how on earth these things get started.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 20 October, 2009, 11:54:57 am
I notice an increasing appearance of elisive apostrophes in printed English, particularly can't, or won't. In my schooldays I was taught that this was entirely incorrect except in reported speech.

Here's something to consider: If, in prose, a shortened word with an initial apostrophe (eg. 'twas or 'bout) occurs at the beginning of a sentence, is the letter after the apostrophe capitalised?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 20 October, 2009, 12:09:18 pm
'Tis capitalised indeed.
Quote
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves, &c.

I know people who use the Carrollian double apostrophe. I ca'n't, and wo'n't, get used to that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 20 October, 2009, 12:12:24 pm
'Tis capitalised indeed.
Quote
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves, &c.

But I did say 'in prose'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Salvatore on 20 October, 2009, 12:13:34 pm
Perhaps chosen so as not to confuse it with hydrophobia--rabies?


It's a useful distinction, I suppose, but the mixed Latin and Greek still grates. I admit I've never had a problem with "television" but that's because it's a word I grew up with and was familiar with before I knew much about Latin and Greek. But now that it has been brought to my attention, I am mildly irritated by it.

d.


veisalgia

How does mixed Norwegian and Greek affect you?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 20 October, 2009, 02:10:17 pm
Your Amazon order ****** has shipped.

No it hasn't; It's been shipped.

PS. Thank you for sending me such an email today, after the item in question arrived...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 20 October, 2009, 04:28:21 pm
I notice an increasing appearance of elisive apostrophes in printed English, particularly can't, or won't. In my schooldays I was taught that this was entirely incorrect except in reported speech.
Do you mean that one should write "cannot" ? Or something too smart for me?!?

[I shall lookup 'elisive' ... ]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 20 October, 2009, 06:53:48 pm
I notice an increasing appearance of elisive apostrophes in printed English, particularly can't, or won't. In my schooldays I was taught that this was entirely incorrect except in reported speech.
Do you mean that one should write "cannot" ? Or something too smart for me?!?

Yes: is not; cannot; will not; etc.

Quote
[I shall lookup 'elisive' ... ]
I made it up.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 21 October, 2009, 09:01:31 am
Quote
[I shall lookup 'elisive' ... ]
I made it up.

According to google, you've started a trend.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 October, 2009, 09:07:48 am
The one that riles me at present is the use of "I am" in examples such as "I am liking this forum".  So, you like it now but you didn't yesterday and will not tomorrow.  This one started less than a year ago.  I wonder how long before it fades into yesterdays outmoded trendy speak, but I also wonder how on earth these things get started.
Surely this is just an attempt to reflect in writing the use of emphatic particles in speech. I am liking this forum - surprisingly so, in fact.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wendy on 21 October, 2009, 09:10:41 am
...and surely makes no implication about any past like or dislike?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: peliroja on 21 October, 2009, 09:16:03 am
From an American colleague I just had 'Thanks for a great gather!'. Grr.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 21 October, 2009, 09:19:06 am
Perhaps he meant 'garter', and it was a text for someone else?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 22 October, 2009, 12:49:29 pm
I notice an increasing appearance of elisive apostrophes in printed English, particularly can't, or won't. In my schooldays I was taught that this was entirely incorrect except in reported speech.

The house style of the publication I currently work for is to always use elided forms, the idea being to keep the tone informal, friendly and reflecting the way people talk. The house style of the last publication I worked for was to never use elided forms.

Personally, I think any rule that says "always" or "never" is silly - you need to judge each case on its merits, otherwise you can end up with sentences that sound very unnatural and clunky. And some elisions are really ugly (eg "should've" or "would've").

Fortunately, as chief sub on my current publication, I get to enforce the rules as I see fit (though most of our style rules predate me and are firmly entrenched, so I can't get away with making major changes), so while I tolerate most elisions, the rule for me is not a blanket "always do this" or "never do that" but to make sure that the flow and rhythm of a sentence is natural and doesn't make the reader stop to think about it.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 22 October, 2009, 01:07:25 pm
Ugly they may be but they are preferable to should of (http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=21548.msg384951#msg384951) and would of (http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=22017.msg394471#msg394471).

Can't argue with that!

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 22 October, 2009, 01:38:21 pm
some elisions are really ugly (eg "should've" or "would've").

Ugly they may be but they are preferable to should of (http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=21548.msg384951#msg384951) and would of (http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=22017.msg394471#msg394471).

The latter is a phonetic misspelling of the former, which then feeds back into speech.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 22 October, 2009, 03:00:11 pm

The house style of the publication I currently work for is to always use ... to never use ... as chief sub ... .
I think I can infer what the style guide says about split infinitives, too.  8)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 22 October, 2009, 03:08:32 pm
I think I can infer what the style guide says about split infinitives, too.  8)

I follow the Guardian style guide's example on this matter...

Quote from: Guardian Style Guide
split infinitives
"The English-speaking world may be divided into (1) those who neither know nor care what a split infinitive is; (2) those who do not know, but care very much; (3) those who know and condemn; (4) those who know and distinguish. Those who neither know nor care are the vast majority, and are happy folk, to be envied." (HW Fowler, Modern English Usage, 1926)

It is perfectly acceptable, and often desirable, to sensibly split infinitives – "to boldly go" is an elegant and effective phrase – and stubbornly to resist doing so can sound pompous and awkward ("the economic precipice on which they claim perpetually to be poised") or ambiguous: "he even offered personally to guarantee the loan that the Clintons needed to buy their house " raises the question of whether the offer, or the guarantee, was personal.

George Bernard Shaw got it about right after an editor tinkered with his infinitives: "I don't care if he is made to go quickly, or to quickly go – but go he must!"

Guardian and Observer style guide: S (http://www.guardian.co.uk/styleguide/s)

Believe it or not, I did carefully consider the split infinitives in my last post (probably spent far longer thinking about it than was necessary, in fact) and decided that to split was the better option.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 08 November, 2009, 08:52:20 pm
"You and I" when it should be "you and me", e.g.

Quote
X isn't trying to convert the likes of you and I to his cause.

It's easy to get right: take out the "you and" (& a bit more in this example, to make it clearer),  & consider whether you'd say -
Quote
X isn't trying to convert I to his cause.
It annoys I. It makes I want to shake people.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: RJ on 08 November, 2009, 08:54:32 pm
From an American colleague I just had 'Thanks for a great gather!'. Grr.

Shepherd, are they?  :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 November, 2009, 05:46:28 am
There was an article on Language Log Language Log (http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/) about two years ago titled something like "The death of whom". It showed a photo of some demonstrators in the US with a banner using "whom" as a nominative.

I think sometimes people use "whom" and "I" incorrectly because they think it sounds somehow posher.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 09 November, 2009, 06:45:47 am
From an American colleague I just had 'Thanks for a great gather!'. Grr.
Isn't that something to do with curtains?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: tatanab on 09 November, 2009, 09:07:48 am
Adoption of more Americanisms, specifically newer and older.  e.g "for sale, newer bike frame",  "for sale older rear mech".

I always want to ask "older than what?".  It seems "newer" means not new but nearly so, and "older" means old but not old enough to be called old.  Can a user of these terms explain what is meant and at what point something that is newer becomes older?

Now a purely British one.  The singular of pence is penny.  I cannot receive one pence change.  This includes the middle aged newsreader who used "one pence" one TV a few evenings ago.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 09 November, 2009, 09:13:10 am
Adoption of more Americanisms, specifically newer and older.  e.g "for sale, newer bike frame",  "for sale older rear mech".

I always want to ask "older than what?".  It seems "newer" means not new but nearly so, and "older" means old but not old enough to be called old.  Can a user of these terms explain what is meant and at what point something that is newer becomes older?


If that truly is an Americanism, then it's a recent one (been away for a few years).  I've never heard newer/older used in such a way.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 09 November, 2009, 09:15:19 am
Mrs. Wow refers to people as being "older" when she just means "old" but is trying to be polite. I'm not sure if it's a Northern phenomenon, restricted to Stalybridge or just some idiosyncratic nonsense from Mrs. Wow's Mad Mother.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: tatanab on 09 November, 2009, 09:19:06 am
If that truly is an Americanism, then it's a recent one (been away for a few years).  I've never heard newer/older used in such a way.
I lived there 97-01 and it is common in for sale adverts.  It is one of those  annoying (to me) things I now find in use in this country.  It is fairly recent, only the last year or so, and can even be found in use in for sale ads on this forum.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 09 November, 2009, 09:20:24 am
If that truly is an Americanism, then it's a recent one (been away for a few years).  I've never heard newer/older used in such a way.
I lived there 97-01 and it is common in for sale adverts.  It is one of those  annoying (to me) things I now find now in use in this country.  It is fairly recent, only the last year or so, and can even be found in use in for sale ads on this forum.

Interesting.  Can I ask where in the US?  I left in '99 and I never heard it; wonder if it's regional.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: tatanab on 09 November, 2009, 09:33:43 am
Interesting.  Can I ask where in the US?  I left in '99 and I never heard it; wonder if it's regional.
All up and down the West coast.  Here's an example, a "newer" house NWhomes (http://apartments.nwsource.com/properties/search/results.php?qTerms=rent&qSearchTab=rent&qAction=search&qCity=mill+creek&qZip=&noProperyTypes=&qMinPrice=0&qMaxPrice=&qBedrooms=&x=0&y=0)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: peliroja on 09 November, 2009, 09:39:53 am
Mrs. Wow refers to people as being "older" when she just means "old" but is trying to be polite. I'm not sure if it's a Northern phenomenon, restricted to Stalybridge or just some idiosyncratic nonsense from Mrs. Wow's Mad Mother.
I've also heard this, up north.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 09 November, 2009, 09:41:18 am
Interesting.  Can I ask where in the US?  I left in '99 and I never heard it; wonder if it's regional.
All up and down the West coast.  Here's an example, a "newer" house NWhomes (http://apartments.nwsource.com/properties/search/results.php?qTerms=rent&qSearchTab=rent&qAction=search&qCity=mill+creek&qZip=&noProperyTypes=&qMinPrice=0&qMaxPrice=&qBedrooms=&x=0&y=0)

I see.  Well, they do funny things out on the Left Coast (born and bread Mid-Westerner speaking).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 09 November, 2009, 09:50:17 am
Mrs. Wow refers to people as being "older" when she just means "old" but is trying to be polite. I'm not sure if it's a Northern phenomenon, restricted to Stalybridge or just some idiosyncratic nonsense from Mrs. Wow's Mad Mother.
I've also heard this, up north.

It sounds quite usual to me - very common usage in Yorkshire, I think.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 09 November, 2009, 11:01:20 am
Fish has 2 plurals too. Fish and fishes.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: little miss mac on 09 November, 2009, 11:01:40 am
This includes the middle aged newsreader who used "one pence" one TV a few evenings ago.

Heard on BBC telly and radio respectively:

"Viscount", pronounced as spelled.

"Corps", pronounced as spelled.


Morons (pronounced as spelled).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 November, 2009, 01:34:07 pm
The Toady program, this morning (http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8349000/8349912.stm).

"Skill" is a noun.

Camila Batmanghelidjh please take note.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 09 November, 2009, 03:41:06 pm
Fish has 2 plurals too. Fish and fishes.
And person.  Persons and People.  (Sort of)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 09 November, 2009, 03:51:07 pm
Fish has 2 plurals too. Fish and fishes.
And person.  Persons and People.  (Sort of)

People has a plural.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: grayo59 on 10 November, 2009, 10:00:25 am
Isn't an elision different from a contraction?  As in saying for examples:-

"vegtable" instead of "vegatable" or "librey" instead of "library" are elisions which may be pronounced but not written whereas "can't" for "cannot" is a contraction which can be written.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 10 November, 2009, 10:18:24 am
People has a plural.

Should that be "People have a plural"? ;)

d.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Julian on 10 November, 2009, 12:11:36 pm
Newsagents, stationers, poundshops and assorted retailers of West London:

You sell many items.  You thrive on variety.  There is little that cannot be sourced along the Uxbridge Road by the determined shopper.

However, whilst I acknowledge the surge in popularity of homegrown veg, keeping chickens, starting allotments and even the odd pig here and there, take it from me.  None of you are selling 2010 dairies as advertised.

H'mkay?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 10 November, 2009, 01:47:52 pm
None of you are selling 2010 dairies as advertised.
Is some great advance in milk processing technology imminent?  ???

;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 10 November, 2009, 04:15:09 pm


However, whilst I acknowledge the surge in popularity of homegrown veg, keeping chickens, starting allotments and even the odd pig here and there, take it from me.  None of you are selling 2010 dairies as advertised.

H'mkay?
I bet the signs actually say "dairy's" or "dairie's."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 10 November, 2009, 04:56:58 pm
Greg is normally on the ball. Tesco is a company, therefore I think it should be:

Tesco also produces a 'local farmers' milk ...

Tesco sells milk produced by cows on local farms. ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 10 November, 2009, 05:03:39 pm
None of you are selling 2010 dairies as advertised.

I hesitate to correct m'learned friend, but "none", being an abbreviation of "not one", requires a singular verb. :-*
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 November, 2009, 09:46:44 am
This includes the middle aged newsreader who used "one pence" one TV a few evenings ago.

Heard on BBC telly and radio respectively:

"Viscount", pronounced as spelled.

"Corps", pronounced as spelled.


Morons (pronounced as spelled).
When finding the corpse of more than one such aristocrat, you can do a discount (not pronounced as spelled).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 12 November, 2009, 09:55:46 am
Pressurised.

You can do it to chambers. You can do it to gases. You can't do it to a farrowing house.

Quote from: The Vet.
Mortality is unacceptably high. This area needs to be pressurised.

No it doesn't. It needs greater attention to be paid, it needs greater staff focus, it needs prioritising, it needs a procedural/ medication review. It might even need condemning, but it doesn't need to be pressurised. If it did, we'd need to rebuild the sheds to be air and water tight, and that would be dreadful for the poor little piglets.
Tcha.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 12 November, 2009, 11:08:54 am
Pressurised.

You can do it to chambers. You can do it to gases. You can't do it to a farrowing house.

Quote from: The Vet.
Mortality is unacceptably high. This area needs to be pressurised.

No it doesn't. It needs greater attention to be paid, it needs greater staff focus, it needs prioritising, it needs a procedural/ medication review. It might even need condemning, but it doesn't need to be pressurised. If it did, we'd need to rebuild the sheds to be air and water tight, and that would be dreadful for the poor little piglets.
Tcha.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 12 November, 2009, 09:33:09 pm
"Critique" as a verb.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 November, 2009, 06:29:59 am
Heard yesterday: "You have been involved in two pop-culture phenomenons."

Normally these Latinate plurals don't bother me either way - I don't mind when bacteria is used as a singular, say. I don't think I'd mind if they'd said "phenomenas" but "phenomenons" really grates.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 November, 2009, 07:25:39 am
And I don't know if "don't disgard it"
Gold at $5,000 an ounce? Don't disgard it - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/breakingviewscom/6587195/Gold-at-5000-an-ounce-Dont-disgard-it.html)
 means "don't discard it" or "don't disgregard it".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SandyV on 03 December, 2009, 12:55:46 pm
Surviving the World - Lesson 8 - Grammar (http://survivingtheworld.net/Lesson8.html)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 11 December, 2009, 03:25:03 pm
Oi!  You're supposed to be selling books and increasing the overall literacy level, not doing this:

Quote from: Waterstones Website
All prices are for online purchases only and may differ to the prices in Waterstone's stores

::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moloko on 11 December, 2009, 03:30:32 pm
Oi!  You're supposed to be selling books and increasing the overall literacy level, not doing this:

Quote from: Waterstones Website
All prices are for online purchases only and may differ to the prices in Waterstone's stores

::-)

That's crazy. They'll end up loosing custom.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 11 December, 2009, 04:42:43 pm
Quote from: Waterstones Website

You missed the apostrophe from the company name.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 11 December, 2009, 04:49:22 pm
I noticed that, but left it as was.  I don't care about their apostrophe ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 11 December, 2009, 04:53:35 pm
There is some irony about that given the subject of this thread.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 11 December, 2009, 04:58:12 pm
Exactly my thoughts, which is why my post is the way it is ;)

However, I do expect teh website copy for a major book chian to be better prof-red than my postsings
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 11 December, 2009, 05:02:19 pm
Quote from: Waterstones Website

You missed the apostrophe from the company name.
The URL doesn't have an apostrophe in. So the website is just plain "Waterstones" !
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 11 December, 2009, 05:04:22 pm
But the text "Waterstones Website" is not a URL.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 11 December, 2009, 10:24:17 pm
Quote from: Waterstones Website

You missed the apostrophe from the company name.
If it was good enough for George Bernard Shaw . . . . 

BTW, I got the highest possible grade in my English language O level despite a firm refusal to use it. I think the examiners realised that total consistency was proof that it was deliberate, & accepted it as valid, as indeed it is.

Quote
Principle 3: the possessive apostrophe is an abomination, hallowed only by usage.
The apostrophe (http://www.dace.co.uk/apostrophe.htm)
Furthermore -
Quote
It appears there is some disease in the English mind which tends over the centuries to increase the number of apostrophes. This disease has now reached its crisis, in that it can hardly get any worse.

George Bernard Shaw tried to persuade people not to put in the possessive apostrophe, but this has not caught on. Nevertheless, if in doubt it is better to leave an apostrophe out than to put it in. This is because if you leave it out incorrectly this will be put down either to an oversight or to an affinity with the views of George Bernard Shaw [ed: works for me]. On the other hand, if you put it in incorrectly this will be attributed (rightly) to ignorance.
;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 11 December, 2009, 10:56:00 pm
Or everyone thinks you're a German writing English as a second language.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 December, 2009, 09:16:27 am
Even a German with only minimal English would know the difference between "there's" and "theirs", but some scriptwriter I had to deal with on Friday confused them.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Giraffe on 13 December, 2009, 09:52:19 am
I noticed that, but left it as was.  I don't care about their apostrophe ;)

Apostrophe's are very readily obtainable: on CD's, DVD's and even from grocer's - but not in pub's on todays special's.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 14 December, 2009, 10:50:33 am
Busses are what you give to someone under the mistletoe.

Buses are on roads.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 December, 2009, 11:42:07 am
The fact that the universe is far more limitless than he's been lead to believe.

Far more limitless?  :sick:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 22 December, 2009, 11:55:42 am
I'd hate it to be less limitless :-\
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 December, 2009, 12:02:45 pm
I'm not sure whether to really consider it sloppy grammar or syntax or vocabulary. It was in speech, but even so... You're just trying to say it's bigger than he ever realised, aren't you?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 December, 2009, 12:27:54 pm
(Insert obligatory H2G2 gag here...)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 24 December, 2009, 06:01:37 pm
Xmas - the abbreviation.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 24 December, 2009, 06:08:09 pm
THe Bloody Broad casting Corporation!

Temperatures are neither hot nor cold. Not even "best. They are either low or high.

And, Martha Fecking-Carney, what does "unpassable" mean? That one cannot defecate it, or that a vehicle can't go a long it (as of road)? Try "impassable".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 24 December, 2009, 06:21:01 pm
o instead of oo and vice versa.

to/lose

Get it right people - it isn't that hard and you've learnt how to use a computer.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 24 December, 2009, 06:54:31 pm
Xmas - the abbreviation.

It's fine, so long as people don't say it. It's a written abbreviation not a spoken one (like e.g.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 24 December, 2009, 08:07:17 pm
I bought a Belgian bun today in the Co-op. The wrapper said it was a Belgium bun. Supermarket proofreader failure!

Perhaps it was made of Brussels.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 24 December, 2009, 08:44:37 pm
I bought a Belgian bun today in the Co-op. The wrapper said it was a Belgium bun. Supermarket proofreader failure!

Perhaps it was made of Brussels.

Like this?

   Why not try Whitstable's Brussels sprout ice cream?
 (http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kentish_gazette/news/2009/december/22/brussel_sprot.aspx)

The bloke who owns the shop is an obnoxious self-publicist and this is clearly yet another publicity stunt, but as a regular customer, I can vouch for the fact that he makes pretty damn good ice cream, so maybe if anyone can pull it off, he can.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 24 December, 2009, 10:46:10 pm
From the BBC's news website here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8427671.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8427671.stm)

'The thief is thought to have drove off towards the New Theatre'

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 25 December, 2009, 10:11:38 am
From the BBC's news website here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8427671.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8427671.stm)

'The thief is thought to have drove off towards the New Theatre'
Not any more!  :thumbsup:
Quote
He is thought to have driven down Park Grove towards the New Theatre before abandoning the car in Park Place.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tourist Tony on 25 December, 2009, 01:19:52 pm
Works canteen:
"The increase in VAT will effect prices"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 25 December, 2009, 02:29:48 pm
From the BBC's news website here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8427671.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8427671.stm)

'The thief is thought to have drove off towards the New Theatre'
Not any more!  :thumbsup:
Quote
He is thought to have driven down Park Grove towards the New Theatre before abandoning the car in Park Place.

The caption under the little map is as I posted earlier. Checked at 1420 Christmas Day.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 25 December, 2009, 10:43:19 pm
From the BBC's news website here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8427671.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8427671.stm)

'The thief is thought to have drove off towards the New Theatre'
Not any more!  :thumbsup:
Quote
He is thought to have driven down Park Grove towards the New Theatre before abandoning the car in Park Place.

The caption under the little map is as I posted earlier. Checked at 1420 Christmas Day.

Oh, beg pardon. I didn't look at that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 25 December, 2009, 11:59:57 pm
From the BBC's news website here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8427671.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/8427671.stm)

'The thief is thought to have drove off towards the New Theatre'
Not any more!  :thumbsup:
Quote
He is thought to have driven down Park Grove towards the New Theatre before abandoning the car in Park Place.

The caption under the little map is as I posted earlier. Checked at 1420 Christmas Day.

Oh, beg pardon. I didn't look at that.

Well, I should have been more specific. I still think it is most cringeworthy.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Euan Uzami on 26 December, 2009, 01:33:15 pm
THe Bloody Broad casting Corporation!

Temperatures are neither hot nor cold. Not even "best. They are either low or high.

And, Martha Fecking-Carney, what does "unpassable" mean? That one cannot defecate it, or that a vehicle can't go a long it (as of road)? Try "impassable".

Reminds me of a sign stuck in the leisure centre, outlining the customer charter - promising that floors will be kept clean, etc.
...
"8. Floors will be kept clean.
9. Temperatures will be kept at an ambient level for all.
..."
 ;D ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 27 December, 2009, 08:59:06 pm
Another from Auntie

<<I lift the heavy German bread into two baskets - souvenirs of our local bakery in Paris - and omit a sigh. >>

No, you emit a sigh.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8420917.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8420917.stm)

In the same article, a photo has this caption. <<A visit to the sweetshop on Rue Vavin often ended in a family fued>>

I suppose this is a misspelling but I expect better from Auntie.

It's a shame a good report is spoiled this way.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 27 December, 2009, 11:29:15 pm
During the opening credits of the new Sherlock Holmes film, a newspaper front page flashes up on the screen, with the headline:

"Sherlock Holmes aides police"

Gah!

But I'm glad I didn't get up and walk out of the cinema right then - it was actually a pretty decent film despite that.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 28 December, 2009, 12:30:50 am
Yes, I saw it today and really enjoyed it. It was a shame that the audience didn't laugh at it as much as I did!  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 28 December, 2009, 12:40:03 am
I laughed a lot. But not as much as the woman in the row behind me.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 28 December, 2009, 07:28:58 pm
At my sister's this week I dipped into The Lynne Truss Book*.

I confess I learned a lot and found it well written and entertaining. Is this the beginning of the end for me?

*For it shall bring bad luck upon those who utter its full name.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gandalf on 28 December, 2009, 08:30:46 pm
During the opening credits of the new Sherlock Holmes film, a newspaper front page flashes up on the screen, with the headline:

"Sherlock Holmes aides police"

Gah!


I noticed that, but I wasn't sure it that was how it was back then.


But I'm glad I didn't get up and walk out of the cinema right then - it was actually a pretty decent film despite that.

d.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 28 December, 2009, 08:35:57 pm
At my sister's this week I dipped into The Lynne Truss Book*.

I confess I learned a lot and found it well written and entertaining. Is this the beginning of the end for me?

*For it shall bring bad luck upon those who utter its full name.
I own a copy, & have read it. How far down the road to perdition am I?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SandyV on 28 December, 2009, 11:32:07 pm
At my sister's this week I dipped into The Lynne Truss Book*.

I confess I learned a lot and found it well written and entertaining. Is this the beginning of the end for me?

*For it shall bring bad luck upon those who utter its full name.
I own a copy, & have read it. How far down the road to perdition am I?

Me too.  I keep my copy at work and have been known to suggest that some of our graduates might benefit from it.  I am, however, considered by some an extremist on this topic.  They do come to me for advice/ adjudication though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 05 January, 2010, 02:47:12 pm
Semantics rather than grammar, but doesn't deserve its own thread...

While in Ikea the other day, I saw a sign saying: "If you want to know where something is, ask a co-worker."

Next day in the office, I asked the chap at the desk next to mine: "Where are the Billy bookcases?" He didn't have a clue what I was on about.

Perhaps I should have asked a member of staff. Or maybe the sign was aimed at Ikea employees rather than customers.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gandalf on 05 January, 2010, 04:27:20 pm
What's wrong with 'colleague' all of a sudden?  Probably invented by the same smeg juggler who decided that 'slippery' should be replaced with 'slippy' ...............aarrrggghh!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 05 January, 2010, 04:48:02 pm
What's wrong with 'colleague' all of a sudden?

"Colleague" would have been equally wrong in this instance.

I have no problem with, say, John Lewis describing members of staff as "Partners" because that term is not necessarily contingent on my relationship with them as a customer of the store.

But "co-worker" (or indeed "colleague") implies a status that is shared by me (the customer) and the employee, and no such status exists.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 05 January, 2010, 04:50:02 pm
Comrade would do.. ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wendy on 05 January, 2010, 04:54:56 pm
I prefer cow-orker.  Another fave internetism.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gandalf on 05 January, 2010, 05:12:37 pm
What's wrong with 'colleague' all of a sudden?

"Colleague" would have been equally wrong in this instance.

I have no problem with, say, John Lewis describing members of staff as "Partners" because that term is not necessarily contingent on my relationship with them as a customer of the store.

But "co-worker" (or indeed "colleague") implies a status that is shared by me (the customer) and the employee, and no such status exists.

d.


Quite so, but I was proceeding on the basis that the notice was intetended for staff rather than punters.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 05 January, 2010, 08:38:57 pm
Oh look, we are back to colleague announcements (http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2205.msg405170#msg405170) ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 05 January, 2010, 08:57:29 pm
Since we are on inappropriate use of words, here's a philosophical question for you.

Some years ago we were told that British manufacturing industry had been destroyed, and we were now a service economy. Ever since then, very strange things have been happening in marketing.

In particular the financial services industry, which is called that because, er, it offers services, keeps going on about its products. Since when was a bank account a product? If the bank goes bust, it's not there any more. That's because they are selling you the promise of a service, rather than a product that (like a car) you have whether they are still there or not.*

Conversely, though, and more understandably, companies that do have products will try to differentiate themselves on the basis that they offer better service.

Is there anybody who has the confidence to admit what they really offer, instead of trying to be somebody else ;D

*Actually, you don't care whether the so-called product is still there. It was always secondary. It's your money that you want.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: GruB on 05 January, 2010, 09:11:09 pm
Pop along to page 45 and 46 on the snowing thread - that is where it is all happening.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: teethgrinder on 05 January, 2010, 09:24:51 pm
Pop along to page 45 and 46 on the snowing thread - that is where it is all happening.
Hey everyone! There's a fight in the playground!


FTFY :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Marj on 05 January, 2010, 10:26:25 pm
Pop along to page 45 and 46 on the snowing thread - that is where it is all happening.

I came over here just to see if it had migrated  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 05 January, 2010, 10:45:29 pm
Oh look, we are back to colleague announcements (http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2205.msg405170#msg405170) ;D

Ah! I knew I couldn't possibly have been the first to bring it up.  ;D

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 January, 2010, 10:57:14 am
Some cow's twat on the news last night said that she'd "never seen the weather as worse as this".  I'm afraid I got rather cross.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 07 January, 2010, 11:03:41 am
Well, maybe she hasn't! ;)

*runs*
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cyclops on 07 January, 2010, 11:23:18 am
Passing a local bowling club the other day I noticed a sign saying, "Bicycles will be banned from the bowling green". Shame it was shut as I was going to ask when the ban came into place and would they be getting a new sign made up. I also resisted the temptation to do some last minute wheelspins and doughnuts on the bowling green O:-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: iakobski on 12 January, 2010, 01:22:33 pm
Not exactly a grammar cringe, but this is the best place for it.

Why do Radio 4 presenters keep saying "temporally" when they mean "temporarily"? It's not just a pronunciation issue - I don't care when they say "Tempory" because it's clear they meant temporary - the point is that "temporally" is an actual word and it doesn't mean the same as "temporarily". I've heard it three times this week and it's driving me nuts.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moloko on 31 January, 2010, 12:51:58 pm

There is no noone.

(http://i578.photobucket.com/albums/ss226/SgtBikeo/ThereisnoNoone-1.jpg)


Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 31 January, 2010, 12:55:18 pm
Not exactly a grammar cringe, but this is the best place for it.

Why do Radio 4 presenters keep saying "temporally" when they mean "temporarily"? It's not just a pronunciation issue - I don't care when they say "Tempory" because it's clear they meant temporary - the point is that "temporally" is an actual word and it doesn't mean the same as "temporarily". I've heard it three times this week and it's driving me nuts.
It's like the way Americans use "momentarily" where we would use "presently".  "I will do it momentarily" means "I won't do it for long" in British English, but "I will do it very soon" in American English.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tourist Tony on 31 January, 2010, 02:14:02 pm
At my sister's this week I dipped into The Lynne Truss Book*.

I confess I learned a lot and found it well written and entertaining. Is this the beginning of the end for me?

*For it shall bring bad luck upon those who utter its full name.
I also have David Crystal's reply to That Book, which deliberately has an almost identical appearance.
The thing drummed into us as linguists was always to be descriptive rather than prescriptive, and that "all texts are of equal value"
Bollocks. While there is indeed great scope in language development in moving on, with such variants of English as Aussie and Singlish, the primary function of language is communication. If there are no rules, we end up with potential ambiguity or incomprehension, such as in the temporally/temporarily dichotomy mentioned above. There is a fundamental difference between a child who writes an essay in txtspk because they are having fun, and one who writes in txtspk because that is all they know. Linguistic change is not the same thing as ignorance or laziness, and those who rant on about "grammer Natzis" fail to see a point that has been stressed many times here: if you turn up for a job dressed like a scruff, the message you are sending is not one of willingness to make an effort. If you are too lazy to check your grammar and spelling (typos happen; such is life) your message gets lost in the white noise of semiliteracy.

We are now,as I have mentioned before, in a world where a GCSE A* in French is awarded to someone who cannot conjugate the verb "to be" in the present tense.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 31 January, 2010, 07:51:00 pm

It's like the way Americans use "momentarily" where we would use "presently".  "I will do it momentarily" means "I won't do it for long" in British English, but "I will do it very soon" in American English.

Of course, as you might suspect, the British usage has changed over the years, whereas the American hasn't.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 31 January, 2010, 09:42:32 pm
We are now,as I have mentioned before, in a world where a GCSE A* in French is awarded to someone who cannot conjugate the verb "to be" in the present tense.
In that case, I want my old O-level upgraded.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Deano on 31 January, 2010, 09:50:40 pm
We are now,as I have mentioned before, in a world where a GCSE A* in French is awarded to someone who cannot conjugate the verb "to be" in the present tense.
In that case, I want my old O-level upgraded.

English or French O-Level?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 31 January, 2010, 09:53:18 pm
French. English was grade 1, which I think means it can only be downgraded under the current grading scheme.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nutkin on 31 January, 2010, 10:02:46 pm
Sitting opposite me on the train today were a well-spoken couple. The wife was engossed in 'The Lady' whilst the husband droned on about his bunions and corns. After a while he stopped chatting and sat in silence except for a few loud yawns. The wife then enquired if he was feeling ill, to which he replied, "I'm fine, but I'm rather wearisome today."

 ;D

I laughed and got a very stern look from the wife. Mind you, he was right!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 01 February, 2010, 12:41:04 am
"Second man arrested on suspicion of murdering Polish woman found dead in bathroom"

BBC scrolling headline on their news website just now.

The suspect is alive...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 February, 2010, 02:57:41 pm
(sings)

Suspected murderer of Tupac murder suspect
Murdered!

(bows)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: TimO on 01 February, 2010, 05:30:15 pm
An interesting story in the Canadian News (http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2010/01/31/12686831-cp.html) (link swiped from a Slashdot story).  I'm not sure the use of language in the UK's University system is as bad as described in Canada, but I don't see an awful lot of students written work, so I'm probably not in a great position to comment definitively.

As mentioned at the end, it's also a truism that everyone complains that things are no longer what they used to be, and that even Socrates and Plato complained about the degradation in standards.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 01 February, 2010, 07:52:08 pm
*students' written work
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 01 February, 2010, 09:13:11 pm
Omitting the apostrophe in the genitive is acceptable, as long as it is done consistently.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 01 February, 2010, 09:18:58 pm
Indeed. The absence of an apostrophe where one is commonly used or possibly optional is far less of a crime than adding one in where it is not necessary.

The latter ideally punishable by something causing a mild case of death, possibly SHOVEL related.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 01 February, 2010, 09:45:27 pm
Oh yes. Oh so very very yes.  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 02 February, 2010, 01:21:07 am
From the BBC News website...

Girlguiding centenery marked in Royal Mail stamp issue

Why can't the Beeb spell 'centenary'?

I can't say I like the Girlguiding neologism either...

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 02 February, 2010, 06:34:41 am
Give it another 100 years and it'll be "Stamps celebrate Beavers".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 02 February, 2010, 07:56:12 am
Give it another 100 years and it'll be "Stamps celebrate Beavers".
You think there'll still be stamps in a hundred years?  It'll be a digital signature or summat that you can download and attach to an email.

C.f. the telegram from the Queen etc...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 02 February, 2010, 09:30:32 am
Indeed. The absence of an apostrophe where one is commonly used or possibly optional is far less of a crime than adding one in where it is not necessary.

The latter ideally punishable by something causing a mild case of death, possibly SHOVEL related.

I have to say I am a keen supporter of your proposal's.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 02 February, 2010, 09:48:42 am
Indeed. The absence of an apostrophe where one is commonly used or possibly optional is far less of a crime than adding one in where it is not necessary.

The latter ideally punishable by something causing a mild case of death, possibly SHOVEL related.

I have to say I am a keen supporter of your proposal's.

(Ups ante...)

You are a man of principal's I see.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tourist Tony on 02 February, 2010, 11:35:14 am
I read a lot of things like online journals, and have become used to (but not happy with) the stupidity of using "your" for "you're"
What seems to be happening now is the use of "you're" for "your"
Possibly on the assumption that if it has an apostrophe it is a possessive....as in the sign at work, "Welcome to Gatwick and it's new terminal extension"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 02 February, 2010, 12:22:23 pm
Talking about airports, I remember being irritated beyond belief by a recorded announcement whilst waiting in the queue for security at Stansted. It was a woman's voice, not very BBC English for a start (rather Estuary), and she was saying something like "In order to get through security quicker, please remove your coat and shoes..."  She repeated this every five minutes or so as I was queuing (for probably half an hour) and it made me want to scream "MORE QUICKLY!"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 02 February, 2010, 12:45:27 pm
it made me want to scream "MORE QUICKLY!"

I would prefer "sooner" in that situation, but I would consider it acceptable to use "quicker" adverbally - indeed preferable to "more quickly", which just sounds clunky even if it is "correct".

You've reminded me of another pet peeve, though, which I don't think I've mentioned already: the use of "more well known" instead of "better known" or (which is worse) "less well known" instead of "lesser known" (surely "less well" is a contradiction?). And indeed any other similarly clunky comparative forms of compound-adjectives.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moloko on 02 February, 2010, 01:07:51 pm

Noone expects the Spanish Inquisition.









Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Comfy Chair.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 February, 2010, 05:23:01 pm
Presumably it comes from treating "well known" as one compound adjective, "well-known". In fact, I can't really see anything wrong with "more well-known" though I agree "better known" is less clunky. As for "less well-known", well, "lesser known" is great but might be considered a little formal at times.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gandalf on 03 February, 2010, 06:47:33 am
Another one is "least amount" as in "whoever gets the least amount of votes".  WTF can't they simply say the fewest votes?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 03 February, 2010, 08:16:03 am
Or even, "least votes". Except that that would imply that there had been a flood of votes, too many to count. Which is kind of dodgy in terms of establishing the result ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 03 February, 2010, 09:51:07 am
Another from the Beeb...
"Top 20 London universities are attracting the most number of ethnic minority students, a study finds."
Eek!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tom M on 03 February, 2010, 11:02:15 am
A crappy looking shop is now opening in the village named "Round a pound"

WTF? Do you mean around a pound, or round about a pound?

Round a bloody pound makes no sense!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 03 February, 2010, 12:11:58 pm
Round a bloody pound makes no sense!
Is it a beer shop?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tom M on 03 February, 2010, 12:20:13 pm
No, is going to be a most stuff is about £1 shop I think.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 03 February, 2010, 12:23:14 pm
No, is going to be a most stuff is about £1 shop I think.

"about £1" or "around £1" ?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tom M on 03 February, 2010, 12:29:24 pm
Argh!!!!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: geoff on 03 February, 2010, 01:54:20 pm
Hell is other people's notion of good enough. What does the jury think of "increasingly rarer":

"Serious infections are rare and getting increasingly rarer thanks to vaccinations." (http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2010/100203.html)

Surely, "increasingly rare" is "rarer" (so "increasingly" is redundant, making "increasingly rarer" recursive), grumble, grumble.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 03 February, 2010, 03:41:18 pm
Hell is other people's notion of good enough. What does the jury think of "increasingly rarer":

"Serious infections are rare and getting increasingly rarer thanks to vaccinations." (http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2010/100203.html)

Surely, "increasingly rare" is "rarer" (so "increasingly" is redundant, making "increasingly rarer" recursive), grumble, grumble.

Agreed.
 :sick:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 February, 2010, 08:41:42 pm
Increasingly more rarer...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 04 February, 2010, 12:16:21 am
It is all to much.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: iakobski on 04 February, 2010, 09:21:22 am
Another from the Beeb...
"Top 20 London universities are attracting the most number of ethnic minority students, a study finds."
Eek!

And the Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7111525/UN-climate-change-panel-based-claims-on-student-dissertation-and-magazine-article.html):

"...coral reefs near mangrove forests contained up to 25 times more fish numbers than those without mangroves nearby..."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 04 February, 2010, 09:23:28 am
Fish numbers is what you eat with alphabetti spaghetti.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 04 February, 2010, 09:28:38 am
Bring back sub-editors and compositors.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 04 February, 2010, 09:44:59 am
Hell is other people's notion of good enough. What does the jury think of "increasingly rarer":

"Serious infections are rare and getting increasingly rarer thanks to vaccinations." (http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2010/100203.html)

Surely, "increasingly rare" is "rarer" (so "increasingly" is redundant, making "increasingly rarer" recursive), grumble, grumble.

Surely 'increasingly rare' is first derivative - equivalent to 'rarer' - and by the same token 'increasingly rarer' is second derivative; there is an acceleration in the rareness?  However, I don't think this was what's meant!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 04 February, 2010, 09:46:54 am
Another thing that irks me is 'however' at the beginning of a sentence without a comma (when it doesn't mean 'howsoever').
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 04 February, 2010, 09:58:28 am
Don't get me started on commas... I'm so tuned in to them and their placement/misplacement (in my opinion - I'm not a fan of the Oxford Comma) that I can't switch it off. I'm currently reading a book for review and the copy editor is regularly failing to put in commas and it's driving me WILD. Here are some examples, all from the second paragraph in the whole book!:

"All too often those having to respond to attacks on religion..."

"From the partition of India through the troubles in Northern Ireland to civil war in Iraq religion is identified..."

"Rid the world of religion it is suggested, and the world will be rid of a major obstacle..."

And in that same paragraph, a typo: "He quotes Mussolini: 'Facism is not only a party..." plus we have a misspelling of Baron von Clausewitz on the next page to Baron von Clansewitz." Where are all the copy editors/proof readers?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 04 February, 2010, 10:03:16 am
I notice that Alan Bennett is a comma minimalist. I assume that's his choice rather than an editor's.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 04 February, 2010, 02:35:27 pm
Where are all the copy editors/proof readers?
Fired. No longer wanted. Typos, poor grammar, & misspellings are now preferred to paying people to prevent them.

A pity: it's a job I'm good at, & I've done on some software manuals, & I could do with a job.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 04 February, 2010, 02:41:00 pm
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'...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 04 February, 2010, 02:48:45 pm
They're using Word with the default spellchecker, because they know no better. :(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 04 February, 2010, 03:08:43 pm
Found this interesting site about differences in spelling between American and English: UK vs US spelling (http://www.tysto.com/articles05/q1/20050324uk-us.shtml)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 04 February, 2010, 03:27:51 pm
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".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 04 February, 2010, 03:43:33 pm
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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: PhilO on 05 February, 2010, 08:55:34 am
Another from the Beeb...
"Top 20 London universities are attracting the most number of ethnic minority students, a study finds."
Eek!

And the Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7111525/UN-climate-change-panel-based-claims-on-student-dissertation-and-magazine-article.html):

"...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?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 05 February, 2010, 11:45:09 am
Quote from: medication instructions
<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.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 05 February, 2010, 05:54:36 pm

And the Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/7111525/UN-climate-change-panel-based-claims-on-student-dissertation-and-magazine-article.html):

"...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 :(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 February, 2010, 06:59:09 pm
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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: tatanab on 05 February, 2010, 07:21:50 pm
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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 February, 2010, 08:42:50 pm
It's advert speak, now widespread in other contexts. "Ten times" sounds more impressive than "a tenth" and "less than" emphasises "ours is cheaper".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 05 February, 2010, 09:15:07 pm
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 ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 February, 2010, 09:29:07 pm
When designing and manufacturing, clear thought is a virtue, even a necessity. When selling, it seems not to be.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Giraffe on 06 February, 2010, 09:33:27 am
Good example of dimsalesdroidspeak: "-50% discount". That's quite a surcharge!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Keith on 06 February, 2010, 10:04:03 am
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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 06 February, 2010, 10:26:55 am
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 :-\
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 06 February, 2010, 12:11:46 pm
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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 06 February, 2010, 02:12:02 pm
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?


Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 06 February, 2010, 04:01:48 pm
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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Giraffe on 06 February, 2010, 05:52:02 pm
'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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 06 February, 2010, 07:55:15 pm
'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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 06 February, 2010, 08:03:43 pm
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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 February, 2010, 06:15:37 pm
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.  :(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 09 February, 2010, 04:08:27 pm
Quote
  • high protection against scratches and dust
  • the Skin fits the iPhone a hundred percently
  • high quality converting
  • excellent heat conduction
  • extreme resilient


COOL BANANAS Silicon skin Case in black for iPhone 3G / 3GS Bag Sleeve: Amazon.co.uk: Clothing (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B001E7TP4A/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_2?pf_rd_p=471057153&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B0012PWZBO&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=02V3AYT3K55VFC5E6AAZ)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: iakobski on 09 February, 2010, 04:30:04 pm
That's not really fair as it was written by a German.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 09 February, 2010, 04:33:49 pm
That's not really fair as it was written by a German.


I'm not surprised - it does seem that a Brit's bad grammar/spelling is often distinct from that by Jonny Foreigner (usually worse!)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 09 February, 2010, 04:38:57 pm
It's a brave person that criticises the spelling or grammar of someone speaking/writing a foreign language.

I know my written French/German/Spanish is bad/bad/shocking.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 09 February, 2010, 04:50:11 pm
That's not really fair as it was written by a German.

a) how was I supposed to know that? For that matter, how do you know it was written by a German?

b) when I needed help with a Polish translation earlier, I didn't just guess, I asked someone who speaks Polish. If I were selling goods internationally, I would consider it a good idea to get these things right. You know, create an impression of professionalism and all that. It's not that difficult.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 09 February, 2010, 04:57:54 pm
a) how was I supposed to know that? For that matter, how do you know it was written by a German?

Probably a guess based on the fact that the contact number for the seller (kf-trendstore2) is +49xxxxxxxxxxx. (That information was just a click away.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 09 February, 2010, 04:58:09 pm
[off topic]My brother in law has a huge collection of bad-ingleesh-manuals. We shop at pound shops just to pick them up for him. [/off topic]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: iakobski on 09 February, 2010, 05:01:01 pm
The first one is interesting:
Quote
the Skin fits the iPhone a hundred percently


?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: LEE on 09 February, 2010, 05:06:29 pm
This whole thread makes me cringe if I'm being honest.

 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: delthebike on 09 February, 2010, 05:07:31 pm
This whole thread makes me cringe if I'm being honest.
Makes "one" cringe surely?  :P
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 09 February, 2010, 05:08:14 pm
This is one of my all time favourites:-

Danger Sign | Engrish.com (http://www.engrish.com/2000/11/danger-sign/)

"The little part which suffocates when the sharp part which gets hurt is swallowed is contained generously."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 09 February, 2010, 05:21:38 pm
a) how was I supposed to know that? For that matter, how do you know it was written by a German?

Probably a guess based on the fact that the contact number for the seller (kf-trendstore2) is +49xxxxxxxxxxx. (That information was just a click away.)

So the contact number for the seller is on a different page to the one I was looking at. And it's only there indirectly.

In future, I shall remember to spend more time investigating the author's background before making frivolous comments about bad English on an internet message board.  ::-)

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 09 February, 2010, 05:22:31 pm
In future, I shall remember to spend more time investigating the author's background before making frivolous comments about bad English on an internet message board.  ::-)

Excellent.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 09 February, 2010, 06:47:12 pm
I like the way the sub-editors of the BBC RSS news service quickly mash words together to provide the detail

Giant snowman collapses on boy, 2

A 3m (10ft) snow figure falls on a two-year-old boy on holiday in Austria but he is unhurt after a night in hospital. 

Was the snowman hurt, or the boy, and just exactly what were they expecting the hospital to do?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 09 February, 2010, 09:18:44 pm
I like the way the sub-editors of the BBC RSS news service quickly mash words together to provide the detail

Giant snowman collapses on boy, 2

A 3m (10ft) snow figure falls on a two-year-old boy on holiday in Austria but he is unhurt after a night in hospital. 

Was the snowman hurt, or the boy, and just exactly what were they expecting the hospital to do?

And who is on holiday, the snowman or the boy, or both?

Unless someone writes only in simple single clause sentences, these type of ambiguities are completely normal, context usually makes it clear what is meant. Would anyone ever use "he is unhurt" about a "snow figure"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 09 February, 2010, 11:03:57 pm
Anaphora resolution is a very tricky part of natural language processing (some bits of my NLP lectures from Yorick Wilkes stick in my head).

It should be easy for a human to work out which subject "it" refers to in a sentence such as "Mary dropped the plate onto the floor. It shattered." (It's unlikely the floor would shatter.) But it's non-trivial for a computer to do the same.

Given a sentence such as "Mary dropped the plate onto the glass table. It shattered." is truly ambiguous (even for a human).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 10 February, 2010, 07:12:46 am
Even more tricky in French, where both plate and table are feminine nouns...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 10 February, 2010, 09:11:06 am
'Tother week in my German studies at Uni we discovered that in German you are able to differentiate the following:

The journalist told the author (female) about her friend

In English we don't know if the friend is the friend of the journalist or the author. In German you use a different word for 'her' which shows you to whom the friend belongs. Which is nice and precise, in a typical German way!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 10 February, 2010, 09:17:25 am
I like the way the sub-editors of the BBC RSS news service quickly mash words together to provide the detail

Giant snowman collapses on boy, 2

A 3m (10ft) snow figure falls on a two-year-old boy on holiday in Austria but he is unhurt after a night in hospital. 

Was the snowman hurt, or the boy, and just exactly what were they expecting the hospital to do?

And who is on holiday, the snowman or the boy, or both?

Unless someone writes only in simple single clause sentences, these type of ambiguities are completely normal, context usually makes it clear what is meant. Would anyone ever use "he is unhurt" about a "snow figure"?

The main ambiguity is about being hurt in hospital. All the others are merely side stalls at the show.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 February, 2010, 12:12:29 am
'Tother week in my German studies at Uni we discovered that in German you are able to differentiate the following:

The journalist told the author (female) about her friend

In English we don't know if the friend is the friend of the journalist or the author. In German you use a different word for 'her' which shows you to whom the friend belongs. Which is nice and precise, in a typical German way!
"Seine" equivalent to the Latin "su" meaning "one's own"? I have forgotten how to say this in German  :-[ and have never learnt Latin, but a word with this meaning - belonging to the subject of the clause, but applicable to all persons - exists in many European languages. In Polish it's "swój".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 11 February, 2010, 07:43:39 am
You get 'ihrer' for her (the journalist), or 'derer' for her (the author).

My German teacher spent a fair while explaining how German can be excessively precise like this, thus why it's a good language for technical stuff.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Dez on 11 February, 2010, 02:54:22 pm
A letter I received from my bank this morning:

(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2789/4348955904_1714630491_o.jpg) (http://flic.kr/p/7Cix5m)

It would have irritated me slightly less if they'd actually sent me the envelopes I requested.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 11 February, 2010, 04:05:28 pm
A letter I received from my bank this morning:

It would have irritated me slightly less if they'd actually sent me the envelopes I requested.

"Yes, I know I'm stationary!"

It's probably apocryphal; the story of the maths exam paper which said against every question 'Show your working'.  Sure enough, for every question, the little lad had drawn a picture of himself sitting at a table, working!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 12 February, 2010, 08:33:24 am
You get 'ihrer' for her (the journalist), or 'derer' for her (the author).

My German teacher spent a fair while explaining how German can be excessively precise like this, thus why it's a good language for technical stuff.

I think that there was an equivalent to this in Old and Middle English (unsurprisingly since English has the same roots as German).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Redlight on 12 February, 2010, 09:37:22 am
Perhaps someone has mentioned this already but one I hate is the use of "invite" as a noun.  It's "invitation".

Calm now  8)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 12 February, 2010, 09:44:36 am
Perhaps someone has mentioned this already but one I hate is the use of "invite" as a noun.  It's "invitation".
Yep, that gets right up my nose too!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 12 February, 2010, 09:52:31 am
'There's a rockabilly party on saturday night
Are you gonna be there?
I got my invite'

>:(

That's grated since the first time I heard it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 12 February, 2010, 10:51:35 am
"I'm doning blood."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: PhilO on 12 February, 2010, 12:42:45 pm
A member of the British olympic team was heard, on the radio this morning, to speak of her potential disappointment if she 'fails to medal.'  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 12 February, 2010, 01:27:30 pm
A member of the British olympic team was heard, on the radio this morning, to speak of her potential disappointment if she 'fails to medal.'  :facepalm:

La Pendleton has been guilty of this crime in the past, as well as using "podium" as a verb.

I wordlack.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 12 February, 2010, 01:28:14 pm
If it was on the radio, are you sure she didn't mean 'meddle'? ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 12 February, 2010, 02:07:59 pm
If it was on the radio, are you sure she didn't mean 'meddle'? ;)

If I was interviewing these people, I'd play dumb:

"Sorry, what do you want to meddle with? Are you unhappy with the way things are run?"
" ... err ... "
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moloko on 12 February, 2010, 02:13:51 pm

I could have got gold, silver or even a bronze if it wasn't for those "medaling" kids.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Zipperhead on 12 February, 2010, 02:42:48 pm
Burglarized

*smack*
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 February, 2010, 03:19:21 pm
I can accept "medal" and "podium" as verbs, as there are no single-word equivalents. I don't like them, but I can accept them. But "burglarize" is actuallylonger than the existing standard word. What's the point? And if burglarize is the verb, then is the agent a burglarizer?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Giraffe on 12 February, 2010, 06:18:55 pm
Perhaps someone has mentioned this already but one I hate is the use of "invite" as a noun.  It's "invitation".

Calm now  8)

'Loan' as a verb; it's also ambiguous.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 12 February, 2010, 06:22:21 pm
And if burglarize is the verb, then is the agent a burglarizer?

carrying out burglarizations.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Giraffe on 12 February, 2010, 06:25:54 pm
I can accept "medal" and "podium" as verbs, as there are no single-word equivalents. I don't like them, but I can accept them. But "burglarize" is actuallylonger than the existing standard word. What's the point? And if burglarize is the verb, then is the agent a burglarizer?


I can't accept them. Then there's the use of 'talent' in sport as, e.g. "he's a talent".

As for longer verbs, in Electronic Times in the '80s there was "...if the operator errors..."!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: LEE on 12 February, 2010, 06:42:58 pm
A lot of these grammatical mistakes are just typical of the way English continues to evolve.

I understand "They're", "There" and "Their" can be seen as mistakes (no excuses on official forms) but things like  "He's a talent" are different.  That's not a mistake as such, it's part of the English language.  If Shakespeare had used it in that context then it would be seen as genius.

Shakespeare made lots of "mistakes" in that respect.

Don't let it make you cringe, just accept hat certain figures of speech can enrich the language. Only when it causes confusion is there a problem.

We all know what "He's a talent" means. Why problemize it?


Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: PaulF on 12 February, 2010, 06:49:19 pm

We all know what "He's a talent" means. Why problemize it?


I know what it means, I'm just not sure why you'd want to describe someone as a small, low value, ancient Greek coin. :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 12 February, 2010, 08:23:51 pm
We used to call the people who impeded our lovely lightshows 'the talent', even if, as happened at the Bros gig, one of the crew marked out an area at the front of the stage labelled 'TFZ' for Talent-Free Zone.

Also known as 'thesps', 'turns', 'timber' etc...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 12 February, 2010, 10:32:42 pm
Burglarized

*smack*

I've heard of some unusual operations, but I've always thought that being hospitalised would be impressive. Where would they sew on the operating theatre, do you think?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 13 February, 2010, 10:11:03 pm

We all know what "He's a talent" means. Why problemize it?


I know what it means, I'm just not sure why you'd want to describe someone as a small, low value, ancient Greek coin. :D
That's not a talent. A talent was a big accounting unit, not a coin. If expressed in metal, it was far too much to be a single coin. It varied from time to time & place to place, but about 25-30 kg of silver seems to have been the norm. That's a good few years pay for most people, back then. The 5th century BC Athenian talent was 6000 drachmas (about 26 kg), & a drachma was reckoned to be a day labourers wage.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 14 February, 2010, 09:52:50 am
Never mind all that, how much does a Grecian earn?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: PaulF on 14 February, 2010, 09:56:36 am
Never mind all that, how much does a Grecian earn?

And why is the Venetian blind?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 14 February, 2010, 09:57:58 am
So, how does one make a Swiss roll ?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 14 February, 2010, 09:59:07 am
The same way as you make a Nazi cross...

Oh bugger - Godwin! :-[
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: delthebike on 14 February, 2010, 10:03:07 am
The same way as you make a Nazi cross...

Oh bugger - Godwin! :-[
Finally, the thread ends.  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 14 February, 2010, 10:06:20 am
Shouldn't you have put an apostrophe before that s?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: delthebike on 14 February, 2010, 10:21:23 am
Shouldn't you have put an apostrophe before that s?
Finally, the thread 'ends.  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 14 February, 2010, 10:25:13 am
Thank you.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 14 February, 2010, 05:28:21 pm
(Am I too late?)
A Colemanball from the BBC's oval ball anchor:
"... and the sheer brutility of the game in Paris ..."

[that was how he emphasised it, just to make his point]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moloko on 05 March, 2010, 11:28:01 am

Campagnolo: 75 Years of Cycling Passion.

It's "breathe in" not "breath in".   ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 09 March, 2010, 10:29:23 am
Hurrah:
losers spell it 'looser'
     (http://www.loseloose.com/)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 March, 2010, 11:08:57 am
WI Lady on R4 yesterday: "We have a specific criteria by which we judge marmalade"

Get in the cannon, woman.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moloko on 09 March, 2010, 11:36:58 am
Hurrah:
losers spell it 'looser'
     (http://www.loseloose.com/)

That needs to go on the side of every bus shelter in the country and all the London underground.   ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wendy on 09 March, 2010, 01:48:35 pm
What if you get lose/loose wrong despite knowing what the difference is?  It's not easy for everyone.   :-[
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 13 March, 2010, 04:41:03 pm
What if you get lose/loose wrong despite knowing what the difference is?  It's not easy for everyone.   :-[

There is no hope for you.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 March, 2010, 05:43:22 pm
WI Lady on R4 yesterday: "We have a specific criteria by which we judge marmalade"

Get in the cannon, woman.
Obviously, you judge marmalade by a criterium. Nothing to do with that criterion racing, that's for critters.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 13 March, 2010, 07:22:04 pm
What if you get lose/loose wrong despite knowing what the difference is?  It's not easy for everyone.   :-[

You'd be caught with your pants down when you lose the trousers with a loose waisband.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 March, 2010, 10:22:43 pm
And you become a loo's cannon.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 14 March, 2010, 06:09:28 pm
... despite knowing what the difference is ...
There are a number of word pairs, such as stationary/stationery, that gave me no problems until my English teacher told us not to confuse them. This was, I suppose, a case of not having noticed what the similarity is ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 14 March, 2010, 06:38:13 pm
True, but until she mentioned it I didn't need such tricks ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: peliroja on 15 March, 2010, 11:26:08 pm
A new piece of business boll*cks I've not come across before:

"Let's float [the issue to] to Geoff for his sign-off..."

Float? Float?

 :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 15 March, 2010, 11:56:02 pm
Probably on one of those rafts they keep going on about.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: CAMRAMan on 16 March, 2010, 10:53:05 am
We're having a team "download" next week. I'm not sure what she means, but we seem to be having a meeting at the same time, so I'll ask. Should I also tell her that, despite my crap Nintendo Wii Baseball skills, I still do not "touch base"...? No matter how often I hear that one, I still feckin' well hate it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 16 March, 2010, 10:54:15 am
Touching base could be regarded as sexual harrassment.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moloko on 16 March, 2010, 10:57:47 am
I was watching the cycling last night and the commentator clearly said "he's loosing speed"


Arghhhh, it now even exists verbally as well as written.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 16 March, 2010, 11:01:57 am
Perhaps 'loosing' was correct if the rider was unleashing his majesty ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 16 March, 2010, 11:49:16 am
Not grammar, but, if you can't even spell 'trolley', I'm not going to buy one off you. 

From the same catalogue, however, WTF is 'Lifestyle seating'? :o
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 March, 2010, 11:56:03 am
It's where you set your lifestyle down nice and comfy.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moloko on 16 March, 2010, 12:16:30 pm
Perhaps 'loosing' was correct if the rider was unleashing his majesty ;)

Maybe his QR lever was undone.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 16 March, 2010, 12:16:37 pm
From the same catalogue, however, WTF is 'Lifestyle seating'? :o

It's probably something you use to create a "lifestyle ambience", a preposterous phrase I heard used on some ridiculous home makeover programme a few years ago.

My son, who must have been about 6 or 7 at the time, misheard it as "lifecycle ambulance", which to be fair, makes just as much sense.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: TimO on 16 March, 2010, 01:01:01 pm
My mother used to take the mick with paperwork that my sister brought home from school.  I think she'd got to the point where she resented putting down housewife under occupation, so one of the phrases she used was "Lifestyle Coordinator".  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 16 March, 2010, 01:58:55 pm
My friend's mum favoured the term "Domestic engineer".

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 March, 2010, 03:37:08 pm
"Lifecycle ambulance"

The same one that takes you to the maternity ward in womb takes you to the mortuary.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: windrush on 16 March, 2010, 05:07:12 pm
Bit o/t but why do the people who bang on about needing 'me time' employ cleaners and always have way more time on their hands than I do ?

Actually next time I hear it I will point out in a pedantic way that time does not actually belong to them, it a universal variable over which they have no control.   At least they'll probably stop talking to me then  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SandyV on 16 March, 2010, 05:34:25 pm
Silver bullets!  Haven't noticed a werewolf plague but there must be as I keep getting asked for them.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 16 March, 2010, 06:10:03 pm
From the same catalogue, however, WTF is 'Lifestyle seating'? :o

It's probably something you use to create a "lifestyle ambience", a preposterous phrase I heard used on some ridiculous home makeover programme a few years ago.

My son, who must have been about 6 or 7 at the time, misheard it as "lifecycle ambulance", which to be fair, makes just as much sense.

d.


"Makeover" is a word I detest with a peculiar intensity.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 March, 2010, 06:26:37 pm
Makeup will give you a makeover, then you can makeout with the accountant and makeoff with all the money.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: windrush on 16 March, 2010, 08:12:25 pm
Actually better not hope some non-cyclist sees this, as I've got a feeling they could find a fair few pseudo-tecchie marketing phrases in our sport  :demon:
As in the word 'aero' being used to describe anything that looks streamlined, whether or not its been wind tunnel tested.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: windrush on 16 March, 2010, 08:14:44 pm
I've just noticed 'Aqua' on the shampoo bottle, a mysterious ingredient that magically wets your hair.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: CrinklyLion on 16 March, 2010, 08:45:34 pm
I saw this, and I thought of "you" :)

The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks (http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 16 March, 2010, 10:20:44 pm
I've just noticed 'Aqua' on the shampoo bottle, a mysterious ingredient that magically wets your hair.
There was a tv advert a few years ago for some new moisturiser containing "aquaspheres." We assumed they meant "blobs of water."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 March, 2010, 05:37:59 pm
I believe water is described as aqua in lists of chemical ingredients in line with some international standard.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 17 March, 2010, 05:46:03 pm
I believe water is described as aqua in lists of chemical ingredients in line with some international standard.

Yes - an international standard devised by the cosmetics industry to mislead consumers.

According to this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Nomenclature_of_Cosmetic_Ingredients), the purpose is "for the purchaser to reduce the risk of an allergic reaction to an ingredient the user has had an allergy to before", but it's hard to see how that argument applies to calling water anything other than water.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 March, 2010, 09:56:52 pm
I don't see how you could have an allergy to water. But I don't claim to know that for certain.

However, calling water "aqua" isn't entirely misleading - the same list is used in all languages,* as far as I can see, so a Latin word that will be vaguely familiar from school chemistry lessons is quite likely better than an English one that will be totally unfamiliar to many/most. Of course, they could just translate the list, as with food ingredients, but there are two problems with that: 1) most chemicals have no common name in any language 2) having the same list for all means you can recognise an ingredient you know you are allergic to, wherever you may be.

Then again, the fact they do translate for Cyrillic, Arabic, etc, counteracts the second point (I don't know to what extent it's actually a translation, I expect it's more a transliteration).

*that use the Roman alphabet.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 17 March, 2010, 09:59:20 pm
water has a name in every language I know.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 March, 2010, 10:32:19 pm
Takes a tube of toothpaste from the bathroom.
No ingredients list. Hmmm...
Takes a bottle of shampoo (made and bought in Poland).

Składniki:
Aqua, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Methylchloroisothiasolinone (and) Methylisothiasolinone, ACID Citric, Propylene Glycol Turnig Extract, Sodium Chloride, Parfum, Cocamide DEA

I bet most of those ingredients don't have a name in most languages.

But... While I can see the logic in such "worldese" as "aqua" and "parfum", why do we have "(and)" in English? Why is ACID in capitals? As far as I'm aware it's not an acronym. And should we be worried that if they can't check for typos such as "Turnig" - they mean turnip - there may be other, perhaps more important, misprints? And why in any case is "Turnip" in English - it must have a scientific name that could be used?

But this all pales into insignificance compared to the toothpaste. You put it in your mouth, you want to know what it's made of!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 18 March, 2010, 09:58:56 am
Does poland really have shampoo made out of turnips?  Fantastic  :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: CAMRAMan on 18 March, 2010, 10:01:54 am
Does poland really have shampoo made out of turnips?  Fantastic  :)

It's good for the roots...

IGMC
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 March, 2010, 10:05:16 am
It's supposed to be good for greasy hair. Or perhaps it's dandruff or something, I forget.

Anyway it occured to me the following kind of translated lists could be used:
Ingredients/Składniki: Water/Woda, Cocamidopropyle, Turnip Extract/Wyciąg z rzepaka, Camel fat/Tłuszcz z wielbłąda, ....

No, we don't actually have shampoo made from camel fat. But I'm sure it would be good for something!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moloko on 18 March, 2010, 10:16:20 am
It's supposed to be good for greasy hair. Or perhaps it's dandruff or something, I forget.

Anyway it occured to me the following kind of translated lists could be used:
Ingredients/Składniki: Water/Woda, Cocamidopropyle, Turnip Extract/Wyciąg z rzepaka, Camel fat/Tłuszcz z wielbłąda, ....

No, we don't actually have shampoo made from camel fat. But I'm sure it would be good for something!

That one, as it contains lemon juice.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 18 March, 2010, 02:09:46 pm
I don't see how you could have an allergy to water. But I don't claim to know that for certain.

There is a very rare condition that causes the skin to have an allergic reaction to water. Possibly not entirely relevant here since a person with that condition probably wouldn't be in a position to use shampoo anyway.

Quote
Of course, they could just translate the list, as with food ingredients, but there are two problems with that: 1) most chemicals have no common name in any language 2) having the same list for all means you can recognise an ingredient you know you are allergic to, wherever you may be.

Mmm, maybe. I'm not convinced, but I'm not affected by any allergies so I don't know how it works in practice.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 18 March, 2010, 02:15:46 pm
Aquagenia umm, errr, aarrrgh I did know this. Severe histamine reaction...

*gives up and googles*

Aquagenic Urticaria.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: meddyg on 21 March, 2010, 09:18:24 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8fbrUjjivw&feature=player_embedded (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8fbrUjjivw&feature=player_embedded)

another 'Downfall' script; apologies if it appears on page 38....




COI I am Obersturmbannfuhrer in the Spelling Stasi...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 31 March, 2010, 04:51:38 pm
Latest USAism that has made its way here; the dropped preposition.

"In Cinemas Friday" - what's wrong with "In Cinemas On Friday"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 31 March, 2010, 04:52:21 pm
What's up that? :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Julian on 31 March, 2010, 04:54:16 pm
The labels on the doors in the scout hut we stopped at on the FNRttC:

Scout's
Guide's
Beaver's
Cub's
Browneis

;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 March, 2010, 05:26:19 pm
Brown eis, hmm, sounds distinctly NSFW!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Regulator on 06 April, 2010, 08:01:41 pm
Alongside my hate of the misuse of 'less' and 'fewer', I would like to add the misuse of 'sex' and 'gender', and 'fertility' and 'fecundity'...  >:(

And why is it always the so-called 'experts' who use the wrong words?   >:( >:( >:(

Perhaps we shouldn't allow someone to get a PhD unless they can quote Fowlers by heart...   ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 06 April, 2010, 10:59:31 pm
...unless they can quote Fowlers by heart...   ;)

Fowlers is not uncontroversial.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 07 April, 2010, 04:42:46 pm
How do you fill something with nothing?

Ah, but the Tory Manifesto hasn't been published yet ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: iakobski on 07 April, 2010, 05:29:38 pm
On Facebook, part of a political advertisement: Britain's roads are filled with potholes.

How do you fill something with nothing? Potholes are gaps, hollows, nothing but fresh air - or occasionally filled with water and thus dangerous puddles.

Quote
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall....
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: CrinklyLion on 14 April, 2010, 08:24:32 am
Rosscott, Inc.  &raquo; Archive   &raquo; The System 344: Exclaiming (http://www.notquitewrong.com/rosscottinc/2010/03/03/the-system-344-exclaiming/)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 14 April, 2010, 10:53:29 am
Exclamation point

*KATHOOOOOOOOOOM*
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SandyV on 19 April, 2010, 07:12:36 am
I have just received an email that mentors in a company program will be meeting their MENTEES for a session to develop goals.

How can this be a real word?  Am I being asked to ment this person?

I feel like I am the tormentee in this situation. Argh.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 19 April, 2010, 08:30:25 am
Perhaps it's a typo for manatees? I'd like to think so.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biff on 19 April, 2010, 01:34:58 pm
I'm loathe to dam this thread with feint praise.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 19 April, 2010, 01:56:20 pm
Nice link in the B3ta newsletter this week...
Hyperbole and a Half: The Alot is Better Than You at Everything (http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html)

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Giraffe on 19 April, 2010, 08:49:15 pm
I have just received an email that mentors in a company program will be meeting their MENTEES for a session to develop goals.

How can this be a real word?  Am I being asked to ment this person?

I feel like I am the tormentee in this situation. Argh.

'...ee' is getting more common and misused. Some buses have 'Standees' as part of the capacity, but should have 'Standers' - they are standing, not being stood.
'Retirees' is just about OK for those who have been retired by company policy but not for those who have retired voluntarily.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 20 April, 2010, 08:14:53 am
Arguably, if you are a mentor, there must be a mentee. The root is the same in each case. Not sure what menting is though...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 20 April, 2010, 09:05:12 am
Yet no-one bats an eyelid at "attendee".  They are doing the attending, they are attenders, no?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 20 April, 2010, 09:35:29 am
The "root" of the word mentor is a character in the Odyssey, not the verb "to ment", so it's nonsense to talk of a "mentee". A mentor might have a pupil, or perhaps a protégé, but not a mentee.

Edit: I've looked it up and it seems the most common terms for someone who has a mentor are "apprentice" or "disciple". We need to disabuse ourselves of the notion that such relationships need to be described with words that share a root.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 20 April, 2010, 11:07:15 am
True.  We don't have teacher & teachee, or lecturer and lecturee, nor doctor and doctee or nurse and nursee.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 April, 2010, 11:10:33 am
I think some of us have a nursey.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 20 April, 2010, 11:11:37 am
True.  We don't have teacher & teachee, or lecturer and lecturee, nor doctor and doctee or nurse and nursee.

Precisely. Any fule kno that in modern Britain the correct term-pairings for those relationships are: teacher and client, lecturer and client, doctor and client, nurse and client.

d.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 20 April, 2010, 11:14:45 am
True.  We don't have teacher & teachee, or lecturer and lecturee, nor doctor and doctee or nurse and nursee.

Precisely. Any fule kno that in modern Britain the correct term-pairings for those relationships are: teacher and client, lecturer and client, doctor and client, nurse and client.

d.



You must live in a posh area.  I thought the correct corollary was 'customer' :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 April, 2010, 11:18:33 am
I thought it was "punter". Or mug. Probably containing a substance once known as coffee.  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 20 April, 2010, 11:20:21 am
Winston Smith: Horse Tranquilisers and Recommended Reading (http://winstonsmith33.blogspot.com/2009/12/horse-tranquilisers-and-recommended.html)

(brilliant blog post by care worker told to refer to residents as "clients")

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 20 April, 2010, 11:49:48 am
We need to disabuse ourselves of the notion that such relationships need to be described with words that share a root.

If I describe anything incorrectly, feel free to unscribe it for me. Or rescribe, or ...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 20 April, 2010, 03:02:47 pm
True.  We don't have teacher & teachee, or lecturer and lecturee, nor doctor and doctee or nurse and nursee.

Precisely. Any fule kno that in modern Britain the correct term-pairings for those relationships are: teacher and client, lecturer and client, doctor and client, nurse and client.

d.



You must live in a posh area.  I thought the correct corollary was 'customer' :demon:

Stakeholder

 :sick:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 20 April, 2010, 03:05:07 pm
I thought a stakeholder was a vampire killers assistant.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tourist Tony on 20 April, 2010, 04:39:53 pm
True.  We don't have teacher & teachee, or lecturer and lecturee, nor doctor and doctee or nurse and nursee.

Precisely. Any fule kno that in modern Britain the correct term-pairings for those relationships are: teacher and client, lecturer and client, doctor and client, nurse and client.

d.



You must live in a posh area.  I thought the correct corollary was 'customer' :demon:
I am required to use that "c"-word...... :sick:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 20 April, 2010, 10:51:01 pm
Yet no-one bats an eyelid at "attendee".  They are doing the attending, they are attenders, no?
Yes, of course. An attendee is the object of the attentions of an attendant.

The "root" of the word mentor is a character in the Odyssey, not the verb "to ment", so it's nonsense to talk of a "mentee".
Ah, if that's the root, then your argument is unanswerable, and mentee is silly.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tourist Tony on 20 April, 2010, 11:40:59 pm
So does that suggest "buggee"?

Hope that helps
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 01 May, 2010, 09:43:40 pm


Edit: I've looked it up and it seems the most common terms for someone who has a mentor are "apprentice" or "disciple".
I prefer "young padawan" or "Grasshopper."

I really hate it when people put a question mark at the end of a sentence that isn't a question?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: little miss mac on 01 May, 2010, 10:28:25 pm
I believe that's the antipodean soap opera effect?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 01 May, 2010, 10:30:03 pm
I think it is?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 01 May, 2010, 10:34:43 pm
Is it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SandyV on 02 May, 2010, 02:25:30 am
I think it is?  (But we do try to beat it out of our young - in a non-physical violence way of course)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 04 May, 2010, 09:43:01 am
I think it is?  (But we do try to beat it out of our young - in a non-physical violence way of course)

Glad to hear it Sandy! :thumbsup:

Of course, _writing_ a question mark after a statement is different - it's probably not 'correct', but in an informal context it can make your intention clear.

And rising intonation is fine if you WANT to make your statement a question,
"It is?" being a perfect example.

The problem is a rising intonation on EVERY SENTENCE; I guess people start to do this as a way of keeping the listener interested, but the effect is to make the speaker sound utterly uncertain about everything! (as well as needing more effort to listen to them)

I once attended a technical presentation (from a Brit) done entirely in this style. Almost incomprehensible.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 14 May, 2010, 03:26:08 pm
"With his arrest and subsequent imprisonment for thirty-nine charges of smuggling alligators into Shoreditch Public Baths, and two counts of smiling at vicars in second-class railway compartments, Frobisher had finally received his just deserts."

Which deserts?  The Gobi?  The Kalahari?  The Atacama?  That little one in Spain where they filmed the Spaghetti Westerns?

Or did you actually mean "just desserts"?

Cretin.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 14 May, 2010, 03:39:38 pm
It may help to note that your desert is what you de-serve (that is, what you are thoroughly well served with), whereas your dessert is what you are dis-served with (that is, what you eat as dinner is unserved and the table is unlaid). 

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: greenmeansgo on 21 May, 2010, 01:04:36 pm
Don't know if this has already been posted, but won't harm to repeat:

Dear America (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/video/2010/may/20/language-usa)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: JJ on 21 May, 2010, 02:54:25 pm
This isn't strictly grammer, but it does make me cringe.  I wouldn't mind it from an individual in say, a forum post, but it's on about a hundred gazillion notices printed at the behest of HMG.

"It is against the law to smoke in these premises."

You can't be IN premises.  You can be on them, or off them, but not IN them.  You can even base your argument on a premise, but you CAN'T be IN one.

HMG employ lots of well-educated people to write things and proof read them and check ad re-check them and sign them off.  How can they not get this right?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 21 May, 2010, 03:05:04 pm
This isn't strictly grammer

...or spelling, apparently. ;)

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SandyV on 21 May, 2010, 09:35:17 pm
I have spent time recently educating a soon to be graduate that the singular form of premises is premises not premise when talking about property.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: JJ on 21 May, 2010, 11:26:35 pm
This isn't strictly grammer

...or spelling, apparently. ;)

d.


 :-[

 ::-) ::-)

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 23 May, 2010, 05:15:27 pm
I have spent time recently educating a soon to be graduate that the singular form of premises is premises not premise when talking about property.
??? It's usual to talk of "these premises", not "this premises". Is there a singular?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 23 May, 2010, 05:19:34 pm
I have spent time recently educating a soon to be graduate that the singular form of premises is premises not premise when talking about property.

On what premise do you base that?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Diver300 on 23 May, 2010, 06:52:32 pm
On a government "Didn't we do well?" advert on a bus:-

500 less crimes in....
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: PrettyBoyTim on 23 May, 2010, 07:44:17 pm
My guess is that 'less' will soon mean 'fewer' as well as 'less'. I wouldn't be surprised if fifty years down the road 'fewer' will just be a word you use when you want to sound quaint and twentieth-centruryish.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 24 May, 2010, 07:44:54 am
In Shakespeare's time there was a distinction between mo and more, mirroring that between less and fewer. The language is poorer for losing it, alas.

The last ten years or so have lost the distinction between "may" and "might". I've almost certainly grumbled about this before. If I had had my way, things may have been very different...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 24 May, 2010, 07:56:02 am
I've read that languages continually get simpler. Presumably we'll end up with one word meaning everything...

What I haven't figured out is where the complex languages come from if the above is true. Do they appear suddenly from a dictionary?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SandyV on 24 May, 2010, 07:57:04 am
I have spent time recently educating a soon to be graduate that the singular form of premises is premises not premise when talking about property.
??? It's usual to talk of "these premises", not "this premises". Is there a singular?

It's in relation to the use of the term in town planning reports eg. the proposal is to erect premises for use as three "food premises" (defined term).  When talking about one of them it does not become a "premise" but remains premises.

As an aside, we used to use the term "curtilage" very often but in the drive for "plain English" it is being lost - pity.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 May, 2010, 03:41:12 pm
This thread has complained about quite a lot of verbs derived from nouns where there already exists a verb with the same meaning. "Leverage" and "burglarize" are two examples that spring instantly to mind. My addition to this category is "to acquisition".
Quote
I took out of my inside tunic pocket a small pad and a pencil stub that I'd recently acquisitioned from a desk drawer of my company Orderly Room at Fort Benning.
In think this verb is a good invention. Although it's meaning may be the same as "acquired" the ending lends a shade of "recquisitioned", particularly given the military context.
In any case, I'm not going to argue with J.D. Salinger.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 24 May, 2010, 05:39:05 pm
I've read that languages continually get simpler. Presumably we'll end up with one word meaning everything...

"It's a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. You wouldn't have seen the Dictionary 10th edition, would you, Smith? It's that thick. [illustrates thickness with fingers] The 11th Edition will be that thick. [narrows fingers]"

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: PrettyBoyTim on 24 May, 2010, 10:02:33 pm
This thread has complained about quite a lot of verbs derived from nouns where there already exists a verb with the same meaning. "Leverage" and "burglarize" are two examples that spring instantly to mind.

I looked into the whole 'burglarize thing'. As it turns out up until around 1850 there is no written record of either 'burgle' or 'burglarize' - there was the word 'burglar' but that was it. Then within a year of each other, the word 'burgle' turned up in texts over here and the word 'burglarize' turned up in texts in the USA. I'd always assumed that 'burlgar' was derived from 'burgle', but apparently it's the other way around and both 'burgle' and 'burglarize' were created independently.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 24 May, 2010, 10:28:27 pm
It's in relation to the use of the term in town planning reports eg. the proposal is to erect premises for use as three "food premises" (defined term).  When talking about one of them it does not become a "premise" but remains premises.
Is that legitimate? I think I'd want to talk about three sets of premises. It's not "a premises" when you have one.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SandyV on 25 May, 2010, 12:28:24 am
Definition of premises (1): land, and all the built structures on it, especially when considered as a single place; (plural only; not used in singular form) The subject of a conveyance or deed

Definition of premises (2): premises n. 1) in real estate, land and the improvements on it, a building, store, shop, apartment, or other designated structure. The exact premises may be important in determining if an outbuilding (shed, cabana, detached garage) is insured or whether a person accused of burglary has actually entered a structure.

The term premises (as used in Australia anyway)  relates to the use of the land and building/s.  It's premises if it is within one building. If it is one use within three buildings, it's still premises!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 25 May, 2010, 01:41:11 am
There appears to have been burglarization of meaning here.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SandyV on 25 May, 2010, 03:36:15 am
There appears to have been burglarization of meaning here.
;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 25 May, 2010, 09:46:00 am
This thread has complained about quite a lot of verbs derived from nouns where there already exists a verb with the same meaning. "Leverage" and "burglarize" are two examples that spring instantly to mind. My addition to this category is "to acquisition".
Quote
I took out of my inside tunic pocket a small pad and a pencil stub that I'd recently acquisitioned from a desk drawer of my company Orderly Room at Fort Benning.
In think this verb is a good invention. Although it's meaning may be the same as "acquired" the ending lends a shade of "recquisitioned", particularly given the military context.
In any case, I'm not going to argue with J.D. Salinger.
That's a nice example of inventing a word for the sake of colour/humour.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves ...

It's completely different to then treat
"acquisitioned"
... as a useful new word. Daft, in fact. The military are well known for inventing stupid words and jargon - doesn't mean the rest of us should use it!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: JJ on 25 May, 2010, 10:01:30 am
It's in relation to the use of the term in town planning reports eg. the proposal is to erect premises for use as three "food premises" (defined term).  When talking about one of them it does not become a "premise" but remains premises.
Is that legitimate? I think I'd want to talk about three sets of premises. It's not "a premises" when you have one.

Curiously, I'd be somewhat comfortable talking about "a premises", but "this premises" wouldn't sit right at all.

<Checks carefully for disleksia before capn Smudge gets here!>
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 25 May, 2010, 11:44:10 am
Definitize (verb).

AAARRRGGGHHHH!!!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 25 May, 2010, 04:05:16 pm
This thread has complained about quite a lot of verbs derived from nouns where there already exists a verb with the same meaning. "Leverage" and "burglarize" are two examples that spring instantly to mind. My addition to this category is "to acquisition".
Quote
I took out of my inside tunic pocket a small pad and a pencil stub that I'd recently acquisitioned from a desk drawer of my company Orderly Room at Fort Benning.
In think this verb is a good invention. Although it's meaning may be the same as "acquired" the ending lends a shade of "recquisitioned", particularly given the military context.
In any case, I'm not going to argue with J.D. Salinger.
That's a nice example of inventing a word for the sake of colour/humour.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves ...

It's completely different to then treat
"acquisitioned"
... as a useful new word. Daft, in fact. The military are well known for inventing stupid words and jargon - doesn't mean the rest of us should use it!
I don't think the military invented it - I got the impression Salinger himself invented it. But I haven't checked that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 08 June, 2010, 01:22:07 pm
Quote
Additional xxxx laptops are available for use in the meeting rooms, yyy and zzzz will require to use their own laptops in these rooms for presentations...

Will require what?  :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 June, 2010, 01:26:44 pm
I care not a fig for how well qualibobbed you are, Mr Lord Sir Professor Doctor Expert.

There is still no such word as "intregal".

That is all.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: iakobski on 14 June, 2010, 01:08:25 pm
Quote from: BBC News
The lower figure will likely increase the impetus of the coalition government to cut public spending, as lower growth means fewer tax revenues.

 ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 14 June, 2010, 01:15:33 pm
Quote from: BBC News
The lower figure will likely increase the impetus of the coalition government to cut public spending, as lower growth means fewer tax revenues.

 ::-)

BBC News comes out with grammatical howlers and factual errors every day.

I can sometimes not be bothered to share them or point them out.

Today's:

"Stabbed MP reviews security
An MP who was stabbed while holding a public surgery in eat London speaks about the incident for the first time."

Maybe there are cannibals in Newham...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 14 June, 2010, 10:41:48 pm
Quote from: Club Member this evening
Let's circularise that to the members
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Regulator on 15 June, 2010, 05:10:34 pm
Quote from: BBC News
The lower figure will likely increase the impetus of the coalition government to cut public spending, as lower growth means fewer tax revenues.

 ::-)

And what is wrong with that?  ???
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: John Henry on 15 June, 2010, 05:15:40 pm
Quote from: BBC News
The lower figure will likely increase the impetus of the coalition government to cut public spending, as lower growth means fewer tax revenues.

And what is wrong with that?  ???

'Fewer tax revenues' sounds odd. It would only make sense if they were reducing the number of separate tax revenue streams (fat chance!). I'd have written 'less tax revenue'. There's no need to pluralise 'revenue'.

There's also an argument to be had over whether 'likely' is an adjective or an adverb. I think it's an adjective, and I don't like seeing it used as a synonym for 'probably'. But I think I'm fighting a losing battle on that one.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Regulator on 15 June, 2010, 05:19:06 pm
Quote from: BBC News
The lower figure will likely increase the impetus of the coalition government to cut public spending, as lower growth means fewer tax revenues.

And what is wrong with that?  ???

'Fewer tax revenues' sounds odd. It would only make sense if they were reducing the number of separate tax revenue streams (fat chance!). I'd have written 'less tax revenue'. There's no need to pluralise 'revenue'.

There's also an argument to be had over whether 'likely' is an adjective or an adverb. I think it's an adjective, and I don't like seeing it used as a synonym for 'probably'. But I think I'm fighting a losing battle on that one.

I though about the 'revenue' v 'revenues' bit - but  if it is accepted that there can be more than one revenue (and this would appear to be the case from the mandarin-speak used in Whitehall and the Treasury) it is correct as written.  Although I'd agree with you it might be clearer to talk about 'revenue streams'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: JJ on 15 June, 2010, 06:07:02 pm
Likely as an adverb is a ghastly americanism.  "I'll likely get donuts at the drive-thru".  Yuk!

"Publically" seems to be accepted by Websters too, but it's absolutely horrid.  To do something in a public manner would be to do it publicly.  To do it publically would be to do it in a publical way, surely?

I may be wrong but even if I am, I'm still not going to like it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 15 June, 2010, 06:09:24 pm
if it is accepted that there can be more than one revenue ... it is correct as written.

Maybe, if that were what they meant. But they seem to mean less cash, not fewer sources of cash.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: iakobski on 15 June, 2010, 06:22:58 pm
I posted it because when people get it wrong it's nearly always because they use less where they should have used fewer.

Revenues is ok at a pinch, if a bit affected, a bit like "moneys", but in the phrase "lower growth means fewer tax revenues" they are not saying lower growth implies fewer taxes they are saying it implies less tax.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 15 June, 2010, 06:40:54 pm
I posted it because when people get it wrong it's nearly always because they use less where they should have used fewer.

Funny, isn't it. It's been so fashionable for so long for pedants to complain about supermarkets using the "X items or less" formulation that it seems to have become a popular fixed idea that "less" must always be wrong.

People have the same trouble with "I" or "me", incorrectly using "I" when they should use "me". This seems to arise from them being corrected as a child when using "me" wrongly and therefore thinking that "I" is always correct - probably because they weren't told (or just didn't understand) why "me" was wrong on those occasions.

But yeah, whatever, I can live with it. Some people don't know the difference between a subject and an object. So what. The only time it really grates is when they do it in set phrases, such as "Between you and I". I have a colleague who says this all the time, and in his job (subediting), he really ought to have a better grasp of basic grammar. Ooh, it makes my skin crawl.  :facepalm:

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 15 June, 2010, 06:50:16 pm
My kids quite often use "me" as the subject of the verb, and they were all grammar-school educated and have good degrees. I don't think they did so quite so much when they were at school: it must be the influence of all these kids from bog-standard comprehensives ending up at university. ;) :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 15 June, 2010, 07:54:19 pm
"Me" as subject doesn't bother me so much - in fact, I should admit that I sometimes use it myself.

I don't know why "I" as object seems so much more offensive. Perhaps because it sounds a little affected, as if the person is trying too hard to be "correct" and still getting it wrong.

d.   
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 15 June, 2010, 08:03:27 pm
Oh, and another thing...

Dangling participles. Gah!

Writers, by all means try to liven up your dreary prose by varying sentence structure, but please at least make an effort to preserve your intended meaning. If you can't see why your sentence is now at best ambiguous, at worst nonsensical, I suggest that in future you stick to   Janet and John-style sentence structure. Morons.

d. 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 15 June, 2010, 10:46:35 pm
"Me" as subject doesn't bother me so much - in fact, I should admit that I sometimes use it myself.

I don't know why "I" as object seems so much more offensive. Perhaps because it sounds a little affected, as if the person is trying too hard to be "correct" and still getting it wrong.

d.   
+1.
["Viz"-stylee syntax checking on]
I like grammar, me.
["Viz"-stylee syntax checking off]
Can someone parse the above sentence (particularly the last word) for me please?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 15 June, 2010, 11:14:21 pm
In that sentence, "me" is reflexive and used purely for emphasis. The meaning of the sentence is unchanged if you remove it.

cf "I myself like grammar."

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 16 June, 2010, 09:13:14 am
Larry "Laurence" Fishburne!

Did you really say "neumonic" on CSI last night?

You did?

Get in the cannon.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 June, 2010, 11:06:24 pm
Fewer, I and whom. I saw a banner which used "whom" as the subject of a sentence.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Keith on 19 June, 2010, 10:04:08 am
You and I went cycling
They came cycling with you and me.

I don't know about subject and objects. Just try taking out the "you and". If it still sounds right it probably is.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 19 June, 2010, 10:13:29 am
Starbucks napkins say "Less napkins.  More plants.  More planet."  :sick:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 19 June, 2010, 11:18:39 am
Just try taking out the "you and". If it still sounds right it probably is.
+ Lots.  Such a simple rule.  And it works. :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 19 June, 2010, 11:23:17 am
Spot on, Keith. I tried explaining it to a colleague in similar terms but he still didn't get it. Some people are just irredeemable.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Sergeant Pluck on 19 June, 2010, 11:25:34 am
Just try taking out the "you and". If it still sounds right it probably is.
+ Lots.  Such a simple rule.  And it works. :thumbsup:


+ 1.

I do wish that my understanding of English grammar was better.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 19 June, 2010, 12:10:57 pm
The reason being, of course, that if I/me am a subject without "you and", I'm still a subject with "you and" added, and the same for an object.

Of course, the same applies elsewhere. If it's Peter's wedding, it's still his if we mention his partner, so it's Peter's and Mary's wedding, not Peter and Mary's :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Keith on 19 June, 2010, 05:14:34 pm
Just try taking out the "you and". If it still sounds right it probably is.
+ Lots.  Such a simple rule.  And it works. :thumbsup:


The rule breaks down though in the more rural areas of the county that I inhabit, where this would be a perfectly acceptable sentence construction.

"Be you coming cycling with I?" . . . pronounced "Oi" of course.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 20 June, 2010, 08:29:01 pm
Of course, the same applies elsewhere. If it's Peter's wedding, it's still his if we mention his partner, so it's Peter's and Mary's wedding, not Peter and Mary's :)
I'm not sure I agree with that.
The "apostrophe s" construct is a shorthand for "of xyz"
So "Peter and Mary's Wedding" could be rendered as "The wedding of Peter and Mary".
Whereas "Peter's and Mary's Wedding" would be "The wedding of Peter and of Mary".
Both factually correct, but the first one trips off the tongue more easily.  (It makes "Peter and Mary" a single unit that can "own" a wedding - which is what a marriage is :thumbsup:)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 20 June, 2010, 10:05:36 pm
I'm not sure that's a legitimate construction. It's also open to ambiguity. For example:

"I met Peter and Mary's aunt."

How many people did I meet?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 20 June, 2010, 10:09:24 pm
Surely if you were meeting different aunts, you would say "I met Peter and Mary's aunts". You could say "Peter's and Mary's aunts" but that sounds a bit, well, officious.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 20 June, 2010, 10:20:23 pm
I met Peter and Mary
(two people)

I met Peter and Mary's aunt
(still two people; the possessive on Mary can't affect Peter, except that he has a different companion)

I met Peter's and Mary's aunt
(one person)

I met Peter's and Mary's aunts
(at least two people but possibly more, and not clear whether any of the aunts are in common; if not then "Peter's aunts and Mary's aunts" would be one way to express it)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 20 June, 2010, 10:23:32 pm
Reminds me of something my English teacher used to say about men with big noses...

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Keith on 21 June, 2010, 08:08:50 am
Reminds me of something my English teacher used to say about men with big noses...

d.
+1
Careful guys, you can take these rules too far. I always read that the real strength of English was that the "schoolmasters" had not got hold of it and that consequently it stayed simple so that everybody could understand it. Unlike the French with their pedantic little Acadamie. I don't really care how many apostrophes are "correct", if the meaning is unclear then rephrase it so that it is.
I met Mary's aunt, who happens to be Peter's aunt too.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Keith on 21 June, 2010, 08:15:49 am
This is a long thread but the one generic phraseology that drives me mad at the moment is the advertising speak:
"up to 50% saving"
"up to 20% off"
which of course is a completely meaningless statement. 0% falls within that catchment.
It all started with a toothpaste manufacturer in the late 70's
"Up to 30% fewer fillings"
I complained to the ASA at the time and it was upheld, but the phrase is endemic now.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 21 June, 2010, 08:41:56 am
I met Mary's aunt, who happens to be Peter's aunt too.

Presumably they are cousins then, as they have just got married? (or it is in Dorset, in which case they could be brother and sister?  ;D )
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Keith on 21 June, 2010, 07:55:22 pm
I met Mary's aunt, who happens to be Peter's aunt too.

Presumably they are cousins then, as they have just got married? (or it is in Dorset, in which case they could be brother and sister?  ;D )
I think you'll find that's Norfolk and not Darzet  :o
This is the same Mary as tried to get married but couldn't agree on who owned the ceremony. What was not made clear before though was the fact that her brother was also called Peter.
This is getting silly, I'm stopping this sketch.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 21 June, 2010, 07:59:27 pm
I've just bought a cake recipe book which refers to castor sugar all the way through. I might not have bought it if I'd realised beforehand.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Giraffe on 21 June, 2010, 09:03:30 pm
This is a long thread but the one generic phraseology that drives me mad at the moment is the advertising speak:
"up to 50% saving"
"up to 20% off"
which of course is a completely meaningless statement. 0% falls within that catchment.
It all started with a toothpaste manufacturer in the late 70's
"Up to 30% fewer fillings"
I complained to the ASA at the time and it was upheld, but the phrase is endemic now.

One shop that I didn't try had signs up: "Up to -25% discount" - looked a bit expensive to me.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 21 June, 2010, 09:20:57 pm
I'm not sure that's a legitimate construction. It's also open to ambiguity. For example:

"I met Peter and Mary's aunt."

How many people did I meet?
Because of that ambiguity, I'd hope that the author would use the alternative versions:
"I met Mary's aunt and Peter."
Or even
"I met Peter, and Mary's Aunt."
if that was what was intended.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 21 June, 2010, 10:07:57 pm
I agree with those who would reword to avoid ambiguity. However, Keith's wording:
Quote
I met Mary's aunt, who happens to be Peter's aunt too.
is quite a lot of extra words when just putting back the missing 's is equally unambiguous.

There is in fact no ambiguity anyway provided that the rules are followed. It's only because we can't rely on English writers to put both Peter and Mary in the same case that we have the problem in the first place. In some other languages, you couldn't get away with it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 22 June, 2010, 12:42:29 pm
BBC News website: Do you really mean " Budget, Tough but far"? Your proofreaders have surpassed themselves!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: peliroja on 22 June, 2010, 12:53:26 pm
Hehe, I noticed that one too, Helly. They've corrected it now (which took them about eight minutes).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 24 June, 2010, 11:34:47 pm
I have spent the day proofreading a booklet, written by A N Other for my partner. Ten pages of booklet have generated five pages of notes. It's a pdf so we can't edit it directly.
Missing commas, overlong sentences, logical disconnects 'the wind that night was calm with occasional gusts..'
loose/lose, effect/affect mistakes, erroneous photo captions etc.
GGGGGGRRRRRRRR!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: peliroja on 24 June, 2010, 11:42:19 pm
I do wish people would learn "loose/lose". It's amazing how many clever folks get it wrong.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jules on 25 June, 2010, 09:47:06 am
They're losers!  Tie them to a lose cannon and loose them in the deep I  say ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 25 June, 2010, 09:54:34 am
Playing fast and lose with the language...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wendy on 25 June, 2010, 11:04:22 am
I do wish people would learn "loose/lose". It's amazing how many clever folks get it wrong.

Some people know the difference, and yet still can't get it right.  Something wrong in the head.
 :-[
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 26 June, 2010, 12:55:26 pm
I do wish people would learn "loose/lose". It's amazing how many clever folks get it wrong.

Some people know the difference, and yet still can't get it right.  Something wrong in the head.
 :-[

That would be me (okayzunally)! I call it:
making a mistake or a typo.

I make others, too - best not to let them get to you :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 26 June, 2010, 01:24:09 pm
Yebbut if I were to pay £7.50 (which is the price I believe will be charged) for the publication I am reading at present, I would SCREAM at all these howlers.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 26 June, 2010, 10:07:11 pm
Yebbut if I were to pay £7.50 (which is the price I believe will be charged) for the publication I am reading at present, I would SCREAM at all these howlers.

Which is why they have asked you to proof read it.

I am currently translating a couple of documents from Danish English to English English.
This is mostly because despite having no qualifications for such an activity, my colleagues are used to the groans/ moans/ tirades induced from reading Other Peoples' Typos/Mistakes.

My own are obviously forgivable, but Other Peoples' are not.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 26 June, 2010, 10:18:27 pm
Actually, they have not asked me; I'm doing it as a favour for my partner who is cringing in desperation. His frequent cringes have all but frozen him into inaction. I doubt the author of this work has much insight into his quality.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 30 June, 2010, 04:49:56 pm
BBC News - Scottish workplace death figures drop (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/10466171.stm)

Quote
The number of people killed at work in Scotland last year has fallen, according to figures from the Health and Safety Executive

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: iakobski on 01 July, 2010, 09:31:07 am
This is a long thread but the one generic phraseology that drives me mad at the moment is the advertising speak:
"up to 50% saving"
"up to 20% off"
which of course is a completely meaningless statement. 0% falls within that catchment.
It all started with a toothpaste manufacturer in the late 70's
"Up to 30% fewer fillings"
I complained to the ASA at the time and it was upheld, but the phrase is endemic now.

Buy 1 - Get 1 Half Price

Surely "buy two, get one half price" or even "buy one, get a second one half price"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 01 July, 2010, 09:54:51 am
FIFA (not Fifa) is ...

England is ...

The players are ...

The Government is ...

Ministers are ...

A collective entity is still AN ENTITY, as in ONE, singular.  A body can have 50 milliard members, but that doesn't make the 'body' plural!

Americans can handle this concept quite easily.  Does such a concept not exist in British English?  ???
 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 01 July, 2010, 10:33:41 am
England is ...

The players are ...

A collective entity is still AN ENTITY, as in ONE, singular.  A body can have 50 milliard members, but that doesn't make the 'body' plural!

Americans can handle this concept quite easily.  Does such a concept not exist in British English?  ???
 
No, the idea that eleven individual players could meld into one team is quite unknown to England.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 July, 2010, 11:18:51 am
Anatole Economist on the Toady prog this morning.  There is a big difference between simulation and stimulation.  Simulating the economy is unlikely to be a viable way of getting BRITAIN out of the recession.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 01 July, 2010, 11:33:10 am
Andrij, you're telling us how to speak our language, eh? And some people wonder why Americans have a reputation for arrogance... ;)

Serious answer: it's not Fifa itself that's a disgrace, it's the people who run Fifa who are a disgrace.

And it's not England that's failing to show unity (that would be illogical - how can an entity not be unified?), it's the England players. When you say "England are..." you're using a sort of rhetorical shorthand. It's not quite metonymy but I'm not sure what the correct term for it is.

Anyway, this is one of those occasions where strict grammatical correctness is WRONG. ;)

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 10 July, 2010, 01:17:45 pm
"met with". Recently seen on this very forum.

Please, please! What's wrong with 'met'? Why add an unnecessary word? It's bad enough that Leftpondians perpetuate this solecism, but it's now spreading over here.

I'm dreading the random 'of' spreading outside the USA. So far, I've seen a few examples, all perpetrated by less than perfectly literate individuals who have been exposed to transatlantic-speak, but it doesn't seem to have caught on generally. Yet. :(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gandalf on 11 July, 2010, 08:25:54 am
The thing that is really getting to me at the moment is 'should of'.

I don't have a problem with the written 'should've' but where did this abomination come from?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: tatanab on 11 July, 2010, 11:35:43 am
The thing that is really getting to me at the moment is 'should of'.

I don't have a problem with the written 'should've' but where did this abomination come from?
People writing the way they speak.  Since they cannot pronounce or enunciate correctly they write incorrectly as well.  I too hate all the would of, could of, should of etc.

We will soon be writing about "anuvah exampoo of bad spellun".  The poo ending amuses me.  People cannot seem to pronounce words ending in le these days, and so people becomes peepoo.  Makes me  :sick:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: eck on 11 July, 2010, 11:43:10 am
The poo ending amuses me.  People cannot seem to pronounce words ending in le these days, and so people becomes peepoo.  Makes me  :sick:

Come back Michael Howard - a real man of the peepilll.  :thumbsup:  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gandalf on 11 July, 2010, 02:46:01 pm
The poo ending amuses me.  People cannot seem to pronounce words ending in le these days, and so people becomes peepoo.  Makes me  :sick:

Come back Michael Howard - a real man of the peepilll.  :thumbsup:  ;)

I always thought of it as 'pipple'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 12 July, 2010, 02:54:23 pm
Listen BBC - when it means the end of the day it's eve-ning, it's only even-ing when it means flattening.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 15 July, 2010, 08:37:04 am
Listen BBC - when it means the end of the day it's eve-ning, it's only even-ing when it means flattening.

Even Led Zeppelin got that right. "In the eeeeeev-ninggggg"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 15 July, 2010, 08:39:31 am
Did anyone else see the new series of "That Mitchell and Webb Look" last night ? They had a brilliant sketch where a boss in an office lost it and shot anyone who made a grammatical or pronunciation error. 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 15 July, 2010, 09:30:13 am
The thing that is really getting to me at the moment is 'should of'.

I don't have a problem with the written 'should've' but where did this abomination come from?

Pronunciation spelling.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 15 July, 2010, 10:08:39 am
Did anyone else see the new series of "That Mitchell and Webb Look" last night ? They had a brilliant sketch where a boss in an office lost it and shot anyone who made a grammatical or pronunciation error. 

+1
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 15 July, 2010, 10:38:36 am
The ignoramuses / ignorami end was genius.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 15 July, 2010, 11:08:39 am
The ignoramuses / ignorami end was genius.

Oh yes, that was great.

As was: "It's whomever!"

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 15 July, 2010, 11:29:07 am
'Haitch haitch haitch'.  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Steve Kish on 16 July, 2010, 10:33:14 pm
My big cringers:-

'haitch', of course.  Seems to be standard with every sales / service agent these days.  When asked my surname ... Kay-eye-ess-aych and they repeat it back as kay-eye-ess-haitch, must bite lip to avoid shouting NO, AITCH!

'revert back'

'best' (or similar) rather than 'better' when comparing two .... a great favourite on 'Top Gear'.

Quote
The Jaguar or the Aston ... both great, but which is fastest?

 :sick:

Double negatives in pop lyrics - one's even a triple:-


'Ain't gonna bump no more with no big fat woman!' ???
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 16 July, 2010, 10:38:48 pm
Complaining about pop lyrics is a good way to earn respect on this thread ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 16 July, 2010, 11:36:13 pm
'haitch', of course.  Seems to be standard with every sales / service agent these days.

Did you see That Mitchell & Webb Look this week? It'll still be on iPlayer if you missed it. You'll love it.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ham on 19 July, 2010, 11:52:51 am
Grrrrrrr

On today's Evans site:
(http://lh6.ggpht.com/__5EyI8Ck-Lw/TEQt2bf8oOI/AAAAAAAAUkk/jKK_U7SHHuM/s320/Evans%20Cycles%20%20Mountain%20Bike%20%20Specialized%20Bikes%20%20UK%20Online%20Bike%20Shop%20-%20Google%20Chrome%2019072010%20114925.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 19 July, 2010, 12:13:50 pm
Complaining about pop lyrics is a good way to earn respect on this thread ;)

Never having heard of the perpetrators is a better one.  O:-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Steve Kish on 19 July, 2010, 01:07:44 pm
Grrrrrrr

On today's Evans site:
(http://lh6.ggpht.com/__5EyI8Ck-Lw/TEQt2bf8oOI/AAAAAAAAUkk/jKK_U7SHHuM/s320/Evans%20Cycles%20%20Mountain%20Bike%20%20Specialized%20Bikes%20%20UK%20Online%20Bike%20Shop%20-%20Google%20Chrome%2019072010%20114925.jpg)


Evans ian't not never been the same since Gary Smith sold it on! ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jane on 19 July, 2010, 01:31:39 pm
The thing that is really getting to me at the moment is 'should of'.

I don't have a problem with the written 'should've' but where did this abomination come from?
People writing the way they speak.  Since they cannot pronounce or enunciate correctly they write incorrectly as well.  I too hate all the would of, could of, should of etc.

We will soon be writing about "anuvah exampoo of bad spellun".  The poo ending amuses me.  People cannot seem to pronounce words ending in le these days, and so people becomes peepoo.  Makes me  :sick:
This is a charming stage most young children go through when they begin to learn to write and spell, with basic phonic skills and before they learn the difference between standard and non standard English.  Non standard English (NSE) is fine- it's various forms add richness and diversity to the language and have done for centuries. The version of NSE you describe  may not be the way you speak but so what- who is to say which version of English is the right one? The problem with NSE is that it's situationally, culturally and  geographically specific.  So , obviously, we all need knowledge of standard English as well as our own form of NSE and we need  to learn when it's appropriate to use it and not appropriate to use our NSE.   I would agree, some people seem to struggle with this.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: little miss mac on 19 July, 2010, 02:58:43 pm
Grrrrrrr

On today's Evans site:
(http://lh6.ggpht.com/__5EyI8Ck-Lw/TEQt2bf8oOI/AAAAAAAAUkk/jKK_U7SHHuM/s320/Evans%20Cycles%20%20Mountain%20Bike%20%20Specialized%20Bikes%20%20UK%20Online%20Bike%20Shop%20-%20Google%20Chrome%2019072010%20114925.jpg)


Evans ian't not never been the same since Gary Smith sold it on! ;D

Shouldn't that be "Evan's"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 25 July, 2010, 05:10:09 pm
From my Thumbs Up brand Tube Repair Kit:

Remove foil from the patch and apply on injury, stitch down thoroughly.

It's bad translation not grammar, and it makes me laugh rather than cringe, but this seems the best thread for it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Paul on 25 July, 2010, 05:16:34 pm
Lucy Mangan is on my laminated list. Here's one reason (http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/mind-your-language/2010/jul/24/style-guide-grammar-lucy-mangan).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 25 July, 2010, 05:32:06 pm
She's wrong about less and fewer though. There's all the difference in the world between "less difficult problems" and "fewer difficult problems". Did we cover that already?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Giraffe on 26 July, 2010, 08:39:58 am
Farm where I get my eggses has put up a sign giving the date when the eggs were picked and their use-by date. After that info it has:

Please recycle boxes[1]
Keep in a cool place[2]

[1]Why not reuse them?
[2]Do the boxes go off if warm?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: LindaG on 26 July, 2010, 08:45:35 am
The thing that is really getting to me at the moment is 'should of'.

I don't have a problem with the written 'should've' but where did this abomination come from?
People writing the way they speak.  Since they cannot pronounce or enunciate correctly they write incorrectly as well.  I too hate all the would of, could of, should of etc.

We will soon be writing about "anuvah exampoo of bad spellun".  The poo ending amuses me.  People cannot seem to pronounce words ending in le these days, and so people becomes peepoo.  Makes me  :sick:
This is a charming stage most young children go through when they begin to learn to write and spell, with basic phonic skills and before they learn the difference between standard and non standard English.  Non standard English (NSE) is fine- it's various forms add richness and diversity to the language and have done for centuries. The version of NSE you describe  may not be the way you speak but so what- who is to say which version of English is the right one? The problem with NSE is that it's situationally, culturally and  geographically specific.  So , obviously, we all need knowledge of standard English as well as our own form of NSE and we need  to learn when it's appropriate to use it and not appropriate to use our NSE.   I would agree, some people seem to struggle with this.

Yes.  Most of our regional dialects have been standardised, or have died out altogether, and we are poorer for it.  IMO.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 26 July, 2010, 10:37:11 am
Oh, golly. I've just received a fundraising letter from a university---with an internationally respected publisher attached, too.

It's entitled "Oxford Thinking. And Doing." and the punctuation only gets worse. There are nine pages of captioned pictures which have full stops at the end of all, and only, those phrases which aren't actual sentences. There's a letter signed by the V-C telling me "We are becoming one world. Our world." 

Among all this horrorshow syntax the opening sentence of the letter, "Today, the defining struggle in the world is between relentless growth and the potential for collaboration" is almost invisible, but deserves honorable mention for tendentious vacuity.

Surely, surely, decent grammar is one of the first requirements for professional curmudgeon-squeezers?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 26 July, 2010, 10:44:34 am
Quote
"Today, the defining struggle in the world is between relentless growth and the potential for collaboration"

Astonishing. That is a true masterpiece of corporate bullshit.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: iakobski on 26 July, 2010, 10:51:32 am
Did anyone else see the new series of "That Mitchell and Webb Look" last night ? They had a brilliant sketch where a boss in an office lost it and shot anyone who made a grammatical or pronunciation error. 

I've just had to sit through a meeting where someone kept saying "illegible" where she meant "eligible". About 25 bloody times.

No-one shot her though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 26 July, 2010, 10:57:05 am
Lucy Mangan is on my laminated list. Here's one reason (http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/mind-your-language/2010/jul/24/style-guide-grammar-lucy-mangan).

Quote
In reality, not splitting infinitives regularly results in ruined rhythms and altogether unhappier sentences. I tend not to split them, because I can't face justifying myself to all those who would complain, but I state here for the record that I adhere to the rule primarily out of sloth and cowardice, not out of moral principle.

Unfortunately she shot herself down in flames there, as she should have practised what she preached:

Quote
I tend to not split them

 :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 26 July, 2010, 11:07:50 am
Unfortunately she shot herself down in flames there

Really? Are you sure? Do you want to read that again?

If I were looking for something to pick on in that paragraph, it would be her use of "regularly"...

Quote
In reality, not splitting infinitives regularly results in ruined rhythms and altogether unhappier sentences.

Halley's comet appears in our skies regularly - every 76 years. Is that what you mean, Mangler? Or do you mean "often"? In your defence, at least you didn't use the inexpicably popular "on a regular basis".

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 July, 2010, 11:08:40 am
Surely the "to" after "tend" is part of the infinitive that follows it, in this case "to split". So she followed her own advice, as I see it: she opted for the better rhythm, and doesn't have to justify herself (except to Rogerzilla).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 July, 2010, 11:10:54 am
Unfortunately she shot herself down in flames there

Really? Are you sure? Do you want to read that again?

If I were looking for something to pick on in that paragraph, it would be her use of "regularly"...

Quote
In reality, not splitting infinitives regularly results in ruined rhythms and altogether unhappier sentences.

Halley's comet appears in our skies regularly - every 76 years. Is that what you mean, Mangler? Or do you mean "often"? In your defence, at least you didn't use the inexpicably popular "on a regular basis".

d.

Quote
In reality, not splitting infinitives regularly3 results in ruined rhythms
Quote
3 Just kidding again – "frequently".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 26 July, 2010, 11:15:13 am
If I were looking for something to pick on in that paragraph, it would be her use of "regularly"...

Hmm. The original article has a footnote here explaining that her use of "regularly" instead of "frequently" was ironic. OK, I'll let her off this time.

[edit: crossposted with Cudzo]

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 26 July, 2010, 11:17:26 am
Quote
"Today, the defining struggle in the world is between relentless growth and the potential for collaboration"

Astonishing. That is a true masterpiece of corporate bullshit.

d.

Oh, and there's more. I feel a submission to the Eye coming on.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 26 July, 2010, 11:42:52 am
Unfortunately she shot herself down in flames there

Really? Are you sure? Do you want to read that again?
OK, she says she tends not to split them, but her principal* argument is that she'd really like to.  I suppose you could read it either way.


*I was going to type "principle" here as a subtle troll, but thought better of it  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: RJ on 26 July, 2010, 01:03:02 pm
Very principalled of you  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 26 July, 2010, 06:15:06 pm
Hmm. The original article has a footnote here explaining that her use of "regularly" instead of "frequently" was ironic. OK, I'll let her off this time.
For those who struggle with "regular" and "frequent":
The UK railway station with the most REGULAR train service is Fishguard Harbour.  A train at 0300 each day, and another at 1500 each day - Monday to Sunday.  That means a train every 12 hours.

By no means frequent.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 26 July, 2010, 07:53:04 pm
Hmm. The original article has a footnote here explaining that her use of "regularly" instead of "frequently" was ironic. OK, I'll let her off this time.
For those who struggle with "regular" and "frequent":
The UK railway station with the most REGULAR train service is Fishguard Harbour.  A train at 0300 each day, and another at 1500 each day - Monday to Sunday.  That means a train every 12 hours.

By no means frequent.


Indeed. Wound up partner big time when he told me I should clean my teeth regularly so I told him I'd do them every year.  ;) ;D :demon:
He didn't see the joke.
(TBF I'd crashed out without my customary nocturnal toothscrub.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Deano on 26 July, 2010, 07:56:35 pm
Oh, golly. I've just received a fundraising letter from a university---with an internationally respected publisher attached, too.

It's entitled "Oxford Thinking. And Doing." and the punctuation only gets worse. There are nine pages of captioned pictures which have full stops at the end of all, and only, those phrases which aren't actual sentences. There's a letter signed by the V-C telling me "We are becoming one world. Our world." 

Among all this horrorshow syntax the opening sentence of the letter, "Today, the defining struggle in the world is between relentless growth and the potential for collaboration" is almost invisible, but deserves honorable mention for tendentious vacuity.

Surely, surely, decent grammar is one of the first requirements for professional curmudgeon-squeezers?

"Tendentious vacuity" is my favourite phrase of the day.  I'm going to crowbar it into a meeting at work tomorrow.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 26 July, 2010, 07:57:04 pm
Farm where I get my eggses has put up a sign giving the date when the eggs were picked and their use-by date.

Do eggs grow on trees in Northamptonshire? ITWSBT.
 ;) ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Zoidburg on 26 July, 2010, 08:00:39 pm
Farm where I get my eggses has put up a sign giving the date when the eggs were picked and their use-by date.

Do eggs grow on trees in Northamptonshire? ITWSBT.
 ;) ;D
Nothing wrong with that.

Picked (as in to pick) entails a sorting and selection process - it does not have to mean it came off a branch or grew in the ground.

You can indeed pick eggs.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 26 July, 2010, 08:06:23 pm

Picked (as in to pick) entails a sorting and selection process...

I didn't select my nose.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Zoidburg on 26 July, 2010, 08:07:07 pm

Picked (as in to pick) entails a sorting and selection process...

I didn't select my nose.
You refer to pick as in the old anglo saxon word "pike".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 26 July, 2010, 08:23:15 pm

Picked (as in to pick) entails a sorting and selection process...

I didn't select my nose.
You refer to pick as in the old anglo saxon word "pike".
Yup. Pick is from either pike or pitch, though my ancient Chambers' Etymological dictionary gives some entertaining Gaelic and Welsh options.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 July, 2010, 09:23:13 pm
Some pikey pitched a pick through it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 28 July, 2010, 10:50:03 pm
Quote
How did you hear about us:   

i.e. a search engine, an existing user, an advertsiement [sic], saw usage on another website, in a dream, ...

I know I've moaned about this before  ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 28 July, 2010, 10:58:36 pm
You'd think they could proorfead! ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 28 July, 2010, 11:20:28 pm
Hmm. The original article has a footnote here explaining that her use of "regularly" instead of "frequently" was ironic. OK, I'll let her off this time.
For those who struggle with "regular" and "frequent":
The UK railway station with the most REGULAR train service is Fishguard Harbour.  A train at 0300 each day, and another at 1500 each day - Monday to Sunday.  That means a train every 12 hours.

By no means frequent.


Indeed. Wound up partner big time when he told me I should clean my teeth regularly so I told him I'd do them every year.  ;) ;D :demon:
He didn't see the joke.
(TBF I'd crashed out without my customary nocturnal toothscrub.)

I've forgotten how many years ago it was that Alan (as he was then known) organised a YACF trip to Hartington in Derbyshire.

During one of the rides we visited the George and Dragon in Alstonefield (which I think is actually over the border in Staffs). I mentioned to the landlady that I was a regular customer and she replied that she didn't remember seeing me before.

"You probably don't," I replied "because I was 18 the last time I came here. That was 34 years ago and I'm intending my next visit should be when I'm 86!"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 29 July, 2010, 10:37:28 am
Mercifully I cannot recall the name of the Stupid Thick Fucking Thick Stupid Bastard Tory Bastard on the BBC Londonton News the other day, but should I ever encounter Mr Stupid Thick Fucking Thick Stupid Bastard Tory Bastard in person, then he will be on the tooth-filled end of The Bear.

When referring to the legacy of the Londonton Olympics, Mr Stupid Thick Fucking Thick Stupid Bastard Tory Bastard, be advised that there is but one Olympic stadium.  Didn't they teach you anything at fucking Eton?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 29 July, 2010, 04:11:17 pm
Just read in a paper.  It was at the bottom of the page before it sank in, so I had to turn back to ensure I hadn't made it up:

'...a degree of immortality...'
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 July, 2010, 04:16:12 pm
A degree of immortality is nothing. You even get a PhD in the subject from any on-line "university".  :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 29 July, 2010, 04:19:15 pm
;D

Like 'Doctor' Gillian McKeith? ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: CAMRAMan on 29 July, 2010, 04:31:39 pm
I've just heard from a colleague that our mutual customer will "defiantly" be needing help.

Me: "So, how can I help you?"
Customer: "Bollocks!"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 29 July, 2010, 05:32:14 pm
Somebody here in a thread on another board used 'defiantly' instead of 'definitely'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 29 July, 2010, 07:55:54 pm
Just read in a paper.  It was at the bottom of the page before it sank in, so I had to turn back to ensure I hadn't made it up:

'...a degree of immortality...'

Lesser angels - you know, the ones on the heads of pins.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SandyV on 31 July, 2010, 12:54:40 am
I know it's been raised many times before but:  principle/ principal  - how can I explain it so that graduates in my team get it?  I'm a bit tired of correcting it.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 31 July, 2010, 07:26:41 am
Best to point out the separate meanings, I'd have thought. If you start going into common roots, it just emphasises the similarity and makes it easier to confuse the words.

Then you just have to remember which is which - as with stationary/stationery.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 31 July, 2010, 07:39:22 am
I know it's been raised many times before but:  principle/ principal  - how can I explain it so that graduates in my team get it?  I'm a bit tired of correcting it.


Unless you mean the boss, "principle" is a noun, "principal" an adjective.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Redlight on 17 August, 2010, 11:06:53 pm
Advanced warning

Is that as in: a warning offered? 

Of course, Advance Warning is pretty silly too when you think about it. 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 17 August, 2010, 11:16:28 pm
Advanced warning


I think it means it's a sophisticated warning, as distinct form the basic sort.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 August, 2010, 11:21:16 pm
shipping cost (everywhere in the world)
under 10 € = 3.30 €
up to 10 € = 4.50 €

From the bottom of this page (http://www.chez-delaney.com/stickers.html).

What is the postage if I buy 10 or more euros worth of goods?
The rest of that page is in French, it's clearly a case of (very) bad translation. Yes, they should have had it checked, but is is different from crap grammar in your native language. I promise not to point out similar mistakes in your Slovak if you don't in my Polish.  :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: CAMRAMan on 17 August, 2010, 11:27:15 pm
"The person, who cleans this toilet maybe male or female"

Crap sign at Wigan NW station. I quite often see "maybe" when it should be "may be".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 17 August, 2010, 11:28:40 pm
You can indeed pick eggs.

Indeed. Ask Oscar's Dad!!!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 August, 2010, 01:03:39 pm
Dobry dien!

I think your polski must be better than my slovenski, as what you wrote above was perfect to the ó.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 22 August, 2010, 02:12:31 pm
Headlines like this on the BBC News website annoy me by their ambiguity.
<More smokers quit using NHS help> from
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11022380 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11022380)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 23 August, 2010, 12:07:45 pm
I know it's correct usage in USAnia, but the phrase or saying "different than" really gets on my pecs.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ham on 23 August, 2010, 01:11:04 pm
"The person, who cleans this toilet maybe male or female"

Crap sign at Wigan NW station. I quite often see "maybe" when it should be "may be".

I've got a neighbour like that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 23 August, 2010, 01:18:28 pm
"The person, who cleans this toilet maybe male or female"

Crap sign at Wigan NW station. I quite often see "maybe" when it should be "may be".

Or in this case you could petty safely replace "maybe" with "will be".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ham on 23 August, 2010, 01:53:02 pm
"The person, who cleans this toilet maybe male or female"

Crap sign at Wigan NW station. I quite often see "maybe" when it should be "may be".

Or in this case you could petty safely replace "maybe" with "will be".

You haven't met my neighbour.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 23 August, 2010, 04:22:01 pm

Or in this case you could petty safely replace "maybe" with "will be".

 :o
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 24 August, 2010, 04:03:38 pm
Quote
The contractor has arranged for both the internal and external area’s of the building to be inspected tomorrow affected by the water, and will arrange the appropriate repairs thereafter.

 ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 24 August, 2010, 04:10:13 pm
"
Due to accounting system changes for [FOREIGN_COUNTRY], the current web-based property management system [NAME] will be discontinued until new property management system will be deployed in 2011. Further communication will follow prior to the deployment.
"

?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 August, 2010, 09:09:43 pm
Articles! Present tense with future reference after prepositions of time! Failed FCE.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ham on 31 August, 2010, 01:06:50 pm
"I went through it with a fine tooth-comb"

Always supposing you can explain to me what a Tooth-comb is, please can you tell me in what way the one you were using was a particularly fine example?

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 31 August, 2010, 01:32:48 pm
I once heard someone use the phrase "tooth-comb" without the modifying adjective. Presumably an ordinary tooth-comb was sufficient on that occasion.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 31 August, 2010, 01:38:45 pm
A tooth-comb is what medieval orthodontists used to straighten out wonky teeth. No doubt the British Museum has some fine specimens.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 31 August, 2010, 03:41:25 pm
Quote
The contractor has arranged for both the internal and external area’s of the building to be inspected tomorrow affected by the water, and will arrange the appropriate repairs thereafter.

 ::-)

Obviously, they meant
Quote
repair's
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: robbo6 on 31 August, 2010, 09:17:50 pm
A fine-tooth comb was what people used to catch the fleas and lice off dogs, cats and children before insecticides came into general use. Hence "going through it with a fine-tooth comb":- looking for very small details, "nit-picking".
They normally had a wide flat centre to squash one's catch against with  a thumb-nail.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 31 August, 2010, 10:27:56 pm
A tooth-comb is what medieval orthodontists used to straighten out wonky teeth. No doubt the British Museum has some fine specimens.

You got that by combing through wikipedia, didn't you.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 31 August, 2010, 10:29:13 pm
Nit-wit ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 31 August, 2010, 11:05:37 pm
[Frank Muir]

The term 'tooth-comb' actually originates from agricultural folk-law. Farmers who bred chickens for egg production were well aware that very occasionally a chick would be born with a small deformity in its beak. As it grew older, this would cause it's upper beak to misalign with its lower and as a consequence it would not be able to peck in the ground for grain and insects. The only way it could gather enough nutrition would be to feed off the eggs of the other hens. Its beak deformity or "hens tooth" actually made it easier for the hen to break the egg shells before eating the contents.

Clearly this was not in the farmer's interest to have an egg consuming hen in its flock, so he would try to identify these very rare toothed hens. Because the deformity did not develop until the hen was much older, it was said that a skilled farmer could spot a potential problem hen because before its tooth was fully developed, its comb tended to be very slightly narrower than that of a normal healthy hen.

With modern industrial scale farming, it is sadly no longer necessary to be able to identify a fine tooth-comb, although organic free-range farmers still claim to be able to spot them.


[/Frank Muir]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 01 September, 2010, 09:45:15 am
Nit-wit ;D
Ooooh, subtle!

I like the carefully thought out reference to the purpose of the sort of comb not quite described by 'fine tooth-comb'.  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Clandy on 01 September, 2010, 09:52:15 am
 "I've got a gut feeling in my stomach". What, that I might want to punch your head in the face?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 03 September, 2010, 05:05:19 pm
There is a singular form of 'consortia'! >:(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gandalf on 06 September, 2010, 06:30:32 am
There is a singular form of 'consortia'! >:(

Indeed, in a similar vein there is also a singular form of 'criteria'.

Edit.  I have just remembered that the gits do it with 'phenomena' as well.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gandalf on 06 September, 2010, 06:37:13 am
Not grammar as such, but has anyone else noticed the irritating 'development' of people substituting the word 'best' when they clearly mean ''favourite'?  My daughter asked me what my 'best' film was yesterday, I felt compelled to point out that I was neither an actor or a director. 

Almost as annoying as the way 'slippy' has supplanted 'slippery' in some quarters.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 06 September, 2010, 06:38:36 am
And still in a similar vein, the plural of media is not medias.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 06 September, 2010, 06:42:55 am
Media is a very over-used word now anyway, probably because "press" doesn't seem to cover the online stuff.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 06 September, 2010, 09:38:44 am
And still in a similar vein, the plural of media is not medias.

d.
I thought it was meeja.

(runs & hides)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 06 September, 2010, 10:53:06 am
There is a singular form of 'consortia'! >:(

Indeed, in a similar vein there is also a singular form of 'criteria'.

Edit.  I have just remembered that the gits do it with 'phenomena' as well.

Yes, I think that criteria was also misused in the same letter.  But the damn thing was about consortia, and how we would all be obliged to join 'a consortia' >:(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 06 September, 2010, 11:07:22 am
How many of the pluralists here use

medium
datum
agendum
graffito

when referring to one item from their more familiar plurals?

Or how many of you use

concerti
bimbi

in place of their more familiar singular versions?

Surely at some point, many of these words have become sufficiently Anglicised that an English plural is acceptable.

Having said all that, I will remain in what feels like a lone struggle to maintain 'data are' in everyday usage. I also refer to 'datums' when talking about more than one baseline upon which to measure relative height on a map.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 06 September, 2010, 11:12:46 am

Surely at some point, many of these words have become sufficiently Anglicised that an English plural is acceptable.

Insects have antennae; radio transmitters have antennas - by convention.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 06 September, 2010, 11:13:09 am
Panino, scampo.

You're not alone saying 'the data are'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 06 September, 2010, 12:55:34 pm
How many of the pluralists here use

medium
datum
agendum
graffito

when referring to one item from their more familiar plurals?

Or how many of you use

concerti
bimbi

in place of their more familiar singular versions?
All except agendum (sorry  :( ) & bimbi - but I will now correct the latter omission. I like bimbi. Ta.  :thumbsup:

And data are, of course.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 06 September, 2010, 01:10:47 pm
How many of the pluralists here use

medium
datum
agendum
graffito

when referring to one item from their more familiar plurals?

Er, I don't even know of an alternative singular form for any of these words, never mind use one.  ???

Like "trousers", they're not words you'd commonly use in the singular form anyway - the only time I would use the singular of media (for this sense of the word) is when quoting Marshall McLuhan.

Quote
Surely at some point, many of these words have become sufficiently Anglicised that an English plural is acceptable.

That's not the point. "Media" is already a plural, it doesn't need to be pluralised. The complaint is more about using plural forms with a singular sense.

I'm wholly in favour of anglicised plurals of adopted words (stadiums, forums etc), especially when the English meaning of the word is somewhat distanced from its native meaning - eg bimbo.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 06 September, 2010, 01:16:16 pm
How many of the pluralists here use

medium
datum
agendum
graffito

when referring to one item from their more familiar plurals?

Er, I don't even know of an alternative singular form for any of these words, never mind use one.  ???

Like "trousers", they're not words you'd commonly use in the singular form anyway -
Oh no! I've often found occasion to use medium (in the sense of a single medium of communication, e.g. radio), datum, & graffito. How else would you refer to a single picture or tag on a wall than 'a graffito'?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 06 September, 2010, 01:22:44 pm
Oh no! I've often found occasion to use medium (in the sense of a single medium of communication, e.g. radio), datum, & graffito.

I would use "medium" in an artistic context, eg "What medium did the artist use for this work?" but data and graffiti aren't common enough subjects of conversation for me that I can recall ever needing to use their singular forms.

"Panini" is a truly irritating word (what's wrong with calling it a bread roll, ffs?), but for me, it passes the adoption test, in that its specific English meaning is sufficiently different to the original for the native singular/plural forms to be irrelevant.

Quote
How else would you refer to a single picture or tag on a wall than 'a graffito'?

"The latest Banksy."

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 06 September, 2010, 01:32:01 pm
Oh no! I've often found occasion to use medium (in the sense of a single medium of communication, e.g. radio), datum, & graffito.

I would use "medium" in an artistic context, eg "What medium did the artist use for this work?"
+1 to that

I know that "data is" is incorrect, but it just fits so well with other related terms e.g.
"The data you supplied is incomplete, and so is the information from our other sources."
I suppose it's because I think of data encompassing a variety of forms other than simply a set of numbers e.g. "the data on a hard disk" may well include pictures, words etc.
That data is corrupt.


Sorry ...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 06 September, 2010, 01:41:42 pm
I know that "data is" is incorrect, but it just fits so well with other related terms e.g.
"The data you supplied is incomplete, and so is the information from our other sources."
I suppose it's because I think of data encompassing a variety of forms other than simply a set of numbers e.g. "the data on a hard disk" may well include pictures, words etc.

In that context, "data" has a singular sense - you're talking about a "complete set" of data, which is, grammatically speaking, like a bag of sand - you would talk about the sand in that bag in the singular, even though it comprises many individual grains.

So I would argue your example isn't grammatically incorrect.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 06 September, 2010, 02:01:59 pm

That's not the point. "Media" is already a plural, it doesn't need to be pluralised. The complaint is more about using plural forms with a singular sense.

I'm wholly in favour of anglicised plurals of adopted words (stadiums, forums etc), especially when the English meaning of the word is somewhat distanced from its native meaning - eg bimbo.

d.


But jo's point (I think), carrying on from Clarion's and Gandalf's examples, is that some people who criticize the use of the the plural form when the singular should be used do not do so consistently, and he quotes some examples of very infrequently used singular forms.  And then he adds the 'common sense' proviso:

Surely at some point, many of these words have become sufficiently Anglicised that an English plural is acceptable.

I looked up "agenda" in my Fowlers because I realized that I didn't know if an agendum would refer to a single list of items, or an single item on such a list:

"Although agenda is a plural word, it is pedantry to object to the common and convenient practice of treating it thus [referring to an introductory quotation] as a singular one.  If a singular is needed for one item of the agenda there seems no escape from that rather cumbrous phrase; agendum is pedantic and agend obsolete".

I think I'll start using "agend" just to show off.  Can we move on to the next agend please?

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 06 September, 2010, 02:23:40 pm
But jo's point (I think), carrying on from Clarion's and Gandalf's examples, is that some people who criticize the use of the the plural form when the singular should be used do not do so consistently

Yes, I'm sure some people do that. ;)

Quote
I looked up "agenda" in my Fowlers because I realized that I didn't know if an agendum would refer to a single list of items, or an single item on such a list:

Agenda has a singular sense in the same way as data in mattc's example. I entirely agree with Fowler on this matter. This isn't an inconsistency. Linguistically, it's an irregularity but not an inconsistency.

On the other hand, consortia, to pick on Clarion's example, can't be treated as a singular in the same way. It makes no sense.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 September, 2010, 05:51:17 pm
Interesting that these words are problematic in other languages too. The Polish words stadion, datum, medium, konsorcjum, are strictly speaking neutral because that is their Latin gender and form plurals stadia, data, media, konsorcja, but in practice they are often treated as masculine, in line with the general rule that words ending in consonants are masculine, which gives them problematic plurals stadiumy, datumy, etc. These just sound wrong and produce some strange declensions.

So, you're in international society with this one.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 06 September, 2010, 09:52:08 pm
That wonderfully fine yet vague line between correctness and pedantry.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 06 September, 2010, 09:59:56 pm
Another plural that gets used as a singular:

"He contracted a bacteria".
(Possibly not as blatant as that, but similar usage has appeared here and there.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 07 September, 2010, 08:55:07 am

All except agendum (sorry  :( ) & bimbi - but I will now correct the latter omission. I like bimbi. Ta.  :thumbsup:


I went to school with a Bimbi.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 07 September, 2010, 09:45:47 am
Not quite cringe-making, but the local, under-new-management, wine shop had a sign outside: We sell "ice".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 07 September, 2010, 09:56:05 am
I think that must mean that they sell methamphetamine.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 07 September, 2010, 10:15:07 am
Not quite cringe-making, but the local, under-new-management, wine shop had a sign outside: We sell "ice".

You'll like "this":
The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks (http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/)

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 07 September, 2010, 11:11:35 am
My favourite for superfluous quotation marks is the old design of Seabrook Crisps* (known for their Please Strong Avoid Light (http://en-gb.facebook.com/pages/Please-Strong-Avoid-Light-Seabrook-Crisps-Appreciation/118515338165789) design). Many an hour could be spent in a northern England  pub counting up the number of unnecessary inverted commas. From memory they included

"More" - than a "Snack"  [what is that hyphen doing?]
"Value" 31 grammes "e"  [What?! What possible sense are you trying to add to "e" there?]
"Crinkle" cut  [or was it Crinkle "Cut", or just "Crinkle Cut"]
Sea Salt original "Flavour"  [I love reading these as 'scare quotes' which turns the message on its head]

In what can only be described as a barbarous culling, almost all of these quotes were removed in a redesign sometime in the last decade.

I realise it really is quite sad that I can remember the wording and layout of a packet of crisps I probably last saw in the 1990s, but I feel compelled to share my problem with the group.


* I think only available north of Derbyshire. Our North of England Correspondent, Exit Stage Left, may be able to enlighten us on this matter.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 07 September, 2010, 11:14:28 am
"Value" 31 grammes "e"  [What?! What possible sense are you trying to add to "e" there?]

Quote from: http://www.reading.ac.uk/foodlaw/label/i-1.htm
With regard to labelling, products packed according the average weight system may use the 'e' mark when the nominal quantity is in the range 5g - 10kg (or 5ml - 10l). The mark shall be at least 3mm high, placed in the same field of vision as the weight/volume statement, and indelible, clearly legible and visible under normal conditions of purchase. The mark is not obligatory but when used is a guarantee, recognised throughout the EEC, that the goods to which it is applied have been packed in accordance with the relevant EEC Directive.

It's present on the pack of Hula Hoops that lies on my desk.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 07 September, 2010, 11:23:28 am
Seabrooks crisps are the best.

Their packaging designers are rubbish.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 07 September, 2010, 11:35:50 am
Quote
Fry slams BBC 'culture of fear'

might be quite hard for the BBC to report without the quotation marks.

In some cases I think it's a deliberate distancing of the BBC from the suggestion being made by whoever it is quoting.  

But things like

Quote
Red Planet 'may not be lifeless'

does look a bit silly, agreed.

edit: maybe they've decided to be consistent and always use them when re-reporting stuff other people have claimed. Else, I suppose, it might be perceived as an indicator of what the BBC does or doesn't believe to be true.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 07 September, 2010, 11:43:47 am
edit: maybe they've decided to be consistent and always use them when re-reporting stuff other people have claimed. Else, I suppose, it might be perceived as an indicator of what the BBC does or doesn't believe to be true.

Except that they're paraphrasing the claims. In most cases the phrase within quotes doesn't appear anywhere in the article.

ME 'virus link' found in children - The word 'link' does not appear anywhere in the article.

Political void 'threatens Iraq' - The word 'threat' (or any variant) does not appear anywhere.

etc...

They're trying to distance themselves from their own opinion which just makes them look silly.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 07 September, 2010, 11:45:30 am
Quote
Fry slams BBC 'culture of fear'

might be quite hard for the BBC to report without the quotation marks.

In some cases I think it's a deliberate distancing of the BBC from the suggestion being made by whoever it is quoting.  

But things like

Quote
Red Planet 'may not be lifeless'

does look a bit silly, agreed.

edit: maybe they've decided to be consistent and always use them when re-reporting stuff other people have claimed. Else, I suppose, it might be perceived as an indicator of what the BBC does or doesn't believe to be true.

I don't have a problem with the BBC's use. It seems to be the best way to report a 3rd party's comment. Newspapers do it - Man 'killed Bambi' , sort of thing - as a means of reporting allegations without getting caught for libel or contempt.

Edit:
Except that they're paraphrasing the claims...

That could put them on dodgy ground.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 07 September, 2010, 12:20:35 pm
Greenbank "paraphrased" BBC to make them "look silly"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 07 September, 2010, 12:48:21 pm
It's a long-standing newspaper convention. There are worse crimes against language committed in headlines on the BBC website (http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1791).

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 September, 2010, 01:12:08 pm
But things like

Quote
Red Planet 'may not be lifeless'

does look a bit silly, agreed.
I'm sure it's terribly bad form to quote a post within this thread (and I'm sure you can find worse grammar crimes in some of my posts) but surely that should be "do look a bit silly". The subject is things, not Red Planet or the sentence containing Red Planet.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 07 September, 2010, 01:26:52 pm
But you're ok with starting sentences with a conjunction, are you?!?

;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 September, 2010, 01:28:21 pm
I am, yes.  :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 07 September, 2010, 01:53:03 pm
And I am too.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 07 September, 2010, 02:43:16 pm
Though I am not sure why conjunctions are bad things to begin & end sentences with. ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 07 September, 2010, 02:46:36 pm
This is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mike on 07 September, 2010, 02:55:06 pm
working with an Indian office I get loads of poorly written emails, but this is the best I've seen in ages (and yes, her name really is Pinky...)

She starts her 'English as a business language' course next week  :)

Dear Mr. Mike,
Ref. trailing mail regarding documents required for UK Visa appointment.


We are planning a meeting with {...}  pertaining to Business Development.
For the purpose of same, I require Invitation letter from UK on letterhead. I request you to send across the same to me.
Please do the needful
Best Regards,
Pinky
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 September, 2010, 03:12:50 pm
I wouldn't call that bad English, I'd call it Indian English. Quite good Indian English at that!

Mr with given name - standard IE.
For the purpose of - standard IE love of wordiness.
Same referring to something mentioned in previous sentence - standard IE grammar.
Do the needful - if something is needful it is necessary.

I'm sure you've also come across "MG Road backside" many a time.  ;D
"But" for emphasis at the end of a sentence.
Etc etc.

English as the language of business for the entire world. In the near future it will probably have an Indonesian accent, perhaps later Brazilian.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 07 September, 2010, 04:21:19 pm
Newspapers do it - Man 'killed Bambi' , sort of thing - as a means of reporting allegations without getting caught for libel or contempt.

I missed that story.   That's terrible.  Killing one Bambo may have been an accident, but more than one...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 07 September, 2010, 04:22:11 pm
 ;D

I laughed so loudly that the kitten went and hid
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 07 September, 2010, 04:34:53 pm
'Please do the needful' was the phrase in any referral letter that made many junior doctors SCREAM!

It usually meant. 'This patient is sick; I don't now why. I CBA to do any work. You do it.'
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 07 September, 2010, 05:36:21 pm
working with an Indian office I get loads of poorly written emails, but this is the best I've seen in ages (and yes, her name really is Pinky...)

She starts her 'English as a business language' course next week  :)
Oh dear - that suggests things are going to get very much worse.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 07 September, 2010, 09:39:12 pm
I don't have a problem with the BBC's use. It seems to be the best way to report a 3rd party's comment.
Completely agree - provided that they are quoting and not paraphrasing. If they are paraphrasing, they must take responsibility for the words.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 07 September, 2010, 10:24:45 pm
A certain amount of paraphrasing inside quote marks in headlines is fine - you just need to be careful not to diverge from the meaning of the original quote. We do this all the time on the magazine I work on (mainly to turn a wordy quote into a short, snappy, sensational headline), and we have a very cautious legal department. We haven't been sued yet.

However, I want to make it clear that I'm not hereby endorsing some of the appalling headlines on the BBC website, where the 'quote' in the headline often bears no relation to anything that's been said by anyone. That is wholly unacceptable.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: iakobski on 08 September, 2010, 12:53:08 pm
However, I want to make it clear that I'm not hereby endorsing some of the appalling headlines on the BBC website, where the 'quote' in the headline often bears no relation to anything that's been said by anyone.

Yes, but quote marks are not just for actual quotations, they're also used where something is not necessarily true. In fact exactly what you did up there ^^^

From the earlier list:

Poor children dying 'of neglect'
Why does Jermaine Jackson back Gambia's 'iron-fisted' leader?
Case of condemned female 'adulterer' creating problems abroad for Iran
Spain dismisses Eta 'ceasefire'
Iran 'hampers IAEA investigation'
ME 'virus link' found in children
Fry slams BBC 'culture of fear'
Murder accused's 'gymnastic sex'
EU gets Barroso 'state of union'
Red Planet 'may not be lifeless'
'Genetic link' to breast cancer
Non-stick pan 'cholesterol link'
... plus others, all on the front page.

Poor children aren't actually being killed by neglect, the actual cause of death is something else; Gambia's leader's hands aren't actually made of iron, etc. Headlines have to be short, and quotes are a shorthand for "allegedly" or "so-called". This is especially important with the medical links above - the link is suggested by the research, it's not settled yet, and if you just read the headline you need to know that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 08 September, 2010, 01:08:54 pm
quotes are a shorthand for "allegedly" or "so-called".

Yes, but who is doing the alleging?

Language Log &raquo; Mendacity quotes (http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1017)

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Exit Stage Left on 08 September, 2010, 01:09:46 pm
The word 'Churn' used to indicate customer or staff turnover.
'Churn' driving growth in UK jobs as few new roles are created, says Hays - Telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/7978286/Churn-driving-growth-in-UK-jobs-as-few-new-roles-are-created-says-Hays.html)

I can't get my head round the mutation from noun to verb and back to a noun with a different meaning.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 08 September, 2010, 01:30:29 pm
This makes me cringe:

Peli & Woolly, and Ariadne IIRC (and us of course) own Octane 3s.


:facepalm: :-[
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 14 September, 2010, 08:47:56 am
a massive BANG!.  I'd had a spoke break. 

You weren't listening carefully. The noise made by a breaking spoke is clearly SPANG.

The use of "spang" on this forum to denote the sound of a frying pan wielded by the BEAR, or whatever it is, has been bothering me for months. It's an unnecessary confusion.

I couldn't squash this misconception in the bud because we were out on a tandem LEJOG of unceasing spang at the time. I was getting pretty good at removing the Arai drum, too.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 14 September, 2010, 09:46:25 am
Ah.  Yes.  You see, this is why I specified the noise.  I've heard spokes go various flavours of spang over the years, but this was a much bigger, and more distinct  Bang.  Very odd.  I initially wondered whether it had been a blowout or a stone hitting the bike. 

Meanwhile, using an exclamation mark and a full stop? :o  What was I thinking? :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 14 September, 2010, 11:29:56 am
Quote from: chap on the wireless a couple of minutes ago
Little grass snakes should be coming out precisely about now

::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: iakobski on 14 September, 2010, 11:39:39 am
Do you think this company really wanted to name itself Principle Link Transport?
(http://www.principlelink.co.uk/images/Vehicles.jpg)

Their home page (http://www.principlelink.co.uk/index.php) claims they did, but it still doesn't make any sense.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 14 September, 2010, 11:47:40 am
You wouldn't want dissociated principles, would you?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 14 September, 2010, 11:57:45 am
Quote from: chap on the wireless a couple of minutes ago
Little grass snakes should be coming out precisely about now

::-)
Even Radio 4 can't be held entirely responsible for the grammar of contributors chosen for their technical knowledge.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 14 September, 2010, 12:07:00 pm
Quote from: chap on the wireless a couple of minutes ago
Little grass snakes should be coming out precisely about now

::-)

Easy. They're coming out in a precise fashion - ie without repetition, hesitation or deviation - and they're doing it about now. ;)

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 14 September, 2010, 12:51:57 pm
Quote from: chap on the wireless a couple of minutes ago
Little grass snakes should be coming out precisely about now

::-)

Easy. They're coming out in a precise fashion - ie without repetition, hesitation or deviation - and they're doing it about now. ;)

d.


You are correct, of course, and I hang my head in shame for not understanding that ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 14 September, 2010, 04:07:44 pm
Quote from: 'nother chap on the wireless
a Loo tenant in His Majesty's army

Not grammar, I know, but basic pronunciation error. >:(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 14 September, 2010, 04:21:13 pm
Quote from: 'nother chap on the wireless
a Loo tenant in His Majesty's army

Not grammar, I know, but basic pronunciation error. >:(

Yeah.  Everyone knows it's loyt-nant. ;)
 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 14 September, 2010, 04:24:56 pm
Oh dear, I feel a mis-pronunciation thread (or at least a major diversion of this one) coming on.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 14 September, 2010, 04:27:20 pm
Quote from: 'nother chap on the wireless
a Loo tenant in His Majesty's army

Not grammar, I know, but basic pronunciation error. >:(

Yeah.  Everyone knows it's loyt-nant. ;)
 

*boils quietly with rage*
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Manotea on 14 September, 2010, 04:36:28 pm
When did it become compulsory to refer to our soldiers as troopers?

Is it some kind of pinko bleeding heart PC doublethink conspiracy?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 14 September, 2010, 04:44:04 pm
If they were members of a cavalry regiment then it would be the correct address, I think.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 14 September, 2010, 04:46:10 pm
When did it become compulsory to refer to our soldiers as troopers?
OK when referring to cavalry regiments but infantry ?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 14 September, 2010, 04:47:14 pm
Infants?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 14 September, 2010, 04:49:56 pm
If they were members of a cavalry regiment then it would be the correct address, I think.

Army Air Corps and some artillery regiments as well (those that used to be horse artillery).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Chris S on 14 September, 2010, 04:51:46 pm
I'm assuming the correct pronunciation is "Leff-tenant".

If so - where else in the English language (or anywhere for that matter) do the letters "Lieu" make a "Leff" sound ???
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 14 September, 2010, 04:57:58 pm
It's cos it comes from the French, and there has been a certain amount of confusion over w and f sounds at various times long past in various places...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 14 September, 2010, 04:59:14 pm
ISTR it came via Belgium, which adds another layer of pronunciation difficulty.

However it came about, we have a correct way to pronounce the word, and the Army are clear about their usage.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 14 September, 2010, 05:00:23 pm
I'm assuming the correct pronunciation is "Leff-tenant".

If so - where else in the English language (or anywhere for that matter) do the letters "Lieu" make a "Leff" sound ???

Since when has English pronunciation and spelling been regular ? You just have to accept that some words are not pronounced phonetically or even in the same way as other words with similar spelling or indeed similar meaning.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 14 September, 2010, 06:43:18 pm
When did it become compulsory to refer to our soldiers...

Our soldiers - I hate the phrase. They're British soldiers. You may think of them as your soldiers, but please don't involve me.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 14 September, 2010, 06:52:38 pm
Indeed


    YouTube
        - That Mitchell and Webb Look - Football
   (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xN1WN0YMWZU&feature=related)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Chris S on 14 September, 2010, 07:16:17 pm
One Show - BBC 1 - just now.

"Balsall Heath is a much pleasanter place to be."

*snigger*  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 14 September, 2010, 08:53:25 pm
... we have a correct way to pronounce the word, and the Army are clear about their usage.

Come on, pay attention at the back.


You've lost me with your first highlight, though I accept that the Army should agree to a singular.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 14 September, 2010, 09:58:33 pm
Oh, protest. On it's own it means "bear witness for". Pro as in for, and test as in testament. You can protest your faith, as lots of martyrs have died doing.

If you don't like something you can protest against it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 14 September, 2010, 10:01:10 pm
When did it become compulsory to refer to our soldiers...

Our soldiers - I hate the phrase. They're British soldiers. You may think of them as your soldiers, but please don't involve me.

Absolutely right! They are nothing whatever to do with me.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 14 September, 2010, 11:12:54 pm
Not grammar but what seems to be a very nasty neologism.  The team from Missouri University of SCIENCE and Technology have a mini-bus, which proclaims on the side, in big friendly letters, that this particular department is "experiential"  ???
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 September, 2010, 11:15:59 pm
They develop technology through their experiences of the world? Or summat like dat. Unless it's just a typo...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 15 September, 2010, 11:28:50 am
Absolutely right! They are nothing whatever to do with me.

You don't pay tax? ;)

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 15 September, 2010, 11:32:40 am
Absolutely right! They are nothing whatever to do with me.

You don't pay tax? ;)

d.


I suppose I don't in the sense that by far the greatest part of my income is paid by the taxpayer, to whom I'm eternally grateful.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 15 September, 2010, 11:33:57 am
Gold-plated, remember? ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Manotea on 15 September, 2010, 11:46:08 am
When did it become compulsory to refer to our soldiers...

Our soldiers - I hate the phrase. They're British soldiers. You may think of them as your soldiers, but please don't involve me.

British soldier is fine by me.

Absolutely right! They are nothing whatever to do with me.

If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you can read this in english, thank a soldier.

I get the feeling that suggesting teachers who can read english and have gold plated pensions ought to be thanking soldiers too might be a rather hopeless cause...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 September, 2010, 10:51:35 pm
If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you can read this in english, thank a soldier.
Should tell that to Mugabe!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ham on 20 September, 2010, 03:29:52 pm
What happens when you arrive after the cut-off time in the canteen.


(http://lh4.ggpht.com/__5EyI8Ck-Lw/S4PNel4-h3I/AAAAAAAAZKI/9uS86NHSAQs/s480/menu.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: eck on 20 September, 2010, 03:43:28 pm
Can I "loan" you a bike?  :-\

I know I can lend you one.  :)
I know I can give you the loan of one.  :)
I know you can borrow one.  :)

But I don't think I can loan you one.  :(
And you can't loan one from me either.  :hand:

Is that right?  ???
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: iakobski on 20 September, 2010, 03:53:01 pm
Can I "loan" you a bike?  :-\

I know I can lend you one.  :)
I know I can give you the loan of one.  :)
I know you can borrow one.  :)

But I don't think I can loan you one.  :(
And you can't loan one from me either.  :hand:

Is that right?  ???


You can.

Loan is a noun and a verb.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: eck on 20 September, 2010, 04:10:47 pm
Aye, I didn't know loan was acceptable as a verb, I though it had to be lend. Thanks for that.
Quote
And you can't loan one from me either.  :hand:
But can it ever be used to mean "borrow"?
eg, " You can loan a bike for a month for free"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 20 September, 2010, 04:12:30 pm
No, Radio 2 newsreader, Lauren Laverne has not become a mother for the second time. She became a mother when she had her first child and was still a mother when her second child was born.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gandalf on 20 September, 2010, 04:57:56 pm
Had a corker on the conference call today, we were reminded to 'dialogue' with the End User  :hand:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 20 September, 2010, 07:14:34 pm
Aye, I didn't know loan was acceptable as a verb, I though it had to be lend. Thanks for that.
Quote
And you can't loan one from me either.  :hand:
But can it ever be used to mean "borrow"?
eg, " You can loan a bike for a month for free"?
I'm not aware of it being correct to use it to mean "borrow".
[Nevertheless, your example above is probably grammatically correct, if rather odd!]

& you can't
Quote
borrow him your own bike



Slightly narking Quick Crossword clue yesterday:
See sense (6,2,6)
A: Listen to reason

 :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 20 September, 2010, 10:24:05 pm
Aye, I didn't know loan was acceptable as a verb, I though it had to be lend. Thanks for that.
Quote
And you can't loan one from me either.  :hand:
But can it ever be used to mean "borrow"?
eg, " You can loan a bike for a month for free"?
I'm not aware of it being correct to use it to mean "borrow".
See Danish. One word for both lend & borrow, cognate with & pronounced much like loan: låne til (lend to) & låne fra (borrow from).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 21 September, 2010, 07:45:44 am
See Danish. One word for both lend & borrow,
which means that when Polonius told Laertes "neither a borrower nor a lender be", it didn't really sound nearly as good as in Shakespeare's translation.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 21 September, 2010, 12:13:04 pm
Nor.  Please.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 21 September, 2010, 12:14:24 pm
Oops. Finger slip rather than illiteracy, I'll claim.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 22 September, 2010, 08:36:38 pm
 Let's put a stop to this cliche – right now|Mind your language | Media | guardian.co.uk  (http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/mind-your-language/2010/sep/22/cliches-politics-mind-your-language)

Very relevant. On Message, even.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 22 September, 2010, 08:45:34 pm
Slightly narking Quick Crossword clue yesterday:
See sense (6,2,6)
A: Listen to reason

 :facepalm:

Was today's clue with an answer of 'XMAS' any better?

*ugh*
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gandalf on 01 October, 2010, 06:21:50 am
I have just been having a flick through the Evans Cycles catalogue and found this gem "Garmin have recently announced the launch of the Edge 800 GPS, the predecessor to the popular Edge 705"  ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 01 October, 2010, 11:09:31 am
Grammar. That makes me cringe.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 02 October, 2010, 06:28:05 pm
I have just been having a flick through the Evans Cycles catalogue and found this gem "Garmin have recently announced the launch of the Edge 800 GPS, the predecessor to the popular Edge 705"  ::-)

Back To The Future!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 02 October, 2010, 06:33:35 pm
I heard a teacher say having dogs in the classroom made the children 'more calmer'.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11458464 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11458464)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 04 October, 2010, 12:32:17 pm
On the official Ryder Cup website:

(http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k170/smutchin/ryder.jpg)

Now, I really don't care whether you choose to treat teams as singular or plural, but please just choose one or the other and stick to it.

At least for the duration of the sentence.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 04 October, 2010, 01:27:45 pm
Unless the 'they' is the gender-neutral singular form.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 October, 2010, 01:31:02 pm
If you treat USA as singular, what pronoun would you use for the second half of the sentence?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 04 October, 2010, 01:31:21 pm
Unless the 'they' is the gender-neutral singular form.

"If [USA] wins [3rd person sing] the current hole, they win [3rd person plural] the match."

My complaint is not that one is right and the other wrong, but that they've used both in the same sentence.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 04 October, 2010, 01:45:18 pm
An my point was that you can use the word 'they' in the singular when you wish to avoid attaching a particular gender to a gendered noun:

If [USA] wins [3rd person singular] the current hole, they win [gender neutral singular] the match.

I realise some people object to this, but I think gender neural 'they' as a singular is one evolution of the language which is quite helpful and avoids having to use passive constructions all the time.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 October, 2010, 01:49:17 pm
But even when they has singular meaning, we still use a plural verb form. Perhaps it's time to start saying 'they wins'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 04 October, 2010, 01:53:35 pm
Is this related to my observation that Hugh Porter always says:
Italy are on the front
to indicate:
An Italian rider is on the front
?!?

[and yes, he says the same when several Italians are on the front  ::-) ]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 04 October, 2010, 02:00:49 pm
But this isn't an example of gender-neutral-singular-they. It's the perfectly usual problem where one group is several things, which are one group. Whether the group acts as one, or act separately and plurally, is entirely a matter of context and not of grammar at all.

Here the winner of the whole is a single golfer, who by synecdoche is representing his team, who by synecdoche are referred to with the name of the country they represent, which has a plural form but is a single country; his opponents represent a resolutely plural group of countries under a singular name.

If these things bother you you should probably avoid speaking any language at all. It's how the world is: don't blame the grammar.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jules on 04 October, 2010, 02:06:08 pm
I have just been having a flick through the Evans Cycles catalogue and found this gem "Garmin have recently announced the launch of the Edge 800 GPS, the predecessor to the popular Edge 705"  ::-)

Back To The Future!

<digressing wildly and trying to make his point without too many grammatical howlers>

It's funny you said that! My first Garmin (a GPS II if I recall correctly) stopped working at about 88mph so it could not be used to assist in the navigation of powered aerial devices. Garmin charged more for those that could.

</as you were>
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 04 October, 2010, 02:19:42 pm
It's how the world is: don't blame the grammar.

But I'm not blaming the grammar!

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 04 October, 2010, 02:24:15 pm
If you treat USA as singular, what pronoun would you use for the second half of the sentence?

"It".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 04 October, 2010, 02:35:21 pm
Thank you, Ian.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 04 October, 2010, 03:27:16 pm
Is this related to my observation that Hugh Porter always says:
Italy are on the front
to indicate:
An Italian rider is on the front
?!?

[and yes, he says the same when several Italians are on the front  ::-) ]

Whereas, when Duffield used to say
Italy are on the front
there was a fair chance there was a Russian on the front.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 October, 2010, 09:25:40 pm
If you treat USA as singular, what pronoun would you use for the second half of the sentence?

"It".
"If the USA wins the current hole, it will win the match."

Works for me, as a sentence. The only problem is that it implies the country as one entity will win, whereas I would think of it of as a team consisting of multiple players - particularly as golf is not a team sport, so rather than one team acting in unison, as would be the case in, say, football, you have a number of players playing individually. At least, I presume that's how it works - I'm not really familiar with the format of the Ryder Cup. In any case, this has been dealt with already.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 04 October, 2010, 10:12:53 pm
It's not really the point though.

The verb has to agree with the subject. The pronoun has to agree with the antecedent noun. Ergo the same form of the verb must be used in both clauses.

"If USA win the current hole, they win the match."

"If USA wins the current hole, it wins the match."

Take your pick. One or the other. I don't mind either way.

If I were being really picky, I might make a point about appropriate use of the subjunctive and conditional, but... meh.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 October, 2010, 10:37:00 pm
I'm still in favour of forcing the pace of linguistic change by treating 'they' as a fully singular pronoun to be used in cases where gender is unknown, mixed, or irrelevant.

"If USA wins the current hole, they wins the match."

I reserve the right never to use this form again!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ham on 05 October, 2010, 10:04:49 am
My pet hate...

the "10 items or less" signs in my local Sainsbury's.   >:(

I've been known to carry a marker pen around and correct them...  ;D


Oddly enough, the supermarkets in France, Germany and Switzerland all say "maximum 8 items"...



I'm looking for a pic I shot in my local M&S, one till had a sign "10 items or less" and the next had "10 items or fewer
 ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 06 October, 2010, 11:34:07 am
Dangling participles.

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect someone who earns a living as a sub editor to be able to recognise a dangling participle when they see one. Nor do I think it's unreasonable to expect someone who earns a living as a writer not to commit the offence in the first place. FFS.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 06 October, 2010, 01:29:27 pm
Not grammar per se, but language.

Does a sludge spillage have an epicentre?

And was it really from an aluminum plant?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 06 October, 2010, 01:34:09 pm
Does a sludge spillage have an epicentre?

I've noticed lots of epicentres in the news lately. I don't mind the term being used metaphorically, though some of the instances of its use seem rather odd - this being a good example.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 06 October, 2010, 01:37:16 pm
I can just about go with it, if the spill was near the bed of the river, and we're talking about the point on the surface, but that would be daft.

Amazing what words people are prepared to use without knowing what they mean.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 06 October, 2010, 01:42:18 pm
The SOED offers a meaning of epicentre: figuratively, the centre or heart of something, especially something unpleasant. Mid-twentieth-century in origin, and supported by a quotation from Graham Swift.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 06 October, 2010, 01:46:53 pm
That's silly.  Epi-  means on the edge of, like epidermis, rather than the centre of.  That's be Endo-

I can't help it if Graham Swift can't use English properly ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 October, 2010, 02:09:09 pm
Isn't the word epicentre mostly used to descrive earthquakes? In which context it means the point on the earth's surface nearest to the underground point which is the actual centre of the earthquake - a sensible use of the word. But because from a general point of view, for just about anyone other than a geologist or a miner, that point on the earth's surface is the effective centre of the quake, the meaning drifts. A case of the law of unintended consequences at work in language, you could say.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 06 October, 2010, 02:12:44 pm
I'd suggest that it's more like a case of bloody ignorance taking away a word with a specific meaning to be a synonym for a simpler word instead, undermining understanding of a technical term, and being a vain attempt to appear more clevererer by a hack.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 06 October, 2010, 02:23:46 pm
I'd suggest that it's more like a case of bloody ignorance taking away a word with a specific meaning to be a synonym for a simpler word instead, undermining understanding of a technical term, and being a vain attempt to appear more clevererer by a hack.
+1

Of course it's also an attempt to 'Big Up' an incident by comparing it with an earthquake (I've heard it used in political reports!).  Which is even more stupid with something like the Great Sludge Disaster.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 06 October, 2010, 02:28:29 pm
Yes, it's precisely because of that association with earthquakes that reporters use "epicentre" - never mind what it means, it heightens the impression of being part of a cataclysmic event. Nothing especially wrong with that apart from being lazy journalism.

Of course, the word "centre" is more accurate, simpler and perfectly serviceable.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 October, 2010, 02:32:26 pm
Ah, could be that too.

I'd suggest it comes out at much the same thing; using a word that sounds appropriate, shifting its specific meaning to a more generalised one. Over time (and a few more cleverest jounos) the generalised meaning becomes the commonly accepted one. Epicentre = technical word for middle of something that's happening. Pity the poor geologists who either have to explain the original, specific meaning of the word, or invent a new one.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 06 October, 2010, 02:48:55 pm
I can just about go with it, if the spill was near the bed of the river, and we're talking about the point on the surface, but that would be daft.

Deepwater Horizon?

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 06 October, 2010, 02:50:43 pm
I used to work in an industry where we used the words light, lamp, lantern and luminaire.  They weren't interchangeable; they all meant something different.  And it mattered.

Similarly cable and wire...

I used to get really cross with people using the wrong words.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 06 October, 2010, 02:53:14 pm
And it mattered.

Yes, it matters in that context. I don't suppose most people care much what epicentre really means.

Most people are stupid, of course.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 06 October, 2010, 02:54:02 pm
I can just about go with it, if the spill was near the bed of the river, and we're talking about the point on the surface, but that would be daft.

Deepwater Horizon?

d.


Yeah, that would have had an epicentre significantly removed from the point of the leak.

Thinking about it, ISTR that epicentre isn't just a geological term, but a mathematical one.  Euclid discussed them.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 October, 2010, 02:55:19 pm
I wouldn't say that most people are stupid. I would say that for most people in most contexts the difference does not matter, if it's even evident in any way.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 06 October, 2010, 02:56:55 pm
In a great many contexts, the difference between the words wrong and right doesn't matter much.  Doesn't invalidate the words. 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 October, 2010, 03:05:11 pm
I don't think anyone's suggesting any words are or should be invalidated. I'm just trying, clumsily, to suggest mechanisms of meaning shift.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 06 October, 2010, 03:11:35 pm
Yeah, that would have had an epicentre significantly removed from the point of the leak.

Thinking about it, ISTR that epicentre isn't just a geological term, but a mathematical one.  Euclid discussed them.

Er, no. I can do you incentre, circumcentre, centroid, orthocentre...

None of these are named in Euclid, though they're constructed.

On edit, perhaps not all of them are constructed. I oughtn't to spend time looking this up, really.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 06 October, 2010, 03:12:49 pm
I need to go look at my Elements...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 06 October, 2010, 03:36:13 pm
Yes, it's precisely because of that association with earthquakes that reporters use "epicentre" - never mind what it means, it heightens the impression of being part of a cataclysmic event. Nothing especially wrong with that apart from being lazy journalism.

Of course, the word "centre" is more accurate, simpler and perfectly serviceable.
Exactly - we shouldn't be encouraging the use of overly complex language (which might be hard for some to understand), especially where the meaning is a bit suspect!

You can't justify this with guff about 'meaning shift', it's still bad writing. These people aren't Shakespeares, creating poetic new extensions to the language; they're just pretentious and wrong.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 06 October, 2010, 03:38:36 pm
Exactly - we shouldn't be encouraging the use of overly complex language (which might be hard for some to understand), especially where the meaning is a bit suspect!

You can't justify this with guff about 'meaning shift', it's still bad writing. These people aren't Shakespeares, creating poetic new extensions to the language; they're just pretentious and wrong.

Does that include Graham Swift? ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 06 October, 2010, 03:41:43 pm
Dunno - was he a journalist?!?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 October, 2010, 03:45:04 pm
You can't justify this with guff about 'meaning shift', it's still bad writing. These people aren't Shakespeares, creating poetic new extensions to the language; they're just pretentious and wrong.
No justification intended from me.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 06 October, 2010, 04:56:46 pm
And was it really from an aluminum plant?

I thought American's had pronunciation problems until recently. Now I see that both my bikes have aluminum on them I realise that either they cannot spell properly or they use an alloy that is different to aluminium.

No, they don't.  Brits just have this obsession with declaring any difference in English, especially is if comes from the US, to be WRONG.

I know wikipedia isn't infallible, but this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium#Etymology) is worth a read.
 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 06 October, 2010, 05:43:59 pm
And was it really from an aluminum plant?

I thought American's had pronunciation problems until recently. Now I see that both my bikes have aluminum on them I realise that either they cannot spell properly or they use an alloy that is different to aluminium.

There's a third option...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 06 October, 2010, 05:46:52 pm
And was it really from an aluminum plant?

I thought American's had pronunciation problems until recently. Now I see that both my bikes have aluminum on them I realise that either they cannot spell properly or they use an alloy that is different to aluminium.
But the precious metal is "Platinum".  I've not seen any suggestion to call it Plat-in-ium.  So metal names ending "-um" rather than "-ium" isn't necessarily a USAnian thing.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 06 October, 2010, 05:48:39 pm
Bzzt. Deviation. This discussion should take placed in the "Spelling" thread.

</Paul Merton>
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 October, 2010, 06:16:17 pm
Quote from: Wikipedia
The name "aluminium" derives from its status as a base of alum. "Alum" in turn is a Latin word that literally means "bitter salt".
So aluminium frames cannot be sweet handling?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 06 October, 2010, 06:33:35 pm
You can't justify this with guff about 'meaning shift', it's still bad writing. These people aren't Shakespeares, creating poetic new extensions to the language; they're just pretentious and wrong.
No justification intended from me.
Ah, sorry. Where I wrote 'you' I was meaning them! Hence:

"They can't justify this ... "  (the cads!)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 October, 2010, 06:36:56 pm
That's ok then.  :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 06 October, 2010, 08:44:31 pm
I wouldn't say that most people are stupid. I would say that for most people in most contexts the difference does not matter, if it's even evident in any way.
But there's a duty to understand a word before using it. I've quite often looked up words I don't often use before putting finger to key, and found that they didn't quite mean what I thought - so I used something else.

Although meanings do develop, we now seem to me to be allowing that to happen at a rate that creates real problems. The main one is the need for a replacement word or term to mean what the one we have undermined meant. Quite often it's marketing-related or, as mentioned above, journalism. Examples are legion.

In photography, for example, a macro lens means a lens that magnifies so much that the image on the film (sensor, now) is bigger than was the original object. It's come to mean any lens with a bit of a close-up function. That's fine and dandy, but now keen photographers need a new term for "macro".

In the 1980s, I worked on summaries of magazine articles. Desktop publishing and electronic publishing were both emerging. One means using PC-type technology for layout and so on, although the end result is normally still printed on paper. The other means that the end product is an electronic book, journal or other item, whatever the technology that produces it (although it's difficult to do electronic publishing without a computer...) Some journalists were clearly unable to "get" the difference, life got quite confusing, and the need for a new term for electronic publishing seemed a real prospect. In the end the market took off more, desktop publishing became so common-place that people stopped bothering to talk about it, and the term "electronic publishing" survived.

How long before we're having to replace terms annually with new ones because their meaning has been lost? And how do you communicate when words change that fast?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 06 October, 2010, 08:48:11 pm
How long before we're having to replace terms annually with new ones because their meaning has been lost? And how do you communicate when words change that fast?

Kettle hammock getting it melon.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 06 October, 2010, 08:58:34 pm
How long before we're having to replace terms annually with new ones because their meaning has been lost? And how do you communicate when words change that fast?

Festina cromulente, as they say in Latin.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 06 October, 2010, 09:53:58 pm
How long before we're having to replace terms annually with new ones because their meaning has been lost? And how do you communicate when words change that fast?

Festina cromulente, as they say in Latin.
;D ;D Genius  ;D ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: PhilO on 06 October, 2010, 10:04:17 pm
In photography, for example, a macro lens means a lens that magnifies so much that the image on the film (sensor, now) is bigger than was the original object. It's come to mean any lens with a bit of a close-up function. That's fine and dandy, but now keen photographers need a new term for "macro".

Is that the same as the way that 'accident' has come to be used to mean 'blame-free' when it actually means 'unintended'?

*Dons flameproof underwear and runs for it*
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: tonycollinet on 06 October, 2010, 11:47:26 pm
It's should have people, should HAVE. The shortened form is should've

What it is not, is should of!

I swear the wrong form is more common than the correct - in fact almost universal.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 07 October, 2010, 09:17:13 am
"Fewer than 10 per cent of professors in the sciences are female."
     -Times Eureka magazine that came with today's paper.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 07 October, 2010, 09:27:58 am
"Fewer than 10 per cent of professors in the sciences are female."
     -Times Eureka magazine that came with today's paper.

While we all like to get exercised by fewer/less, I don't think it is always very clear cut. Presumably it would be ok to say "fewer than 10 per 100" as you are counting things, even if it is an illustrative ratio. Some measurements are counts as well.

I think there is a stronger argument for "Less than 10 percent of faculty [...] is" as you are treating the academic staff as a singular entity. Because your quoted sentence is simultaneously describing the faculty makeup as a whole and itemising the members that make it up, both 'fewer' and 'less' work for me.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: iakobski on 07 October, 2010, 10:00:00 am
I like your reasoning, and it works, up to a point. But percentages are not necessarily integers, you couldn't say "fewer than 9.5 % of professors..."

Similarly, metres are things that can be counted, but you wouldn't say something was "fewer than 100 metres away".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 07 October, 2010, 10:04:58 am
That was my thinking too.

"Fewer than 10 in 100 professors in the country are female" would be ok (IMO) because the subject is/are indivisible professors.

The subject of the Times' sentence is the per cent, which are divisible.
Title: Grammar
Post by: Wowbagger on 07 October, 2010, 10:14:04 am
Doesn't a lot of this depend on whether the numerical expression is an abbreviation of something else? Fewer than ten lbs, less than ten lbs' weight... I seem to remember my physics teacher saying that this was the correct expression.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 07 October, 2010, 10:21:34 am
I think it's fine to give a lot more leeway in impromptu speech than in written language. However, I then wonder about the instant journalism of the internet, where speed of response might be considered more important than absolute accuracy in grammar.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 October, 2010, 11:28:55 am
In photography, for example, a macro lens means a lens that magnifies so much that the image on the film (sensor, now) is bigger than was the original object. It's come to mean any lens with a bit of a close-up function. That's fine and dandy, but now keen photographers need a new term for "macro".
Good example! I don't know much about photography. Mrs Cudzo's camera has what it claims to be a macro function. I'm pretty sure that it's not macro in the original sense, it's simply a close-up. But as I don't know much about the subject, I'm naturally going to take the vocabulary used by the camera manufacture, who I would presume to know what they're talking about. If they've got it wrong, they're misleading me.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 October, 2010, 12:58:27 pm
Volunteerily?

No.  Fuck off.  Lord Bragg, do not ever allow this person within a day's march of your wireless show again.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 07 October, 2010, 06:41:28 pm
Is that the same as the way that 'accident' has come to be used to mean 'blame-free' when it actually means 'unintended'?
Not by everyone it hasn't, my friend - not while I'm still breathing anyway ...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 07 October, 2010, 10:20:13 pm
Mrs Cudzo's camera has what it claims to be a macro function. I'm pretty sure that it's not macro in the original sense... I'm naturally going to take the vocabulary used by the camera manufacture, who I would presume to know what they're talking about. If they've got it wrong, they're misleading me.
Precisely. I think that they are misleading you.

Although I suspect that, in fact, the engineers working for the manufacturer understand it, and most of the marketing team don't. Those that do understand it are under pressure to abuse the term anyway, on the basis that "the competition do, so if we don't it will look as though our product is worse than theirs".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 October, 2010, 10:43:25 pm
Yet another danger to marketing by functions/gadgets/gizmos rather than overall quality. As if the double-boinger BSO were not enough.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 09 October, 2010, 06:47:23 am
Forks and shorts (http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=39099.0) (probably best to comment in that thread).

OK, probably more idiom than true grammar, but I cringe because I'm used to the idiom...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 27 October, 2010, 11:10:01 am
Perhaps it's the written representation of rising intonation?

[which I'm quite sure we covered at length not very long ago!]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 October, 2010, 11:19:51 am
Beatrix Potter used it.

Not that her writing is necessarily an example of good grammar, but it seems to be considered good enough to publish. I like her illustrations best.  :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 29 October, 2010, 11:03:50 am
"Due to adverse weather the 07:00 sailing from Stornoway has been cancelled therefore there will be no 10;25 from Ullapool."

Not sure if I like the semi-colon but:

How great it is to see the proper use of 'weather' with no 'conditions' adulteration.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 30 October, 2010, 11:33:50 am
"Due to adverse weather the 07:00 sailing from Stornoway has been cancelled therefore there will be no 10;25 from Ullapool."

Not sure if I like the semi-colon but:

How great it is to see the proper use of 'weather' with no 'conditions' adulteration.

Well, the semi-colon is only due to shift key non-use or non-function; sub-optimal but understandable/forgivable.

Agree that 'weather' without 'conditions' is a rare treat.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 30 October, 2010, 03:52:15 pm
Perhaps maritime "conditions" are a special case; i'd guess that a crossing would be abandoned due to big waves, rather than the wind itself.

Are waves weather? I'm no expert on sailing jargon.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 October, 2010, 05:50:47 pm
Surely waves are an effect of weather, like branches which, er, wave in the wind!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 02 November, 2010, 12:49:35 pm

I am trying to deter the habits ... of cyclists all over the world.

Seems harsh  :P
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 03 November, 2010, 12:49:59 pm
Just read this in the Guardian style guide (http://www.guardian.co.uk/styleguide), which made me smile:

Quote
Latin
Some people object to, say, the use of "decimate" to mean destroy on the grounds that in ancient Rome it meant to kill every 10th man; some of them are also likely to complain about so-called split infinitives, a prejudice that goes back to 19th-century Latin teachers who argued that as you can't split infinitives in Latin (they are one word) you shouldn't separate "to" from the verb in English. Others might even get upset about our alleged misuse of grammatical "case" (including cases such as dative and genitive that no longer exist in English).

As our publications are written in English, rather than Latin, do not worry about any of this even slightly.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 13 November, 2010, 07:57:08 pm
Health Professions Council, I was going to respond to your consultation document, but the last sentence of this
Quote
The majority of standards of proficiency are standards necessary to

produce safe and effective practitioners on entry into the profession. We

also set a small number of standards which are linked to the entitlements

to supply, administer or prescribe medicines outlined in paragraphs 2.11 -

2.13 above. For example, there is a standard of proficiency related to

supplementary prescribing. Registrants demonstrate that they meet this

standard by successfully completing an education programme which we

approve. Approval of the programme allows us to quality assure the

programme and ensure that all registrants meet the standards that we set.


so enraged me that I can't.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 13 November, 2010, 08:40:24 pm
Hmm. Was it the use of 'quality assure' as a verb that tipped you over the edge? If so, I share your fury.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 13 November, 2010, 08:55:58 pm
That was what did it. And these are the people who deem me competent to practise and register me. I despair.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 15 November, 2010, 04:24:03 pm
That was what did it. And these are the people who deem me competent to practise and register me. I despair.

ITYM they competent-to-practise deem you... ;)

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 26 November, 2010, 12:57:46 pm
Loose/lose
I.e./e.g.

You're still confusing these. Please stop  :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 26 November, 2010, 01:29:41 pm
Yesterday there was a bloke on the telly talking about the Somali taxi driver who had acted as a go-between in the negotiations to free Paul & Rachel Chandler.  He used the word "dialoguing", for which he must be punished.  Severely.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 26 November, 2010, 02:07:12 pm
To Too To Too

 >:( >:( >:(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 26 November, 2010, 03:28:54 pm
Me: "Would you like a cuppa?"

Colleague: "Yeah. Can I get no sugar?"

Me: "Er... I don't know. Can you?"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 26 November, 2010, 04:01:03 pm
Yesterday there was a bloke on the telly talking about the Somali taxi driver who had acted as a go-between in the negotiations to free Paul & Rachel Chandler.  He used the word "dialoguing", for which he must be punished.  Severely.

Verbing weirds language, as ennysheddi know...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 29 November, 2010, 11:22:50 am
Yesterday there was a bloke on the telly talking about the Somali taxi driver who had acted as a go-between in the negotiations to free Paul & Rachel Chandler.  He used the word "dialoguing", for which he must be punished.  Severely.

Verbing weirds language, as ennysheddi know...

I am thinking of setting up a secret branch of the Python Police just to deal with people overusing the above phrase or saying ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 29 November, 2010, 11:59:48 pm
SHOCK HORROR FOR CTC COUNCIL CHAIR!

From latest Cycle:
"Struggling up the old A6, on a wet and very windy November night in Lancaster, astride a protesting Brompton, followed by fish and chips in a bus shelter..."

David and I giggled so much over this, we could hardly eat our supper. Somehow, the thought of fish in a bus shelter swimming behind the Chair's Brompton was too much!

 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Giraffe on 30 November, 2010, 09:54:41 am
Now, if there'd been an AUK in the bus shelter...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 November, 2010, 03:23:33 pm
"His wife signalizes her approval."

Quoted to show it's old and British - relatively - 1946, from the Temple Press, publishers of Cycling.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: CycleCindy on 01 December, 2010, 10:26:52 am
You're/your....they're/their/there...  :sick: HATE those kinds of errors! So easily avoided.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 01 December, 2010, 10:32:13 am
You're/your...

Down here in Devon they say you'm instead of you're. Saves confusion.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: eck on 01 December, 2010, 10:37:21 am
When I was wee (in the middle of the last century) if we wished to assert a state of being, we wouldn't say, "I am". We'd say, "I'm are!".
The contrary was, "I'm are not!"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 01 December, 2010, 10:39:51 am
When I was wee (in the middle of the last century) if we wished to assert a state of being, we wouldn't say, "I am". We'd say, "I'm are!".
The contrary was, "I'm are not!"

Whereas down here they shorten it to Arrh!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ravenbait on 01 December, 2010, 10:54:47 am
Loose/lose. Good grief, they don't even sound the same.

"Try and" drives me mental. I know that Fowler was more lenient than most, but if the rest of the declension always takes "to" then "try" should too. "He tries and ride through snow" makes no sense. "He tries to ride through snow" does. End of.

Anyway. Eny fule kno there is no try. There is only do or not do.

Infer/imply is another one.

Sam
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 01 December, 2010, 11:26:37 am
Infer/imply is another one.


*takes deep breaths to calm self after mention of pet hate*

I cannot believe how many people get that wrong.  Some mistakes are just 'meh', but that is destroying language.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 01 December, 2010, 11:33:07 am
To too loose lose infer imply their there.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 01 December, 2010, 11:34:46 am
To too loose lose infer imply their there.

A truly gnomic utterance.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 01 December, 2010, 11:36:42 am
It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's.
It isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs.

[Oxford University Press, Edpress News]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 01 December, 2010, 12:08:13 pm
Help! I'm proofing an article about a couple - Mr & Mrs Wiggins - and the copy says "the Wiggins's then moved to Johannesburg". Should it be "Wigginses" or "Wiggins" or what?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Exit Stage Left on 01 December, 2010, 12:11:36 pm
Help! I'm proofing an article about a couple - Mr & Mrs Wiggins - and the copy says "the Wiggins's then moved to Johannesburg". Should it be "Wigginses" or "Wiggins" or what?

Just call them Linda and Gary, or whatever these Wiggins' are called.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 01 December, 2010, 12:12:13 pm
Can't, and this problem pops up several times in the article.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: eck on 01 December, 2010, 12:15:34 pm
Ask him (http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTzsLKDbH5HEzqbEddjbQ74gapMVHn8K2DGqLGe6SSFWoTX97nU)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 01 December, 2010, 12:15:57 pm
Can't, and this problem pops up several times in the article.

Mr & Mrs Wiggins then moved...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Rhys W on 01 December, 2010, 12:16:38 pm
What I'm seeing absolutely-bloody-everywhere now is people writing loose when they mean lose.  

Please learn the difference, otherwise I assume you're stupid.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ravenbait on 01 December, 2010, 12:20:58 pm
Help! I'm proofing an article about a couple - Mr & Mrs Wiggins - and the copy says "the Wiggins's then moved to Johannesburg". Should it be "Wigginses" or "Wiggins" or what?

If you have to use the plural of Wiggins, it would be "Wiggenses", as in "dresses" or "messes" being the plurals of dress and mess respectively.

Sam
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: tatanab on 01 December, 2010, 12:27:10 pm
Pretty common in speech, particularly amongst people under 30 years old, and in print in the latest CTC magazine -

half a pence

Equally common among youngsters on super market tills giving change -
one pounds and one pence.

The hint is even written on the coin where it clearly says "one penny".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 01 December, 2010, 12:33:24 pm
What about people who say "five pound"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 01 December, 2010, 12:37:40 pm
Pretty common in speech, particularly amongst people under 30 years old, and in print in the latest CTC magazine -

half a pence

Equally common among youngsters on super market tills giving change -
one pounds and one pence.

The hint is even written on the coin where it clearly says "one penny".

Within fifteen years dictionaries will be saying formerly plural, but now...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 01 December, 2010, 12:42:00 pm
Dictionaries will probably be online, with comments sections, like the Urban one.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 01 December, 2010, 01:12:42 pm
What about people who say "five pound"?
Time-honoured. Long predates anyone alive today.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 01 December, 2010, 02:50:11 pm
What about people who say "five pound"?

They don't. They say "five paaahnd".

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 01 December, 2010, 02:55:28 pm
You need to get out more, & read more old books. I used to hear it in rural Buckinghamshire & Oxfordshire accents when I was a child, & I've heard it on the lips of Geordies, & many, many, others.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tom B on 01 December, 2010, 03:00:14 pm
Quote
I've heard it on the lips of Geordies, & many, many, others

Normal on this latitude, on both sides of the Pennines
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 01 December, 2010, 03:06:02 pm
What about people who say "five pound"?

They don't. They say "five paaahnd".

d.


Oi've 'eard 'em say "Foive pewnd"!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 01 December, 2010, 03:34:36 pm
What about people who say "five pound"?

They don't. They say "five paaahnd".

d.


I've never referred to a green banknote as a 'five pounds' note...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 01 December, 2010, 03:45:56 pm
I've never referred to a green banknote as a 'five pounds' note...

Much in the way you hear "4 pint jug" or "20 gallon barrel".

But...

How much is that "Transformed Man" CD by William Shatner?
Five pound1.

1. Not a very good deal, even for his rendition of Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 01 December, 2010, 05:32:41 pm
What about people who say "five pound"?

They don't. They say "five paaahnd".

d.


I've never referred to a green banknote as a 'five pounds' note...

They were all white in our day.  :-*
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 01 December, 2010, 07:12:58 pm
Help! I'm proofing an article about a couple - Mr & Mrs Wiggins - and the copy says "the Wiggins's then moved to Johannesburg". Should it be "Wigginses" or "Wiggins" or what?
My 2p:
The Wiggins couple then moved...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 01 December, 2010, 10:31:30 pm
Help! I'm proofing an article about a couple - Mr & Mrs Wiggins - and the copy says "the Wiggins's then moved to Johannesburg". Should it be "Wigginses" or "Wiggins" or what?

If you have to use the plural of Wiggins, it would be "Wiggenses", as in "dresses" or "messes" being the plurals of dress and mess respectively.

Sam

Yup. Nobody has a problem with "keeping up with the Joneses", do they?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 01 December, 2010, 11:00:15 pm
Would not the Wiggins family be known as the Wigginses, not the Wiggenses? It seems a bit odd to change the spelling of their name.

This thread is a minefield.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ravenbait on 01 December, 2010, 11:56:49 pm
Would not the Wiggins family be known as the Wigginses, not the Wiggenses? It seems a bit odd to change the spelling of their name.

Yes. That was a typo on my part.

Sam
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 02 December, 2010, 04:23:12 pm
Slight issue was that one of said Wigginses would be checking my work once proofed.

In the end I went with "Fred and Thelma" (not their real names) although it was a bit awkward as we had this at the beginning of three consecutive paragraphs.

The whole thing is a minefield as I have to do a lot of editing of said Thelma Wiggins' work and I suspect it gets right up her nose; she's obviously not a 'copywriter' or 'proofreader' as she has many 'awkward' stylistic 'devices' which I continually have to 'remove' to make the work read more 'smoothly'. I feel like saying to her; "No, you don't do a semicolon before quotations." too. And should that have been a comma at the end of that sentence? Sigh.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 02 December, 2010, 04:39:23 pm
Oh.  Well, that's wrong, too.  Everyone knows that Fred is married to Wilma. ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gandalf on 02 December, 2010, 04:45:49 pm
Pretty common in speech, particularly amongst people under 30 years old, and in print in the latest CTC magazine -

half a pence

Equally common among youngsters on super market tills giving change -
one pounds and one pence.

The hint is even written on the coin where it clearly says "one penny".

I'm afraid that the poor old penny was demoted to the 'wumpy' pretty soon after decimalisation.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 02 December, 2010, 04:58:01 pm
The plural of Wiggens is Wiggentes. Or, if they're all neuter (you never know), Wiggentia.



Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SandyV on 19 December, 2010, 06:48:42 am
It didn't make me cringe but did make me smile when I read in a magazine that I should "apply a volume-enhancing moose to roots".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gandalf on 19 December, 2010, 07:11:52 am
'Slippy'.   :sick: That is all.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 19 December, 2010, 09:34:08 am
It didn't make me cringe but did make me smile when I read in a magazine that I should "apply a volume-enhancing moose to roots".
A cycling guide to York has advice to cyclists: "Do not approach horses in a manor that may frighten them."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wendy on 19 December, 2010, 09:51:29 am
'Slippy'.   :sick: That is all.

LOL!  Sorry...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 19 December, 2010, 10:47:23 am
... a manor that may frighten them."

It's OK, Peckham's not in York.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 December, 2010, 11:08:45 am
It didn't make me cringe but did make me smile when I read in a magazine that I should "apply a volume-enhancing moose to roots".
Bizarre, I always thought the moose ate the roots to increase its volume.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 19 December, 2010, 12:45:16 pm
'Slippy'.   :sick: That is all.

Absolutely. Damned silly non-word.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 19 December, 2010, 02:19:04 pm
'Slippy'.   :sick: That is all.

Absolutely. Damned silly non-word.

Although you could argue: Slippery: like a slipper; Slippy: prone to slippage.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: a lower gear on 19 December, 2010, 04:57:36 pm
Mrs. lower gear hails from the upper midwest of the USA where 'bring' and 'take' are used interchangeably even in well-educated households; thus our two smaller gears are enjoined to 'Don't forget to bring your dinner money to school this morning', and so forth, despite Mrs. lower gear having spent almost all her adult life in the UK. Maybe its related to German or Scandinavian usage? - those are the regions from which derived the great majority of C19 immigrants to the upper midwest.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 19 December, 2010, 05:00:57 pm
'Slippy'.   :sick: That is all.

Absolutely. Damned silly non-word.

Although you could argue: Slippery: like a slipper; Slippy: prone to slippage.

I heard Ross Noble use "slippery - like a slipper" on ISIHAC in the New Meanings for Old Words game.

You'll be telling me next that "dipthong" is to wash an undergarment.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 19 December, 2010, 05:08:19 pm
Diphthong is a sound with two components...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: sub55 on 19 December, 2010, 06:21:23 pm
Generally, young female shop assistants although not exclusively ,who hand me my change and say
1p
2p
3p etc,etc.
NO! 
It is either ,
A penny or one pence or ,
Two pence or tuppence or,
Three pence or thruppence  etc, etc . 
A p is round and green and comes in a pod, can be eaten ,either raw or cooked when fresh.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 19 December, 2010, 06:23:29 pm
So long as they give me the right change, I don't give a stuff what they say.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: eck on 19 December, 2010, 06:29:57 pm

Generally, young female shop assistants although not exclusively ,who hand me my change and say
1p
2p
3p etc,etc.
NO! 
It is either ,
A penny or one pence or ,
Two pence or tuppence or,
Three pence or thruppence  etc, etc . 
A p is round and green and comes in a pod, can be eaten ,either raw or cooked when fresh.

Spuds in!
One potato, two potato, three potato, four,
Five potato, six potato, seven potato, more...
You're oot...
One potato, two potato...etc etc   

Just thought I'd share that, from my long-ago childhood.  :D

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: peliroja on 19 December, 2010, 06:36:04 pm
My American colleagues' use of the simple past rather than the present perfect.

Did you get a ride yet?
Did you eat lunch already?

Instead of:
Have you found (someone to give you) a lift?
Have you eaten/had lunch yet?

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 19 December, 2010, 09:20:17 pm
My American colleagues' use of the simple past rather than the present perfect.

Did you get a ride yet?
Did you eat lunch already?

Instead of:
Have you found (someone to give you) a lift?
Have you eaten/had lunch yet?


Yes, but it's a different language, American.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 20 December, 2010, 12:08:54 am
Snowplough. It is snowplough!!

Snowplough!!!!!!!

Plow indeed.  :sick:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 20 December, 2010, 08:53:41 am
Snoughplough?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 20 December, 2010, 08:56:33 am
There's no plow.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 20 December, 2010, 09:17:17 am
How now, snow plow.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 20 December, 2010, 09:36:45 am
A p is round and green and comes in a pod,
Sometimes it's yellow & liquid . . . .
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 20 December, 2010, 10:22:47 am
How now, snow plow.


                John Sutherland: Through or thru? Plow or plough? Beware the sting of the spelling bee  -
                    Commentators, Opinion - The Independent (http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/john-sutherland-through-or-thru-plow-or-plough-beware-the-sting-of-the-spelling-bee-929672.html)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 20 December, 2010, 10:55:39 am
Quote
Mr Griffin said: "On our approach a group of youths started throwing snowballs.

"Thankfully none of them actually hit the aircraft or the rotas because that could have been catastrophic really, it could have forced the aircraft either to crash or make a forced landing," he told BBC Radio Wales.

BBC News - Air ambulance stopped from Swansea landing by snowballs (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-12037245)

They should shut the office window if they don't want the rotas hit by snowballs. The BBC is a great institution.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 December, 2010, 06:00:57 pm
I like the plough spelling because it shows the similarity to the same word in Polish and (I presume, though have to admit I've forgotten) German.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Salvatore on 20 December, 2010, 06:29:51 pm
I like the plough spelling because it shows the similarity to the same word in Polish and (I presume, though have to admit I've forgotten) German.

der Pflug
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: a lower gear on 20 December, 2010, 07:20:43 pm
My American colleagues' use of the simple past rather than the present perfect.

Did you get a ride yet?
Did you eat lunch already?

Instead of:
Have you found (someone to give you) a lift?
Have you eaten/had lunch yet?


Yes, but it's a different language, American.

Don't overlook 'gotten. In mitigation Mrs. Lower Gear only uses it when under stress.

An intriguing verb is 'visit', used to describe a conversation or meeting as well as  in the UK sense: 'We enjoyed Xxxxx's visit with us', when Xxxxx spoke to them on the phone.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Rhys W on 21 December, 2010, 09:47:44 am
This is my latest: people saying "here, here!" in agreement with something.

I always have to reply with "where, where?"

 ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 21 December, 2010, 01:16:59 pm
Are you sure they are not saying, "Hear, hear!" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hear,_hear) Rhys?

Don't be silly. He wouldn't be complaining if they were saying that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Rhys W on 21 December, 2010, 04:54:29 pm
Are you sure they are not saying, "Hear, hear!" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hear,_hear) Rhys?

OK, I meant only when it's written...  :P
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 21 December, 2010, 05:01:20 pm
Are you sure they are not saying, "Hear, hear!" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hear,_hear) Rhys?

OK, I meant only when it's written...  :P

There, there, don't let it get to you.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 21 December, 2010, 05:20:39 pm
There, there...

Where, where?

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 21 December, 2010, 07:27:14 pm
Inga: Werewolf!
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: Werewolf?
Igor: There.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: What?
Igor: There, wolf. There, castle.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: Why are you talking that way?
Igor: I thought you wanted to.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: No, I don't want to.
Igor: [shrugs] Suit yourself. I'm easy.
 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 05 January, 2011, 02:58:59 pm
The CTC Style Guide, received today by electronic mail.
That is all.

(To be fair, parts are fine but capitalisation and punctuation in some places leave something to be desired.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nightfly on 05 January, 2011, 04:28:34 pm
innit.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tourist Tony on 05 January, 2011, 04:30:54 pm
Lahk
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 05 January, 2011, 05:11:19 pm
An ad on the tele just a minute ago:

"When you've got nasal congestion and a blocked nose..."

 ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wobbly John on 05 January, 2011, 07:24:53 pm
Why the hell are people starting to use the phrase to "go on fire" or "went on fire"?

Things can: be on fire; be set on fire; catch light, but it can only go on fire if it travels while already in flames.  >:( >:( >:(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Zipperhead on 05 January, 2011, 08:37:21 pm
I'm only pointing out that it's spelt tautology, because if I don't one of the 'kin yacf pedants will be along to do so.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 05 January, 2011, 08:39:33 pm
Tortology, as one should know, is the study of tortes! :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Canardly on 05 January, 2011, 09:57:08 pm
Mange tout mange tout Rodney.....
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 05 January, 2011, 10:12:08 pm
Why the hell are people starting to use the phrase to "go on fire" or "went on fire"?

Things can: be on fire; be set on fire; catch light, but it can only go on fire if it travels while already in flames.  >:( >:( >:(
Lots of things have went on fire in Glasgow. It's an expression which is commonly understood to mean you can't prove we did it so we'll just kid on it happened spontaneously.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 05 January, 2011, 10:16:51 pm
The CTC Style Guide, received today by electronic mail.
That is all.

(To be fair, parts are fine but capitalisation and punctuation in some places leave something to be desired.)
Oh dear. Perhaps the CTC needs a proofreader. Should I offer my services?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: eck on 05 January, 2011, 10:25:41 pm
The CTC Style Guide, received today by electronic mail.
That is all.

(To be fair, parts are fine but capitalisation and punctuation in some places leave something to be desired.)
Oh dear. Perhaps the CTC needs a proofreader. Should I offer my services?
Many years ago, proofreading was part of a job I had. When you've proofread manuals on how to lay linoleum, in Norwegian, then you've proofread, laddie.
(Is proofread one word or two? Maybe I should get an enquiry underway.  ;) )
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 05 January, 2011, 10:32:09 pm
I've not done that, but some of the IT manuals I've proofread* might as well have been in Norwegian, their comprehensibility was so poor. :(

*Seems to be the accepted term within the trade.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 05 January, 2011, 11:15:29 pm
It's two words, obviously: proo fread.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 05 January, 2011, 11:19:32 pm
The CTC Style Guide, received today by electronic mail.
That is all.

(To be fair, parts are fine but capitalisation and punctuation in some places leave something to be desired.)
Oh dear. Perhaps the CTC needs a proofreader. Should I offer my services?

Victoria Hazael, their Publicity Officer is on Maternity Leave so they might need help (if they have the dosh)...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 05 January, 2011, 11:37:44 pm
Oooh! I'll have to get in touch. I think I know who I'll talk to. I'll offer to do it dirt cheap.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 06 January, 2011, 12:12:48 am
Are we allowed to have the use of "wiki" to mean "Wikipedia"?  It's a completely different word, dammit, and in some contexts (chiefly those with an associated wiki) can result in confusion or at least a mental backflip while you re-parse.

Also, the similar abuse of "USB" to mean a USB flash drive (or in extreme cases any kind of USB dongle), and "MP3" to mean an MP3 playing device.  *twitches*
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 06 January, 2011, 11:37:12 am
I'm only pointing out that it's spelt tautology, because if I don't one of the 'kin yacf pedants will be along to do so.
I sense some tension in this post.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Chris L on 06 January, 2011, 01:03:59 pm
From http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=42446.0 (http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=42446.0), this: "Firstly may I say how sorry I am to hear of the recent incident and that the person involved is now making a full and speedy recovery from their injuries."

Why's that?  Because they might feel well enough to sue the living arse off you?  Thought so.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 January, 2011, 03:17:52 pm
I've not done that, but some of the IT manuals I've proofread* might as well have been in Norwegian, their comprehensibility was so poor. :(

*Seems to be the accepted term within the trade.
I often came across this problem when I was translating and proofreading/editing other people's translations. Sometimes the original document was so poorly written that it was impossible to create a decent translation.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 06 January, 2011, 05:11:59 pm
From http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=42446.0 (http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=42446.0), this: "Firstly may I say how sorry I am to hear of the recent incident and that the person involved is now making a full and speedy recovery from their injuries."

Why's that?  Because they might feel well enough to sue the living arse off you?  Thought so.

Good spot. How about this one:

Retroflectives (aka scotchlite) are also not visible at any distance and any angle.

i wonder if he meant " ... nor any angle." ?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: toontra on 10 January, 2011, 09:09:51 am
Just been reminded of one of my current pet hates on R4 this morning.  Scientists, mathematicians and IT people, often campus based, who start sentences, and often whole conversations, with the word "so".  

It's as if they are picking up mid-conversation discussing proofs with a colleague, whilst also trying to convince you, in a patronising kind of way, that you have embarked on a level of dialogue of which they are master.

It's just plain irritating when such grammatical absurdities gain widespread use and are thought by the user to signify smartness.  Quite the opposite IMO.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 10 January, 2011, 09:27:51 am
Agreed.  I was discussing the 'So' phenomenon only last week. The first time I heard it a couple of years ago it sounded plain weird.

Also, British politicians and Australian cricketers who answer interview questions with 'Look.'  It makes them sound impatient, though I guess Australian cricketers may have good reason for being a little tetchy at the moment.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: toontra on 10 January, 2011, 09:36:30 am
Hah, we are on a the same wave length!  I hate the "look" prefix almost as much as "so".  Blair used it a lot, in a very patronising way.  The aussie sportsmen do it in a slightly different way - more of a finger-poking assertive/aggressiveness.  Still, when it comes to sport you have to admit they do know what they're talking about  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Salvatore on 10 January, 2011, 10:08:04 am
I heard Strauss and Swann using it in interviews last week. It's high time they came home. It's like Douglas Jardine wearing a hat with corks hanging from the brim.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 10 January, 2011, 11:21:54 am
"Look," indicates a premise; "So," a conclusion.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 10 January, 2011, 02:32:08 pm
It's my perception that the "Look:" prefix started off as a defensive/irritated thing;
"Look, we're doing our best here ... "

Perhaps it gained popularity while our players were losing, and it's just become one of those vocal habits - like "y'know".

Not sure when Blair started using it.


Don't have a problem with "so", if used as:
...  "So," a conclusion.

I don't understand why it would sound[edit] patronising.   ???
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: toontra on 10 January, 2011, 03:08:32 pm

Not sure when Blair started using it.

Blair started using it heavily in the run-up to the Iraq war!  His manner when using it was as if he was explaining things in simple language that children would understand.  He kept this device up for the remainder of his premiership.

I don't understand why it would patronising.   ???

It's patronising because it's using pseudo-academic language in inappropriate situations.  The people who use it are invariably being interviewed by the media specifically to explain often complex issues in layman's language.  To then start a reply with "so" immediately creates a gap in communication, because, let's face it, who in the real world starts a conversation with the word "so".  It sounds ridiculous.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 10 January, 2011, 10:03:11 pm
Quote from: toontra link=topic=2205.msg824427#msg824427
... let's face it, who in the real world starts a conversation with the word "so".  

Gloria Gaynor, for one:
Quote
And so you're back
From outer space...

You are missing a question-mark, by the way.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nightfly on 10 January, 2011, 10:42:39 pm
Contro-versy  >:(  :hand:  The majority of gormless radio and TV presenters say this.

Con-trov-ersy   :thumbsup:

Conti-nue  :sick:

Con-tin-ue   :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Zipperhead on 11 January, 2011, 04:00:10 pm
Robert Pe e e e e e e e e ston
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Giraffe on 11 January, 2011, 06:02:53 pm
As in "Is that Pest on again?"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nightfly on 12 January, 2011, 01:16:22 am
As in "Is that Pest on again?"?

 ;D

Poor chap. I think he's been taking voice coaching lessons as you can tell he is trying desperately not to let his voice be so.......O weighhhhhh over the t............oppP.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 12 January, 2011, 10:04:22 am
As in "Is that Pest on again?"?

 ;D

Poor chap. I think he's been taking voice coaching lessons as you can tell he is trying desperately not to let his voice be so.......O weighhhhhh over the t............oppP.

I understand he overcame a childhood stutter (just to make you feel guilty).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 12 January, 2011, 10:39:10 am
I do not know whether "scandal" and "condole" are really verbs but if they are, they shouldn't be.  R4 used both within five minutes this morning.

Americans are scandalled by British political cartoons.
Well-wishers have been condoling the family of Salman Taseer.

Hmmm.  Firefox's spill-chucker doesn't object to the latter.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 12 January, 2011, 10:48:18 am
Second one's sort of OK, but 'scandalled' is an abomination. The perpetrator should be forced to measure his length from Broadcasting House to the offices of the OED, repeating 'Scandalised' each time.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 12 January, 2011, 10:49:20 am
Americans are scandalled by British political cartoons.
Well-wishers have been condoling the family of Salman Taseer.

Hmmm.  Firefox's spill-chucker doesn't object to the latter.

Only because it doesn't know the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs. You can condole with the family, if you really must.

On edit: actually you could condole a death. Condoling the family implies they're all to be lamented over---possible, but rude.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 12 January, 2011, 01:07:02 pm
On a related theme I have several times heard and read, "blood doning".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 January, 2011, 05:22:49 pm
Done by a donator!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: PeteB99 on 12 January, 2011, 05:32:39 pm
As in "Is that Pest on again?"?

 ;D

Poor chap. I think he's been taking voice coaching lessons as you can tell he is trying desperately not to let his voice be so.......O weighhhhhh over the t............oppP.

I understand he overcame a childhood stutter (just to make you feel guilty).

I've never really understood what peoples dislike for him is driven by.

OK his speech isn't quite the 'queens english' but it's quite understandable and he seems to know what he's talking about.
 ???
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 12 January, 2011, 07:17:11 pm
Done by a donator!
Don't you mean doned?   ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 12 January, 2011, 07:59:45 pm
As in "Is that Pest on again?"?

 ;D

Poor chap. I think he's been taking voice coaching lessons as you can tell he is trying desperately not to let his voice be so.......O weighhhhhh over the t............oppP.

I understand he overcame a childhood stutter (just to make you feel guilty).

I've never really understood what peoples dislike for him is driven by.

OK his speech isn't quite the 'queens english' but it's quite understandable and he seems to know what he's talking about.
 ???


ROBert PESTon's OVER-inflected SPEECH is VEry anNOYing to SOME of us who are SENsitive to SOUND. The VARiations in inTENsity seem to GRATE.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: toontra on 12 January, 2011, 08:09:29 pm
I'm concentrating so much on his vocal contortions that I completely miss what he's actually saying.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 January, 2011, 09:10:03 pm
I think that's actually quite a good phrase for a slogan that's intended to be used internationally. It avoids those bothersome articles, for a start.  ;) And it gives a more positive emphasis than "Nothing is impossible", which would be open to the interpretation "(x) is impossible". The way they have it, it's like "The impossible is nothing to me (ie to you when you're wearing adidas)".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 12 January, 2011, 11:28:33 pm
It pains me to admit it but I think that adidas slogan is actually rather witty.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Deano on 12 January, 2011, 11:30:21 pm
As in "Is that Pest on again?"?

 ;D

Poor chap. I think he's been taking voice coaching lessons as you can tell he is trying desperately not to let his voice be so.......O weighhhhhh over the t............oppP.

I understand he overcame a childhood stutter (just to make you feel guilty).

I've never really understood what peoples dislike for him is driven by.


Personally, I've found his overweening self-importance and fawning attitude towards the captains of industry far more offensive than his odd stresses and pronunciations.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 13 January, 2011, 11:24:22 am
I was running late this morning, because John Frum bring firewater blong Scotland last night.  Hence I found myself listening to In Our Time, with Belvin Barg.  This is an intelligent programme, with intelligent guests.  I know this because Dr Larrington has been an intelligent guest on it more than once.  Today they were talking about random and pseudo-random numbers, so the intelligent guests were all clever mathemagicians.  In spite of which, two of the three intelligent guests continually referred to the rolling of "a dice".

(Sings, to the tune of If I Were A Rich Man)

Stabby stabby knifecrime
La la la la la la la
All day long it's stabby stabby time
If I were a stabby man

(Waits for audience applause, not a sausage)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Zipperhead on 13 January, 2011, 02:36:49 pm
You obviously think they should die for such a crime.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 13 January, 2011, 02:43:25 pm
If you say "a dice", EVERYONE knows what you mean (but some people might stab you)
If you say "a die", noone will stab you, but some will wonder which meaning of die (or even dye) you intended.

It's always a gamble ...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 January, 2011, 04:28:57 pm
I wonder if my diced carrots have been dyed, they look a funny colour.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tigerrr on 13 January, 2011, 04:55:09 pm
The dice is cast.  Man.
 Nuttin rong widat bro.
 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 January, 2011, 04:58:01 pm
The die is cast iron or ally?

We all know what these words and phrases mean, sometimes it's best not to investigate the grammar and lexicology too deeply - or rather, it's fun and interesting to do, but frustrating and misleading if you do it with any intent of demonstrating right and wrong.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 14 January, 2011, 12:48:34 pm
If you say "a dice", EVERYONE knows what you mean (but some people might stab you)
If you say "a die", noone will stab you, but some will wonder which meaning of die (or even dye) you intended.

It's always a gamble ...

Belvin and the Third Mathemagician managed to get it right.  I guess it's a crap-shoot...

(dies (http://img.thesun.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00548/dead-dog_682_548101a.jpg))
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 14 January, 2011, 01:46:37 pm
Quiz (http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/quiz.html)

I scored 20 out of 20, obviously.  :smug:

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 16 January, 2011, 05:26:18 pm
Quiz (http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/quiz.html)

I scored 20 out of 20, obviously.  :smug:

d.

Trying to confuse with similes in nr. 20, I see.
20/20.  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 17 January, 2011, 12:22:38 pm
20/20 here also.  I think they only taught us that stuff in lat.  Fancy a grown man saying hujus hujus hujus as if he were proud of it it is not english and do not make SENSE.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Salvatore on 17 January, 2011, 12:31:11 pm
Quote from: melvin bragg
Now to the question of dice.  I discovered – too late – that you can say dice meaning one die.  I felt a bit of a clot saying die all the time, but Tom Morris, the producer, was quietly insistent. It turned out that all the contributors used dice for one die.  Tom had said he would produce a die, or a dice, for the introduction in order that I could roll it.   
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 17 January, 2011, 12:34:15 pm
Quiz (http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/quiz.html)

I scored 20 out of 20, obviously.  :smug:

d.

Trying to confuse with similes in nr. 20, I see.
20/20.  :thumbsup:

I was a member of a forum once. They tried to ban similes. Or something.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 17 January, 2011, 12:36:37 pm
of a forum
fori
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 17 January, 2011, 12:37:34 pm
of a forum
fori...
...shall consider my cat Geoffrey?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 17 January, 2011, 12:42:57 pm
You are misattributing an ellipsis.

Anyway, smilies are an illusory association of images and words with a merely fictitious underlying reality. Idola fori, if you will.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 17 January, 2011, 02:25:09 pm
of a forum
fori...
...shall consider my cat Geoffrey?
Rejoice in the Lamb!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 17 January, 2011, 05:16:06 pm
of a forum
fori...
...shall consider my cat Geoffrey?
Rejoice in the Lamb!

Smart!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Zipperhead on 17 January, 2011, 05:21:27 pm
Today I saw this:

The Duke of York became King George VI, coronated in 1937

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Giraffe on 17 January, 2011, 05:31:43 pm
Now I could understand Edward VII becoming Corona Ted.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: iakobski on 17 January, 2011, 06:13:35 pm
"A revenue inspection is about to commence throughout the train"

 :o
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 17 January, 2011, 06:44:51 pm
"A revenue inspection is about to commence throughout the train"

 :o
Did you declare any revenue?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 17 January, 2011, 08:09:49 pm
Today I saw this:

The Duke of York became King George VI, coronated in 1937



Is that like being Tango'd?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 17 January, 2011, 08:53:25 pm
Today I saw this:

The Duke of York became King George VI, coronated in 1937



::-) Everyone knows it should be crenellated.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 18 January, 2011, 10:26:03 am
On R4 just now (from some 'expert'):

individuated


This MAY be a real word, but it certainly shouldn't be.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 18 January, 2011, 10:51:01 am
It's perfectly well-formed (Cicero uses "indiuiduus", says the Latin dictionary), and I can't think of another word that means "specify uniquely" or "distinguish from all others"---"pick out" is the best Anglo-Saxon, maybe.

E.g. If you pick out a ball of snot you thereby individuate it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 18 January, 2011, 10:56:07 am
"pick out" seems a much better choice in your example. (i imagine single out would work in some cases)

There can't be many situations where specify uniquely is better than specify, but I suppose it's possible  :-\

On the radio, the context was personalised.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 18 January, 2011, 11:59:11 am
"Specify" doesn't mean what we want: going from the general to the specific is going from the genus to the species---it is a further step to go from the species to the individual.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 18 January, 2011, 04:46:38 pm
Spelling, rather than grammar but Auntie should know better.
Antartic is a lorry, surely?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12218170 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12218170)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: eck on 18 January, 2011, 04:52:51 pm
Spelling, rather than grammar but Auntie should know better.
Antartic is a lorry, surely?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12218170 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12218170)
In a similar vein, my winter cycling boots are Diadora Artics (http://www.merlincycles.co.uk/Bike+Shop/Apparel/Shoes/Shoes+-+Road/Diadora+Artic+Road+Shoes_DIADORA-ARTIC-ROAD.htm). They don't bend in the middle though.
And I suppose, being Italian, they have a slightly better excuse than the BBC.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 19 January, 2011, 10:24:22 am
... my winter cycling boots are Diadora Artics (http://www.merlincycles.co.uk/Bike+Shop/Apparel/Shoes/Shoes+-+Road/Diadora+Artic+Road+Shoes_DIADORA-ARTIC-ROAD.htm). They don't bend in the middle though.
And I suppose, being Italian, they have a slightly better excuse than the BBC.

Don't they carry a heavy load, though? ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: eck on 19 January, 2011, 10:48:56 am
... my winter cycling boots are Diadora Artics (http://www.merlincycles.co.uk/Bike+Shop/Apparel/Shoes/Shoes+-+Road/Diadora+Artic+Road+Shoes_DIADORA-ARTIC-ROAD.htm). They don't bend in the middle though.
And I suppose, being Italian, they have a slightly better excuse than the BBC.

Don't they carry a heavy load, though? ;)
:facepalm:
Aye, in my case, you're not wrong.  :P
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 20 January, 2011, 10:12:20 pm
Ooops!
Wrong word from Ham & High...
A RESPECTED Hampstead businessman today admitted to turning a blind eye to criminals using his Safety Depository company to store millions of pounds of ill-gotten games.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 21 January, 2011, 01:33:24 pm
Stolen copies of "Metal Gear Solid"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 21 January, 2011, 03:04:06 pm
A USian micro-brewery website (link expunged) in which their brewster (so described) is named & pictured.  

Wrong gender. :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 21 January, 2011, 09:54:48 pm
A press release from America I read today enthused about the singing duo's "intrepidness"...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 22 January, 2011, 02:33:55 am
The instructions with my new headphones advised against using them in "trafficated" areas.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: greenmeansgo on 22 January, 2011, 09:12:21 pm
An historic event  :sick:
A historic event  :thumbsup:
An 'istoric event (when spoken)  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tourist Tony on 23 January, 2011, 02:10:45 pm
Dog training book, from Usania. It's apparently wrong to let your dog flaunt the rules.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 23 January, 2011, 02:44:17 pm
Dog training book, from Usania. It's apparently wrong to let your dog flaunt the rules.

Flaunting the rules? It's OK if you are Moses.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 03 February, 2011, 06:25:50 pm
Can't quite believe that m'colleague, supposedly a highly experienced sub editor, actually just put through a page with the phrase "rocket scientry" on it.

 :facepalm:

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 February, 2011, 03:22:16 pm
Dog training book, from Usania. It's apparently wrong to let your dog flaunt the rules.

Similar thing in a subtitled section of "Mr Nice".  A Spanish policeman says that Howard Marks cannot be allowed to flaunt the law.

Grrr.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 07 February, 2011, 05:18:07 pm
The instructions with my new headphones advised against using them in "trafficated" areas.

d.

That's a bit flash.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 14 February, 2011, 04:13:20 pm
"I look better with fewer clothes on!"

Hmmm, slightly troubled by this one. Should it be "fewer clothes" or "less clothes"?

I'm inclined to go with "less" - "fewer" sounds prissy and pedantic. But neither option sounds "right".

Of course, the truth is that I look better with more clothes on, but that isn't really the issue.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 14 February, 2011, 05:11:53 pm
"I look better with fewer clothes on!"

Hmmm, slightly troubled by this one. Should it be "fewer clothes" or "less clothes"?

I'm inclined to go with "less" - "fewer" sounds prissy and pedantic. But neither option sounds "right".

Of course, the truth is that I look better with more clothes on, but that isn't really the issue.

d.


If you regard clothes as a collective noun, then I think less is OK. If you choose garments then fewer it is. Given that I don't think we ever use clothes as a singular (article of clothing) then less is acceptable. I agree that it sounds a bit awkward.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 14 February, 2011, 05:24:37 pm
This isn't a grammatical error, but it's a nice example of how a single space can change the meaning of a sentence:

Quote
Recumbents are different - most people who ride a recumbent genuinely believe they are gaining an advantage (incredible but true),
<SNIP>
 I doubt if many of us see it as gaining an advantage over all (up hill harder, downhill faster)
I don't think Wothill meant to put a space there (but I could be wrong)!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 14 February, 2011, 05:54:10 pm
If you regard clothes as a collective noun, then I think less is OK.

That's the root of the problem. My dictionary defines clothes as "articles of dress". Looked at that way, it's a straightforward plural noun, hence "fewer" is strictly correct. But we tend to use the word in a "non-countable" sense...

So, do we go with strict grammar or everyday usage? To be honest, I think I prefer the latter, especially in this context.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biggsy on 14 February, 2011, 06:06:52 pm
Less clothes sounds wrong to me, while fewer clothes, or less clothing, sounds right to me.

(Not that I'm much offended by "bad" grammar.  I'm probably posting some right now).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 14 February, 2011, 06:11:17 pm
I would say that the intended meaning of "less/fewer clothes", in this context, is the same as saying "less clothing".

For example, a shorter skirt, or a thinner jumper, is technically the same number of garments - but would fit the "everyday usage" meaning of "less clothes".

Hence "less" is more correct in a practical sense! (if that concept actually exists ...)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ravenbait on 14 February, 2011, 06:24:31 pm
I would suggest that less clothes (although I dislike that construction and would prefer "less clothing", as it is not mismatched) could be taken as the equivalent of a mini skirt as opposed to trousers, while fewer clothes means removing layers or articles. My grammar-pedant brain automatically parses these relative descriptors in that way.

Sam
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 14 February, 2011, 06:30:47 pm
I might use 'less clothing.

I might not end a sentence with a preposition...

I look best stark nekkid!

May contain traces of hyperbole...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 14 February, 2011, 06:42:10 pm
I might use 'less clothing.

I might not end a sentence with a preposition...

I look best stark nekkid!

May contain traces of hyperbole...

Are you all hyperbolic curves?  :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 14 February, 2011, 06:54:25 pm
I look best stark nekkid!
I believe there is an obligatory response in these cases, including the word 'pictures'.  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 14 February, 2011, 11:38:04 pm
Auntie's slipping again.

What does the 'Big Society' looks like?

From http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12459828 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12459828)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 14 February, 2011, 11:41:48 pm
So, do we go with strict grammar or everyday usage? To be honest, I think I prefer the latter, especially in this context.

My inner pedant got the better of me and I went with strict grammar in the end: it's a plural noun, end of.

And judging by subsequent responses here, I think I was right to do so.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 17 February, 2011, 10:38:05 am
Quote
For a confidential discussion about the role, please contact D—— C—— or I, at Green Park on 020 7000 0000.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 17 February, 2011, 02:16:55 pm
Quote
In fact the different colours reflect the different chemical elements in our atmosphere being effected and they then interact with the discharge from the sun.

BBC News - Aurora Borealis to light up the night sky (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-12493448)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 20 February, 2011, 01:45:55 pm
Quote
For a confidential discussion about the role, please contact D—— C—— or I, at Green Park on 020 7000 0000.
Classic. A prime example of the common false assumption that because "X & me" is sometimes wrong, it's always wrong.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 22 February, 2011, 01:47:44 pm
From BBC report about visit to teddy bear factory.

"Once that is mastered, the limbs are sent over to Pauline Davies who puts the eyes on."

Strange bears!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biggsy on 22 February, 2011, 01:56:24 pm
I wouldn't mind having an eye on my paw.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Zipperhead on 22 February, 2011, 02:41:30 pm
Reading through a school report last night, this from the English teacher (of all people) -

XXXX has a lively intellect and, when focussed, can articulate fluent an assured responses at the highest level.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Si_Co on 22 February, 2011, 02:49:47 pm
My daughter's school report always reads as if it has been written by a gibbering idiot on LSD, I have ceased communicating with them on this ever since I asked for a context on their rating system and recieved a reply asking what I meant :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 22 February, 2011, 02:53:44 pm
Reading through a school report last night, this from the English teacher (of all people) -

XXXX has a lively intellect and, when focussed, can articulate fluent an assured responses at the highest level.

But that surely is just a missing letter d, not a grammatical error as such.

When I was churning out school reports for lots of kids, most of whom I'd only seen twice a week and who didn't participate noticeably in my lessons (music), sometimes it would be very difficult to think of anything to say at all. School report writing really is one of the most mind-numbing of occupations.

Having said that, I believe that most schools these days try to keep stuff a lot more relevant and record-keeping is probably a lot more conspicuous than it was 30 years ago.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 22 February, 2011, 03:36:43 pm
Some schools were using report-writing systems by the 1990s. I wouldn't be surprised if that's spread. I remember a former girlfriend ranting about having to select from a limited set of ghastly phrases & sentences, which were rarely, if ever, appropriate.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 24 February, 2011, 10:14:36 am
Stuffs in the formation $PERSON is a former $NATIONALITY $PROFESSION, such as "Niki Lauda is a former Austrian racing driver" or "Hendrix stayed with his girlfriend, former German figure skater Monika Dannemann".   Admittedly Monika Dannemann is now a former German, but only in the sense that she's also a former human being.  If you really can't be arsed to rearrange the sentence, try using the word "retired".

Bah!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ravenbait on 25 February, 2011, 01:58:16 pm
Reading through a school report last night, this from the English teacher (of all people) -

XXXX has a lively intellect and, when focussed, can articulate fluent an assured responses at the highest level.

And focused is spelled with one s, not two. Drives me batty, that does.

Sam
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 25 February, 2011, 02:05:43 pm
Actually, either is acceptable, although the single s sets my teeth on edge.  Makes it fo-kyuzed ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ravenbait on 25 February, 2011, 02:17:04 pm
Actually, either is acceptable, although the single s sets my teeth on edge.  Makes it fo-kyuzed ;)

What, the same way "snake" is pronounced "znake"?

Focus should only take a double s if one stresses the second syllable (c.f. begin, beginning; allot, allotted). That's not how I pronounce focus, don't know about you.

Sam
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 25 February, 2011, 02:35:35 pm
No, the same way refused or confused are pronounced.  But it matters not.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: eck on 25 February, 2011, 02:37:59 pm
I've never really understood that one either.
Fuse - fused
Fuss - fussed
Focus - focused.  ???
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 25 February, 2011, 02:41:52 pm
Actually, now I remember, I think it was 'focusing' that never felt right, not 'focused'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 25 February, 2011, 03:03:29 pm
I've never really understood that one either.
Fuse - fused
Fuss - fussed
Focus - focused.  ???


mouse - mice
house - hice ?

goose - geese
moose - meese ?

Oh, the joy and simplicity of the English language!  :D
 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 25 February, 2011, 03:15:51 pm
Slide - slid

Glide - glid?

Side - sided

Glide - glided?

Ride - rode

Glide - glode?

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 25 February, 2011, 04:49:54 pm
If I were a bear
And big bear too
I shouldn't much care
If it froze or snew.
I shouldn't much mind
If it snowed or friz
I'd be all fur lined
With a coat like his.

A. A. LARRINGTON (retired)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 25 February, 2011, 05:02:19 pm
house - hice ?

By jove I think he's got it!

Always nice to hear Johnny foreigner aiming for a correct English accent, what?!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 25 February, 2011, 06:01:33 pm
house - hice ?

By jove I think he's got it!

Always nice to hear Johnny foreigner aiming for a correct English accent, what?!

What?

Personally I'm much more in favour of vividly pithy imagery (now there's a phrase to avoid in speech) than pedantic correctness.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 25 February, 2011, 06:59:41 pm
house - hice ?

By jove I think he's got it!

Always nice to hear Johnny foreigner aiming for a correct English accent, what?!

Around 'ere, it's more like 'owss. ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 25 February, 2011, 07:00:13 pm
If I were a bear
And big bear too
I shouldn't much care
If it froze or snew.
I shouldn't much mind
If it snowed or friz
I'd be all fur lined
With a coat like his.

A. A. LARRINGTON (retired)


POTD
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 25 February, 2011, 10:48:54 pm
Usage. 'Literally'.

This week I have heard it used twice, by people who should probably have known better, when  its antonym, or nothing at all, should have been used.  Margaret Hodge said something on Question Time about the MOD 'literally throwing money down the drain'.  And Sally Bercow on the 10 O'clock Show: "If we do switch to AV MPs are going to literally have a rocket shoved up their bottom".  Daily in work I hear the twenty-somethings in the team use it as an intensifier: "I was literally in at 7 o'clock". I sigh and bite my tongue.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 25 February, 2011, 10:54:08 pm

mouse - mice
house - hice ?

goose - geese
moose - meese ?

Oh, the joy and simplicity of the English language!  :D
 
goose - geese
Moose - meese
Mongoose - mongeese
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 25 February, 2011, 11:55:02 pm
Usage. 'Literally'.

This week I have heard it used twice, by people who should probably have known better, when  its antonym, or nothing at all, should have been used.  Margaret Hodge said something on Question Time about the MOD 'literally throwing money down the drain'.  And Sally Bercow on the 10 O'clock Show: "If we do switch to AV MPs are going to literally have a rocket shoved up their bottom".  Daily in work I hear the twenty-somethings in the team use it as an intensifier: "I was literally in at 7 o'clock". I sigh and bite my tongue.

http://xkcd.com/725/ (http://xkcd.com/725/)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 26 February, 2011, 05:42:13 pm

mouse - mice
house - hice ?

goose - geese
moose - meese ?

Oh, the joy and simplicity of the English language!  :D
 
goose - geese
Moose - meese
Mongoose - mongeese
Choose - cheese.

I'll get my coat.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Palinurus on 26 February, 2011, 07:02:28 pm
A work-related one. I formulate really dull chemical products for the electronics industry.

Tech sales ask- "is this the same chemistry as XCV932?" (I made that up, but the real names aren't any snappier)

Yes I say.

If I was designing hammers: "Hmmm, I like it- is this the same physics as that blue hammer you did last week?"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 26 February, 2011, 10:26:25 pm
Spam email:

Quote
Is Your Data Protected?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 27 February, 2011, 04:41:16 am
 :o Clarion!
Out to Bethnal Green next, where we saw Oxford House (or Oh! these days), which was a mission house, complete with Fives court in the basement for the Eton lads who went their to provide paternalistic intervention as 'lamps in the darkness'. 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 27 February, 2011, 05:00:35 pm
:facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 28 February, 2011, 11:56:09 am

mouse - mice
house - hice ?

goose - geese
moose - meese ?

Oh, the joy and simplicity of the English language!  :D
 
goose - geese
Moose - meese
Mongoose - mongeese

Noes!

Mongoose - polygoose.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SandyV on 28 February, 2011, 01:20:13 pm
Mongoose - mesgeese?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 28 February, 2011, 02:56:07 pm
Mon oeil!

Or mon oie...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wendy on 28 February, 2011, 03:34:30 pm
Spam email:

Quote
Is Your Data Protected?

If you write "Are your data protected?", then I will hate you!  I can't argue with the capitalisation problems there.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 28 February, 2011, 03:39:36 pm
Spam email:

Quote
Is Your Data Protected?

If you write "Are your data protected?", then I will hate you!  I can't argue with the capitalisation problems there.

"Do you have adequate data protection measures implemented?"
 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 28 February, 2011, 03:53:39 pm
"Have you protected your data?"

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 28 February, 2011, 05:37:32 pm


"Do you have adequate data protection measures implemented?"
 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 01 March, 2011, 12:46:30 pm
Not grammar exactly, but if I hear the word 'enormity' misused on the BBC again, I may head down there accompanied by a* BEAR




* Clearly not teh BEAR.  M. le Maire has the monopoly thereof.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 March, 2011, 12:50:10 pm
"... is a whole nother topic."

Reading an article where instead of the author saying, "... is another topic," or, "... is a whole other topic," uses his own method, splitting up the word another. It is quite amusing.
Have you actually seen this in writing? I've only come across it in speech, where it at least has a certain flow to it - the 'n' somehow helps the transition between 'whole' and 'other' - but to actually write it down is worrying.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gandalf on 01 March, 2011, 01:10:08 pm
Not grammar exactly, but if I hear the word 'enormity' misused on the BBC again, I may head down there accompanied by a* BEAR




* Clearly not teh BEAR.  M. le Maire has the monopoly thereof.

I heard a classic the other day from the Beeb, chap suggested that folk might want to 'emanate' entenpreneur James Caan.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 March, 2011, 02:42:11 pm
So it's an article on a forum, where people write in conversational tone, something like here. That makes it understandable, but not excusable, to me. "A completely different... " would be grammatical while still being informal.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 02 March, 2011, 03:06:44 pm
That's quite unrepro-tmesis-achable.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 02 March, 2011, 06:28:47 pm
I know this is the grammar thread, but getting uffish and frumious at the use of slang on a web forum?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 04 March, 2011, 02:29:26 pm
I just used the word 'upliftment', but it's so damn ugly to write and say that it's probably wrong, though I can't think what the correct word would be :-[
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 04 March, 2011, 02:30:14 pm
Spelling, not grammar -

Bulgar wheat instead of bulgur. Bulgur is a Turkish word which has nothing to do with Bulgaria or Bulgarians.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 04 March, 2011, 02:34:12 pm
Upgradation.

Seen it twice now (both of sub-continent origin). The Sainsbury's Local had a sign up saying that the store will be closing an hour early one evening for "Systems upgradation."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 04 March, 2011, 03:12:26 pm
I just used the word 'upliftment', but it's so damn ugly to write and say that it's probably wrong, though I can't think what the correct word would be :-[
Well I can tell you it is also damn ugly to read, if that helps your decision!

Without seeing your context I can't be sure, but I suspect your problem and GB's example could both be solved by sensible pruning:
...ment -> delete it
...dation -> de
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 04 March, 2011, 03:16:12 pm
Spiritual Uplift?  Is that a church-approved brassiere? ???
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 04 March, 2011, 03:55:41 pm
your problem and GB's example could both be solved by sensible pruning:
...ment -> delete it
...dation -> de

+1

My dictionary lists both "upgrade" and "uplift" as nouns as well as verbs.

Excessive syllablisificationing of verbs to make them into nouns seems to be quite fashionable. Or maybe it's just ignorance.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 04 March, 2011, 04:02:49 pm
22 years ago I started a new job, and became embroiled in a war against "isotropicity" which was widely used in my new department.

It's isotropic: it has isotropy.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 04 March, 2011, 04:04:20 pm
Fair enough, citoyen.  It's better than wot I writ.

Right, again not quite grammar, but this time pronunciation.  I may have expressed annoyance about this before, but the BBC keep doing it.

There is no such word as 'vunrable'.  Dark 'l' I can accept, but completely absent? :hand:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 04 March, 2011, 04:04:57 pm
22 years ago I started a new job, and became embroiled in a war against "isotropicity" which was widely used in my new department.

It's isotropic: it has isotropy.

Isn't that 'isotropism'?  Just like 'tropism', shirley?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 March, 2011, 04:21:31 pm
The condition of isotropification...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 04 March, 2011, 04:27:53 pm
22 years ago I started a new job, and became embroiled in a war against "isotropicity" which was widely used in my new department.

It's isotropic: it has isotropy.

Isn't that 'isotropism'?  Just like 'tropism', shirley?

Nope, it's isotropy; or more usually it's opposite: anisotropy
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 04 March, 2011, 04:28:35 pm
Fair enough, citoyen.  It's better than wot I writ.

Just ask yourself: does it sound like something Dubya would say? If the answer's yes... ;)

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 04 March, 2011, 06:36:52 pm
Upgradation.

Seen it twice now (both of sub-continent origin). The Sainsbury's Local had a sign up saying that the store will be closing an hour early one evening for "Systems upgradation."
Seems to be standard Indian usage, unfortunately.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 04 March, 2011, 09:36:32 pm
I just used the word 'upliftment', but it's so damn ugly to write and say that it's probably wrong, though I can't think what the correct word would be :-[
Uplifting, probably. It's normal to use the participle as a noun in such circumstances. Similarly closed for "systems upgrading", or of course "a systems upgrade".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 05 March, 2011, 07:49:48 pm
I thought this was an excellent joke, which justifies the minor error therein, and that it might be appreciated over here (for both reasons):

My wife was critically studying herself in the mirror and dispairingly cried out "I'm fat and I'm ugly! I need you to pay me a complement!"

I thought fast and replied "Well your eyesight remains excellent dear."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 March, 2011, 08:17:51 pm
Upgradation.

Seen it twice now (both of sub-continent origin). The Sainsbury's Local had a sign up saying that the store will be closing an hour early one evening for "Systems upgradation."
Seems to be standard Indian usage, unfortunately.
Indians love the longest possible form of a word, as well as having many usages which are simply different from standard UK forms. Some are quite funny to British ears - "behind the shop" comes out as "shop backside".  :)

But why is there Indian English in your Sainsbury's?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 06 March, 2011, 09:00:34 pm
It's been outsourced?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 March, 2011, 10:27:15 pm
Offshored might be the term.

Or maybe just an Indian manager of this particular branch. Or could it be an American influence? Is upgradation a Yankee term?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 15 March, 2011, 12:02:30 pm
Even if you're talking about The Disabled Avant Garde, forefront is not a verb.

Fecking pretension.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 15 March, 2011, 12:13:17 pm
Even if you're talking about The Disabled Avant Garde, forefront is not a verb.

Fecking pretension.



Who disabled the avant garde, and when?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 15 March, 2011, 01:31:40 pm
I was listening to something interesting about using nouns as verbs the other day - it was on the Guardian books podcast, I think. They pointed out that Shakespeare did it all the time - eg he used "companion" as a verb instead of "accompany".

The point is that it can be quite poetic if done creatively. Not that there's anything poetic about using "forefront" as a verb...

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 15 March, 2011, 01:57:08 pm
I was listening to something interesting about using nouns as verbs the other day - it was on the Guardian books podcast, I think. They pointed out that Shakespeare did it all the time - eg he used "companion" as a verb instead of "accompany".

The point is that it can be quite poetic if done creatively. Not that there's anything poetic about using "forefront" as a verb...

d.


It depends on what you rhyme it with.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 15 March, 2011, 02:39:43 pm
... Not that there's anything poetic about using "forefront" as a verb...

d.


It depends on what you rhyme it with.

As any student of McGonagall knows, there's a subtle distinction between rhyme and poetry.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 March, 2011, 06:10:16 pm
On Southend's shorefront
I saw Wowbagger foreshunt
As he peered from the rear
To see the pier reappear
But it wasn't quite as near
As the Essex seashore hunt.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 15 March, 2011, 06:42:54 pm
The first rhyme that occurred to me would have sent this thread straight into NSFW. :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 March, 2011, 06:44:16 pm
How blunt.  :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 15 March, 2011, 09:05:15 pm
The first rhyme that occurred to me would have sent this thread straight into NSFW. :demon:

Was it a Culture Secretary?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 17 March, 2011, 12:51:14 pm
From a thick cow-orker:

Quote
I know it was suggested that [$department] was going to organised for the HLC's a copy to the owner lab and a copy to the analysing lab, but it seems this set-up has yet to take place.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: iakobski on 17 March, 2011, 01:10:11 pm
Well-spoken character on The Archers:

Quote
It never rains, but it pours, does it?

So if you have "It never rains, does it?" - single negative - and "It pours, doesn't it?" - again, single negative - is the quote above correct? It seems like it should end with "doesn't it?" but would that be a double negative?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Arch on 17 March, 2011, 01:11:31 pm
I've discovered an entirely new use of the Grocers' Apostrophe!

Written on a whiteboard in the lock-up at work is a list of tools that need repairing. Some spades, a rack, a hoe and then:

"A'nother spade"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 March, 2011, 10:05:56 pm
I've discovered an entirely new use of the Grocers' Apostrophe!

Written on a whiteboard in the lock-up at work is a list of tools that need repairing. Some spades, a rack, a hoe and then:

"A'nother spade"
It's to indicate that something is missing - the thing you use the spade for:
A hole nother spade.

 :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Arch on 17 March, 2011, 10:08:46 pm
I've discovered an entirely new use of the Grocers' Apostrophe!

Written on a whiteboard in the lock-up at work is a list of tools that need repairing. Some spades, a rack, a hoe and then:

"A'nother spade"
It's to indicate that something is missing - the thing you use the spade for:
A hole nother spade.

 :D

 ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 17 March, 2011, 10:28:52 pm
I Am Finding It Slow Going Reading An Article Where Every Word Starts With A Capital Letter. Why?

Source: Coefficients (http://johnlsayers.com/Recmanual/Pages/Coefficients.htm)

Microsoft call this 'Title Case'.

IMO (I am no reading expert) it is because every upper case letter causes your reading to pause and restart, making an obvious delay.

ALL UPPER CASE is slow because word shapes are less distinctive cos there are no risers or descenders

Title case is fine for titles, road signs and route sheets.

It is wrong in block text, as you have discovered
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: peliroja on 10 April, 2011, 07:20:00 pm
Using 'so' to start sentences (http://www.boingboing.net/2010/06/17/origins-of-using-so.html). Grr.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 10 April, 2011, 08:13:20 pm
Using 'so' to start sentences (http://www.boingboing.net/2010/06/17/origins-of-using-so.html). Grr.

Toontra agrees (http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2205.msg824110#msg824110). As do I (http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2205.msg824123#msg824123).  
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 10 April, 2011, 08:18:42 pm
So do I.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 10 April, 2011, 10:16:06 pm
So how would you like them to start their sentences? ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 11 April, 2011, 09:53:10 am
Using 'so' to start sentences (http://www.boingboing.net/2010/06/17/origins-of-using-so.html). Grr.

Toontra agrees (http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2205.msg824110#msg824110). As do I (http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2205.msg824123#msg824123).  

Look,  this really isn't a big issue (http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2205.msg824131#msg824131)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 11 April, 2011, 06:30:27 pm
Good spot. (I reckon "against a parked car" might have been best)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Phil on 12 April, 2011, 10:28:58 am
I nearly shat myself and stacked my bike into a parked car

I thought you stack things in a pile and therefore you would stack your bike on a car not into a car.

Get with it, grandad! (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=stack&defid=2618489) ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 12 April, 2011, 10:40:16 am
'Yeah, no...'

Just start talking when you know what you want to say, OK?  This dreadful construction was sent up by the comic creation of the crap cricketer Dave Podmore years ago, but I heard a posh woman say it this morning, talking about what it was liek to live in a castle.

Stop it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 12 April, 2011, 11:50:14 am
'Yeah, no...'

It is more confusing fun internationally:

In Slovak yes is áno and yeah is no, so no means yes, the opposite of English.

In Greek you nod your head once up or once down depending on whether that is a nod to say yes or no (and I have forgotten which one is which). To say no with a nod means you nod your head vertically not side to side. Again, the opposite of English.

Greek word for 'yes' is 'ne' (ναι), which in Slavic languages is basically a negation prefix.
 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 12 April, 2011, 12:02:35 pm
'Yeah, no...'

It is more confusing fun internationally:

In Slovak yes is áno and yeah is no, so no means yes, the opposite of English.

In Greek you nod your head once up or once down depending on whether that is a nod to say yes or no (and I have forgotten which one is which). To say no with a nod means you nod your head vertically not side to side. Again, the opposite of English.

Greek word for 'yes' is 'ne' (ναι), which in Slavic languages is basically a negation prefix.
 

This is how wars start.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 12 April, 2011, 02:27:42 pm
Quote from: DNA

It is of course well known that careless talk costs lives, but the full scale of the problem is not always appreciated.

For instance, at the very moment that Arthur said, 'I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle,' a freak wormhole opened up in the fabric of the space-time continuum and carried his words far far back in time across almost infinite reaches of space to a distant galaxy where strange and warlike beings were poised on the brink of a frightful interstellar battle.

The two opposing leaders were meeting for the last time.

A dreadful silence fell across the conference table as the commander of the Vl'hurgs, resplendent in his black jewelled battle shorts, gazed levelly at the G'Gugvuntt leader squatting opposite him in a cloud of green sweet-smelling steam, and, with a million sleek and horribly beweaponed star cruisers poised to unleash electric death at his single word of command, challenged the vile creature to take back what it had said about his mother.

The creature stirred in his sickly broiling vapour, and at that very moment the words, 'I seem to be having tremendous difficulty with my lifestyle' drifted across the conference table.

Unfortunately, in the Vl'hurg tongue this was the most dreadful insult imaginable, and there was nothing for it but to wage terrible war for centuries.

Eventually, of course, after their galaxy had been decimated over a few thousand years, it was realised that the whole thing had been a ghastly mistake, and so the two opposing battle fleets settled their few remaining differences in order to launch a joint attack on our own galaxy---now positively identified as the source of the offending remark.

For thousands more years the mighty ships tore across the empty wastes of space and finally dived screaming on to the first planet they came across---which happened to be Earth---where due to a terrible miscalculation of scale the entire battle fleet was accidentally swallowed by a small dog.

Those who study the complex interplay of cause and effect in the history of the universe say that this sort of thing is going on all the time, but that we are powerless to prevent it.

'It's just life,' they say.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 April, 2011, 05:44:40 pm
'Yeah, no...'

It is more confusing fun internationally:

In Slovak yes is áno and yeah is no, so no means yes, the opposite of English.

In Greek you nod your head once up or once down depending on whether that is a nod to say yes or no (and I have forgotten which one is which). To say no with a nod means you nod your head vertically not side to side. Again, the opposite of English.
Whereas in India you nod your head from side to side with a vertical twist at each end to say "I'm trying to give the impression I'll do whatever you want, but I don't know what you want so I'll do it my way anyway."  :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 05 May, 2011, 08:16:37 am
Quote
Thanks for following the latest developments with the BBC. Here's a quick upsum of Wednesday's news.

Is that new?  (I'll have a go: "BBC - here's a quick upthrow in response").
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 05 May, 2011, 08:46:05 am
Upsum? Doubleplusungood. :sick:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wendy on 05 May, 2011, 12:57:49 pm
LOL, on holiday we'd often do 6-800 miles in a day. Not so easily achievable here in the UK though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 05 May, 2011, 02:01:20 pm
In the course of my 2009 holibobs I averaged over 330 miles per day; during the middle one of the three weeks it was only about 100 mpd...

I've managed ~3000 miles in three days in the UK a couple of times, but that was just being silly.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 09 May, 2011, 02:50:38 pm
Quote
Hi D.....

I try to phone you about the query below.

We have staff meet this afternoon. So I try after 2:30pm.

Regards,
D....

<grunt>

Me like mamoot

</grunt>

  ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 19 May, 2011, 04:05:19 pm
Quote from: teh skool
For the boys it is essential they bring plain swimming trunks of a length that finishes above the knee and a towel. Any boy who has hair which intrudes their eye line must also come equipped with a swimming cap to wear. Goggles are strongly recommended for both boys and...

You what?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 24 May, 2011, 09:49:22 am
BBC Weatherdroid!  Speaking of the fresh breezes which afflicted the Frozen North yesterday, pray do not say "lighter winds than what we had yesterday".  Your "what" is superfluous.  Come to that, so is your "we had".  So, Liam Dutton, you said it three times in two minutes at eight this morning on R4.  Do it again and I'll drop you from a great height through the blades of my gardener's helichopter.  Crunt.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 24 May, 2011, 09:53:57 am
Ah, weatherfolk are fair game are they? Right; yesterday, met office expert on Iceland:

The cloud of ash is being literally cartwheeled over to Europe by ... blah ... blah ...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 May, 2011, 10:43:16 am
But it is a cartwheel! It's part of Vulcan's chariot.  :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: RainOrShine on 24 May, 2011, 01:23:33 pm
"the band of rain will move its way north..."
 ??? ???
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 24 May, 2011, 01:33:39 pm
Ah, weatherfolk are fair game are they? Right; yesterday, met office expert on Iceland:

The cloud of ash is being literally cartwheeled over to Europe by ... blah ... blah ...

Can anybody suggest a name  for this kind of figure of speech.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Chris L on 24 May, 2011, 01:45:21 pm
Ah, weatherfolk are fair game are they? Right; yesterday, met office expert on Iceland:

The cloud of ash is being literally cartwheeled over to Europe by ... blah ... blah ...

Can anybody suggest a name  for this kind of figure of speech.

I think they're filed under Colemanballs in The Eye (He literally ran his legs off out there this evening), but I agree, the 'literally' thing deserves a subcategory of its own.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 25 May, 2011, 05:10:20 pm
In the library, of all places, today

"What will the changes mean here?"

"We'll be open less hours"  >:(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 26 May, 2011, 10:55:33 pm
Ah, weatherfolk are fair game are they? Right; yesterday, met office expert on Iceland:

The cloud of ash is being literally cartwheeled over to Europe by ... blah ... blah ...

Can anybody suggest a name  for this kind of figure of speech.

I love those 'literally' expressions. It reveals a tiny mind that has just grasped that the metaphor they have just got their head around really does have some parallels with the thing it is being compared with.

My favourite though is the increasingly common "It was like literally...". One word drags the rest of the sentence into the realm of imagery while the next brings it back to reality with a sudden bump. It's like (literally) a matter-antimatter annihilation where the two words negate each other causing a little puff of verbal energy to be released into the conversation.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 26 May, 2011, 10:59:24 pm
There are a variety of services ...

Are or is? My logic tells me that variety is a word that groups the various things being mentioned into a single entity and therefore should be: There is a variety of services ...

The clue's in the indefinite article, denoting a singular noun.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: iakobski on 27 May, 2011, 07:46:45 am
"[The company] is expecting to be back in the black after a couple of years of redding"

 ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tourist Tony on 27 May, 2011, 01:59:49 pm
Ah, weatherfolk are fair game are they? Right; yesterday, met office expert on Iceland:

The cloud of ash is being literally cartwheeled over to Europe by ... blah ... blah ...


Can anybody suggest a name  for this kind of figure of speech.

I love those 'literally' expressions. It reveals a tiny mind that has just grasped that the metaphor they have just got their head around really does have some parallels with the thing it is being compared with.

My favourite though is the increasingly common "It was like literally...". One word drags the rest of the sentence into the realm of imagery while the next brings it back to reality with a sudden bump. It's like (literally) a matter-antimatter annihilation where the two words negate each other causing a little puff of verbal energy to be released into the conversation.

May I refer to Loudon's song "Cobwebs". "about a little word that used to mean 'as if' "
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 May, 2011, 10:37:22 pm
Try it with different phrasing, and perhaps an American accent.

It was, like, literally,...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 29 May, 2011, 02:40:19 pm
From BBC News (Wales) website:

<<It means all children travelling home on a bus have to leave by a different exit than those who walk home.>>

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-13580846 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-13580846)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 30 May, 2011, 09:49:48 am
I prefer "from" with "different", but I'm not sure that "than" is the the main problem. That whole construction, whilst quite common these days, seems awkward to me. "Different" is usually about a comparison. That sentence compares children with an exit, which doesn't make much sense. You'd have to re-write it completely:

Quote
It means that all children travelling home on a bus and those walking home have to leave by different exits.

Quote
It means that all children travelling home on a bus have to leave by an exit different from that used by those who walk home.

Re-ordering the "different" to be next to "from" flows better (IMHO) because "different from" is describing the exit. I've removed "all" because the whole sense is that the transport home determines the exit, so that would naturally apply to all the children concerned.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Thor on 30 May, 2011, 12:15:36 pm

A new Thai takeaway service is opening locally.  The menu scores a full house for grocers' apostrophes...

(http://www.digitaria.plus.com/images/Thai.jpg)

 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 30 May, 2011, 12:44:25 pm
That's a classic. Still, I suppose it's better to have culinary expertise than grammatical excellence when selling food. Unlike, this  repro service (http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Leicester&aq=0&sll=51.205378,-2.183189&sspn=0.081416,0.153122&g=Warminster&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Leicester,+United+Kingdom&ll=52.628947,-1.122322&spn=0.019719,0.03828&z=15&layer=c&cbll=52.628855,-1.122167&panoid=qHgEA1jSlRJAxaUbc-pkkw&cbp=12,48.62,,2,3.49) I spotted in Leicester last week who offer printing of invitations for Party's. Extra points too for some gratuitous Comic Sans and comedy spelling of the firm's name.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 30 May, 2011, 01:44:12 pm
That's a classic. Still, I suppose it's better to have culinary expertise than grammatical excellence when selling food. Unlike, this  repro service (http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Leicester&aq=0&sll=51.205378,-2.183189&sspn=0.081416,0.153122&g=Warminster&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Leicester,+United+Kingdom&ll=52.628947,-1.122322&spn=0.019719,0.03828&z=15&layer=c&cbll=52.628855,-1.122167&panoid=qHgEA1jSlRJAxaUbc-pkkw&cbp=12,48.62,,2,3.49) I spotted in Leicester last week who offer printing of invitations for Party's. Extra points too for some gratuitous Comic Sans and comedy spelling of the firm's name.

That's only a short way from where I lived as a small and learned to ride a bike...

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Leicester&aq=0&sll=51.205378,-2.183189&sspn=0.081416,0.153122&g=Warminster&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Leicester,+United+Kingdom&layer=c&cbll=52.623521,-1.109966&panoid=8WGq7aEzPv9t05HP1ZSpFQ&cbp=12,176.69,,0,-13.48&ll=52.623522,-1.109764&spn=0.001426,0.004823&z=18 (http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Leicester&aq=0&sll=51.205378,-2.183189&sspn=0.081416,0.153122&g=Warminster&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Leicester,+United+Kingdom&layer=c&cbll=52.623521,-1.109966&panoid=8WGq7aEzPv9t05HP1ZSpFQ&cbp=12,176.69,,0,-13.48&ll=52.623522,-1.109764&spn=0.001426,0.004823&z=18)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wendy on 02 June, 2011, 08:37:14 am
How do you say this properly?

"I have a list of thank yous that I must go through."

Is thank yous right?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 02 June, 2011, 08:43:53 am
I must thank a number of people.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 02 June, 2011, 09:13:19 am
How do you say this properly?

"I have a list of thank yous that I must go through."

Is thank yous right?

I suppose you'd call it informal spoken, but you probably wouldn't wish to write it. As reported speech it would look better with a hyphen.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 02 June, 2011, 01:02:37 pm
That's a classic. Still, I suppose it's better to have culinary expertise than grammatical excellence when selling food. Unlike, this  repro service (http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Leicester&aq=0&sll=51.205378,-2.183189&sspn=0.081416,0.153122&g=Warminster&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Leicester,+United+Kingdom&ll=52.628947,-1.122322&spn=0.019719,0.03828&z=15&layer=c&cbll=52.628855,-1.122167&panoid=qHgEA1jSlRJAxaUbc-pkkw&cbp=12,48.62,,2,3.49) I spotted in Leicester last week who offer printing of invitations for Party's. Extra points too for some gratuitous Comic Sans and comedy spelling of the firm's name.

There used to be an avert for a signwriting firm in Stoke Newington.  Among the things they'd put your logo on were vans and canapés ;D  Sign appear to have gone though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 02 June, 2011, 01:08:12 pm
I quite like that idea.  The advertising potential of finger food has barely been tapped.  What next - flyers with your vol-au-vents? ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 10 June, 2011, 08:50:39 am
Lack of capitalisation can sometimes lead to problems.

Quote
Mother asked Deirdre "Will you help your Uncle Jack off his horse?"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: RJ on 10 June, 2011, 01:04:29 pm
(From papers for a meeting I attended yesterday)

"{the animal} died of sceptic shock"

There's a Far Side sketch in there somewhere
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 10 June, 2011, 01:54:14 pm
Lack of capitalisation can sometimes lead to problems.

Quote
Mother asked Deirdre "Will you help your Uncle Jack off his horse?"

A comma, between 'Jack' and 'off', would prevent Mother being accused of being one colluding with pervy bestiality...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 June, 2011, 01:56:02 pm
I'm always amused by the blurb on the packaging of some Waitrose products. "We believe that great flavour and exceptional quality should come as standard." If it's exceptional how can it be standard?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 10 June, 2011, 02:11:00 pm
Lack of capitalisation can sometimes lead to problems.

Quote
Mother asked Deirdre "Will you help your Uncle Jack off his horse?"

A comma, between 'Jack' and 'off', would prevent Mother being accused of being one colluding with pervy bestiality...

But that would be grammatical incorrect.

Insert the word "climb" or "get" before "off" and you're in the clear, or perhaps just use "dismount".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Simonb on 10 June, 2011, 02:17:36 pm
"the band of rain will move its way north..."
 ??? ???

Temperatures are struggling. WTF?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 15 June, 2011, 12:12:57 am
We had a supplier try to "reach out" to us twice in the same email today. We are thinking of calling the police.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 15 June, 2011, 09:06:43 am
Wasn't the Four Tops was it?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 15 June, 2011, 09:41:37 am
We had a supplier try to "reach out" to us twice in the same email today. We are thinking of calling the police.

Especially if they wanted to touch your base.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 23 June, 2011, 01:55:47 pm
None of this modern technology for those from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 23 June, 2011, 02:35:09 pm
Interviewer: Well, Brian, how do you fancy your chances against $HIGHLY_RATED_SPORTSMAN/TEAM?
Brian: It's a big ask, 'arry!
Mr Larrington: "Ask" is a verb, dolt!

Grrrr!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 23 June, 2011, 02:57:23 pm
Good shout, Mr L.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 23 June, 2011, 03:03:35 pm
Good shout, Mr L.

d.


But is "shout" also not a verb? :P
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 23 June, 2011, 03:04:46 pm
In fact, it was probably 'a big arx'

:demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 June, 2011, 03:06:34 pm
Big enough for two of each animalk.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 23 June, 2011, 03:09:45 pm
innit
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 June, 2011, 03:16:19 pm
I think the innix got left off the ark - I haven't seen any around.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 23 June, 2011, 03:55:17 pm
Good shout, Mr L.

d.


But is "shout" also not a verb? :P

No flies on you. ;)

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 01 July, 2011, 08:39:24 am
Mr Larrington: "Ask" is a verb, dolt!

Grrrr!

OED
Quote
Draft additions February 2005
  colloq. (orig. Austral.) (chiefly Sport). With modifying word or phrase, as a big (also huge, etc.) ask : something which is a lot to ask of someone; something difficult to achieve or surmount.

It includes the intriguing citation:
Quote
1994   J. BIRMINGHAM He died with Felafel in his Hand (1997) viii. 177   I'd‥get him to wear the underpants consistently for six weeks on the road. (This was not a big ask given Milo's unwashed jeans-wearing record at King Street.)

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 01 July, 2011, 08:50:48 am
Surely we can't add stuff to the OED just because sportspersons (Austral.) are using it? It's the end of Western Civilisation as we know it !!!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 July, 2011, 03:29:59 pm
In the chemist yesterday: Prescrption's.

I hope the pharmacist can read better than the shop gribley can write, otherwise I'll be killed to DETH by the wrong pills in the morning.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 July, 2011, 08:42:23 pm
I think, but I'm not sure, that ask has been used as a noun with more or less that meaning among equestrians for several decades.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gandalf on 02 July, 2011, 05:24:02 pm
An agenda item for last week's team meeting was 'video's'.  

Still, when you have a CEO who cannot differentiate between 'less' and 'fewer' what hope is there?

Don't get me started on 'grow the business'  ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 04 July, 2011, 12:00:19 pm
Not really grammar but...

Heard someone on telly the other day describe an archaeological find as "unique and unusual".

What, both?

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 04 July, 2011, 12:05:13 pm
You can have both I guess. For example something that is always unique but normally within certain bounds. So its unique but not unusual. The you get one that's outside the normal bounds so it's unique and unusual. For example something handmade that's found quite a lot but always in blue or green. They are all unique but a red one would be unique and unusual.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 04 July, 2011, 12:06:15 pm
This morning, I heard 'Korta', 'Vunrable', and another annoying one (I can't remember which it was, but I ranted at the time, so maybe Butterfly will recall ;D ) on the Today programme.

Can't these people speak English?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 04 July, 2011, 12:13:35 pm
For example something handmade that's found quite a lot but always in blue or green. They are all unique but a red one would be unique and unusual.

I'm not convinced that having one unique trait is enough to describe the whole object as unique.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 04 July, 2011, 12:19:49 pm
In fact, it was probably 'a big arx'

:demon:

Oooooo that one makes my blood boil!
As does asterix instead of asterisk.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 04 July, 2011, 12:32:33 pm
It's just metathesis in action.  No need to go nucular.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 04 July, 2011, 12:35:26 pm
In fact, it was probably 'a big arx'

:demon:

Oooooo that one makes my blood boil!
As does asterix instead of asterisk.

It'd be cool if asterisks were replaced by Asterix. A bit difficult for handwriting, though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 04 July, 2011, 12:38:53 pm
And what, pray, is a "newmonic"?

And what, moreover, is this new comedy thing on that ITV, that they have now, on which unknown comedians are to be "jugded" by not-unknown comedians, and Alan Davies?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 04 July, 2011, 01:00:28 pm
And what, pray, is a "newmonic"?

Yes!  YES!!!  That one.  Definitely.  Stop it.  Stop it NOW! >:(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 04 July, 2011, 01:02:50 pm
Pneumonic is one variety of plague, bubonic being the more well-known sort. (Pneumonic plague affects the lungs, bubonic gives the victim groin swellings, buboes, innit.)
A mnemonic helps (allegedly) those hard of memory.
HTH
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Simonb on 04 July, 2011, 01:12:44 pm
As does asterix instead of asterisk.

We once received a software specification which required 'asterixes' next to certain display values. Naturally, as pedantic developers, our first iteration featured teensy PNGs of The Gaul precisely where required. Sadly, these were removed before user acceptance testing.

As for annoying usage, 'sea-change' really gets my goat. What's wrong with 'change'?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 04 July, 2011, 01:47:39 pm
As for annoying usage, 'sea-change' really gets my goat. What's wrong with 'change'?

I think you can blame Mr. Shakespeare for that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 04 July, 2011, 01:52:15 pm
"Sea change" gives the sense of a significant transformation drawn out over a long period. It's pure poetry.

I don't think I've ever seen or heard it used properly though.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: tonyh on 04 July, 2011, 01:55:40 pm
As for annoying usage, 'sea-change' really gets my goat. What's wrong with 'change'?

'Sea-change' just sounds as if it might be giving a quantum leap in impressiveness?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 04 July, 2011, 01:58:46 pm
"Quantum leap" has always puzzled me.  When I was learning physics as a young Mr Larrington we were taught that things at the sub-atomic level were very very small.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 04 July, 2011, 02:00:33 pm
And presumably being a quantum leap it may or may not happen according to some statistical level of probability.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 04 July, 2011, 03:03:07 pm
And another:
the pacific is an ocean, the word you want to use when talking about a certain thing is specific.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 04 July, 2011, 03:38:10 pm
Using pacific for specific is bigger than a sea change, isn't it?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 04 July, 2011, 04:55:21 pm
And another:
the pacific is an ocean, the word you want to use when talking about a certain thing is specific.

I defiantly agree with that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 04 July, 2011, 05:13:05 pm
"Quantum leap" has always puzzled me.  When I was learning physics as a young Mr Larrington we were taught that things at the sub-atomic level were very very small.
I understood "Quantum Leap" to mean a step-change rather than a gradual transition - in that (in Physics) there isn't a stable energy level between the start and end states.

I.e.
     __
__|

rather than

 /
/

(Oh I <3 ASCII Art!!)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 04 July, 2011, 09:05:21 pm
"Quantum leap" has always puzzled me.
+1. A quantum leap would appear to be the smallest change possible, which is not entirely what people generally mean ;D rower40 has a point about the step change, but the step is almost immeasurably small ;D ;D
Title: Re: Grammar what makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 05 July, 2011, 10:32:06 am
Have I objected to "A number of cyclists is expected..." yet? That number is plural. You'd say "a hundred of them are...", wouldn't you?
Title: Re: Grammar what makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 05 July, 2011, 12:59:06 pm
Have I objected to "A number of cyclists is expected..." yet? That number is plural. You'd say "a hundred of them are...", wouldn't you?

Think of a number.

Any number.

Are that number 6?

Thought not.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 05 July, 2011, 01:13:00 pm
"Quantum leap" has always puzzled me.
+1. A quantum leap would appear to be the smallest change possible, which is not entirely what people generally mean ;D rower40 has a point about the step change, but the step is almost immeasurably small ;D ;D
The point is that it is a big change within the system concerned (e.g. an atom). Hence a "big deal" - so often it is used correctly. But of course people often use it to simply mean a really big change, and are usually wrong.

( What about "quantum shift"? does that mean the same thing? )
Title: Re: Grammar what makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 05 July, 2011, 01:17:10 pm
Have I objected to "A number of cyclists is expected..." yet? That number is plural. You'd say "a hundred of them are...", wouldn't you?

Think of a number. Any number.

Are that number 6?

Thought not.

The difference is that it's not the number a hundred, or the number six, or whatever, that the sentence is about; it's about the cyclists. Think of a peloton. Is the cyclists six in number?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 05 July, 2011, 01:19:15 pm
A peleton of cyclists is expected.

;)

Actually, I think I would say:
A number of cyclists are expected later.
But possibly

A number of cyclists has been predicted to arrive later.
Title: Re: Grammar what makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 05 July, 2011, 01:19:58 pm
Have I objected to "A number of cyclists is expected..." yet? That number is plural. You'd say "a hundred of them are...", wouldn't you?

Think of a number.

Any number.

Are that number 6?

Thought not.

Collective nouns cause endless arguments: "The government are..." (seems to be preferred by the BBC), vs " The government is". HTFB refers to number used as a collective noun, so let the fight commence.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 05 July, 2011, 01:22:35 pm
A peleton of cyclists is expected.


Surely that should be a plague of cyclists, given our propensity for turning up en masse and devouring all the available food? ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 05 July, 2011, 01:25:36 pm
And it should also be 'Peloton', please.
I'm with HTFB with on 'a number of'. It's the equivalent of 'some', 'many' or 'numerous' etc.  And if you replace 'a number of' with one of those then the plural becomes the obvious choice.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 05 July, 2011, 01:26:17 pm
The point is that it is a big change within the system concerned (e.g. an atom).

"Quantum" just means it's a sudden jump between two discontinuous fixed states, but that could be a fairly low-level energetic transition associated with an outer electron.  You could imagine indexed gearing as having quantised behaviour (hopefully)...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 05 July, 2011, 01:29:43 pm
My 'think of a number' example was a poor choice as it was using the word in a different context.

I accept the legitimacy of using number as plural in the 'number of cyclists'. But it would be nice to be able to choose between singular and plural in that context depending on whether you wished to emphasise the cylcists plural or the group singular.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: geoff on 05 July, 2011, 01:32:55 pm
The point is that it is a big change within the system concerned (e.g. an atom).

"Quantum" just means it's a sudden jump between two discontinuous fixed states, but that could be a fairly low-level energetic transition associated with an outer electron.  You could imagine indexed gearing as having quantised behaviour (hopefully)...

Absolutely! including a perfect description of my random shifting!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 05 July, 2011, 01:43:23 pm
And it should also be 'Peloton', please.

Ah, I see. A bit like the rules for:

LEOPARD-TREK
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 05 July, 2011, 04:10:04 pm
Should I be reassured by this text:

We use the latest 'encryption' technologies to 'scramble' your details during transfer to us
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Arch on 05 July, 2011, 05:56:52 pm
I quite like that idea.  The advertising potential of finger food has barely been tapped.  What next - flyers with your vol-au-vents? ;)

Perhaps this ebay seller has a similar idea...

Brompton Bike With Pannini  | eBay UK (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Brompton-Bike-Pannini-/290583889562?pt=UK_Bikes_GL&hash=item43a826469a&clk_rvr_id=245837529874)
Title: Re: Grammar what makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 05 July, 2011, 07:33:25 pm
Collective nouns cause endless arguments: "The government are..." (seems to be preferred by the BBC), vs " The government is".
Fowler (Author of "Modern English Usage") had great fun with this; it's not just the variant of English in use, but the particular GOVERNMENT!  The US Government is singular, whereas the UK Government are plural.  (I might have that completely the wrong way round.  I'll re-post this when I next have a copy of Fowler in front of me.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 05 July, 2011, 07:40:25 pm
I quite like that idea.  The advertising potential of finger food has barely been tapped.  What next - flyers with your vol-au-vents? ;)

Perhaps this ebay seller has a similar idea...

Brompton Bike With Pannini  | eBay UK (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Brompton-Bike-Pannini-/290583889562?pt=UK_Bikes_GL&hash=item43a826469a&clk_rvr_id=245837529874)

Best not to type your advert when you are hungry ;D
Title: Re: Grammar what makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 05 July, 2011, 08:12:18 pm
Collective nouns cause endless arguments: "The government are..." (seems to be preferred by the BBC), vs " The government is".
Fowler (Author of "Modern English Usage") had great fun with this; it's not just the variant of English in use, but the particular GOVERNMENT!  The US Government is singular, whereas the UK Government are plural.  (I might have that completely the wrong way round.  I'll re-post this when I next have a copy of Fowler in front of me.)

In my view, seems to be a general British thing.  I believe I may have ranted about this before.

UK: the government are, the team are, Nasa are, etc.
US: the government is, the team is, NASA is, etc.

'Government/team' is a collective, so singular; 'ministers/player' are plural.  Simple, no?

Then again, what do I know? English isn't my first language and I learned it in a former colony.
 
Title: Re: Grammar what makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 05 July, 2011, 10:19:58 pm
Collective nouns cause endless arguments: "The government are..." (seems to be preferred by the BBC), vs " The government is".
Fowler (Author of "Modern English Usage") had great fun with this; it's not just the variant of English in use, but the particular GOVERNMENT!  The US Government is singular, whereas the UK Government are plural.  (I might have that completely the wrong way round.  I'll re-post this when I next have a copy of Fowler in front of me.)

In my view, seems to be a general British thing.  I believe I may have ranted about this before.

UK: the government are, the team are, Nasa are, etc.
US: the government is, the team is, NASA is, etc.

'Government/team' is a collective, so singular; 'ministers/player' are plural.  Simple, no?

Then again, what do I know? English isn't my first language and I learned it in a former colony.
 

I think it's relatively recent in this country. I'm sure I remember my English teachers dismissing the collective plural as illiterate.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 05 July, 2011, 10:38:31 pm
I'm with HTFB with on 'a number of'. It's the equivalent of 'some', 'many' or 'numerous' etc.  And if you replace 'a number of' with one of those then the plural becomes the obvious choice.
That's because the subject in the original is the number. If you replace it as you suggest, you leave the only noun as the cyclists. Thus you have gone from a singular noun (number) to a plural one (cyclists), and "is" has to become "are".
Title: Re: Grammar what makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 July, 2011, 10:41:05 pm
Collective nouns cause endless arguments: "The government are..." (seems to be preferred by the BBC), vs " The government is".
Fowler (Author of "Modern English Usage") had great fun with this; it's not just the variant of English in use, but the particular GOVERNMENT!  The US Government is singular, whereas the UK Government are plural.  (I might have that completely the wrong way round.  I'll re-post this when I next have a copy of Fowler in front of me.)

In my view, seems to be a general British thing.  I believe I may have ranted about this before.

UK: the government are, the team are, Nasa are, etc.
US: the government is, the team is, NASA is, etc.

'Government/team' is a collective, so singular; 'ministers/player' are plural.  Simple, no?

Then again, what do I know? English isn't my first language and I learned it in a former colony.
 
That gives you the great advantage over most of us of having actually learned it.
Title: Re: Grammar what makes you cringe
Post by: iakobski on 06 July, 2011, 12:16:39 pm
Collective nouns cause endless arguments: "The government are..." (seems to be preferred by the BBC), vs " The government is".
Fowler (Author of "Modern English Usage") had great fun with this; it's not just the variant of English in use, but the particular GOVERNMENT!  The US Government is singular, whereas the UK Government are plural.  (I might have that completely the wrong way round.  I'll re-post this when I next have a copy of Fowler in front of me.)

In my view, seems to be a general British thing.  I believe I may have ranted about this before.

UK: the government are, the team are, Nasa are, etc.
US: the government is, the team is, NASA is, etc.

'Government/team' is a collective, so singular; 'ministers/player' are plural.  Simple, no?

Then again, what do I know? English isn't my first language and I learned it in a former colony.
 

Windows are closing
Windows is closing down...
Title: Re: Grammar what makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 06 July, 2011, 12:28:47 pm
'Government/team' is a collective, so singular; 'ministers/player' are plural.  Simple, no?

No, I don't think it's quite as simple as that. You have to consider the sense of the noun as well as whether it's literally singular or plural.

When you use team names, especially in the context of commentary, you're using the name as a kind of shorthand*, eg: "Liverpool score against Man United" = "The players of Liverpool FC score against the players of Man United FC."

d.

*Is this an example of metonymy? I'm never quite sure.
Title: Re: Grammar what makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 06 July, 2011, 12:38:29 pm
'Government/team' is a collective, so singular; 'ministers/player' are plural.  Simple, no?

No, I don't think it's quite as simple as that. You have to consider the sense of the noun as well as whether it's literally singular or plural.

When you use team names, especially in the context of commentary, you're using the name as a kind of shorthand*, eg: "Liverpool score against Man United" = "The players of Liverpool FC score against the players of Man United FC."

d.

*Is this an example of metonymy? I'm never quite sure.


To my eyes, there's a whole separate issue there.  Does Liverpool always score against ManU?  Sometimes?  Will they in the future? Or are we referring to an event in the past?  If so, "Liverpool scored against ManU". 
 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 06 July, 2011, 12:41:31 pm
That's an entirely correct usage of the Footballers Present Tense.
Title: Re: Grammar what makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 06 July, 2011, 12:48:49 pm
Does Liverpool always score against ManU?

Only in my dreams...

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Simonb on 06 July, 2011, 12:58:07 pm
That's an entirely correct usage of the Footballers Present Tense.

Newspaper headlines also report events (past events, obviously) in the present tense. It gives them immediacy.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 06 July, 2011, 01:11:25 pm
In answer to whatever the original question was:-

Quote from: http://alt-usage-english.org/excerpts/fxanumbe.html
"A number of ..." usually requires a plural verb.  In "A number
of employees were present", it's the employees who were present, not
the number.  "A number of" is just a fuzzy quantifier.  ("A number
of..." may need a singular in the much rarer contexts where it does
not function as a quantifier:  "A number of this magnitude requires
5 bytes to store.")
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 06 July, 2011, 01:28:30 pm
That's an entirely correct usage of the Footballers Present Tense.

Ah, like Pirate Present Tense.

Quote
Pirate: That’s right! There’s not a man on this ship what knows how to use any tense apart from the present.

Capt: That’s cos you’re pirates! And ever since pirates – begins – pirates only speaks in the present tense, does pirates! First man on this ship as uses the past or pluperfect tense dies where he stands!

Pirate 2: He wouldn’t dare!

BANG

Capt: Or a conditional… And the next one what mentions training days will be keel hauled, dragged beneath the ship til the barnacles rip open his belly and death comes as a merciful blessing, hahahaha! (http://scienceoftheinvisible.blogspot.com/2008/09/arrrr.html)

 ;D
 
Title: Re: Grammar what makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 06 July, 2011, 01:31:06 pm
Tbh, I'm not dogmatic about one way being correct and another way being wrong. But I am a stickler for consistency...

Does Liverpool always score against ManU?  Sometimes?  Will they in the future?

You should either use "do" in the first instance or "it" in the second.  ;)

d.
Title: Re: Grammar what makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 06 July, 2011, 01:32:20 pm
Tbh, I'm not dogmatic about one way being correct and another way being wrong. But I am a stickler for consistency...

Does Liverpool always score against ManU?  Sometimes?  Will they in the future?

You should either use "do" in the first instance or "it" in the second.

d.


Touché.   It should, of course, be 'it'.
 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: iakobski on 06 July, 2011, 02:08:45 pm
I quite like that idea.  The advertising potential of finger food has barely been tapped.  What next - flyers with your vol-au-vents? ;)

Perhaps this ebay seller has a similar idea...

Brompton Bike With Pannini  | eBay UK (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Brompton-Bike-Pannini-/290583889562?pt=UK_Bikes_GL&hash=item43a826469a&clk_rvr_id=245837529874)

Best not to type your advert when you are hungry ;D

Same root though - pannier = thing to carry your bread in.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 06 July, 2011, 06:51:12 pm
One-wheeled bikes - AAAARRGGHH!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-14051314 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-14051314)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 06 July, 2011, 06:57:11 pm
One-wheeled bikes - AAAARRGGHH!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-14051314 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-14051314)

I'll pair that with 'quad bikes'.
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe.
Post by: Wowbagger on 09 July, 2011, 06:33:43 pm
Fed up of? Fed up with, surely?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 09 July, 2011, 07:01:27 pm
That's an entirely correct usage of the Footballers Present Tense.
Ah, like Pirate Present Tense.
 ;D
Might I humbly suggest that you mean:

Aarrrrrhh, like Pirate Present Tense.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: toontra on 13 July, 2011, 06:09:20 pm
Ed Milliband needs a new script-writer.  He now uses "people up and down the country" in practically every statement.  Whilst this has always been a staple of Labour politicians, he really is taking it's use to absurd new lengths.
Title: Re: Grammar what makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 13 July, 2011, 06:57:09 pm
Ow!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 13 July, 2011, 07:04:17 pm
All politicians seem to assume that most people agree with them. Since that's mathematically difficult to achieve, it proves their ability to believe at least one impossible thing before breakfast.

However, it is not particularly edifying to watch debates where this argument is rolled out.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 13 July, 2011, 07:10:19 pm
Nowt wrong with the grammar, thobut? </pedant>
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: toontra on 13 July, 2011, 07:22:35 pm
Nowt wrong with the grammar, thobut? </pedant>

True  ;D

Still makes me cringe though.  It's meaningless, a waste of words, purely for effect.  It's in the same league as "at the end of the day", but (as drossall says) also with a political slant because its intended to indicate that he is fully tuned in to public opinion, or actually speaking on their behalf.

In short, it's pure nonsense.  He should limit himself to one a week and no more.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 13 July, 2011, 08:02:43 pm
The alternative is "hard-working families", which Cameron uses a lot (but so do others). I've never met a hard-working family. If both parents work the kids are usually layabouts or delinquents. Personally, I've always thought that the best way to approach work is to avoid it as much as possible.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: toontra on 13 July, 2011, 08:22:08 pm
The alternative is "hard-working families", which Cameron uses a lot (but so do others).

Yes, that is the Tory equivalent, although not quite as absurd as it doesn't have the geographic connotations.

Labour would never use the term "hard-working" lest it alienate a large part of their core demographic.   ;)
Title: Re: Grammar what makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 13 July, 2011, 08:24:45 pm
... taking it's use to absurd new lengths ...
... because its intended to indicate ...
Ow again!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biggsy on 13 July, 2011, 09:01:23 pm
Rachel Riley:     :-*

"Times it by seven"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 13 July, 2011, 09:08:54 pm
...also with a political slant...

Indeed.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 15 July, 2011, 04:00:42 pm
Quote from Auntie's News Website:

<<Chris Weir says her and her husband Colin were "tickled pink" when they realised they had scooped Tuesday's jackpot.>>

From http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14161661 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14161661)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 15 July, 2011, 04:24:07 pm
This should please Helen:

BBC News - Spelling mistakes 'cost millions' in lost online sales (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-14130854)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 15 July, 2011, 04:32:42 pm
Quote from Auntie's News Website:

<<Chris Weir says her and her husband Colin were "tickled pink" when they realised they had scooped Tuesday's jackpot.>>

From http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14161661 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14161661)

If 'er was living down yer, 'er'd be perfectly c'rect.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 15 July, 2011, 06:06:48 pm
Quote from Auntie's News Website:

<<Chris Weir says her and her husband Colin were "tickled pink" when they realised they had scooped Tuesday's jackpot.>>

From http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14161661 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14161661)

If 'er was living down yer, 'er'd be perfectly c'rect.

It would be foin in the Black Country. Largs is a long way off...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 26 July, 2011, 01:43:15 pm
Over-exaggerated.  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Exit Stage Left on 26 July, 2011, 01:53:33 pm
The use of 'that' in preference to 'which'. The sign of a weak will in the face of Word's grammar check.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 26 July, 2011, 01:56:28 pm
The use of 'that' in preference to 'which'.
:-[  I've been using Inglish wot she is rote for over 40 years.  I still haven't got my head around this one.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Sergeant Pluck on 26 July, 2011, 02:01:24 pm
The use of 'that' in preference to 'which'.
:-[  I've been using Inglish wot she is rote for over 40 years.  I still haven't got my head around this one.

Likewise  :-[
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Exit Stage Left on 26 July, 2011, 02:14:45 pm
The use of 'that' in preference to 'which'.
:-[  I've been using Inglish wot she is rote for over 40 years.  I still haven't got my head around this one.

Likewise  :-[

Think of two sentences. 'Which is the car that cut you up? and 'Is that the car which cut you up'. You could say or write, 'Which is the car which cut you up?' and 'is that the car that cut you up'. Both work as well but I think that English seeks to avoid using two meanings of the same word in the same sentence, as repetition is bad style. So following Word's grammar you end up with nowhere to go if you always ditch which for that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: iakobski on 26 July, 2011, 02:24:35 pm
In Amerian English there are a load of rules about that and which, which seem to boil down to "prefer 'that' if it still makes sense".

In British English, it doesn't matter, so we use which a bit more often:

Quote from: Chicago Manual of Style
In British English, writers and editors seldom observe the distinction between the two words.

Hence MS Word being a bit uptight about it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 26 July, 2011, 02:28:45 pm
My little Collins book of English usage agrees with ESL that one would use that and which to taste, to avoid repetition in the same sentence. It also says that if the relative clause is between commas, one should use which:

The car, which I really didn't like, cost him an arm and a leg
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 26 July, 2011, 02:51:22 pm
Someone once tried to correct me, suggesting that I should use "that" instead of "which" in a particular context, which I cannot remember.

I can now assume that he was an American, which means he was probably wrong.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 26 July, 2011, 03:07:35 pm
I can now assume that he was an American, which means he was probably wrong.
ITYM
Quote from: Wowbagger
I can now assume that he was an American; that means he was probably wrong.
;D

Srsly though; I seem to remember being told it was about the difference between "qualification" and "specification".

"Help yourself to sweets from the jar which is on the top shelf" - to specify WHICH jar you can nomm from.
"Help yourself to sweets from the jar that is on the top shelf" - there's only one jar, and the useful information tells you where it is.

I may have this completely picolax-exit-point about sweets-entry-point.

Anyone want to try to help us out here?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 26 July, 2011, 03:59:12 pm
Srsly though; I seem to remember being told it was about the difference between "qualification" and "specification".

That sounds about right. The grammatical terms for this are restrictive and non-restrictive clauses. Strictly, you should use "that" for restrictive (specifying) clauses and "which" for non-restrictive (qualifying) clauses.

But as already mentioned, few people observe the distinction and even fewer care. A shocking decline in standards. Broken Britain and all that.

Quote
"Help yourself to sweets from the jar which is on the top shelf" - to specify WHICH jar you can nomm from.
"Help yourself to sweets from the jar that is on the top shelf" - there's only one jar, and the useful information tells you where it is.

Yes, you were right - you've got these the wrong way round.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 26 July, 2011, 06:36:23 pm
^ Thanks.  I'll remember it now.
I owe you a pint.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 26 July, 2011, 11:55:25 pm
Quote
"Help yourself to sweets from the jar which is on the top shelf" - to specify WHICH jar you can nomm from.
"Help yourself to sweets from the jar that is on the top shelf" - there's only one jar, and the useful information tells you where it is.

Yes, you were right - you've got these the wrong way round.

Actually, on seconds thoughts, they're not the wrong way round exactly, but the distinction isn't very clear in your example...

"Help yourself to sweets from the jar, which is on the top shelf." - in this case, the non-restrictive clause "which is on the top shelf" is providing extra information that isn't strictly needed to identify the jar. "Help yourself to sweets from the jar. By the way, the jar is on the top shelf."

"Help yourself to sweets from the jar that is on the top shelf." - here the restrictive clause is telling you that you're allowed to take sweets from this jar but no other. It's called a restrictive clause because the extra information restricts the number of jars that you could possibly be talking about. "Help yourself to sweets from the jar that is on the top shelf but keep your grubby mitts off the jar that is on the bottom shelf."

But as per other answers, it's not a distinction that many people either understand or care about these days. You can use "which" or "that" interchangeably and people will understand you. Using the wrong one is unlikely to cause any ambiguity.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 27 July, 2011, 12:09:25 am
Think of two sentences. 'Which is the car that cut you up? and 'Is that the car which cut you up'. You could say or write, 'Which is the car which cut you up?' and 'is that the car that cut you up'. Both work as well...

I know they're just examples to illustrate a point but they're rather clunky constructions. "Which car cut you up?" would be a more elegant way to avoid repetition.

Quote
but I think that English seeks to avoid using two meanings of the same word in the same sentence, as repetition is bad style.

Avoiding repetition is a journalistic hang-up. It's not a rule to follow doggedly at all costs. Sometimes repetition is preferable to tortuous euphemism. Sports journalists are usually the worst offenders. Peter Crouch > the Spurs striker > the lanky frontman > the big number 9...  :sick:

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Exit Stage Left on 27 July, 2011, 12:31:05 am
Think of two sentences. 'Which is the car that cut you up? and 'Is that the car which cut you up'. You could say or write, 'Which is the car which cut you up?' and 'is that the car that cut you up'. Both work as well...

I know they're just examples to illustrate a point but they're rather clunky constructions. "Which car cut you up?" would be a more elegant way to avoid repetition.

Quote
but I think that English seeks to avoid using two meanings of the same word in the same sentence, as repetition is bad style.

 Avoiding repetition is a journalistic hang-up. It's not a rule to follow doggedly at all costs. Sometimes repetition is preferable to tortuous euphemism. Sports journalists are usually the worst offenders. Peter Crouch > the Spurs striker > the lanky frontman > the big number 9...  :sick:

d.

I know what you mean, in German it's a lot easier, repetition is not a style fault, but German is an inflected language, with many opportunities to distinguish between a cultivated and demotic form in terms of grammar. I'm quite keen on inversions and deliberate repetition, because journalistic conventions lend them power. Well they would if people cared about that sort of thing any more, which they don't, but I do, as it happens.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 01 August, 2011, 02:59:07 pm
Maybe this is spelling or usage, not grammar.
I was rather disappointed that the 'complimentay items' offered here were not free of charge!
http://www.safetyfirstaid.co.uk/Product/SFA/Dressings/Ambulance-Dressing.aspx (http://www.safetyfirstaid.co.uk/Product/SFA/Dressings/Ambulance-Dressing.aspx)
Title: Re: Grammar what makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 05 August, 2011, 04:35:45 pm
Should this thread be "Grammar which makes you cringe", then?
Title: Re: Grammar what makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 05 August, 2011, 07:46:57 pm
Should this thread be "Grammar which makes you cringe", then?
Yorkshire:
Grammar AS makes you cringe.

No thanks,  I left my coat at home
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 05 August, 2011, 08:02:05 pm
Maybe this is spelling or usage, not grammar.
I was rather disappointed that the 'complimentay items' offered here were not free of charge!
If you can work something in that is "out of order", it would fit nicely in the "Terrible Jokes Thread".  :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Aeroflash on 06 August, 2011, 10:22:23 am
Apologies if this one has already been mentioned, but one thing that is guaranteed to make me froth at the mouth is the use of the plural for organisations - e.g. 'the government have introduced a policy' or 'the mclaren F1 team have signed a driver'. There's only one government, therefore it HAS introduced a policy. What makes it worse is that the media now seems have adopted this incorrect version. I've nothing against the evolution of the language but wrong is wrong.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Giraffe on 06 August, 2011, 10:54:46 am
Yes, such as "England are..." for a team that is singular, not England and if there's an English player in it...
Then the opposite: "25 billion is..." - now why do I feel that that figure might just qualify as >1?

Also the mixtures, where it's singular to start with then jumps to plurality for no reason.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 August, 2011, 11:55:05 am
25 billion are a very large number.

 ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 06 August, 2011, 05:30:14 pm
the media now seems have adopted this

The media now seem to have, surely.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 06 August, 2011, 11:08:57 pm
The media now seem to have, surely.
+1
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 06 August, 2011, 11:12:13 pm
Apologies if this one has already been mentioned, but one thing that is guaranteed to make me froth at the mouth is the use of the plural for organisations - e.g. 'the government have introduced a policy' or 'the mclaren F1 team have signed a driver'. There's only one government, therefore it HAS introduced a policy.
+1.
Title: Re: Grammars who make you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 07 August, 2011, 04:02:00 am
Should this thread be "Grammar which makes you cringe", then?

No.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 07 August, 2011, 04:23:12 am
Apologies if this one has already been mentioned, but one thing that is guaranteed to make me froth at the mouth is the use of the plural for organisations - e.g. 'the government have introduced a policy' or 'the mclaren F1 team have signed a driver'. There's only one government, therefore it HAS introduced a policy. What makes it worse is that the media now seems have adopted this incorrect version. I've nothing against the evolution of the language but wrong is wrong.

Sometimes singular nouns can have a plural sense, just as sometimes plural nouns can have a singular sense.

Would you say "The police are looking for the criminal" or "The police is looking for the criminal"?

Would you say "The United States are the world's richest nation" or "The United States is the world's richest nation"?*

d.

*Assuming for the sake of argument that it still is the world's richest nation.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 07 August, 2011, 07:31:53 am
There is no rule on this.  In fact, the BBC style guide says that BBC Radio uses one rule and BBC TV uses the opposite.  It depends whether you perceive the subjuect as a group of people or a single entity.
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 07 August, 2011, 12:47:58 pm
There is no rule on this.

Wrong. Because, as you say yourself...

Quote
  In fact, the BBC style guide says that BBC Radio uses one rule and BBC TV uses the opposite.

...so there are clearly at least two rules. QED.

d.



Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 07 August, 2011, 01:24:17 pm
This is quite an issue for me with the work I do for a US record company.

They (I always assumed, correctly) use a singular for stuff done by a band. However, when the band is called "The Oak Ridge Boys" it just sounds wrong that they say "The Oak Ridge Boys has released its new album" so I change it to "The Oak Ridge Boys have released their new album". Even with bands with not-obvious names, such as Leeland, I find myself using the plural as I know there are four members in that band - "Leeland have recorded their latest single" rather than "Leeland has recorded its latest single".
Title: Re: Grammars as makken thee cringe
Post by: HTFB on 07 August, 2011, 03:32:22 pm
This is quite an issue for me with the work I do for a US record company.

They (I always assumed, correctly) use a singular...

Or, as Aeroflash would prefer, "It uses a singular".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 07 August, 2011, 03:44:53 pm
There is no rule on this.

Wrong. Because, as you say yourself...

Quote
  In fact, the BBC style guide says that BBC Radio uses one rule and BBC TV uses the opposite.

...so there are clearly at least two rules. QED.

d.
Pedant.  As it's a binary choice and there are two rules, there are therefore no rules.  QED yourself  :P
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 07 August, 2011, 03:54:15 pm
I've just realised why I think both rules sound right for certain expressions. Take Cit's examples:


Would you say "The police are looking for the criminal" or "The police is looking for the criminal"?

Would you say "The United States are the world's richest nation" or "The United States is the world's richest nation"?*
I can visualise policemen looking for a criminal. I've met individual policemen, I've seen them working.

I can't visualise "The United States" - at least not as a group of people.

So are and is, respectively, just sound more appropriate. To me.

(I don't know how big a nation needs to be before it becomes singular in my mind's eye ... )
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 07 August, 2011, 07:04:08 pm
Pedant.  As it's a binary choice and there are two rules, there are therefore no rules.  QED yourself  :P

1+1=0? Obviously a mathematical subtlety I'm missing there.

Anyway, it's not pedantry, I was just trying to make the point that there are actually lots of different rules (it's not just a binary choice - there are as many rules as there are style guides in the world).

The different rules don't cancel each other out and none of them is absolutely correct. In fact, they're all correct. What's important is that whichever rule you follow, you follow it consistently.

Your view on this matter may depend on what you consider to be the purpose of grammar.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 07 August, 2011, 10:34:32 pm
Your view on this matter may depend on what you consider to be the purpose of grammar.

To obfuscate, obviously.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 08 August, 2011, 12:33:32 am
I've just been re-reading this thread from the beginning. Highly amusing way to waste half an hour. Here's a helpful reminder of something that was said early in the thread that bears repetition:

Hmm. My experience seems similar to Drossall; breaking the rules generally makes things _harder_ to understand. Having 10 ways to spell 'bought' doesn't help anyone.

That's only because you're at the fag-end of an educational system which has (often literally) beaten in an entirely constructed and elitist 'correctness' to generations of kids. It is the same mentality that regards Scots or Geordie as 'wrong' (rather than 'wrang'  ;) ) and thinks there is something good about 'received pronouciation' (as it that which is received in polite society - in other words, amongst snobs).

Thankfully, this is now changing again and we are once again recognizing English as the rich, messy thessauric stew which has made it so successful and adaptable a means of communication as well as a wonderful medium for song, poetry and prose.

Gan canny like, kidda.  ;D

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jeremaiah on 08 August, 2011, 08:24:33 am
Interesting thing my sister told me. She's been teaching English in a private school for a few months now and we were discussing some grammar rules for the conditionals, and as you are probably aware, it is correct to say 'I wish I were' rather than 'I wish I was'. But what has happened apparently is that now the rules has changed and it is possible to say either. I think it's one of those things that change because enough people do it wrong and it's just another proof how languages (particularly English) are deteriorating.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 08 August, 2011, 08:28:57 am
Wo'evah.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 08 August, 2011, 05:18:09 pm
<<But what has happened apparently is that now the rules has changed >>

I don't think the rules have changed that much!  ;) ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 August, 2011, 05:24:34 pm
People have been saying "I wish I was" for a long time. There's a recognised process whereby languages simplify themselves (and another where they create irregularities), and "I were" is the last surviving subjunctive form in English, so it's natural that it should be ironed out.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 08 August, 2011, 06:03:08 pm
...people do it wrong...

According to whom? Who owns a language?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 08 August, 2011, 06:17:32 pm
...people do it wrong...

According to whom? Who owns a language?
Dunno ... but one thing I'd like to know is whether people debate this in other languages.
For example, are 8yo german kids berated by their teachers for not conforming to German's much stricter rules? And does anyone defend them,saying "What IS wrong/right? According to whom?"*

Did latin evolve into a less strict language during the Roman period?

What I'm getting at is that some "rules" seem to provide useful structure e.g. adjective endings indicating gender/plurality of a noun. But others are just convention e.g. the i before e nonsense.

This is pure ignorant speculation; I'd love to hear from those with proper linguistic knowledge.

*I have no idea how to say this correctly in German.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 08 August, 2011, 06:24:00 pm
I know from my German friends there's a lot of discussion about the fact that the genitive case seems to be disappearing in German (they use the dative instead, or re-word the sentence to avoid the genitive). My friend disliked this as she felt the genitive had an important purpose but she despaired of German young people and their lazy speech!

"Das ist Helens Fahrrad" (genitive)

Das ist das Fahrrad von Helen" (dative)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 08 August, 2011, 06:29:06 pm
Double negatives.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 08 August, 2011, 06:40:58 pm
... she despaired of German young people and their lazy speech!

"Das ist Helens Fahrrad" (genitive)

Das ist das Fahrrad von Helen" (dative)
That's interesting; in English I think of shortened versions as being the 'lazy' option. " Can't " etc
But your example takes longer to say when avoiding the genitive!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 08 August, 2011, 06:55:50 pm
... But others are just convention e.g. the i before e nonsense.

I thought that these, such as your example, were made up later as a way of learning and recalling the convention, rather that it being a rule.

I think you're right. It was a truly rubbish example, but I couldn't think of a better one - I suspect, like most amateur english speakers, I'm not very aware of the rules until someone points them out! (Whereas with foreign languages, having had to learn them formally, I can remember most of the rules wot I have learned.)

Are we still allowed to incorrectly split infinitives?!?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 08 August, 2011, 06:57:41 pm
To boldly split where no man has splat before?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 08 August, 2011, 07:00:56 pm
I think that may be one of the rules of English invented by old grammarians who thought that Latin grammar was right, & the closer you kept to it the better - and you can't split Latin infinitives.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 08 August, 2011, 07:08:44 pm
Double negatives.

Like wot Shakespeare and Chaucer both used.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 08 August, 2011, 07:17:31 pm
Chaucer had an excuse I'll let him off but I'll have to remonstrate with Will.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 08 August, 2011, 08:00:23 pm
I think it's one of those things that change because enough people do it wrong...
Wrongly. Wrong is an adjective ;D
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 08 August, 2011, 08:11:30 pm
But others are just convention e.g. the i before e nonsense.

i before e except after "Old Macdonald had a farm"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 08 August, 2011, 08:18:05 pm
There's a recognised process whereby languages simplify themselves...

What's always fascinated me about this is the question of where the complex languages came from? Did they just appear, complete with impossibly-complex rules? Surely languages must start simple? They can't develop from others if those have already decayed... Or was the first-ever language so hard that no-one could speak it? ;D

Did latin evolve into a less strict language during the Roman period?

I believe that Greek did become less strict as the Greek empire spread and the language was used by a much wider population. By New Testament times (say the first century AD), koine (common) Greek was used as the lingua Franca - is that possible  ??? ;D - in the Roman Empire, but some people would write in a style that harked back to the classical Greek of hundreds of years earlier, when dialects were focussed on small city states.

Maybe that's the answer to my question. Complex languages evolve where small populations allow shared nuances to exist. Languages that spread across large areas and varying cultures tend to simplify to a kind of lowest common denominator.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 09 August, 2011, 12:24:09 am
Double negatives.

Like wot Shakespeare and Chaucer both used.
IIRC used to mean emphasis. "Not not" was more negative than plain "Not".

May have been them Latin-obsessed grammarians who changed that, as well.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 09 August, 2011, 12:34:26 am
What's always fascinated me about this is the question of where the complex languages came from? Did they just appear, complete with impossibly-complex rules? Surely languages must start simple? They can't develop from others if those have already decayed... Or was the first-ever language so hard that no-one could speak it? ;D
You're confusing inflections with complexity. A language which conveys meaning via cases is no more complex than one which uses word order, prepositions, etc, it's just different. It seems complex to you because it's not how your language works.

Do you think that articles are tremendously complex and difficult to use? If your first language is Japanese, they're bizarre, baffling, & the rules for using them are of mind-numbing complexity & difficulty. Mrs B still gets 'em wrong sometimes, forgetting to use "a", or "the",  or using them wrongly. No equivalent in Japanese. She occasionally, when distracted, forgets the difference between 'he' & 'she', as well. English tenses are a minefield for speakers not only of Japanese, but also many other languages.

But for English speakers, Japanese has its own terrifying complexities. Not simpler: different.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 August, 2011, 12:56:28 am
Older Polish speakers complain about a current tendency to use prepositions rather than the dative. Both are grammatically correct AFAIU.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: toontra on 09 August, 2011, 07:56:18 am
I imagine the texts, tweets and messages between rioting youths at the moment would make any grammarian cringe.  Not only lawless revolution but an illiterate one!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 09 August, 2011, 08:05:21 am
You're confusing inflections with complexity.
I'm not sure that that addresses the comment to which I was responding though?

There's a recognised process whereby languages simplify themselves...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jeremaiah on 09 August, 2011, 11:12:09 am
<<But what has happened apparently is that now the rules has changed >>

I don't think the rules have changed that much!  ;) ;D

 :-[ It was early in the morning :) I have noticed I seem to make a lot more mistakes in forums than I do when I normally write or chat. I wonder why that is.

...people do it wrong...

According to whom? Who owns a language?

I would say according to the rules. In any language there should be right and wrong, shouldn't it? Otherwise, how will we ever learn them  ;D

I think it's one of those things that change because enough people do it wrong...
Wrongly. Wrong is an adjective ;D

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/wrong_5 (http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/wrong_5)
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/wrongly (http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/wrongly)

English is only my second language, but based on this I would use 'do wrong' in the same way they are giving 'go wrong' as an example. Would that be wrong? Is it a rule or convention when it comes to this?

Bear with me, it's been a while since I've studied English grammar  :-[
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 09 August, 2011, 11:32:14 am

...people do it wrong...

According to whom? Who owns a language?

I would say according to the rules. In any language there should be right and wrong, shouldn't it? Otherwise, how will we ever learn them  ;D


How about, Right is when people understand you and Wrong is when they don't?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 09 August, 2011, 11:39:47 am
Double negatives.

Like wot Shakespeare and Chaucer both used.
IIRC used to mean emphasis. "Not not" was more negative than plain "Not".

Yes it's a hangover from Anglo Saxon. That;s why Chaucer had an excuse. In modern English though it just ends up meaning the opposite of that which was intended.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 09 August, 2011, 11:52:28 am
Double negatives.

Like wot Shakespeare and Chaucer both used.
IIRC used to mean emphasis. "Not not" was more negative than plain "Not".

Yes it's a hangover from Anglo Saxon. That;s why Chaucer had an excuse. In modern English though it just ends up meaning the opposite of that which was intended.

Except in practice it doesn't. Everyone understands what is meant.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 August, 2011, 12:09:36 pm
You're confusing inflections with complexity.
I'm not sure that that addresses the comment to which I was responding though?

There's a recognised process whereby languages simplify themselves...
I think I'd like to modify my previous statement.
Languages don't simplify themselves, the people who use them start to express the same things in simpler ways. At the same time they create more complex ways of saying other things, which become the norm for that particular construction or situation.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 09 August, 2011, 12:22:58 pm
How about, Right is when people understand you and Wrong is when they don't?

Good working definition, so long as it is sustainable.

When I worked in lighting, there was a difference between a lamp, a lantern, a light and a lunimaire, not to mention the differences between floods, spots, fresnels, pars (38, 56 or 64) and specific model numbers.

When i was teaching students, they often used 'lamp' for 'lantern', and wondered why I kept getting on their case about it.  If they asked another trainee for a lamp, they usually got handed a lantern, which was OK.  But there are times when it makes an awful lot of difference.  Like the time one lad was asked to bring a lamp up to the grid.  He walked up five flights of stairs with a Par 64 lamp, only to find out that what the person requesting had wanted was another lantern.  Words were had, and both understood the reason for using words carefully.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 09 August, 2011, 01:07:42 pm
+1. The problem with the "as long as people understand" argument is that you don't know whether they have until they act on it. (Unless, of course, you are going to have an indefinite round of checking that your collocutors got the right messages.)

Therefore, the aim of language is to make sure that people understand first time, as opposed to simply believing that they have understood, getting the wrong message, and having to sort out the consequent problems - whether they be fetching the wrong lamp/lantern, marrying the wrong daughter, or starting a war that non-one intended ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 09 August, 2011, 01:17:37 pm
+1. The problem with the "as long as people understand" argument is that you don't know whether they have until they act on it.

True, but, except with people you know well, when, apart from the simplest communications, is that ever not the case?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 09 August, 2011, 01:22:50 pm
English is only my second language, but based on this I would use 'do wrong' in the same way they are giving 'go wrong' as an example. Would that be wrong? Is it a rule or convention when it comes to this?
Apologies, my comment was somewhat discourteous, given the circumstances.

In "Do wrong", wrong is being used as a noun; it's the same construction as "Play cricket". The wording I questioned was "Do it wrong". That's the same as "Play cricket well". Cricket is being "played well", with "well qualifying "played" rather than "cricket". Similarly, "it" is being "done wrong".

Hence, "well" and "wrong" are being used as adverbs, each qualifying an action. However, the adverbial form is "wrongly", not "wrong".

Therefore, "Do wrong", but "Do it wrongly".

At least, that's my view. Not sure whether too many people care these days - simplification and all that...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 09 August, 2011, 01:27:49 pm
Ian - true, but does it justify adding to the confusion?

If even someone you know well goes shopping for you, you might ask to modify the list for next week. You should get a different result depending on whether you ask for:
You may get the same either way, but at least there's a chance if you both know how to make the distinction ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 09 August, 2011, 01:49:56 pm
Ian - true, but does it justify adding to the confusion?


I'm not trying to add to confusion (there's enough about anyway), just suggesting, tongue-in-cheek, that in the real world that's how language works - or not, as the case may be.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 09 August, 2011, 02:09:45 pm
I'll agree with that :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 09 August, 2011, 05:44:42 pm
Double negatives.

Like wot Shakespeare and Chaucer both used.
IIRC used to mean emphasis. "Not not" was more negative than plain "Not".

Yes it's a hangover from Anglo Saxon. That;s why Chaucer had an excuse. In modern English though it just ends up meaning the opposite of that which was intended.

Except in practice it doesn't. Everyone understands what is meant.

Indeed. Pcolbeck's position is a common misapprehension based on an incorrect assumption that negatives in the English language operate the same as they do in mathematical language.

They don't. Never have done. Not no how no way never.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 09 August, 2011, 05:49:06 pm
I'm not unsympathetic to that view, but I can't help feeling that no unhelpful grammar would not be unwelcome
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 09 August, 2011, 05:53:59 pm
One of the manufacturers whose equipment I have to do be qualified on used to be fond of setting questions like that. Drove me mad they were supposed to testing how well you knew computer stuff not how carefully you could read their questions. Loads of question of this sort

Which of the following is not a feature that does not provide ....
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 09 August, 2011, 06:15:53 pm
That's what's known in formal rhetoric as litotes, and is different to using double negatives for straightforward, unironic emphasis. Litotes can be used to good effect as a kind of irony but is best avoided if it causes ambiguity or misunderstanding, as in your examples. Double negatives used for emphasis rarely cause ambiguity, which is what Ian H was referring to.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Phil on 09 August, 2011, 06:20:53 pm
I don't think pcolbeck's example is a litotes.  Do you mean Clarion's example?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 09 August, 2011, 06:27:45 pm
The only time double negatives are any use is when referencing another statement/quote e.g.
Quote from: Ian
I'm not trying to add to confusion
->
I don't think Ian is not trying to add to confusion.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 09 August, 2011, 06:30:33 pm
Have I mentioned Birmingham City Council's war on possessive apostrophes?  Grr.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 09 August, 2011, 06:42:24 pm
Not so much making me cringe, but completely open to ambiguity and misunderstanding, are questions asked using a negative:

"You're not going out dressed like that?"

What does the answer "Yes" mean?  "Yes, I'm not" or "Yes I am"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 09 August, 2011, 06:48:54 pm
On a related note, it is of course practically compulsory to answer an 'or' question with "yes"   :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Séamas M. on 09 August, 2011, 10:01:48 pm
At work I find that most people don't frame their questions precisely enough, so my usual anwer is "yes and no!"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 10 August, 2011, 02:14:21 am
I don't think pcolbeck's example is a litotes.

Er... you're probably right. I'm not really sure, tbh.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar what makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 10 August, 2011, 08:05:39 am
Have I mentioned Birmingham City Council's war on possessive apostrophes?  Grr.
Lewisham Council have handed over the library to our management but we still have all their council-branded signs up. The main room is titled "Adult's Library." I think this love and accuracy of learning may indicate why the council have shut libraries first in their budget cuts.

(For balance I should admit that it's our handwritten notice that says "There is no working printers in the library.")
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jeremaiah on 10 August, 2011, 09:06:13 am
You know what I could never wrap my head around, being foreign and all, is the whole 'mind' business. For instance:

Would you mind closing the window?
No (and closes the window)

Would you mind closing the window?
Sure (in reality yes, but still closes the window)

I guess it's just not common for the English to mind, is it? :D You have to say, I do mind, don't you?

I can't seem to grasp this.  :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 10 August, 2011, 10:23:07 am
That's just an etiquette/manners issue. I think.

Would you mind closing the window?

Really means:
Please close the window, even if you object slightly, but if it is a big problem, don't.


It doesn't mean:
Tell me all about any objections you have to closing the window.
:)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 August, 2011, 10:42:26 am
And therefore you can answer "No (I don't mind, so I will shut it)"
or
"Yes (I will shut the window)".

The first answers the literal question, the second the intention.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 10 August, 2011, 06:06:15 pm
I tend to favour "Yes, but I'll do it anyway."  See above re: answering 'or' questions.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 10 August, 2011, 06:18:37 pm
You know what I could never wrap my head around, being foreign and all, is the whole 'mind' business. For instance:

Would you mind closing the window?
No (and closes the window)

Would you mind closing the window?
Sure (in reality yes, but still closes the window)

I guess it's just not common for the English to mind, is it? :D You have to say, I do mind, don't you?

I can't seem to grasp this.  :)
I think the latter is an Americanism

The correct British response is either "No, not at all" <closes window>

or "Actually, I'd rather it were left open if you don't mind, old chap" <doesn't close window>

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 10 August, 2011, 06:32:48 pm
I tend to favour "Yes, but I'll do it anyway."  See above re: answering 'or' questions.
Are you known as a "team player" at work, Kim?

;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 10 August, 2011, 07:46:38 pm
Not so much making me cringe, but completely open to ambiguity and misunderstanding, are questions asked using a negative:

"You're not going out dressed like that?"

What does the answer "Yes" mean?  "Yes, I'm not" or "Yes I am"?

Many languages have ways of dealing with this.

The German 'doch' or French 'si' are extra ways to answer a negatively phrased question unambiguously.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jeremaiah on 11 August, 2011, 08:13:21 am
Oh, I see, ok. Given that I'm usually uncomfortable with that phrase, I use 'Could you please close the window?' cause it's less ambiguous and does not involve asking the person if they mind :D

To the 'You're not going out dressed like that?' I would probably just say - 'I am', instead of yes. But I would still take the 'yes' as a confirmation of the opposite, thus 'Yes, I am'. :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 15 August, 2011, 12:26:30 pm
You might be. I am happy to google a query wile someone else hoovers the room...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 August, 2011, 12:41:35 pm
I wouldn't be able to do much cycling in Poland if I objected to trade marks as everyday words. The word rower along with its derivatives is taken from the Rover Safety of 188-whenever it was. I even know a street ulica Rowerowa.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 15 August, 2011, 12:44:44 pm
Google (the verb) makes me cringe. Am I the only one?

Many people object to language change, so I expect you have company.

But I'll just note that the OED has citations for google as a verb going back to 1907:

Quote from: OED
google, v. intr. Of the ball: to have a ‘googly’ break and swerve. Of the bowler; to bowl a googly or googlies; also (trans.), to give a googly break to (a ball).

1907   Badminton Mag. Sept. 289   The googlies that do not google.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 15 August, 2011, 04:50:21 pm
That's one of the problems with 'google' - it already existed as a word.  And they were referring to 'googol' anyway.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Canardly on 15 August, 2011, 08:26:53 pm
Ah a new lube is born.....
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 17 August, 2011, 04:39:56 pm
That's just an etiquette/manners issue. I think.

Would you mind closing the window?

Really means:
Please close the window, even if you object slightly, but if it is a big problem, don't.


Me, to son: "Are you going to do your homework?"
Real meaning: "Do your homework!"

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 18 August, 2011, 01:11:23 pm
From the noticeboard at Mrs MV's work:

“Bit of a long shot but looking for a vivarium, or anyone who has a tortoise who’s willing to look after my daughters for a couple of weeks?”

 ;D

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Hot Flatus on 18 August, 2011, 10:56:40 pm
I wouldn't be quite so quick with such glib mockery of what you assume to be poor grammar.

Stranger things have occurred in the Forest....
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biggsy on 12 September, 2011, 03:42:19 pm
From http://www2.ebay.com/aw/uk/201109.shtml#2011-09-08121739:
Quote
This issue has been escalated to our highest priority level in recent days and we have found the cause of the issue and measures are already underway to resolve it. We are also looking at ways to recover the transactions that are impacted.

For no good reason, I'm getting sick of "impacted" so often being used instead of "affected", and "impact" instead of "affect".

Also say "problem" instead of "issue", when it is a problem.  Don't be afraid to admit that you have problems, dear Americans.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 12 September, 2011, 03:51:33 pm
Biggsy, you've got excellent reasons!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 September, 2011, 04:17:10 pm
I'm also sick of this euphemistic use of "issue". Recently I've noticed "situation" being used in the same way.

"Houston, we have an issue."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 12 September, 2011, 04:19:04 pm
I'm also sick of this euphemistic use of "issue". Recently I've noticed "situation" being used in the same way.

"Houston, we have an issue."

Gesundheit!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: greenmeansgo on 12 September, 2011, 04:19:14 pm
Not sure if this has been mentioned in the last 110 pages, but some good stuff in here
http://theoatmeal.com/tag/grammar (http://theoatmeal.com/tag/grammar)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 14 September, 2011, 02:00:59 pm
I realised last night that a leaflet we use has both Comic Sans and Monotype Corsiva.  Possibly a capital crime against typography.  But people like it.  Oh, I dunno :-\
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 14 September, 2011, 02:16:18 pm
I'm also sick of this euphemistic use of "issue".

I don't think this sense of issue is euphemistic. It's sense 11 in the OED, "a point or matter in contention between two parties". This sense is legal in origin, with the earliest citations given from the 14th century.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 September, 2011, 02:34:53 pm
But it's often used not to mean a point in contention but simply something that has gone wrong.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 14 September, 2011, 05:03:58 pm
I'm also sick of this euphemistic use of "issue".

I don't think this sense of issue is euphemistic. It's sense 11 in the OED, "a point or matter in contention between two parties". This sense is legal in origin, with the earliest citations given from the 14th century.
So if they'd agree that there was a problem needing fixing, there would be no issue?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 14 September, 2011, 06:44:08 pm
There's nothing wrong with an issue that can't be fixed with a dressing and some Germolene.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biggsy on 14 September, 2011, 07:38:11 pm
It's not incorrect to use "issue" like in the eBay example I mentioned; it's just that "problem" would be more direct, meaningful and honest.  (Honesty being about telling the whole truth as well as no lies).  They use "issue" because they think "problem" would make them look bad.

They should be brave enough to admit that there is a problem and realise that we understand that problems can be solved.  They lose respect for being cowardly, when all they need to get respect is to be direct with their communication, and to be good at fixing problems.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: teethgrinder on 14 September, 2011, 07:52:55 pm
When I have subscribed to a magazine I have had 13 issues each year but no problems.

The Big Issue?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 14 September, 2011, 07:55:10 pm
Gesundheit
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: iakobski on 15 September, 2011, 08:25:44 am
This does not bode well:

Quote from: Jake's inbox
hi rachel

here are the menu's think there all spelt correct


Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 15 September, 2011, 10:06:36 am
Genius.  ;D

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 15 September, 2011, 12:36:59 pm
So,
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 15 September, 2011, 12:51:28 pm
But it's often used not to mean a point in contention but simply something that has gone wrong.

You know that it's a problem. But they don't, at least not at first. So it's an issue. Perhaps after investigation they agree with you that the issue is in fact a problem. But an agreed-upon issue is still an issue, just as a solved problem is still a problem.

You're perfectly at liberty to object to this usage: I'm just saying that it's neither a euphemism nor a neologism.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 15 September, 2011, 01:17:42 pm
Units rather than grammar (from the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14922301)):

Quote
The spill covered a total area of dozens of kilometres

It still made me cringe, though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 15 September, 2011, 01:39:18 pm
So if they'd agree that there was a problem needing fixing, there would be no issue?

If you have a problem with your contraception, there might be issue. In at least two senses of the word.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 21 September, 2011, 01:07:16 pm
Stumbled across this yesterday. To be viewed whenever that urge for grammatical pedantry surfaces:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7E-aoXLZGY

My name is Jo and it has been six days since I last corrected someone's rogue apostrophe.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 21 September, 2011, 01:31:47 pm
Tsk.

At 1:24 it misses out "and all the rest of them" which he clearly says.

1:32 he says "I said there" but it has "I wrote there".

I could go on...

;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 21 September, 2011, 02:47:08 pm
(http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae7/fboab/328832_269064233111381_100000234190268_1088191_3486934_o.jpg)

Getting your sharpie out.
Sometimes it's irresistable irresistible something you can't resist.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 21 September, 2011, 02:50:17 pm
Are you sure they didn't mean it?

"You're a very nice moulding."

<blushes> "Get away with you. I do like the way you turn that corner though."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 September, 2011, 07:13:10 pm
(http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae7/fboab/328832_269064233111381_100000234190268_1088191_3486934_o.jpg)

Getting your sharpie out.
Sometimes it's irresistable irresistible something you can't resist.
And I bet you (if it is you) enjoyed that correction, didn't you? Even if it didn't quite make you froth with joy.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 21 September, 2011, 08:07:58 pm
And I bet you (if it is you) enjoyed that correction, didn't you?

It's my mum.
We all loved it. The joy of that correction has spread internationally- my sisters in the antipodes, me & my children.... even people on this forum are enjoying it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 September, 2011, 10:26:21 pm
Welcome to YACF, fboab's mum's arm!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 22 September, 2011, 09:17:21 am
Radio 3 have just had a revamp of their programmes so "Breakfast" is no longer the leisurely affair it once was, lasting from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m., but is now curtailed at 9, when a new programme, "Essential Classics", sounding like something straight off the shelves of Waitrose, starts.

Sarah Walker introduces it by saying "This is Essential Classics!" and it grates every time I hear her say it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 22 September, 2011, 09:23:09 am
So are you objecting to the titles "Essential Classics" because they should always be referred to in the plural?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 22 September, 2011, 09:33:46 am
I'm not really objecting. I realise that what she's saying is an abbreviation of "This programme is called 'Essential Classics'" but that the words used juxtaposes a singular verb and plural noun which in their own right make a totally ungrammatical sentence. I'm just commenting that my grammar-trained brane shouts "No!" when it detects such a juxtaposition.

In that sense, it makes me cringe even though I think what she says is correct in the context that she says it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 22 September, 2011, 11:19:07 am
So if they'd agree that there was a problem needing fixing, there would be no issue?

If you have a problem with your contraception, there might be issue. In at least two senses of the word.

d.
But only if there was an issue.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biggsy on 22 September, 2011, 11:55:29 am
In that sense, it makes me cringe even though I think what she says is correct in the context that she says it.

Doesn't her tone of voice and emphasis indicate the quotation marks around "Essential Classics"?  If so, it should sound correct, as well as you knowing it's correct.  Not that there's any such thing as correct English anyway.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biggsy on 22 September, 2011, 11:59:28 am
My Dad cringes every time Rachel Riley on Countdown says "times by" instead of "multiply by".  He says there's no such term as "times by".  I say there is because a lot of people say it.  I also say: who cares when she's so good at maths and so pretty?  ...in that order of importance.  *cough*
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ParrettPedaller on 22 September, 2011, 12:16:28 pm
The use of plural verbs with singular nouns like government, radio 3 etc

e.g.

Radio 3 have just had a revamp of their programmes so ....

it grates every time I hear ...... it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: PaulR on 22 September, 2011, 12:28:15 pm
Has this already been referenced out* here?

Windows is shutting down, and grammar are
On their last leg. So what am we to do?
A letter of complaint go just so far,
Proving the only one in step are you.

Better, perhaps, to simply let it goes.
A sentence have to be screwed pretty bad
Before they gets to where you doesnt knows
The meaning what it must of meant to had.

The meteor have hit. Extinction spread,
But evolution do not stop for that.
A mutant languages rise from the dead
And all them rules is suddenly old hat.

Too bad for we, us what has had so long
The best seat from the only game in town.
But there it am, and whom can say its wrong?
Those are the break. Windows is shutting down.

(Clive James, Guardian, 27 April 2005)

* The verb "to reference out" seems to be in common usage by my daughter's English teacher, who also asks the pupils to find suitable quotes.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 September, 2011, 01:53:57 pm
I'm not really objecting. I realise that what she's saying is an abbreviation of "This programme is called 'Essential Classics'" but that the words used juxtaposes a singular verb and plural noun which in their own right make a totally ungrammatical sentence. I'm just commenting that my grammar-trained brane shouts "No!" when it detects such a juxtaposition.

In that sense, it makes me cringe even though I think what she says is correct in the context that she says it.
Stones, windows?

 :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 22 September, 2011, 07:04:36 pm
Here are the News.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 22 September, 2011, 08:20:55 pm
Pronunciation rather than grammar...

Cameron on C4 News tonight repeatedly pronouncing "leverage" as if it involved juvenile hares  >:(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 22 September, 2011, 08:25:23 pm
Merkin, innit.

Not grammar, but we have a lot of people who say "tenants" instead of "tenets" (as in "our core tenets are..." which is irritating.  "Tenets" is a bit of a wankword already.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 22 September, 2011, 08:26:39 pm
Have we lost 'enormity' to the meaning of the property of being rather big?
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 22 September, 2011, 08:38:34 pm
I was amused recently when someone on the radio was discussing the early career of Michael Jackson in the context of the "enormity" of what he went on to do.

I felt like phoning in to point out that the allegations have never been proved. 

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 22 September, 2011, 09:30:30 pm
I heard that too.  I didn't feel it needed correcting.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 22 September, 2011, 11:01:54 pm
Now, now. Innocent until proven guilty.

Although you could probably have convicted him on the basis of some of his later records alone.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 23 September, 2011, 08:26:32 am
Chief Prosecutor Jarvis Cocker made a good case at the Brits in 1996.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Julian on 24 September, 2011, 02:13:35 pm
UKBA.  Please correct your naturalisation guidance and the form.  "Seperate" is wrong. 

/nailsdownablackboard
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 24 September, 2011, 07:45:01 pm
UKBA.  Please correct your naturalisation guidance and the form.  "Seperate" is wrong. 

/nailsdownablackboard
Perhaps the writer should be deported for lack of English.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 25 September, 2011, 06:10:45 pm
Sorry if this one has already been done:-

Growing the business/economy.  They already exist, for goodness sake.  You can't get a packet of economy from Thompson & Morgan.  "Expanding" used to work fine - as a word, that is.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 25 September, 2011, 08:14:26 pm
Not grammar, but some amusing typos in the first paragraph of this spam I received.

Quote
Date: 25-9-2011

Dear Friend,

My Name is Mr. Luiz Fernando, I am from Portugal, but born and breath up in Russia, I have been
diagnosed with cancer. It has defiled all forms of medical treatment, and right now I have only about
a few months to live, according to medical experts. I have not particularly lived my life so well, as I never
really cared for anyone (not even myself) but my business.

Though I was very rich, I was never generous, I was always hostile to people and only focused on my
business as that was the only thing I cared for. But now I regret all this as I now know that there is more
to life than just wanting to have or make all the money in the world. I believe when God gives me a
second chance to come to this world I would live my life a different way from how I have lived it.

I Would want to have a Personal and Trusthworthy Relationship with you, as I intend and willing to
empower the change of ownership for the transfer of the sum of (USD 11,200,680.00) to your Account
or personal possession for further Investment and Charity Disbursement to the Less Priveledge, Haiti
Earthquake Victims, Homeless People, therefore, I appeal to you to write me via my mail
address: luizFernado@w.cn

N/B:Kindly note that 40% of this funds must go to victims of Haiti Earthquake , 55% to other Charity
Organizations around the World and 5% for your effort and time.

God be with you.

Mr. Luiz Fernando.
Defiled medical treatment, in the context I think that's quite nice.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 25 September, 2011, 09:15:37 pm
poor grammar or signwriter's error?  You choose. Nice bit of Sharpie action though.
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-lRaCdtpHknw/TnpITlVZruI/AAAAAAAAC7k/BE1iULdDy6I/s720/IMGP7309.JPG)

I have a similar one referring to life jackets.  Jackson Civil Engineering, I'm looking at you.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biff on 26 September, 2011, 10:51:03 pm
(http://i53.tinypic.com/2957afd.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 27 September, 2011, 09:07:11 am
Dont give that to you're English teacher!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: frankly frankie on 27 September, 2011, 09:27:27 am
And I thought the Americans didn't do irony.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 27 September, 2011, 10:51:11 am
The ellipsis, like the apostrophe, is used to indicate an omission.  Increasingly, it seems to be used as a way to indicate the end of a humorous statement. People used to use exclamation marks for this purpose, until F Scott Fitzgerald made them too self-conscious about it.

I admit that I have to fight the urge to use ellipses myself but they are becoming a plague on our nation's prose. We must fight this pernicious threat.

Continue to use ellipses by all means, but use them wisely and sparingly.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 27 September, 2011, 11:07:38 am
The ellipsis, like the apostrophe, is used to indicate an omission ...

... and also a pause, an unfinished sentence, an incomplete list, a trailing off, an aposiopesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aposiopesis), ...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 27 September, 2011, 11:16:49 am
pause … unfinished … incomplete … trailing off … aposiopesis

I'm using "omission" to encompass all of the above. The point is that it's not shorthand for "please laugh here".

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 27 September, 2011, 11:39:14 am
I've noticed this usage of ellipsis too. The two main offenders have been writers in newsletters I have received... The same thing in every issue ... No punctuation to end a sentence ... No paragraphs either ...

I guess it's one of those attempts to write-how-they-speak, but for some reason it only irks me. And never gets a laugh.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 27 September, 2011, 11:47:55 am
I do it a lot in my 'prose'... It's lazy... Demonstrates I'm not taking it seriously, but without the forced jollity of exclamation marks! Smileys :) or whatever :D
Doesn't it depend on context? Surely it's ok on message boards... or personal emails, but not on much else?...

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: border-rider on 27 September, 2011, 11:53:11 am
I never use it in (work) written stuff.  I tend to here (probably over-use it), but in the aposiopesis sense, with the idea of presenting an idea and leaving the reader to make the connection.

It'd never occurred to me that it could be used in the same way as an exclamation mark.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 27 September, 2011, 12:27:36 pm
Doesn't it depend on context? Surely it's ok on message boards... or personal emails, but not on much else?...

Of course. But I'm increasingly seeing it used incorrectly in contexts where it might be said to matter.

It'd never occurred to me that it could be used in the same way as an exclamation mark.

It's not used with precisely the same intent but the effect is broadly the same.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 27 September, 2011, 01:55:08 pm
poor grammar or signwriter's error?  You choose. Nice bit of Sharpie action though.
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-lRaCdtpHknw/TnpITlVZruI/AAAAAAAAC7k/BE1iULdDy6I/s720/IMGP7309.JPG)

I have a similar one referring to life jackets.  Jackson Civil Engineering, I'm looking at you.

I have recently seen a YouTube video, the caption of which avers that "Trefor mist the timing tapes".  The personal responsible is Dutch, though, so he at least has a slight excuse.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 27 September, 2011, 05:08:04 pm
Just seen a notice in a local take-away, informing them that an energy company has "de-energised" their gas supply.  I know how it feels; man, I'm tired!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 27 September, 2011, 05:21:08 pm
Just seen a notice in a local take-away, informing them that an energy company has "de-energised" their gas supply.  I know how it feels; man, I'm tired!

Not grammar as such, but I always have a little titter inside my head when I hear someone who should know better use the word "enervate" to mean "energise".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Hot Flatus on 27 September, 2011, 06:15:52 pm
People, especially irritating pedants who should know better, who think 'noone' is a word.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 September, 2011, 06:20:28 pm
It is the opposite of midknighte.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 27 September, 2011, 06:39:07 pm
Thankyou.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Hot Flatus on 27 September, 2011, 06:44:41 pm
Your welcome
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 28 September, 2011, 08:04:11 am
Not grammar but irresistible spelling from the website of the Five Bells, Colne Engaine:

"The pub is delighted to sell an outstanding selection of Real Ales plus Adnams beers & spirits, Visor Belgium Beer and a wide selection of hand picked wines from around the globe to tantilise your pallet!"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 28 September, 2011, 12:19:15 pm
People, especially irritating pedants who should know better, who think 'noone' is a word.

Is so.  He was the singer in Herman's Hermits.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 28 September, 2011, 01:51:03 pm
Wasn't he the tall one?  High Noone?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 28 September, 2011, 02:32:52 pm
He was replaced by one Peter Cowap, a.k.a. "afternoone".

(http://www.legslarry.org.uk/BikeStull/coat_48.png)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jogler on 28 September, 2011, 02:45:28 pm
the last 3 posts clearly illustrate why this forum is better entertainment than TV :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 28 September, 2011, 03:36:28 pm
He was replaced by one Peter Cowap, a.k.a. "afternoone".

Who had a dog called 'Day'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 28 September, 2011, 04:29:00 pm
And an idle child called Sonny.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 29 September, 2011, 02:00:52 pm
Some confused helmet of a racing driver on the telly, explaining that racing drivers are all adrenalin junkies, so they strive on this sort of thing, specifically the Bathurst 1000.

Now admittedly, Sir, you are both a racing driver1 and a Base Orztrylian, but I think you'll find the word you seek is spelled "thrive".

1 - "The opinions of all racing drivers are completely worthless" - J. Clarkson.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Efrogwr on 29 September, 2011, 04:59:48 pm

1 - "The opinions of all racing drivers are completely worthless" - J. Clarkson.
[/quote]

It's disturbing to find that I  agree with Clharkson. It's not the first time.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 29 September, 2011, 08:31:30 pm
Spotted the other day on Gracechurch Street, City of London
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-DAhJKkcJYDc/ToTGTQbUNnI/AAAAAAAABL8/IBnZuUzfx0Y/s720/IMG_0047.JPG)

Brought to you courtesy of
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-uFpg1NK5y0Y/ToTGPA5jpEI/AAAAAAAABL4/urfG7B7-xps/s720/IMG_0048.JPG)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 29 September, 2011, 10:19:36 pm
Now there's a company whose voicemail will be full of people laughing at them by morning.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 30 September, 2011, 12:07:41 am
Isn't 01724 the Scunthorpe code? Residents of that flatland desert are well-used to rood joaks.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 30 September, 2011, 08:47:41 am
And are unfamiliar with high educational achievement.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 October, 2011, 12:39:47 pm
From a box of Co-op 99 tea:

Originally known as 'Prescription Tea' with reputed medicinal qualities, number 99 was "Prescription Tea" that was numbered on the blenders chart. When the use of the term prescription could no longer be used in the name, 99 was adopted instead.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: tonycollinet on 02 October, 2011, 02:56:06 pm

1 - "The opinions of all racing drivers are completely worthless" - J. Clarkson.

Hmmm. The opinions of all J. Clarksons are completely worthless. Therefore, we are not informed of the worth, or otherwise, of the opinions of racing drivers.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 02 October, 2011, 04:42:26 pm

1 - "The opinions of all racing drivers are completely worthless" - J. Clarkson.

Hmmm. The opinions of all J. Clarksons are completely worthless. Therefore, we are not informed of the worth, or otherwise, of the opinions of racing drivers.

I suspect there may be others named J.Clarkson who might have acceptable opinions, but I don't now...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gus on 02 October, 2011, 05:10:29 pm
Find 10 mistakes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTozrTpxldM) (Btw. it's our new minister of foreign affairs)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 October, 2011, 05:30:10 pm
That link just opens this same page in another window.

 ???
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gus on 02 October, 2011, 06:13:51 pm
That link just opens this same page in another window.

 ???

link fixed  :-[
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biggsy on 03 October, 2011, 08:31:30 am
"Stool" as a verb seems odd to me.

http://twitpic.com/6ugdd5
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 October, 2011, 01:58:16 pm
That looks like a case of English as a second language to me, coupled with trying to be polite.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 03 October, 2011, 02:01:41 pm
That looks like a case of English as a second language to me,
no shit!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 October, 2011, 02:06:20 pm
In Hanoi, they call it "London log".  :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 14 October, 2011, 11:07:16 am
This doesn't so much make me cringe as make me come out in a cold sweat and retch violently:

Quote
Written by the team behind Stiller's Night At The Museum, Fred is the boss of a firm called Rentaghost…


http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/3870581/Russell-Brand-replaced-by-Ben-Stiller-in-Rentaghost.html

(And not just for the idea of a Hollywood remake of Rentaghost!)

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 19 October, 2011, 11:02:55 pm
Re the discussion of which/that a few months ago, the excellent Stan Carey has written eloquently on the matter:
http://stancarey.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/that-which-is-restrictive/

Anyone who professes to be interested in this languagey shit should subscribe to his blog.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: greenmeansgo on 24 October, 2011, 04:41:16 pm
I am often confused by the spelling of "south" on this forum as "sarf" to represent a London/ S. Essex pronunciation thereof. If that's what you're aiming for, it'd be "Saaf", as in Saafend-on-Sea. Have I missed a joke here? If quasi-phoenetic spelling is the aim, then the "r" should only be introduced for words such as "barth", "parth", "grars" etc.
 No?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 24 October, 2011, 05:06:34 pm
Weow, yinno, dan ear safferverivva we prunants sarf to raiem wiv barf if we wonner maiek a poink ovic, dohng we? 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: greenmeansgo on 24 October, 2011, 09:55:12 pm
So it would seem ;) Must be irony or summink li at.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pedaldog. on 25 October, 2011, 02:23:51 am
Lloret de maah where y' get Laagaaah!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 25 October, 2011, 11:49:05 am
Original Sin (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0218922/) will be on TV tonight (http://programy.pravda.sk/tvDetail.aspx?id=42535&from=markiza&when=201110250005) so I read the write up to help me decide whether I want to watch it.

IMDB quote: ... Jolie ... is a site to have and behold.

Linguistic wit?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biggsy on 28 October, 2011, 05:13:45 pm
@carltonreid: "Blackburn to gift £20 LED lights to hundreds of (presumably unlit) London cyclists. BikeBiz: bit.ly/rWiRam"

:sick:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 28 October, 2011, 05:59:52 pm
I don't mind gift as a verb - it's neat and concise and, perhaps most importantly, there isn't another single word that conveys the same meaning so neatly and concisely. (Well, I can't think of one right now, which admittedly isn't the same thing.)

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biggsy on 28 October, 2011, 06:12:51 pm
"Give" would do me, and would save me cringing - despite its more general definition.

I have a very liberal attitude to language in theory (and this helps me justify my own poor grammar and spelling at times to myself), but certain things are hard to accept emotionally.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biggsy on 28 October, 2011, 06:21:17 pm
""Blackburn to give £20 LED lights to hundreds of (presumably unlit) London cyclists. BikeBiz: bit.ly/rWiRam"

I would not interpret that as Blackburn giving lights in return for payment.  I always prefer the plainest English for plain factual statements, unless anything else really adds interest or entertainment.  Not that I'm saying it's important!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 28 October, 2011, 06:35:56 pm
Biggsy:
Have you just discovered the world of linguistic invention that is Twitter?

I fear you may find a particularly high density of cringe-worthy text there - even more so than hastily written internet news pages. Good luck :P
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 28 October, 2011, 06:44:29 pm
The verb give has multiple meanings. The OED gives6 14 major senses, of which the first few are:


The verb gift has only the first of these senses, so it gives7 a more precise message.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 28 October, 2011, 06:46:47 pm
What does the panel think of
"Gift-aid your donation ... "
?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 28 October, 2011, 06:50:15 pm
The verb gift has only the first of these senses, so it gives7 a more precise message.

That's pretty much my thinking. I know "give" would do the job perfectly well, but I don't mind "gift" at all. Probably best avoided in formal contexts though.

What does the panel think of "Gift-aid your donation ..."?

It's all right, I suppose. A bit clunky but it works.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wendy on 28 October, 2011, 06:53:27 pm
It's twitter, FFS!!!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 28 October, 2011, 10:00:57 pm
I could give you an almighty thump in the mouth, but I suspect that would make for a very poor gift.

I like 'gift'. I like 're-gift' even better.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 October, 2011, 10:16:33 pm
What does the panel think of
"Gift-aid your donation ... "
?
It certainly works better than give your donation aids.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biggsy on 29 October, 2011, 01:46:27 am
"Gift" as a verb makes me cringe because it's poncey (IMHO), that's all.  Same with "action".  It reminds me of buzz-words used by poncey management types.

It's got nothing to do with Twitter; I just happened to be reminded of it by a post on Twitter.  I generally enjoy the abrvtn and mucking around on Twitter.

It's not nothing to do with correctness.  I don't believe there's any such thing as correct language.  And I don't mean any personal offence to Carlton Reid, who I think is doing a great job.  I'm just being unfair and irrational and moany.  That's the whole point of this thread ;)

"Gift-aid" as a verb is different.  Capital gee.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 29 October, 2011, 06:40:28 am
There is no noun that cannot be verbed.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 29 October, 2011, 10:17:26 am
Many of my favourite verbs are noun-based. Bolloxed. Fucked. Glassed. Pursed. Trollied. Knifed. Gunned.

They're all mightily evocotive.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biggsy on 29 October, 2011, 10:20:11 am
Many of my favourite verbs are noun-based. Bolloxed. Fucked. Glassed. Pursed. Trollied. Knifed. Gunned.

I don't mind those.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 29 October, 2011, 10:23:29 am
There is no noun that cannot be verbed.

"Noun" must come pretty close.  Have you ever heard it "verbed" (what a horrible word that is, too)?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 29 October, 2011, 10:27:40 am
This isn't strictly "grammar" but I get tired of

"In the wrong place at the wrong time"

We all know what is meant and therefore it serves its purpose for communication of an idea but it seems to me that it was either the wrong time to be in that place or the wrong place to be at that time.  If you are in the wrong place at the wrong time, whatever it was didn't happen.
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 29 October, 2011, 11:43:16 am
Well, suppose for example you found yourself in the ladies' changing room when it was empty, or on a different occasion when it was full of naked women. One of those could be considered the wrong place at the right time, the other the wrong place at the wrong time. Which is which, I leave up to you to decide…

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 October, 2011, 11:51:42 am
There is no noun that cannot be verbed.

"Noun" must come pretty close.  Have you ever heard it "verbed" (what a horrible word that is, too)?
Nouning verbs is something we all do everyday, surely? A verb that has been nouned is known as a gerund.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 29 October, 2011, 12:59:30 pm
What about leaving out "against" as in eg "they are protesting the government spending cuts", it just sounds wrong to my ears.

Would anyone say "they are demonstrating the government spending cuts"?

Another example: "At Greenham Common women's peace camp, for example, where there was a continuous presence over 19 years to protest nearby nuclear weapons facilities, there was a more relaxed attitude to part-time protest.", it also left out "the" in front of "Greenham".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biggsy on 29 October, 2011, 01:00:19 pm
@LDN:
Quote
Blackburn to give away bike lights to London commuters on Monday LDN.in/MFaHUe (via @cyclingweekly)

:thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 29 October, 2011, 01:17:00 pm
Well, suppose for example you found yourself in the ladies' changing room when it was empty, or on a different occasion when it was full of naked women. One of those could be considered the wrong place at the right time, the other the wrong place at the wrong time. Which is which, I leave up to you to decide…

d.

Ha!  You've managed to come up with an interesting, possibly correct (depending on your proclivities) context) but it was hard work, wasn't it?!  Mostly, the phrase isn't used like that, I think.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 29 October, 2011, 01:31:31 pm
It's not nothing to do with correctness. 
No, it probably isn't.

;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 29 October, 2011, 01:33:30 pm
Or:

"Blackburn to give away free bike lights to London commuters on Monday"

which would make it absolutely clear.

I think "gift" is not quite right coz a gift is like a present, it's something you give to people you know. And Blackburn are not giving out presents, they are doing it to promote themselves.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 29 October, 2011, 01:58:35 pm
There is a new thread up today with the title:
"Apple gift catalogue"

What does that mean?  ???
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 29 October, 2011, 03:27:52 pm
What about leaving out "against" as in eg "they are protesting the government spending cuts", it just sounds wrong to my ears.
+1. Absolutely horrible.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 29 October, 2011, 09:30:01 pm
Verbing weirds nouns.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 October, 2011, 09:32:45 pm
And look what it does to adjectives!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Manotea on 29 October, 2011, 09:41:19 pm
Well, suppose for example you found yourself in the ladies' changing room when it was empty, or on a different occasion when it was full of naked women. One of those could be considered the wrong place at the right time, the other the wrong place at the wrong time.

Is this an example of Male Privilege?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: iakobski on 30 October, 2011, 09:01:16 am
What about leaving out "against" as in eg "they are protesting the government spending cuts", it just sounds wrong to my ears.
+1. Absolutely horrible.

This is the USAnian usage, and it's a bit of a surprise to see it in the Guardian.

Totally confusing - in British English protest means forcefully affirming and US English it means the opposite. So in Britain you can protest your innocence, or protest (that) capitalism is shite, so you would protest against something. In the US you would protest capitalism - so much for common language.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 October, 2011, 11:42:12 am
What about leaving out "against" as in eg "they are protesting the government spending cuts", it just sounds wrong to my ears.
+1. Absolutely horrible.

This is the USAnian usage, and it's a bit of a surprise to see it in the Guardian.

Totally confusing - in British English protest means forcefully affirming and US English it means the opposite. So in Britain you can protest your innocence, or protest (that) capitalism is shite, so you would protest against something. In the US you would protest capitalism - so much for common language.
I don't entirely agree. In British English nowadays, I would say protest meaning forcefully affirm survives only in stock phrases such as protest your innocence or good intentions. Apart from that, we have protest against and where we might once have used protest, we would either use a different verb such as claim, or we would use "protest that you are innocent". We are exposed to so much USAnian English in movies and TV that the traditional use of protest in other contexts has become ambiguous. I agree it's a surprise, and rather jarring, to see the US usage in a UK paper though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 31 October, 2011, 12:21:33 pm
Ha!  You've managed to come up with an interesting, possibly correct (depending on your proclivities) context) but it was hard work, wasn't it?!  Mostly, the phrase isn't used like that, I think.

Well, it didn't take me long to come up with that example, but I would struggle to come up with another as good. It is a good one, though, isn't it?  ;D

And I do take your point that it's not what people usually mean when they use the phrase.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: why1040 on 31 October, 2011, 01:39:07 pm
Technically not grammar as such, but as this does seem to have gone OT in this direction before...

It seems to be becoming more and more common to say "it is persisting" when it's raining.  I believe they mean "precipitating", as they have made no mention of rain prior to this.  I have yet to correct anyone, but it's driving me just slightly insane  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 31 October, 2011, 01:59:04 pm
Technically not grammar as such, but as this does seem to have gone OT in this direction before...

It seems to be becoming more and more common to say "it is persisting" when it's raining.  I believe they mean "precipitating", as they have made no mention of rain prior to this.  I have yet to correct anyone, but it's driving me just slightly insane  ;)
I use "persisting" as a (an?) euphemism for the participle in "It's P*ssing it down".  And it's still doing it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 31 October, 2011, 02:45:42 pm
I also thought 'persisting' was used by those too coy to say 'pissing'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 31 October, 2011, 02:59:04 pm
I also thought 'persisting' was used by those too coy to say 'pissing'.

Exactly, or at least, originally. I bet there are people using it now who don't realise that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: why1040 on 31 October, 2011, 03:37:24 pm
Ahhhh...

That makes sense and I shall stop getting quite so irate about it...lol!   ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 31 October, 2011, 07:27:32 pm
If I have a Rare Coy Moment, I say it's 'hissing with rain'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biggsy on 01 November, 2011, 09:41:42 am
"An euphemism"?  Is one having a giraffe?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 01 November, 2011, 10:24:29 am
"An euphemism"?  Is one having a giraffe?
Well, there was I thinking that words what begun wiv a vowel took "an" as their indefinite article, so I hedged my bets with both 'a' and 'an', with the second in brackets and a question mark! ;)

I suppose it depends on whether "euph" is pronounced "oof" or "yoof". 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biggsy on 01 November, 2011, 10:27:50 am
Ah, yes, an hotel.  I don't like.  :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 November, 2011, 10:29:50 am
In this way new words are created - a new-for-me-ism!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biggsy on 01 November, 2011, 10:38:21 am
It does amuse me when posh peeps drop their aitches and claim when they do it it is right and when cockneys do it it is wrong.

Historical and hysterical nonsense.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 01 November, 2011, 10:50:53 am
It does amuse me when posh peeps drop their aitches and claim when they do it it is right and when cockneys do it it is wrong.

Historical and hysterical nonsense.

As in hour or honour?

The pronounced H in hotel and similar words derived from French is quite new in that there are probably still speakers alive who, correctly, wouldn't pronounce it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 01 November, 2011, 11:04:57 am
In this way new words are created - a new-for-me-ism!

Funny you should say that - oranges were originally noranges, doncha know (from the Spanish "naranja").

I wonder if "new phemism" counts as an eggcorn (http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/category/english/not-an-eggcorn/)? Hmm, maybe not.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 01 November, 2011, 11:10:47 am
The pronounced H in hotel and similar words derived from French is quite new in that there are probably still speakers alive who, correctly, wouldn't pronounce it.

It's only correct if you're speaking French. We'd be in a right old pickle if we decided we had to pronounce all the English words that are derived from a foreign language (all of them?) in the manner of that language. Hotel, when spoken in English is not French, it is English, and to not pronounce the aitch is just poncy.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Rhys W on 01 November, 2011, 11:13:46 am
I can never keep a straight face when I hear an American pronounce "herbs" like the French herbes.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 01 November, 2011, 11:16:20 am
I can't either.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 November, 2011, 11:26:23 am
In this way new words are created - a new-for-me-ism!

Funny you should say that - oranges were originally noranges, doncha know (from the Spanish "naranja").

I wonder if "new phemism" counts as an eggcorn (http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/category/english/not-an-eggcorn/)? Hmm, maybe not.

d.
And adders were nadders, nicknames were eeknames, and doubtless many others.

Though I thought oranges were named after the town in the south of France. Maybe not.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 01 November, 2011, 11:27:13 am
The pronounced H in hotel and similar words derived from French is quite new in that there are probably still speakers alive who, correctly, wouldn't pronounce it.

It's only correct if you're speaking French. We'd be in a right old pickle if we decided we had to pronounce all the English words that are derived from a foreign language (all of them?) in the manner of that language. Hotel, when spoken in English is not French, it is English, and to not pronounce the aitch is just poncy.

No, the old-fashioned English way of pronouncing them was sans H, and that goes back way beyond modern French.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 01 November, 2011, 12:37:05 pm
Yes, but the pronunciation of initial H in words which came into English via French has never been consistent. Initial H of any Latin word would originally have been pronounced. French dropped it, but if it came into English when Latin was still commonly known among the literate, Latin might have been used as a model even if the word came via French, & the H pronounced.

There are some words which came into English from French which are derived from old Germanic words, where the French silent H was pronounced in the original, & has always been pronounced in related English words.

We could either drop the H from all words we got via French where the H was silent when we got it, or pronounce it in all cases where it was originally, i.e. every one. I prefer the latter. It requires much less modification of the language, as there are far more words where we reintroduced the H long before anyone now alive can remember than there are where it was silent within living memory.

BTW, hostage is a word where English added an H which was not in the original. If we're going to insist on original pronunciation we should drop it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 01 November, 2011, 01:13:58 pm
This sounds ghastly to me:

Quote
This list will require to be amended...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 01 November, 2011, 01:19:54 pm
In hotels in Essex, we drop the h, the t and the l. It's just vowel sounds with pursed lips at the end of the word - possibly with a hint of w.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 01 November, 2011, 02:42:59 pm
Yes, but the pronunciation of initial H in words which came into English via French has never been consistent...
We could either drop the H from all words we got via French where the H was silent when we got it, or pronounce it in all cases where it was originally...

That's a bit like arguing for a consistent pronunciation of --ough.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tom B on 01 November, 2011, 02:48:44 pm
Quote
can never keep a straight face when I hear an American pronounce "herbs" like the French herbes.

Me too! For some reason it's sounds far more quaint and affected than just about any other american usage. I wonder why this is?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 01 November, 2011, 03:12:21 pm
We could either drop the H from all words we got via French where the H was silent when we got it, or pronounce it in all cases where it was originally, i.e. every one.
That line of argument is the error. English does not appear to submit to such logic. In trying to change it to make one thing consistent, you usually create another inconsistency somewhere else.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 01 November, 2011, 03:21:44 pm
I like the way the French (usually) sound the 'silent' letters whenever it results in a better flow. that seems like a better rule than the mess we have.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 November, 2011, 05:01:21 pm
But effectively we do have a version of the same rule/practice by alternating 'a' with 'an' according to the following word beginning with a consonant or vowel.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 01 November, 2011, 07:43:33 pm
Quote
can never keep a straight face when I hear an American pronounce "herbs" like the French herbes.

Me too! For some reason it's sounds far more quaint and affected than just about any other american usage. I wonder why this is?

Perhaps it's combination of "erb" being a funny sounding word, juxtaposition of high class associations of french cuisine and herbs with the low class H dropping, and "de erb" when said in an West Indian accent.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Deano on 01 November, 2011, 07:58:06 pm
I can never keep a straight face when I hear an American pronounce "herbs" like the French herbes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IzDbNFDdP4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

:D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tom B on 10 November, 2011, 02:46:14 pm
have just explained to colleagues the difference between 'barter' and 'haggle'
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 14 November, 2011, 02:21:24 pm
Suction as a verb  ???
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: De Sisti on 14 November, 2011, 02:31:34 pm
I hate it when the BBC weather reporters give an estimate of the temperature for the forthcoming
weather.

"...and the temperature will be nineteen to twenty two degrees".

Why can't they say...

"...and the temperature will be between nineteen and twenty two degrees".

Very petty, I know, but it just makes me cringe.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 14 November, 2011, 04:47:52 pm
Worst than that, I've heard weatherpersons referring to "hot" and "cold" temperatures.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 November, 2011, 12:36:04 pm
Quote
Meanwhile a group of MPs called for a public consultation on how to reduce the harms from smoking in cars.

This doesn't make me cringe, but it does make me wonder how it came about. Is it a simple typo, a careless editing from "harmful effects" or is it a deliberate use of harm as a countable noun?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 November, 2011, 12:40:48 pm
A few paragraphs further on, we read:

Quote
The group concluded that the government should conduct a systematic review of the evidence of the harms of cmoking in cars and the effects on adults as well as children.

So I presume we are talking about the harm of smocking in cars. It would be nasty to get a needle in the eye.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 16 November, 2011, 04:13:09 pm
I saw this in a BBC news website article t'other day:

Quote
Mr Shkaplerov and fellow Russian Anatoly Ivanishin, 42, are making their first maiden space voyages

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15715260
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 November, 2011, 11:00:12 pm
A maiden at 42, wasn't there a film with a title like that?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: why1040 on 17 November, 2011, 11:16:27 am
While perusing car insurance comparison sites, I came across this gem:

You won't find this price cheaper anywhere else.

 ??? :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Rhys W on 21 November, 2011, 12:37:19 pm
"Top draw"

Unless used in praising the high quality of say, an artist's sketchbook.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 24 November, 2011, 08:23:53 pm
So, do you start a sentence with "So"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: eck on 24 November, 2011, 08:37:16 pm
And what's wrong with that?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 24 November, 2011, 09:36:28 pm
And what's wrong with that?

Aargh!!!!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: iakobski on 25 November, 2011, 06:14:30 pm
So, do you start a sentence with "So"?
So you heard that too? (Note correct use of "so".  ;D)

Did you notice the person they got on to complain about irritating idioms scattered the phrase "I mean" meaninglessly throughout his interview?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: eck on 25 November, 2011, 06:25:33 pm
And what's wrong with that?

Aargh!!!!
So you don't like it?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 25 November, 2011, 08:59:09 pm
(http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6219/6401432625_f5c4f5093c.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_pingus/6401432625/)
IMG_5218 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_pingus/6401432625/) by The Pingus (http://www.flickr.com/people/the_pingus/), on Flickr
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 26 November, 2011, 12:17:02 pm
Quote
Meanwhile a group of MPs called for a public consultation on how to reduce the harms from smoking in cars.

This doesn't make me cringe, but it does make me wonder how it came about. Is it a simple typo, a careless editing from "harmful effects" or is it a deliberate use of harm as a countable noun?

Harm as a countable noun goes back to Old English. From the Genesis of the 8th century:

Quote
Ealle synt uncre hearmas gewrecene [all our harms are avenged]

Harm has been used in this sense by many good authors over the centuries. For example, Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra:

Quote
Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know,
My idleness doth hatch.

So I don't see how you can in good conscience object to this sense of the word.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 26 November, 2011, 12:28:31 pm
So, do you start a sentence with "So"?

Initial so was good enough for Shakespeare:

Quote from: All's Well that Ends Well
Lafeu. So, my good window of lattice, fare thee well; thy casement I need not open, for I look through thee.

Quote from: Antony and Cleopatra
Thyreus. So, haply, are they friends to Antony.

Quote from: Coriolanus
First Senator. So, your opinion is, Aufidius, / That they of Rome are ent'red in our counsels / And know how we proceed.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: FatBloke on 26 November, 2011, 06:27:50 pm
Working with the unemployed, as I do (and soon to become one of them) I am not very optimistic when I see that they've written "looked in paper: nufink!"   :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 November, 2011, 11:05:23 pm
So I don't see how you can in good conscience object to this sense of the word.
I don't object, in fact I'm quite keen on counting uncountable nouns! But I'm still not convinced that's actually what was happening in my example.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 27 November, 2011, 12:06:28 pm
Working with the unemployed, as I do (and soon to become one of them) I am not very optimistic when I see that they've written "looked in paper: nufink!"   :facepalm:

Correct use of a colon is encouraging.  Lack of capitalisation less so ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 27 November, 2011, 07:09:22 pm
Ah, but was Fattersbequotingfromthestartofthesentence?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 27 November, 2011, 07:26:18 pm
The American use of  "fit" for the past and past perfect form of "fit" instead of "fitted" drives me bonkers. When reading American books it always trips me up and breaks my concentration as in my head it just doesn't scan properly.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 29 November, 2011, 02:11:04 pm
When I comes across paragraphs that start with but or and it seems wrong to me. Has the language progressed while I haven't or it grammatically incorrect?

These constructions have long been used by the best writers in English. Some examples:

Quote from: Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
And with these words he hastily left the room, and Elizabeth heard him the next moment open the front door and quit the house.
...
But when the gentlemen entered, Jane was no longer the first object.

Quote from: George Eliot, Middlemarch
And how should Dorothea not marry?
...
But now Celia was really startled at the suspicion which had darted into her mind.

Quote from: Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
And yet my thoughts were idle; not intent on the calamity that weighed upon my heart, but idly loitering near it.
...
But my mother made no answer, except to thank her, and Peggotty went running on in her own fashion.

(I should add that I didn't have to cast around for examples: these were the first three books I looked at.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 29 November, 2011, 02:15:15 pm
Funny you should say that - oranges were originally noranges, doncha know (from the Spanish "naranja").
And adders were nadders, nicknames were eeknames, and doubtless many others.

Though I thought oranges were named after the town in the south of France. Maybe not.

Etymology of orange -

Quote
c.1300, from O.Fr. orenge (12c.), from M.L. pomum de orenge, from It. arancia, originally narancia (Venetian naranza), alteration of Arabic naranj, from Pers. narang, from Skt. naranga-s "orange tree," of uncertain origin. Loss of initial n- probably due to confusion with definite article (e.g. une narange, una narancia),

Spanish naranja, Portuguese laranja, Armenian narnji, Azeri narıncı, Hindi nāraṅgī (& similar in some other Indian languages). 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jogler on 29 November, 2011, 02:17:43 pm
the phrase "should or would of" when "should or would have" is the correct grammar
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 29 November, 2011, 02:30:24 pm
When I comes across paragraphs that start with but or and it seems wrong to me. Has the language progressed while I haven't or it grammatically incorrect?

I forgot the biggest example of them all...

Quote from: Bible (Authorized Version)
Genesis 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
...
2:6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

In total, 9,511 verses in the AV start with And, and 1,150 start with But!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 29 November, 2011, 03:15:22 pm
You are a mine of information, Gareth.

You're welcome! One of the many great things about the Internet is that it's easy to answer these kinds of questions. There are so many resources: the online Oxford English Dictionary (http://oed.com/) for meaning, etymology and usage; Google ngram viewer (http://books.google.com/ngrams) for frequency of usage through time; Google advanced book search (http://books.google.com/advanced_book_search) for finding phrases; Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/) for public domain literature; the British National Corpus (http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/) for spoken language; and many others. For your question, Project Gutenberg made the most sense, since the other resources make it hard or impossible to search for words at the start of a paragraph.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 29 November, 2011, 06:52:43 pm
...

Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/) for public domain literature; the British National Corpus (http://www.natcorp.ox.ac.uk/) for spoken language; and many others. For your question, Project Gutenberg made the most sense, since the other resources make it hard or impossible to search for words at the start of a paragraph.
OK, your chance to make me look stupid(er); how do you search for text on Proj Guten?!?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 29 November, 2011, 07:27:44 pm
OK, your chance to make me look stupid(er); how do you search for text on Proj Guten?!?

I download copies of the books that I want to search and use Emacs to do the searching.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 30 November, 2011, 04:03:47 pm
Oh I see! You were being far less lazy than me  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 12 December, 2011, 12:07:12 pm
We are not alone (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/8949091/Transport-departments-new-war-on-Whitehall-poor-grammar.html) according to the Telegraph.

Quote
Officials at the Department for Transport have produced a 1,500-word report which details ministers' pet grammatical hates in remarkable detail.

The guidance sent to civil servants and MPs lists the particular linguistic errors which infuriate Justine Greening, the Transport Secretary, and her fellow transport ministers.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 13 December, 2011, 10:37:57 am
FFS. First, one of my colleagues actually wrote this crap. Second, another of my colleagues supposedly subbed it before it reached me...

Quote
From the brains behind Shameless, say hello to Mia (Chloë Sevigny) a contract killer who’s already weird life is about to get a whole lot weirder.

Looks like I'm going to have to get my red pen out. And stab someone in the eye with it.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 13 December, 2011, 12:08:11 pm
Never mind the who's/whose spelling error: the subject is missing! What exactly is it that is "from the brains behind Shameless"? A phrase like "the new television series Hit And Miss" is required somewhere.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 13 December, 2011, 12:10:51 pm
Hmm, either would work...

Not quite. The who's/whose cock-up is actually quite trivial and can be rectified easily. Not so bothered by that. What you've got to ask yourself is: who or what is the subject of the opening clause?

[edit: cross-posted with Gareth]

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 13 December, 2011, 12:19:53 pm
You could run as, "From the brains behind Shameless: [etc.]".
It's more of a poster blurb than a proper sentence..
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrew on 13 December, 2011, 12:58:43 pm
Quote from: citoyen link=topic=2205.msg1115471#msg1115471
What you've got to ask yourself is: who or what is the subject of the opening clause?

Perhaps oddly, I don't find myself concerned by that at all.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 December, 2011, 01:06:44 pm
It's one of those things which is wrong when you think about it, but is understood automatically. I've never heard of Shameless or Chloë Sevigny, but it's obvious that the sentence refers to a new film or TV series in which she stars. The question is whether your readers will care about the grammar.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 13 December, 2011, 01:10:41 pm
Perhaps oddly, I don't find myself concerned by that at all.

I suspect most readers wouldn't be bothered by it, but it makes me cringe, hence posting about it here.

It's one of those things which is wrong when you think about it, but is understood automatically ... it's obvious that the sentence refers to a new film or TV series in which she stars.

Which is it - a film or a TV series? What's it called? The key information is missing. It's shoddy journalism.

FML. Misplace an apostrophe and you'll get an army of boring pedants on your back who think that because they've read Lynne Truss, they're grammar experts. Write some nonsense that doesn't actually mean anything in English and most people won't even notice.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 December, 2011, 01:15:30 pm
I assumed the title of the film or whatever would be in the previous sentence, or in a big headline splashed across the top of the page. In other words, that the context was already set. If there is no context, then sure, it might as well be written in Albanian.

What does FML stand for?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 13 December, 2011, 01:32:08 pm
That's the problem - you can only understand the sentence if you make an assumption about the missing subject. Good writing never leaves the reader having to guess like that. Writers who can't manage complex sentence structure shouldn't attempt "style", they should just keep it simple.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fml

Sorry, I'm in a bit of a grumpy mood because many things are being sent to try me today.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrew on 13 December, 2011, 01:33:00 pm
Write some nonsense that doesn't actually mean anything in English and most people won't even notice.

Is it nonsense though? The reference might be unresolved and whilst I appreciate that it may be poor journalism, I don't consider it unintelligible. A reference is inferred. For my part (and perhaps like Cudzoziemiec), that reference could have been explicitly resolved and I'd still be non the wiser! So, for me at least, "the brains behind Shameless" is sufficient.

That said, I can understand it might be annoying for an editor etc. 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 13 December, 2011, 01:39:09 pm
Is it nonsense though?

Grammatically, yes.

Quote
I don't consider it unintelligible.

That's because you've made an assumption about what the writer means. Which is fine. But it shouldn't be your job as a reader to have to make such an assumption.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 13 December, 2011, 01:44:20 pm


That's because you've made an assumption about what the writer means. Which is fine. But it shouldn't be your job as a reader to have to make such an assumption.

d.

Unless you're reading poetry.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 13 December, 2011, 01:47:07 pm
This error is known as a dangling modifier. There's a phrase which looks as if it is supposed to modify the subject of the sentence, but actually modifies some other noun, which may not even appear in the sentence. It's almost always possible to work out what was intended from the context, so it's easy for writers (or good readers) to fail to spot that there's a problem.

Here's an example from the Economist (spotted and discussed by Geoff Pullum (http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1799)):

Quote
After being held for three weeks, it turned out that the American extradition request was based on a fraudster who had stolen Mr Bond's identity.

Who or what was "held for three weeks"? (It was Mr Bond, not the extradition request.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 13 December, 2011, 01:50:21 pm
Unless you're reading poetry.

I'm not rising to your bait.  ;)

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 13 December, 2011, 01:55:02 pm
Damn!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 13 December, 2011, 01:56:56 pm
All I'll say is that when it comes to poetry, I generally don't bother guessing what the writer means. My brain is far too prosaic.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 13 December, 2011, 02:00:54 pm
All I'll say is that when it comes to poetry, I generally don't bother guessing what the writer means. My brain is far too prosaic.

d.

The bait's been nibbled...
;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrew on 13 December, 2011, 02:03:19 pm

Here's an example from the Economist (spotted and discussed by Geoff Pullum (http://spotted and discussed by Geoff Pullum)):

Quote
After being held for three weeks, it turned out that the American extradition request was based on a fraudster who had stolen Mr Bond's identity.

Now that, imho, is poor writing!

I suspect that, as a rule, you look for the closest noun phrase to resolve the reference (at least subconsciously) so this would lead you to incorrectly believe that it was the extradition request that was delayed.

In fact, am I right in thinking that the reference is not resolved (grammatically) at all?  That is, none of the explicit options are Mr Bond himself. The possibilities are (in order); the request, a fraudster (a weak possibility), and Mr Bond's identity.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 13 December, 2011, 02:15:13 pm
In fact, am I right in thinking that the reference is not resolved (grammatically) at all?  That is, none of the explicit options are Mr Bond himself. The possibilities are (in order); the request, a fraudster (a weak possibility), and Mr Bond's identity.

Yes, that's right: the reference is not resolved by any of the noun phrases in the sentence. See the "Language Log" blog for a detailed analysis by Geoff Pullum. (http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1799)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrew on 13 December, 2011, 02:35:56 pm
See the "Language Log" blog for a detailed analysis by Geoff Pullum. (http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1799)

Thanks, I liked that. A non-pedant appraisal.

Quote
The more you exercise your common sense rather than your syntactic sense when figuring out what a subjectless non-finite clause adjunct must mean, the less you will notice them

The thing that, for me, makes the sentence under discussion poor is not the use of the 'dangler' per se but that you are led to the wrong conclusion.

Btw, I missed "it" as a possibility but I'll cut myself some slack there and say I did the natural thing and processed it out of the list of possibles - despite it being the closest!

Btw2, I'm still looking for 'the teaser'  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 13 December, 2011, 02:56:59 pm
The thing that, for me, makes the sentence under discussion poor is not the use of the 'dangler' per se but that you are led to the wrong conclusion.

??? But this is precisely the reason dangling modifiers are best avoided - it's not just a case of pedantically following the rules for the rules' sake, it's about preventing such misunderstandings.

I like Geoffrey Pullum and I always enjoy reading his stuff on language log, but I disagree with that dangling modifiers are common in "otherwise excellent" writing and I'm not at all convinced that their ubiquity means they aren't grammatical errors. They usually occur when careless or overambitious writers try to vary their sentence structure to make their writing more interesting. KISS.

Maybe it's just a curse of my job that I'm trained to notice them. I spotted the teaser instantly (it's in the paragraph that begins "You can get there").

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 13 December, 2011, 03:06:24 pm
Quote
My favorite dangler, from among an anonymous peer reviewer's comments on a manuscript: "Although generally very clear and well written, the first sentence of the introduction is grandiose and out of place."

 ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrew on 13 December, 2011, 03:15:51 pm
Sorry, me again!  ;)

This, from the comments...

Quote
John was shot five times during a fight. After nearly bleeding to death on the street, the suspect was charged with first-degree assault.

...made me smile.

Despite the very strong 'garden path', I can't help but be alive to the possibility of the misinterpretation. Though obviously it is exactly that ambiguity that amuses me!

Though, in all seriousness, I do wonder exactly what it is that tempts me to see the possible misinterpretation. I feel it's more than a sentence boundary.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrew on 13 December, 2011, 03:20:48 pm
The thing that, for me, makes the sentence under discussion poor is not the use of the 'dangler' per se but that you are led to the wrong conclusion.

??? But this is precisely the reason dangling modifiers are best avoided - it's not just a case of pedantically following the rules for the rules' sake, it's about preventing such misunderstandings.

I agree with you.

If you are confused because I seem to be contradicting myself, I would say that the example you gave doesn't lead the reader into misinterpretation. Your example is merely unresolved. To my reading at any rate.

Edit: Ah, sorry, I think I see what you mean now; avoid danglers completely and so avoid the risk of misinterpretation. You have a point. By my own admission, one can't know exactly how any individual reader will process the sentence. I might naturally and happily leave the subject unresolved, that doesn't mean everyone else will and they might come up with an incorrect resolution.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 13 December, 2011, 05:19:51 pm
Quote
From the brains behind Shameless, say hello to Mia (Chloë Sevigny) a contract killer who’s already weird life is about to get a whole lot weirder.
My first thought was that Mia is from the brains behind Shameless. (She is the first noun that we get to, and it's a factually feasible interpretation).

If I'd read it in context I might have guessed it was a TV series or a film, or whatever, which in hindsight is much more likely; but I agree it's NOT what is implied by the text.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 15 December, 2011, 04:44:36 pm
Here's another one - under the heading "Team Of The Year":

"As La Liga and Champions League winners, I have to go for Pep Guardiola's men."

The subject/object confusion leaps out at me but it doesn't offend me nearly as much as yesterday's example. In fact, I'm going to let it go. Even though I will probably wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night worrying about it.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 15 December, 2011, 06:36:49 pm
In fact, I'm going to let it go.
That's the spirit!

You can sleep soundly, knowing exactly who is the better man.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 17 December, 2011, 01:33:29 pm
Sir, Sir, Please sir!!....

Many years ago, when learning to drive, my father was "instructing" me while we made our way to Cornwall down a deserted A30 at 3 am. He was fast asleep.

Dangling clause alert.  All it needed was to replace "when learning to drive" with "when I was learning to drive". We all knew what it meant, but to the pedant reader, the father is both learning, instructing and sleeping.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 December, 2011, 01:34:46 am
Quote
Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne are aware how toxic the issue of providing funds to help the eurozone is when Britain is not a member of the euro could be.
Makes me shudder rather than cringe.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 19 December, 2011, 10:40:52 am
Quote
Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne are aware how toxic the issue of providing funds to help the eurozone is when Britain is not a member of the euro could be.
Makes me shudder rather than cringe.

It's rather like that game where you randomly re-order the words in a sentence and see if anyone can still make sense of it.
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tewdric on 19 December, 2011, 11:20:55 am
It's rather like that game where you randomly re-order the words in a sentence and see if anyone can still make sense of it.

Ah, you mean speaking German!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 19 December, 2011, 12:09:16 pm
You may scoff but German is actually much stricter when it comes to word order than English. Nothing random about it.

Only trouble is you sometimes have to start at the end of the sentence and work backwards to decipher its meaning.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 19 December, 2011, 01:33:28 pm
Quote
Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne are aware how toxic the issue of providing funds to help the eurozone is when Britain is not a member of the euro could be.

This looks like a straightforward editing error to me: I make this kind of error quite often, so I recognize the process involved. I reckon the writer started with a straightforward sentence like this:

Quote
Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne are aware how toxic the issue of providing funds to help the eurozone is.

and then decided that a bit more explanation was needed:

Quote
Mr Cameron and Mr Osborne are aware how toxic the issue of providing funds to help the eurozone is when Britain is not a member of the euro.

A comma after "is" would have helped here, but the sentence is still grammatical at this point. I expect the writer then decided that this claim was a bit stark and needed softening from "is" to "could be", but forgot to remove the "is".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 December, 2011, 08:48:19 pm
Yes, that's what I reckoned too. That's why it made me shudder! Easy to make such a mistake, I'm sure, but it should have been caught.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 21 December, 2011, 06:58:05 pm
Another ambiguous phrasing example (it's actually a really sweet story):
Quote
Mr Vann, from Evesham, Worcestershire, began the project after his wife Mary died in September last year so he could drive in a cancer charity run.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2075047/Great-granddad-transforms-mobility-scooter-Lady-Penelopes-Roller-Thunderbirds.html#ixzz1hCGFNYHe
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 24 December, 2011, 09:46:59 am
bus's and coach's
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 24 December, 2011, 11:27:25 am
In a perverse kind of way, those apostrophes are correct as a letter has been missed out.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 27 December, 2011, 02:00:05 pm
"and all the trimmings"....aaaghhhh!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 28 December, 2011, 02:00:41 pm
I'm sat in the middle of an outbreak of Wiki disease!

It's not difficult:  A wiki is a user-editable website.  Wikipedia is a website that uses a wiki to build a community-sourced encyclopaedia.

You wouldn't say "According to book...." would you?  :facepalm:

This is particularly irritating in contexts where a topic-specific wiki exists.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 28 December, 2011, 02:07:28 pm
Oh my life, it's been verbified! (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/wiki) :o
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 28 December, 2011, 02:13:19 pm
David received a letter inviting him for a health check, from our GP's surgery today.

'The checks should take 20-30 minutes. It will include questions on age, sex and family history.'

'There will also be checks on weight a blood test on chlesterol (sic) glucose etc'

'Following the check, you will receive free personal advise (sic) from GP/Nurse about what you can do to stay healthy.'

'If there are any warning signs, then together we can do something about it.'
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 28 December, 2011, 02:14:08 pm
Probably a cut & paste template from the PCT/BSU ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 28 December, 2011, 02:20:01 pm
I'm sat in the middle of an outbreak of Wiki disease!

It's not difficult:  A wiki is a user-editable website.  Wikipedia is a website that uses a wiki to build a community-sourced encyclopaedia.

You wouldn't say "According to book...." would you?  :facepalm:
You would if you'd only ever read one book, and didn't know any others existed.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 28 December, 2011, 02:22:39 pm
You would if you'd only ever read one book, and didn't know any others existed.

Tragic point, well made.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 28 December, 2011, 02:45:16 pm
;D On the nail, matt!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 28 December, 2011, 05:44:26 pm
Wikipedia? Hmm.

https://twitter.com/#!/juliasegal/status/142098268787183616/photo/1
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mike on 29 December, 2011, 09:42:10 am
someone please tell them they've missed the apostrophe out of "Contact u's" in their menu bar? 

(they've got them everywhere else..)

http://bdihomefinders.co.uk/ 

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 29 December, 2011, 09:53:33 am
Crikey, that photograph is dreadful.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 01 January, 2012, 08:25:43 am
An advert that appeared whilst I was looking at Facebook:

(http://i738.photobucket.com/albums/xx30/Auntie_Helen/213ea2f0.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: JonBuoy on 01 January, 2012, 09:15:04 am
From 'Santander UK plc':

Quote
There was a notice of too many unsuccessful attempts to access your account from different
computer server. We at Santander was left with no option than to block access pending
confirmation of your identity
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 01 January, 2012, 09:29:00 am
Cut them a bit of slack - they are Spanish after all  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: delthebike on 01 January, 2012, 09:34:35 am
From 'Santander UK plc':

Quote
There was a notice of too many unsuccessful attempts to access your account from different
computer server. We at Santander was left with no option than to block access pending
confirmation of your identity
Looks like a phising expedition to me!

If scammers used more better grammar would more people fall for it?  :P
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: why1040 on 01 January, 2012, 12:47:52 pm
My local Budgens sells firewood.

On a sign they announce that "if you buy in bulk, they will delivery it"

 :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 02 January, 2012, 09:49:52 am
On Sherlock last night, he used "I" where the strict Roolz of grammar required him to use "me".

(Sorry, I can't remember the context, but it really made me jump, as he's normally so precise.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 02 January, 2012, 10:01:54 am
On Sherlock last night, he used "I" where the strict Roolz of grammar required him to use "me".

(Sorry, I can't remember the context, but it really made me jump, as he's normally so precise.)

That's because Benedict went to Harrow.  It's Eton for "me, me, me!".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: professor palindrome on 03 January, 2012, 08:46:20 am
I enjoy things like "Wolf snatches photo award"  and "Student suspended over girl in room".

Relax.  The second one wasn't recent.  The first quotation has been slightly edited but not so much as to deprive the inquisitive from seeking the full sensory experience.  They can also work out, if interested, whether Bence Mate or Mate Bence is the correct word order.  Clue: context.

People who complain about "wiki" used as an abbreviation and say things like "From where I'm sat" are also good value.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 03 January, 2012, 12:24:55 pm
On Sherlock last night, he used "I" where the strict Roolz of grammar required him to use "me".

I noticed that too. I tried not to let it spoil my enjoyment of the show but it was spoilt anyway by various other faults.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 January, 2012, 07:30:20 pm
I enjoy things like "Wolf snatches photo award"  and "Student suspended over girl in room".
"Crash blossoms"?

I find most of them don't work for me - the intended meaning is so obvious that I have to really try to see another one, and then it's not funny. Though I do like your second one, if only for the image it conjures up.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 06 January, 2012, 09:47:14 am
When I shopped in Waitrose yesterday, I noticed that Shreddies were half-price. Normally I buy the Waitrose equivalent because they are cheaper.

Mrs. Wow pointed out this little gem from the packet:

Quote
Whole grain goodness weaved together...

Have I been cleverly hijacked by a slick advertising campaign whose sole purpose was to bring Nestlé products to the attention of the grammar pedants of YACF?

Or is that just shockingly bad?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 06 January, 2012, 10:55:31 am
Gold star to the Registrar who wrote to N about her planned treatment. It looks like the letter was typed by an admin person, then hand-amended by the doctor before signing+sending:

... she has  got  a lumpy tender scar ...
(and similar repeats).

Great stuff. Begone, superfluous gots!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 06 January, 2012, 10:58:10 am
Misbegotten gots.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 06 January, 2012, 11:09:45 am
Begone, superfluous gots!

+1

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 January, 2012, 12:07:05 pm
Got to get rid of the gots!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 13 January, 2012, 03:13:43 pm
Waterstone's are becoming Waterstones. I'm surprised no one has mentioned this one yet. Does this mean that a till belonging  to Waterstones is now Waterstones' till ?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 January, 2012, 04:27:19 pm
Tesco's is a funny one. Whereas there was a Mr Sainsbury, and a partnership of Messrs Marks and Spencer, there never was a Mr Tesco whose shops we visit.

Oh, how I loved writing Messrs. Though I could have written misters as Mrs to mess with the messers! Or the blades...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 13 January, 2012, 05:44:41 pm
There were, of course, Messrs. Waite, Rose & Taylor.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: why1040 on 13 January, 2012, 06:42:58 pm
I just received an email asking me whether "I'm a women who..."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 13 January, 2012, 10:50:34 pm
I just received an email asking me whether "I'm a women who..."

Betchooar betchooar!
[/eric idle]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: LindaG on 13 January, 2012, 11:11:48 pm
Waterstone's are becoming Waterstones. I'm surprised no one has mentioned this one yet. Does this mean that a till belonging  to Waterstones is now Waterstones' till ?

It depends on whether the till belongs to a particular branch of Waterstones, or to several branches of Waterstones.

The first is Waterstones's.  The second is Waterstones'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 January, 2012, 11:36:10 pm
Aren't they closing lots of branches? That should turn them into Waterpebbles.




And my gloves too, please.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: LindaG on 13 January, 2012, 11:37:32 pm
Aren't they closing lots of branches? That should turn them into Waterpebbles.


Aye, they just turned my Crusty into one of them scrounging doleys.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 January, 2012, 11:39:42 pm
 :(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: LindaG on 13 January, 2012, 11:42:04 pm
It's okay Cudz, he's taking his ball home to India.  He'll be reet. 

And that, lads and lasses, is what we in Yorkshire call Grammar.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 January, 2012, 11:45:21 pm
Ah - hence the thread he started in, er, Rides & Touring, or was it The Knowledge? Anyway, no Waterstones out there but you can get cheap books (in English too!)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 14 January, 2012, 07:39:14 am
It's okay Cudz, he's taking his ball home to India.  He'll be reet. 

And that, lads and lasses, is what we in Yorkshire call Grammar.
Whereas, in Lancashire, Grammar is one's Mum's Mum.  So I've heard.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gandalf on 14 January, 2012, 05:44:50 pm
Tesco's is a funny one. Whereas there was a Mr Sainsbury, and a partnership of Messrs Marks and Spencer, there never was a Mr Tesco whose shops we visit.

Oh, how I loved writing Messrs. Though I could have written misters as Mrs to mess with the messers! Or the blades...

I have always thought that 'Tesco' was derived from Tessa Cohen.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: haliaetos on 14 January, 2012, 05:57:40 pm
Tesco's is a funny one. Whereas there was a Mr Sainsbury, and a partnership of Messrs Marks and Spencer, there never was a Mr Tesco whose shops we visit.

Oh, how I loved writing Messrs. Though I could have written misters as Mrs to mess with the messers! Or the blades...

I have always thought that 'Tesco' was derived from Tessa Cohen.

It's a combo of T. E. Stockwell and the first two letters of Jack Cohen's surname. I learned all about this at my induction a while back.  ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 19 January, 2012, 10:03:51 am
Quote
<the Kolars> were found battered to death by their son, a serving Police Officer

>:(

The unfortunate son discovered his parents had been battered to death, but that had not been done by him, and a casual listener might get a very wrong impression.

I don't know if it is technically wrong, but the meaning is obscured for the sake of editing. >:(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: antonela on 19 January, 2012, 10:54:31 am
Well I will now be cracking out that little fact about Tescos whereever I go.

I cannot STAND bad grammer - there/their/they're particularly makes me want to take a big pen to it, or just to the face of whoever wrote it...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 19 January, 2012, 10:58:48 am
Whereas...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: LEE on 19 January, 2012, 11:20:32 am
Well I will now be cracking out that little fact about Tescos whereever I go.

I cannot STAND bad grammer - there/their/they're particularly makes me want to take a big pen to it, or just to the face of whoever wrote it...

Are you being deliberately ironic with this post ?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: David Martin on 19 January, 2012, 11:25:19 am
This thread affects quite an effect on the readers thereof. The affect/effect distinction seems to pass many by.

You can effect a change. You can affect a change. You can change an effect but you cannot change an affect. Affect is never a noun.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 January, 2012, 11:32:33 am
Affect can be a noun, meaning "the conscious subjective aspect of an emotion considered apart from bodily changes; also : a set of observable manifestations of a subjectively experienced emotion <patients … showed perfectly normal reactions and affects — Oliver Sacks>"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/affect
You could say an affect is the effect of something that affects you.  :)

Pedal vs peddle is the mix up that annoys me.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 19 January, 2012, 01:03:52 pm
This thread affects quite an effect on the readers thereof. The affect/effect distinction seems to pass many by.

You can effect a change. You can affect a change. You can change an effect but you cannot change an affect. Affect is never a noun.
Affect is very frequently a noun in psychiatry, where depressed patients might be described as having a flattened affect.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 19 January, 2012, 01:22:36 pm
http://ventolin.org/2012/01/grammer_man-who-the-fuck-is-this-nigga-and-why-u-comin-at-me-like-that-hoeassnigga/
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 19 January, 2012, 01:48:25 pm
http://ventolin.org/2012/01/grammer_man-who-the-fuck-is-this-nigga-and-why-u-comin-at-me-like-that-hoeassnigga/

Superb!

(If he turned off the delay - so that he could respond to every mistake on twitter - would the internet melt? Would spelling improve on twitter?!? )
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 20 January, 2012, 02:43:49 pm
http://www.listsofnote.com/2012/01/fumblerules-of-grammar.html
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 20 January, 2012, 02:53:01 pm
This thread affects quite an effect on the readers thereof. The affect/effect distinction seems to pass many by.

You can effect a change. You can affect a change. You can change an effect but you cannot change an affect. Affect is never a noun.

It is to a psychiatrist.
"He has a depressed affect" is how the mind state and appearance of a depressed man would be described.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wendy on 20 January, 2012, 02:56:05 pm
You're suggesting a whole sub-tribe of intelligent educated professionals have absorbed some poor grammar and they are now actively promoting it?  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 20 January, 2012, 04:11:58 pm
You're suggesting a whole sub-tribe of intelligent educated professionals have absorbed some poor grammar and they are now actively promoting it?  ;D
Not uncommon, sadly.

I frequently hear pseudo-intellectuals on Radio 4 using words that George Bush would be proud of, or really obscure words in place of 'become' or 'need' or 'happen'.

There are plenty of words in English, we shouldn't need to make more up (or twist their meanings) just to sound ejumakated  ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 20 January, 2012, 04:22:47 pm
But a great many technical words which need to be used for precision.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 20 January, 2012, 04:29:00 pm
But a great many technical words which need to be used for precision.
"Eventuate" was one I heard recently. There are others, but I do try to forget them!

A common problem is where a technical word is used outside of its proper context - or a speaker simply being a crap communicator! (A good writer would simply rewrite "He has a depressed affect" - except for the very specific audience of other head-shrinks).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 20 January, 2012, 04:44:43 pm
But a great many technical words which need to be used for precision.

Jargon should never be used out of context.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 January, 2012, 05:49:47 pm
http://www.listsofnote.com/2012/01/fumblerules-of-grammar.html
:thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 20 January, 2012, 06:28:09 pm
This thread affects quite an effect on the readers thereof. The affect/effect distinction seems to pass many by.

You can effect a change. You can affect a change. You can change an effect but you cannot change an affect. Affect is never a noun.

It is to a psychiatrist.
"He has a depressed affect" is how the mind state and appearance of a depressed man would be described.
[OK - backtracking a bit to the posts that started this ... ]

Helly, this is QuiteInteresting, but would you bet that the text irritating David was written by a psychiatrist?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: JonBuoy on 02 February, 2012, 09:26:57 pm
Have you tried our poncy bread with soup ... 'to give a really indulgent eat.'

Thanks for that one Mr Tesco.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 02 February, 2012, 11:57:19 pm
Have you tried our poncy bread with soup ... "to give a really indulgent eat." Thanks for that one Mr Tesco.

The noun eat (meaning "the action of eating; a meal") is nearly a thousand years old: the OED's first citation is from the 11th century Paris Psalter. It was a good enough word for King Alfred!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 03 February, 2012, 10:07:31 am
Things usually lie unused for a thousand years for a reason.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 February, 2012, 01:31:18 pm
Things usually lie unused for a thousand years for a reason.
:thumbsup:  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 03 February, 2012, 01:46:12 pm
Things usually lie unused for a thousand years for a reason.
:thumbsup:  ;D

 :thumbsup:  ;D maybe, but I don't think the first citation would have been the last.  I don't have access to OED but I doubt that the usage has been unused for 1000 years.  Gareth?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 03 February, 2012, 02:28:55 pm
I don't think the first citation would have been the last.  I don't have access to OED but I doubt that the usage has been unused for 1000 years.  Gareth?

The OED has only a sampling of citations: there are three early citations from c.1000 to c.1200, and then three late citations from 1844 to to 1951. Latest is "1951    J. Frame Lagoon 60   Goodbye and thank you for the little eat."

It's hard to fill the gaps by corpora searches because the overwhelming preponderance of the verb eat makes the noun hard to find.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 03 February, 2012, 02:39:31 pm
Despite being in the OED, it still sounds shit.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 05 February, 2012, 07:02:28 pm
This from a hymn at church this morning:

(http://i738.photobucket.com/albums/xx30/Auntie_Helen/883d1b5c.jpg)

For some reason the last line of verse 2 felt wrong to me.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 05 February, 2012, 07:03:26 pm
The first line is pretty bad in itself.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 06 February, 2012, 10:52:25 am
I hate that doggerel with a passion. I won't grace it with the word "song" which includes masterpieces from Schubert and Tchaikowsky, or "hymn" which includes Aberystwyth & Cwm Rhondda.

I used to have to teach it to junior school children in a hall about ten feet away from the railway line between Shoeburyness and Fenchurch Street. The best bit of assemblies was when we had to stop because a passing train was making the building shake.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 February, 2012, 01:43:00 pm
A BBC reporter has just said that if Greece defaults on its loans, it could "spread contagion" throughout the Eurozone.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 06 February, 2012, 06:36:02 pm
A BBC reporter has just said that if Greece defaults on its loans, it could "spread contagion" throughout the Eurozone.

The OED has this as sense 4a, "fig. Hurtful, defiling, or corrupting contact; infecting influence." Citations include Chaucer and Gibbon.

I used to have to teach it to junior school children

I'm surprised by this: did you really have no choice in the matter? Who or what prevented you from choosing something better?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 06 February, 2012, 06:41:38 pm
http://www.happyplace.com/3645/the-best-obnoxious-responses-to-misspellings-on-facebook

This forum is a paragon of tolerance compared to Facebook  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 06 February, 2012, 10:45:46 pm
A BBC reporter has just said that if Greece defaults on its loans, it could "spread contagion" throughout the Eurozone.

The OED has this as sense 4a, "fig. Hurtful, defiling, or corrupting contact; infecting influence." Citations include Chaucer and Gibbon.

I used to have to teach it to junior school children

I'm surprised by this: did you really have no choice in the matter? Who or what prevented you from choosing something better?

Other staff, who requested rubbish like this for their assemblies. I would have quite happily torn up the BBC Book of pseudo-religious doggerel with bad tunes (http://www.musicroom.com/se/ID_No/07962/details.html).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 07 February, 2012, 06:45:41 am
The all-time worst example is the Children's Society carol for Christingle services.  Ther words are banal and don't scan properly, the tune is nicked straight from "The Holly and the Ivy" and the whole thing is contrived.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 07 February, 2012, 01:19:45 pm
Today I read an example of Punctuation Mattering:

"
Youd made no effort to see it until one day it was shown on British television. He said later that he settled down with a glass of whisky to watch it, but was upstairs in bed by the end of the first commercial break.
"

On first reading, it made no sense. Then I realised it was written about John Christopher (Christopher Samuel Youd), science-fiction writer and children's novelist.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 07 February, 2012, 01:36:28 pm
Today I read an example of Punctuation Mattering:


I'm none the wiser. How does one matter punctuation?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 07 February, 2012, 02:23:20 pm
Maybe I meant muttering. I can't remember.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 07 February, 2012, 03:14:29 pm
Wasn't it 'smattering'?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 08 February, 2012, 10:23:00 pm
BBC News tonight: "Having left school at 16, the economic down-turn has left her..."

What was the economic down-turn doing at school in the first place?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: toontra on 09 February, 2012, 09:02:48 am
Saw this guy last week - some witty observations on youth "grammar" (slightly NSFW):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLKlgLG6jfI (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLKlgLG6jfI)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 09 February, 2012, 09:27:27 pm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/16954576

What is a "retiral"?

I thought the BBC was supposed to set a standard for others to aspire to.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 09 February, 2012, 09:32:56 pm
That is really awful, isn't it?  (And the story's not very nice, either.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 09 February, 2012, 09:56:41 pm
What is a "retiral"?

According to the OED, it's a Scottish word meaning "retirement". So it's not surprising to see it in a report from BBC Scotland.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 09 February, 2012, 11:34:45 pm
It's the first time I've heard it and I'm OLD.  But I'm not Scots, though of Scots (and Welsh) descent.  I wonder if any Scots could tell us if it's common?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 09 February, 2012, 11:42:57 pm
Same for me. I worked for 9 years for HMCE, which had loads of Scots working there and I never heard the word "retiral".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 10 February, 2012, 12:42:35 am
It's the first time I've heard it and I'm OLD.  But I'm not Scots, though of Scots (and Welsh) descent.  I wonder if any Scots could tell us if it's common?

Used lots when I worked in Glasgow. Also outwith, clerkess and other usages eschewed by the English.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 10 February, 2012, 09:47:57 am
It's the first time I've heard it and I'm OLD.  But I'm not Scots, though of Scots (and Welsh) descent.  I wonder if any Scots could tell us if it's common?

It's easy to research this kind of question yourself. Google for "site:bbc.co.uk retiral", and what do you get? 246 results, and on the first page:
So this word appears regularly in BBC headlines and articles by Scottish writers on Scottish subjects.

I worked for 9 years for HMCE, which had loads of Scots working there and I never heard the word "retiral".

English is a big language, as I'm sure you know, with many dialects. You can speak it all your life and still learn new words every day.* So maybe a bit of research would be appropriate before condemning an unfamiliar usage as a mistake?

* Today I learned the word coffle.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 10 February, 2012, 10:00:52 am
Thank you Gareth, obviously I have a lot to learn.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 10 February, 2012, 10:21:45 am
Well, my research went a far as asking my Scottish son in law and he'd never heard it either.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 10 February, 2012, 11:28:25 am
Chambers dictionary is a good point of reference for things like this - it takes a liberal approach to spelling and dialect (hence it's the dictionary of choice for crossword compilers and Scrabble players). Plus it's Scottish. I don't have my copy to hand but I wouldn't be surprised if "retiral" were in it.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 10 February, 2012, 12:36:06 pm
Chambers dictionary is a good point of reference for things like this - it takes a liberal approach to spelling and dialect (hence it's the dictionary of choice for crossword compilers and Scrabble players). Plus it's Scottish. I don't have my copy to hand but I wouldn't be surprised if "retiral" were in it.

d.

It is, and it's in the Oxford.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 11 February, 2012, 09:09:31 am
Following up stories on The Times' safety campaign, I did enjoy the comment in this story from a councillor (http://www.wimbledonguardian.co.uk/archive/2012/02/07/news_wimbledon/9514813.Bollard_to_blame_for_recent_crashes__residents_claim/), who apparently has a white plastic car with keep left markings on it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 11 February, 2012, 09:53:30 am
Following up stories on The Times' safety campaign, I did enjoy the comment in this story from a councillor (http://www.wimbledonguardian.co.uk/archive/2012/02/07/news_wimbledon/9514813.Bollard_to_blame_for_recent_crashes__residents_claim/), who apparently has a white plastic car with keep left markings on it.

That made me smile, too!  However, in fairness to the councillor, it's more likely to be the work of the demon sub-editor than a grammatical slip.  They've probably just chopped out his previous sentence.  From my experience of our local paper, he may well not have said anything at all - or even exist!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 11 February, 2012, 09:55:27 am
Yes, agreed, but does read oddly ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 11 February, 2012, 09:55:59 am
Certainly!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 11 February, 2012, 10:42:11 am
I can't work out what you lot have noticed, but this phrase made me smile:

"a woman driving a silver people carrier ploughed into the traffic island "
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 11 February, 2012, 03:03:23 pm
Quote
Councillor David Dean ... said the council needed to remove the bollard, which protects pedestrians standing on a traffic island.

Coun Dean said: “It was exactly the same colour and make as my car and so I got a nasty shock when I saw it.

The bollard was the same size and shape as his car, apparently. That would give you a nasty shock, yes.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 11 February, 2012, 03:05:22 pm
I received a spam email today entitled "Our Pick's of The Month".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biff on 12 February, 2012, 07:22:22 pm
Heard on a farming prog early one morning last week - "This is one of the only farms in the UK to do this"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 15 February, 2012, 10:19:21 am
From Mirror.co.uk:

(http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k170/smutchin/mirror.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 15 February, 2012, 10:21:14 am
Which reminds me:

Quote from: Paul McCartney
...but in this ever-changing world in which we live in...

Oh dear.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 15 February, 2012, 10:24:05 am
Which reminds me:

Quote from: Paul McCartney
...but in this ever-changing world in which we live in...

Oh dear.

.but if this ever-changing world in which we're living, makes you give in and cry?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 15 February, 2012, 10:37:33 am
Which reminds me:

Quote from: Paul McCartney
...but in this ever-changing world in which we live in...

Oh dear.

Yes, I thought of that too. It's the "of" that really kills it though.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Karla on 15 February, 2012, 10:44:25 am
That's it, I'm going to boycott the Mirror now. 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 15 February, 2012, 11:08:23 am
Which reminds me:

Quote from: Paul McCartney
...but in this ever-changing world in which we live in...

Oh dear.

Yes, I thought of that too. It's the "of" that really kills it though.

D.  your cringe is absolutely justified but I want to re-iterate my defence of Pauly:

What he actually wrote (and sings) is "But if this ever-changing world in which we're living makes you give in and cry,"  Correct English.  I'm always telling my pupils to beware of lyric sites.  They're not official and frequently wrong!  That said, I grew up in the lo-fi era and thought "All Shook Up" was "All Sugar" for some time!

Peter

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 15 February, 2012, 11:16:16 am
OK.  I forgive Mr McCartney for his lyric-writing (but not his diction, the Frog Chorus or Mull of Fucking Kintyre).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jogler on 15 February, 2012, 11:20:33 am
OK.  I forgive Mr McCartney for his lyric-writing (but not his diction, the Frog Chorus or Mull of Fucking Kintyre).

that's a bugger:today's ear worm
 ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 15 February, 2012, 11:25:09 am
Sorry!

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 15 February, 2012, 12:15:24 pm
OK.  I forgive Mr McCartney for his lyric-writing (but not his diction, the Frog Chorus or Mull of Fucking Kintyre).

 :)  Take comfort in the fact that, even though it is one of, if not the biggest-selling single up to now, the majority of the world's population (including me) didn't buy Mull Of Kintyre!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 15 February, 2012, 12:25:58 pm
Or 'My Love Can Tire' as I first heard it.  My patience can, too, Macca!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 15 February, 2012, 12:41:16 pm
What he actually wrote (and sings) is "But if this ever-changing world in which we're living makes you give in and cry,"  Correct English.

Arguable, I suppose. Strictly, I'd say "in which we're living" is redundant - the only purpose it serves is to pad out the line to make it scan.

Anyway, it was Clarion who brought it up - I only agreed with him that the Mirror caption reminded me of the line. I didn't actually pass judgment on Macca! I completely agree that it's far from the worst crime against the language in the history of pop music.

That Mirror caption is truly awful though.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 15 February, 2012, 01:29:10 pm


That Mirror caption is truly awful though.

d.

It has the look of one who is truly illiterate working hard to be correct and formal - putting all the words in.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 15 February, 2012, 02:18:42 pm
@ Citoyen,  absolutely right about the bath caption!  As is IanH.

Just to bore on about Pauly for a second,  the line is actually closer to Cole Porter or Ira Gershwin than most pop lyrics:  the "living" is far from redundant because it gives an internal rhyme to "give in" in the next line.  Love him or loathe him, Pauly is a clever bloke, except in interviews!

If we were "strict" about redundancy, most poetry and most lyrics would fail, I think.  I know that, as a lover of words and a crossword buff, you know this, too!  Which is why you said, "strictly," !
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 15 February, 2012, 02:55:16 pm
If we were "strict" about redundancy, most poetry and most lyrics would fail, I think.  I know that, as a lover of words and a crossword buff, you know this, too!  Which is why you said, "strictly,"!

Indeed. Most poetry is pretty much redundant.  ;)

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 15 February, 2012, 04:34:09 pm
If we were "strict" about redundancy, most poetry and most lyrics would fail, I think.  I know that, as a lover of words and a crossword buff, you know this, too!  Which is why you said, "strictly,"!

Indeed. Most poetry is pretty much redundant.  ;)

d.

Regrettably, most of mine has been!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 15 February, 2012, 05:01:26 pm
If we were "strict" about redundancy, most poetry and most lyrics would fail, I think.  I know that, as a lover of words and a crossword buff, you know this, too!  Which is why you said, "strictly,"!

Indeed. Most poetry is pretty much redundant.  ;)

d.

Ppfft!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: FatBloke on 19 February, 2012, 11:11:05 am
I have studied my Fowler's and delved at length into the O.E.D. and nowhere* can I find anything that indicates that the verb "to go" can be substituted for the verbs "to say" or "to speak".

I am sick of hearing people (admittedly, poorly educated lower class Johnnies) announcing, when describing a previous conversion, that they "goes to 'er..", then "she goes to me....". etc., etc.

STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT!

*Other than in the context of to "go on" about something.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 19 February, 2012, 05:22:25 pm
I am sick of hearing people ... describing a previous conversion, that they "goes to 'er..", then "she goes to me....". etc., etc.

Although I believe that for some years it has been like, not go, eg. I was like, "Where're you goin'?" and he was like, "Nowhere."
Brings new meaning to the statement "She goes like a ..."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 19 February, 2012, 05:58:40 pm
'and she turns round to me and says, so I turned round to her and said...'

You're making me dizzy!
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 20 February, 2012, 09:11:20 am
Not sure I'd go so far as to say this one makes me cringe but it always jars slightly:

"from whence"

I've recently finished reading Pickwick Papers and in that book, Dickens makes this error quite often. Though not consistently, which leads me to wonder if it's really him or the editor.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 20 February, 2012, 09:43:04 am
Not grammar as such but it looked wrong.

A blackboard outside a house offering "Planted planters"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 20 February, 2012, 09:50:13 am
Not sure I'd go so far as to say this one makes me cringe but it always jars slightly:

"from whence"

I've recently finished reading Pickwick Papers and in that book, Dickens makes this error quite often. Though not consistently, which leads me to wonder if it's really him or the editor.

d.

I feel the same about this.  I came across it in a line from "Mendocino" on the McGarrigle Sisters wonderful first album:-

Never had the blues from whence I came, which is an interesting line anyway!

However, it seems to be so common that "usage" might be cited for its correctness, though I don't like it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 20 February, 2012, 10:11:37 am
My thoughts exactly - it's a common enough "error" that it's probably crossed the line into acceptability.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 20 February, 2012, 10:15:03 am
We must stand firm, d!  It's crossed the line into "use"; it will never be acceptable, except by The McGarrigles and possibly Dickens!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: trixie on 20 February, 2012, 11:20:13 am
Not grammar as such but it looked wrong.

A blackboard outside a house offering "Planted planters"


Ah, Blue Peter style, 'here's one I prepared earlier!'
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 20 February, 2012, 01:13:54 pm
We must stand firm, d!  It's crossed the line into "use"; it will never be acceptable, except by The McGarrigles and possibly Dickens!

And the King James Bible ?

Psalm 121 I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 20 February, 2012, 01:20:16 pm
Yeah, that's wrong as well! :demon:

Might have to re-think this one!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 20 February, 2012, 01:31:05 pm
Certainly, it just seems some people haven't been told!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tom B on 20 February, 2012, 01:33:26 pm
a brief historical survey of 'from whence' usage  (http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/10906/is-from-whence-correct-or-should-it-be-whence)

"And even a brief look at historical sources shows that from whence has been common since the thirteenth century. It has been used by Shakespeare, Defoe (in the opening of Robinson Crusoe: “He got a good estate by merchandise, and leaving off his trade, lived afterwards at York; from whence he had married my mother”), Smollett, Dickens (in A Christmas Carol: “He began to think that the source and secret of this ghostly light might be in the adjoining room, from whence, on further tracing it, it seemed to shine”), Dryden, Gibbon, Twain (in Innocents Abroad: “He traveled all around, till at last he came to the place from whence he started”), and Trollope, and it appears 27 times in the King James Bible (including Psalm 121: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help”). "
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 20 February, 2012, 01:40:16 pm
Tom, I give in!  You see, the internet CAN change things.  I still don't think I'll be using it myself but it'll be interesting to see how long it takes my vestigial cringe to disappear!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 20 February, 2012, 01:45:11 pm
With so many older sources using whence as we use where, is it possible that its meaning has changed over time from where to from where?

The earliest citations in the OED suggest that whence has always been used both with and without from. For example, Wycliff's Psalms of 1382 has "I rered vp myn eȝen in to the mounteynes; whennys shal come helpe to me." But the edition of 1388 has "fro whannus" for "whennys".

I imagine 14th century grammarians having the same argument we're having now ... "Nay! Thou canst nat say, fro whannus: yt lakketh gramer!"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 20 February, 2012, 01:52:12 pm
Given that the ‘From whence’ barricade has been well-and-truly overrun, does anyone fancy raising defences to protect us from ‘Reverse back’ - ‘I reversed my car back into the road’ - and ‘Repeat again’ - ‘could you repeat that again?’ (unless that thing has already been repeated once, of course)? 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 20 February, 2012, 01:55:21 pm
Given that the ‘From whence’ barricade has been well-and-truly overrun, does anyone fancy raising defences to protect us from ‘Reverse back’ - ‘I reversed my car back into the road’ - and ‘Repeat again’ - ‘could you repeat that again?’ (unless that thing has already been repeated once, of course)?

Not sure King James is going to be much help here!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 20 February, 2012, 01:57:29 pm
If a callow newcomer may intrude, my Chambers gives

whence
adverb, conj
1 used in questions, indirect questions and statements: from what place?; from which place as in enquired whence they had come.
2 used especially in statements: from what cause or circumstance : can't explain whence the mistake arose.
3 to the place from which : returned whence they had come.
pronoun which place : the town from whence he came.

However, the rule seems to me to be so obscure that writers throughout the ages could be forgiven for using either form, not from grammatical necessity but simply to make their sentences a little grander. Or maybe they just couldn't be bothered.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 20 February, 2012, 02:38:44 pm
As already mentioned, it's not so much a cringe for me as one of those things that jars when I read it. This is because my understanding of "whence" accords with Chambers, so I implicitly read "from whence" as "from from where".

In the Dickens case, I wouldn't have minded so much but he was inconsistent within the one book (though obviously it wasn't all written in one go) - using "from whence" in some cases and "whence" alone in others.

It doesn't matter. I can live with it. Through gritted teeth.

d.

PS welcome, T42. Please intrude at will.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 20 February, 2012, 03:17:37 pm
Given that the ‘From whence’ barricade has been well-and-truly overrun, does anyone fancy raising defences to protect us from ‘Reverse back’ - ‘I reversed my car back into the road’ - and ‘Repeat again’ - ‘could you repeat that again?’ (unless that thing has already been repeated once, of course)?
The answer to your 'Reverse' example is contained within your (bracketed) answer to the 2nd.

You can deraise your defences.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 20 February, 2012, 04:34:34 pm
Given that the ‘From whence’ barricade has been well-and-truly overrun, does anyone fancy raising defences to protect us from ‘Reverse back’ - ‘I reversed my car back into the road’ - and ‘Repeat again’ - ‘could you repeat that again?’ (unless that thing has already been repeated once, of course)?

 ‘I reversed my car back into the road [from] whence it had come.'
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 21 February, 2012, 12:07:59 am
Back is redundant here, surely, Ian?*

What about this one?

Slow down/slow up   Anyone any idea how the latter came about?  I use both, haphazardly, though the first is the ony one that seems to make sense.

*ETA unless it's a quotation from a policeman's notebook!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Simonb on 21 February, 2012, 12:16:12 am
the first is the ony one that seems to make sense

Except it doesn't. Phrasal verbs are mostly nonsensical.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 21 February, 2012, 12:19:53 am
the first is the ony one that seems to make sense

Except it doesn't. Phrasal verbs are mostly nonsensical.

It makes sense in the sense(!) that the speed is coming DOWN.  Whereas it's hard to see what is coming UP - unless it's a wall!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Simonb on 21 February, 2012, 12:25:21 am
It makes sense in the sense(!) that the speed is coming DOWN.  Whereas it's hard to see what is coming UP - unless it's a wall!

But, it's the slowness which is coming down, not the speed, so 'slow up' is more logical (increasing slowness). 

'Speed down' would shirley make more sense (after all, things can already 'speed up'), but that would just be silly.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 21 February, 2012, 12:31:39 am
It certainly would!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 21 February, 2012, 06:38:01 am
What about this one?

Slow down/slow up   Anyone any idea how the latter came about?  I use both, haphazardly, though the first is the ony one that seems to make sense.
Slow Up is towards London.  Slow Down is away from London.

IGMC.  It's the hi-viz one with the BR symbol on the back.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 21 February, 2012, 08:30:29 am
Back is redundant here, surely, Ian?*

What about this one?

Slow down/slow up   Anyone any idea how the latter came about?  I use both, haphazardly, though the first is the ony one that seems to make sense.

*ETA unless it's a quotation from a policeman's notebook!
We say "pull up" to mean stop, and I think there are other "... up"s meaning stop, but I can't recall them right now!


BTW are you referring to
ETA the armed Basque separatist group (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETA_%28disambiguation%29)?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 21 February, 2012, 09:38:37 am
And in German they use "aufhören" for "to stop" (looks as if it translates to "listen up")
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 February, 2012, 09:42:41 am
Back is redundant here, surely, Ian?*

What about this one?

Slow down/slow up   Anyone any idea how the latter came about?  I use both, haphazardly, though the first is the ony one that seems to make sense.

*ETA unless it's a quotation from a policeman's notebook!
We say "pull up" to mean stop, and I think there are other "... up"s meaning stop, but I can't recall them right now!


BTW are you referring to
ETA the armed Basque separatist group (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETA_%28disambiguation%29)?
Oh, do let up! You're not going to convince us, so you might as well give up.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 21 February, 2012, 10:09:53 am
Doesn't pull up come from controlling the reins of a horse? </nonrider>
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 21 February, 2012, 10:13:55 am
Maybe equestrianism gave us "fed up" too?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 February, 2012, 10:15:11 am
Those horses are fed up of getting their oats!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 21 February, 2012, 10:24:09 am
@ Matt

re ETA, I was trying to be computer-speak savvy (which I'm not, and which is why I post on this board!) and understood it to mean "Edited To Add", though I know the acronyms for Estimated Time (of) Arrival and the Basque one.

That reins business makes sense.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 21 February, 2012, 10:43:28 am
Doesn't pull up come from controlling the reins of a horse? </nonrider>

Yes, pull up in the sense of "stop" originally referred to controlling horses:

Quote from: OED
to pull up 3. a. trans. To draw (a horse's reins) tight, as a means of stopping; to cause (a horse, or horse-drawn vehicle) to stop by doing this; to bring to a halt.

But the earliest citation in the OED refers to pulling up a coach, so it looks as though the phrase was applied to vehicles from the start:

Quote from: OED
1623 in R. F. Williams Birch's Court & Times James I (1848) (modernized text) II. 392   A man, thinking nothing, pulled up his coach, and so made the horse start a little.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 21 February, 2012, 11:26:25 am
Maybe equestrianism gave us "fed up" too?

"Fed up" comes from falconry.  If your hunting bird isn't hungry, it'll sit sulking in a tree-top rather than chasing rabbits.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 21 February, 2012, 12:20:29 pm
Phrasal verbs are mostly nonsensical.
Which, together with the huge range of them, must make them a nightmare for non-native learners.  You can fill in or fill out a form but probably not fill up one or just fill one; whereas you can just print a document if you're being economical, rather than going to the effort of printing it out or offHitting on an idea and hitting on a person are quite different, and if you hit on someone you may be lucky enough to hit it off with him/her as well. Etc etc.  How do foreigners manage?


Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 21 February, 2012, 01:37:38 pm
Cover off.

Where the heck did that come from? I'm not even sure what it means.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 21 February, 2012, 01:52:56 pm
"Fed up" comes from falconry.  If your hunting bird isn't hungry, it'll sit sulking in a tree-top rather than chasing rabbits.

Bluff!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 21 February, 2012, 01:59:08 pm
While we're on (not in) the subject: how come we might do something on Tuesday but in July?

Also, what's the opposite of putting on [clothes]? And why?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 21 February, 2012, 03:53:28 pm
"Fed up" comes from falconry.  If your hunting bird isn't hungry, it'll sit sulking in a tree-top rather than chasing rabbits.

Bluff!

I read it in Last Chance To See by Douglas Adams and Mark Wotsisname.  And they wouldn't tell porkies in a (comparatively) serious bok :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 21 February, 2012, 04:01:52 pm
While we're on (not in) the subject: how come we might do something on Tuesday but in July?

Also, what's the opposite of putting on [clothes]? And why?

Just guessing here, but in July because of a choice of days but that still doesn't explain on Tuesday.

Don and Doff for clothes, is quite good, though most people DON't use them.  I like to think D(uds)on  and D(uds)off but I bet it's nothing to do with it.  Whatever is right, mine's better, ok?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 21 February, 2012, 05:39:14 pm
Headline in local paper, Pulman's View: "Pair is freed from a lift".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 21 February, 2012, 11:23:07 pm
Just guessing here, but in July because of a choice of days but that still doesn't explain on Tuesday.
There needs to be some preposition there, and it's consistent with other usages.

I'll do it on Tuesday.

I'll do it on the second day of the week.

I'll do it on your command.

I'll start on the whistle.

In some of those cases, I suppose that "at" would also be acceptable.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 February, 2012, 11:28:26 pm
I think prepositions are mostly random once they get away from their literal "place" meanings. If you're wondering why we say "in July" and "on Tuesday" think about this: in Polish you go "to" a town but "on" a village!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Simonb on 21 February, 2012, 11:40:14 pm
I think prepositions are mostly random once they get away from their literal "place" meanings.

Exactly, but English is (I think) unique in coupling them with certain verbs to make new and random meanings for no apparent reason. Unfortunately for forriners, they just have to be learned. Or ignored.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 22 February, 2012, 12:15:44 am
Headline in local paper, Pulman's View: "Pair is freed from a lift".

I would have thought that was correct, strictly speaking, as "pair" is a collective noun and it is [ia[/i] pair.  But usage has "pair are freed" more often than not, though I think it really creaks if you say "a pair are freed".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 22 February, 2012, 08:09:28 am
There is a difference in usage however from other such nouns.

One should definitely say:

"A type of bicycle"

"Two types of bicycle"
(not "bicycles"; talking about types implies plurality even with only one immediate example, and it's the number of types here present that is increasing.)

Whereas with pair the plural is always used: "A pair of bicycles".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 22 February, 2012, 08:16:43 am

Also, what's the opposite of putting on [clothes]? And why?

I don't know the answer to that. I do know that I'm supposed to go to a naturist meeting tonight but I can't go because I've got too much on.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: trixie on 22 February, 2012, 08:40:50 am

Also, what's the opposite of putting on [clothes]? And why?

I don't know the answer to that. I do know that I'm supposed to go to a naturist meeting tonight but I can't go because I've got too much on.

Haha, very good!  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 22 February, 2012, 09:54:33 am

Also, what's the opposite of putting on [clothes]? And why?

I don't know the answer to that. I do know that I'm supposed to go to a naturist meeting tonight but I can't go because I've got too much on.
The ambiguity allows a choice between putting it off and taking it off. Which will you do?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 22 February, 2012, 10:37:39 am
Neither.  I've decided to go with my clothes on and risk a dressing down.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 22 February, 2012, 10:38:50 am
I think prepositions are mostly random once they get away from their literal "place" meanings.

Exactly, but English is (I think) unique in coupling them with certain verbs to make new and random meanings for no apparent reason. Unfortunately for forriners, they just have to be learned. Or ignored.
I'm an utter novice, but German makes it even harder, cos the noun changes case according to the preposition (accusative/dative I think). So it's swings and roundabouts.

They also do strange things with going/coming "to/from a place", but I can't remember the details right now (and I'd likely get them wrong). A bit like the Polish:
... in Polish you go "to" a town but "on" a village!

p.s. I'm only allowing Nuncio to end a sentence with a preposition because of the famous police/toilet precedent.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 22 February, 2012, 10:52:27 am
I don't know that one.  I'll have to up-look it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 22 February, 2012, 01:55:12 pm
"Fed up" comes from falconry.  If your hunting bird isn't hungry, it'll sit sulking in a tree-top rather than chasing rabbits.

Bluff!

I read it in Last Chance To See by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine.  And they wouldn't tell porkies in a (comparatively) serious bok :D

I think Douglas Adams must have had a flashback to The Meaning of Liff* there.

* A "dictionary of things that there aren't any words for yet", co-written by Adams and John Lloyd.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 22 February, 2012, 02:16:22 pm
lolz...

(http://desmond.yfrog.com/Himg612/scaled.php?tn=0&server=612&filename=88006711.jpg&xsize=640&ysize=640)

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wendy on 22 February, 2012, 02:37:07 pm
*snigger*

 ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 25 February, 2012, 01:19:32 pm
From the Harrow Times:

<< The plans of all three options are totally unacceptable – we can only stop this by people power. It seems there are too many decisions in smoke field rooms.” >>
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Carradice bag lady on 25 February, 2012, 03:32:55 pm
lolz...

(http://desmond.yfrog.com/Himg612/scaled.php?tn=0&server=612&filename=88006711.jpg&xsize=640&ysize=640)
Well look at that I never expected to see that on here I made that !!!!!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Carradice bag lady on 25 February, 2012, 03:34:03 pm
Any idea where that photo was taken?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Arch on 25 February, 2012, 03:47:02 pm
Sawa car pulling a trailer the other day, which I gather is normally used to transport a classic motorbike, because a sign on the back said:

I'ts a 1954 BSA Gold Star.

The bike wasn't there, maybe it was embarrassed by the misplaced apostrophe...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Carradice bag lady on 25 February, 2012, 03:55:48 pm
I make them prior to printing never knew what they were for I knew they covered a trailer and to exact measurements but that's it how interesting to see one in use . I've only made half a dozen or so  WOW
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 26 February, 2012, 12:50:02 am
I've just found this English language school http://www.edgwareacademy.co.uk/ (http://www.edgwareacademy.co.uk/). There's loads of cringeworthy grammar on their home page. Oh dear!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 26 February, 2012, 11:10:37 am
I've just found this English language school http://www.edgwareacademy.co.uk/ (http://www.edgwareacademy.co.uk/). There's loads of cringeworthy grammar on their home page. Oh dear!

Gosh!
Quote
Any English course London based academies offer is certainly matchless with courses offered by their counterparts in other cities. Edgware Academy is the best example for this.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gandalf on 26 February, 2012, 07:53:21 pm
T Mobile shop in Croydon (where else?).

Offering discounted 'Blackberry's'
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 February, 2012, 10:05:39 pm
I've just found this English language school http://www.edgwareacademy.co.uk/ (http://www.edgwareacademy.co.uk/). There's loads of cringeworthy grammar on their home page. Oh dear!

Gosh!
Quote
Any English course London based academies offer is certainly matchless with courses offered by their counterparts in other cities. Edgware Academy is the best example for this.
London and other popular cities are full of these schools, known in the trade as mushroom schools (because they grow like mushrooms in the summer holiday season).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 27 February, 2012, 12:12:53 am
I've just found this English language school http://www.edgwareacademy.co.uk/ (http://www.edgwareacademy.co.uk/). There's loads of cringeworthy grammar on their home page. Oh dear!

Gosh!
Quote
Any English course London based academies offer is certainly matchless with courses offered by their counterparts in other cities. Edgware Academy is the best example for this.
London and other popular cities are full of these schools, known in the trade as mushroom schools (because they grow like mushrooms in the summer holiday season).

Do they thrive on a diet of 5h1t?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gandalf on 28 February, 2012, 06:43:25 pm
I just heard some twonk on Radio 4 talking a bout a 'one pence' reduction in fuel duty.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 28 February, 2012, 07:31:27 pm
I just heard some twonk on Radio 4 talking a bout a 'one pence' reduction in fuel duty.

That has grated with me for 41.05 years now!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 29 February, 2012, 02:36:51 pm
I just heard some twonk on Radio 4 talking a bout a 'one pence' reduction in fuel duty.

This usage ("Frequently regarded as a solecism") is much older than decimalization: the OED's first citation is from 1652.

Quote from: OED
1652    in A. Lewis & J. R. Newhall Hist. Lynn (1865) ii. 211   Mr Auditer, pay to Joseph Armeteg fouer pound sevene shillings one pence.

The first citation for twonk, on the other hand, is from 1981.

Quote from: OED
1981    J. Sullivan Only Fools & Horses (1999) I. 1st Ser. Episode 1. 13   You dozy little twonk Rodney
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 29 February, 2012, 03:04:03 pm
I have just heard a previously normal chap us the word "webinar" :sick:

He's going off the roof...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 01 March, 2012, 07:29:46 am
Maybe equestrianism gave us "fed up" too?

"Fed up" comes from falconry.  If your hunting bird isn't hungry, it'll sit sulking in a tree-top rather than chasing rabbits.

Most of our vocabulary for country sports comes from the Norman French. But hawking is Phlegmish.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 01 March, 2012, 07:44:52 am
I have just heard a previously normal chap us the word "webinar" :sick:

He's going off the roof...

I'm afraid Dez manages such things from the privacy of our front room. They do largely seem to consist of self-congratulatory executives having a smug-in with a wider-than-usual audience.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 March, 2012, 10:03:50 am
"having a smug-in"  :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 01 March, 2012, 10:24:02 am
"having a smug-in"  :D

Which raises the question of how one distinguishes between good and bad neologisms.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 01 March, 2012, 01:35:13 pm
Euphony.

Not sure I'd go so far as to say this one makes me cringe but it always jars slightly:

"from whence"

I've recently finished reading Pickwick Papers and in that book, Dickens makes this error quite often. Though not consistently, which leads me to wonder if it's really him or the editor.

d.

... or the his characters' error?  Sorry to resurrect this but I'm half-way through Nicholas Nickleby at the moment and forgot to put my copy in the saddlebag to read over lunchtime.   I remembered Project Gutenberg and was reading it on the laptop when I hit a 'whence'. A quick search revealed 12 "whence"s and 2 "from whence"s, one of which is in reported speech.

For The Pickwick Papers it is 11 x "whence" and 2 x "from whence", one in reported speech.

Our Mutual Friend: 12 x "whence", 6 x "from whence" all of the latter in reported speech.

Bleak House: 5 x "whence" and 1 x "from whence", which is in reported speech.

Lunch coming to a close now before I can carry on either with Nicholas Nickleby or further whence-ing.  Or, indeed, whither-ing.

That's all.  Carry on.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 March, 2012, 02:40:45 pm
Not long before the 2012 Formula One season kicks off and then we'll be subjected once again to abject cretinism such as "The big question mark now is whether Hamilton can build up enough of a gap to hold the lead after his final pit stop" and "Rosberg is pitting to have his front nose changed".

No, this is the big question mark ?.  What you're referring to is the "big question".  And how many noses has Rosberg's car got?  I think you'll find there's just the one.  At the front.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 01 March, 2012, 03:12:22 pm
... or the characters' error?

You know, the same thought did occur to me while I was reading it, but I discounted it. However, your evidence seems pretty compelling. Good detective work!

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 01 March, 2012, 03:13:06 pm
Not long before the 2012 Formula One season kicks off and then we'll be subjected once again to abject cretinism...

The difference this season is that no one will be watching. ;)

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 01 March, 2012, 04:05:59 pm
... and "Rosberg is pitting to have his front nose changed".

No, this is the big question mark ?.  What you're referring to is the "big question".  And how many noses has Rosberg's car got?
Maybe they don't mean the car.


@IanH:
Could I interest you in "Neobadisms" ?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 01 March, 2012, 09:16:44 pm
Attended a conference today.  One of the speakers was from KPMG, but was quite good nevertheless.

Unfortunately, there were some good ones I wrote down from his slides:

Quote
In NHS Wards under the direction of high performing ward leaders, experienced 40% less drug errors

Quote
A consortia in the Midlands...

Quote
Sheffield a achieved a 7% greater reduction in CVD death rates in its deprived communities

Quote
What might decision this mean for your practice?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 01 March, 2012, 11:28:54 pm

@IanH:
Could I interest you in "Neobadisms" ?

No.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 02 March, 2012, 10:26:36 am
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/426543_365294740156189_139729956046003_1403720_135014840_n.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 02 March, 2012, 12:23:14 pm
Are bacteria, like data and media, to be considered singular now? There was a woman on the radio this morning talking about how some babies in some hospital were found to have "a bacteria" on their skin.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 02 March, 2012, 12:44:29 pm
Are bacteria, like data and media, to be considered singular now? There was a woman on the radio this morning talking about how some babies in some hospital were found to have "a bacteria" on their skin.

d.

That depends upon what your criteria is.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: billplumtree on 02 March, 2012, 01:47:21 pm
..."Rosberg is pitting to have his front nose changed"....
And how many noses has Rosberg's car got?  I think you'll find there's just the one.  At the front.

That reminds me.  "Front forks".  On this very forum.  Please, just don't, eh?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 02 March, 2012, 01:56:58 pm
Quote
"Front forks".  On this very forum.  Please, just don't, eh?

Err...do you mean "forks" is wrong?

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: billplumtree on 02 March, 2012, 02:05:29 pm
Quote
"Front forks".  On this very forum.  Please, just don't, eh?

Err...do you mean "forks" is wrong?

*very best Paddington Bear hard stare*

And how many noses pairs of forks has Rosberg's car a bike got?  I think you'll find there's just the one.  At the front.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 02 March, 2012, 02:09:01 pm
Quote
"Front forks".  On this very forum.  Please, just don't, eh?

Err...do you mean "forks" is wrong?

*very best Paddington Bear hard stare*

And how many noses pairs of forks has Rosberg's car a bike got?  I think you'll find there's just the one.  At the front.

So has my bike, it's got a pair of forks at the front.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 02 March, 2012, 02:10:18 pm
I think you'll find that Woolly's bike has two pairs of (front) forks. The pair he's broken and the pair that DHL have lost somewhere near Santiago.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 02 March, 2012, 02:13:36 pm
Quote
"Front forks".  On this very forum.  Please, just don't, eh?

Err...do you mean "forks" is wrong?

*very best Paddington Bear hard stare*

And how many noses pairs of forks has Rosberg's car a bike got?  I think you'll find there's just the one.  At the front.

So has my bike, it's got a pair of forks at the front.

Mine's got a fork with two blades.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 02 March, 2012, 02:19:45 pm
Quote
"Front forks".  On this very forum.  Please, just don't, eh?

Err...do you mean "forks" is wrong?

*very best Paddington Bear hard stare*

And how many noses pairs of forks has Rosberg's car a bike got?  I think you'll find there's just the one.  At the front.

So has my bike, it's got a pair of forks at the front.

Mine's got a fork with two blades.

Those forks on my bike also has two fork blades.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 02 March, 2012, 02:25:34 pm
Quote
"Front forks".  On this very forum.  Please, just don't, eh?

Err...do you mean "forks" is wrong?

*very best Paddington Bear hard stare*

And how many noses pairs of forks has Rosberg's car a bike got?  I think you'll find there's just the one.  At the front.

So has my bike, it's got a pair of forks at the front.

Mine's got a fork with two blades.

Those forks on my bike also has two fork blades.
Oh. You've got one of those.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: billplumtree on 02 March, 2012, 02:32:26 pm
Oh, for forks sake...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jasmine on 02 March, 2012, 02:43:04 pm
Are bacteria, like data and media, to be considered singular now? There was a woman on the radio this morning talking about how some babies in some hospital were found to have "a bacteria" on their skin.

d.

This makes me cringe for a different reason as well as the one you've highlighted.  The babies were found to have a bacterium on their skin?  Just the one? Bloody hell, that's some serious diagnostic kit they must have there.  The concept of the individual when talking about bacteria is very fuzzy indeed.  Most places measure the number of colony forming units of cultivatable strains, rather than cells.  That's before we even get to the non-culturable strains.  Without the context, it is difficult to know what this woman was trying to say - maybe the babies had a particular strain of bacteria.

I suspect Citoyen would like me to say bacterium here, but yes, in most scientifc uses, the term 'bacteria' is used for 'bacterium', except when refering to an individual cell.  The concept of bacteria being singular is 'difficult'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 02 March, 2012, 02:53:05 pm
I suspect Citoyen would like me to say bacterium here, but yes, in most scientifc uses, the term 'bacteria' is used for 'bacterium', except when refering to an individual cell.  The concept of bacteria being singular is 'difficult'.

Not really, I understand what you're saying but she could have avoided the problem by rephrasing her sentences.

To be fair, she was using the singular to highlight the fact that she was talking about a particular strain of bacteria, but because she hadn't thought through her words properly, she ended up with very awkward phrasing. I don't want to be too harsh either - it was an "as live" report from the hospital and put together on the hoof, so she wouldn't have had much time to refine her prose.

It did grate though!

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 02 March, 2012, 03:38:16 pm
I don't want to be too harsh either - it was an "as live" report from the hospital and put together on the hoof, so she wouldn't have had much time to refine her prose.
Well quite! A lot of people here will jump to criticise someone giving possibly their first ever live media interview, as if they are critiquing a piece of coursework. Get some perspective folks.

(I take a similar view on 'web' news items - they're about as permanent as dragonflies, so really not worth the editor sweating over - but I suspect many will be less forgiving than me I me. )
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 02 March, 2012, 03:51:55 pm
Are bacteria, like data and media, to be considered singular now? There was a woman on the radio this morning talking about how some babies in some hospital were found to have "a bacteria" on their skin.

d.

That depends upon what your criteria is.

What a strange phenomena.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 02 March, 2012, 03:52:50 pm
'Front forks' is correct. You'll find mentions of 'rear forks' in old writing about bikes.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 02 March, 2012, 03:57:56 pm
'Front forks' is correct. You'll find mentions of 'rear forks' in old writing about bikes.

Nope, or rather only colloquially. 'Forks' is short for fork blades, of which there is a pair at the front. At the rear you do have two pairs of tubes meeting at the dropouts.

Edit: and I'm feeling terribly pedantic pointing this out.

2nd edit: but I still think I'm right.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 02 March, 2012, 03:59:15 pm
Tough.  It's a traditional usage that predates your parents' birth. ;D

It's where the frame forks to accept a wheel.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 02 March, 2012, 06:50:34 pm
What a strange phenomena.

A phenomenon. Many phenomena. I remember learning this when Sir Clement Freud correctly challenged a contestant on Just a Minute.

It was an ironic post in response to my using "criteria" as a singular. Besides, look what happened to Clement Freud.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 March, 2012, 11:00:45 pm
'Front forks' is correct. You'll find mentions of 'rear forks' in old writing about bikes.

Nope, or rather only colloquially. 'Forks' is short for fork blades, of which there is a pair at the front. At the rear you do have two pairs of tubes meeting at the dropouts.

Edit: and I'm feeling terribly pedantic pointing this out.

2nd edit: but I still think I'm right.
If your frame has wishbone-type seatstays then they, too, fork.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: billplumtree on 03 March, 2012, 03:01:49 pm
'Front forks' is correct. You'll find mentions of 'rear forks' in old writing about bikes.

Nope, or rather only colloquially. 'Forks' is short for fork blades, of which there is a pair at the front. At the rear you do have two pairs of tubes meeting at the dropouts.

Edit: and I'm feeling terribly pedantic pointing this out.

2nd edit: but I still think I'm right.
If your frame has wishbone-type seatstays then they, too, fork.

Oh no they don't.  The single tube that joins on to the seat tube does the forking, to form the pair of seatstays.  If the seatstays do anything, they, er, unfork.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 03 March, 2012, 03:41:38 pm
I've just had a quick look at some UK books and mags from the 50s to 80s. They all use "forks" when talking about the forks on one bike. Eg diagrams naming the parts of a bike: top tube, forks, seat stays, front wheel etc. It's the same from reviews of bikes. One chapter title is called "Frame and Forks". When  talking about the parts of a pair of forks, it's fork crown, fork rake etc.

I would say it's similar to "scissors".

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 03 March, 2012, 07:02:49 pm
I've just had a quick look at some UK books and mags from the 50s to 80s. They all use "forks" when talking about the forks on one bike.
Absolutely my recollection. I can't for the life of me work out where "fork" has come from. Possibly the USA, but I've no evidence for that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wendy on 03 March, 2012, 08:43:27 pm
Forks is correct, I believe.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 03 March, 2012, 08:58:37 pm
Forks is correct, I believe.

As above: no...and yes.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Efrogwr on 08 March, 2012, 07:57:58 pm
"Juncture" as a substitute for "junction". Subliterate bastards.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 12 March, 2012, 08:39:37 pm
Quote from: Shanaze Read's Facebook status
Excited about my new advert which is out today for @HolidayInnUKIreland! Hope the Nutritionist see's that I had fruit for breakfast ;)

Oh dear.  And not just about Holiday Inn :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 12 March, 2012, 09:38:26 pm
I think the greengrocer's apostrophe should be renamed the Facebook Apostrophe, to bring it up to date.

There are archives of FB threads where the grammer nazi's  ;) lay into people who use "your" instead of "you're"; it's a kind of sport.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 March, 2012, 10:43:02 pm
I think yew're going other the top their.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 13 March, 2012, 09:22:02 am
No, he ha's a point.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 13 March, 2012, 09:59:21 am
So are their roolz for wear we can put apostrophe's now? The internet is turning into the Thurd Rake  >:(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: LEE on 13 March, 2012, 10:08:22 am
'Front forks' is correct. You'll find mentions of 'rear forks' in old writing about bikes.

Nope, or rather only colloquially. 'Forks' is short for fork blades, of which there is a pair at the front. At the rear you do have two pairs of tubes meeting at the dropouts.

Edit: and I'm feeling terribly pedantic pointing this out.

2nd edit: but I still think I'm right.

Pedantic?  On this thread?  That's unacceptable..GET OUT!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 13 March, 2012, 09:09:41 pm
Financial "products". I find this terribly odd.

We've had decades in which manufacturing (of products) was felt to be unimportant, and services were held to be the future. How strange then that the service industries should be, during this period, doing violence to the English language by describing their output as "products", when they clearly offer services.

Come on folks, if services are the future, why are you jumping off the band-wagon?

In any case, give me back my language. If I'll still have it after your company (and any successor) closes down, it's a product. If not, it's a service.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 March, 2012, 09:23:28 pm
For what you're talking about, it's usually neither a product nor a service but a rip off!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 14 March, 2012, 06:40:25 am
One I'd forgotten until my iPod reminded me of it yesterday...

Quote from: Coffin & King
The local rock group down the street is trying hard to learn their songs...

This is what happens when you have a pop group made up of both English and American members.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: geoff on 14 March, 2012, 01:52:16 pm
One I'd forgotten until my iPod reminded me of it yesterday...

Quote from: Coffin & King
The local rock group down the street is trying hard to learn their songs...

This is what happens when you have a pop group made up of both English and American members.

d.

Goffin and King, that'll be. (Gerry Goffin and Carole King). Sorry to be super-pedantical
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 14 March, 2012, 02:21:59 pm
One I'd forgotten until my iPod reminded me of it yesterday...

Quote from: Coffin & King
The local rock group down the street is trying hard to learn their songs...

This is what happens when you have a pop group made up of both English and American members.

d.
I spend my life fiddling with this kind of sentence as I work for an American record company.

They like to say things like "The Banjo Boys release its fifth album" which I change to "release their third album". Possibly technically incorrect but the original looks bonkers.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 14 March, 2012, 02:27:32 pm
Helen, I'm relieved that two banjo albums seem to have gone missing!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 14 March, 2012, 02:33:41 pm
Quote
The local rock group down the street is trying hard to learn their songs...

The songs could be written by different band-members (i.e. a plural group).

But the band tries to learn them together, as an entity. QED  :P
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 14 March, 2012, 02:45:50 pm
Helen, I'm relieved that two banjo albums seem to have gone missing!
Good point.

Good thing I'm paid big bucks for proofreading, innit!
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 14 March, 2012, 03:48:25 pm
One I'd forgotten until my iPod reminded me of it yesterday...

Quote from: Coffin & King
The local rock group down the street is trying hard to learn their songs...

This is what happens when you have a pop group made up of both English and American members.

d.

Goffin and King, that'll be. (Gerry Goffin and Carole King). Sorry to be super-pedantical

Argh! Damn autocorrect! :(

d.
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 14 March, 2012, 03:50:29 pm
Quote
The local rock group down the street is trying hard to learn their songs...

The songs could be written by different band-members (i.e. a plural group).

But the band tries to learn them together, as an entity. QED  :P

Hmm, not convinced. Another possible explanation is that "their" refers to Goffin & King rather than the band, but that's clutching at straws.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 14 March, 2012, 03:57:25 pm
One I'd forgotten until my iPod reminded me of it yesterday...

Quote from: Coffin & King
The local rock group down the street is trying hard to learn their songs...

This is what happens when you have a pop group made up of both English and American members.

d.

Goffin and King, that'll be. (Gerry Goffin and Carole King). Sorry to be super-pedantical

Argh! Damn autocorrect! :(

d.

I think autocorrect is making a comment about the music.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 March, 2012, 09:33:10 pm
Hmmm. "The local rock group down the street is trying hard to learn their songs..." sounds ok to me, but "The Banjo Boys release its fifth album" clashes on every neuron I possess. Technically both sentences have the same inconsistency between verb and possessive, so I think this is because we're so used to saying "they" and "their" in cases where we refer to one person of unknown sex. "The child was too small to know their own address" for instance.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 March, 2012, 10:19:51 pm
You mean using the plural you as formal singular you? No, it's not like that, it's to avoid saying he or she in cases where the person's identity is not know or is irrelevant, or where one person is taken as representing many.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 15 March, 2012, 10:18:06 am
"The child was too small to know their own address" for instance.

In this example, is this like we have in mainland Europe where their is the third person you not the second person you, which means it could be plural or just formal singular?

Kind of.

For people, there's nothing wrong with using "their" as a gender-neutral third-person singular, but a rock group isn't a person, so if you're treating it as a singular entity, the appropriate third-person singular possessive pronoun would be "its".

"I is learning our songs" makes as much sense grammatically.

Not that it matters. It's still a damn fine song.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Arch on 15 March, 2012, 09:47:31 pm
We have a new kettle at work, an Intelliboil kettle. You can set it to three different cut off temperatures, 100, 95 and 85 - in case you don't need water actually at boiling, say for coffee or herbal teas.*

There's a little cardboard chart hanging up in the kitchen explaining the three settings.  It says that setting it to 85 degrees "saves up to 15% less energy"

Um no. It either uses less energy, or it saves more.  Saving less energy is not generally a selling point...

*all meaningless at the moment anyway, since our water system recently showed a bacterial build up, and we can't drink the water without boiling it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 March, 2012, 10:04:06 pm
It's probably a deliberate phrase. "Saves up to 15% less energy than claimed in our advertising."  :D  :-\
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 15 March, 2012, 10:30:13 pm
I had to turn round and go back to check whether I'd really seen it.
(http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7195/6985788919_b81aba9000.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 16 March, 2012, 09:43:03 am
There's a little cardboard chart hanging up in the kitchen explaining the three settings.  It says that setting it to 85 degrees "saves up to 15% less energy"

Um no. It either uses less energy, or it saves more.  Saving less energy is not generally a selling point...
Bzzzt. Sorry Arch, but there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with their grammar.  ;)

(For me, it's the widespread use of "... upto  X%!" that grates the most. Again, nothing wrong with the grammar, so one for another thread some day ... )
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 16 March, 2012, 10:01:47 am
Sometimes it's just a typo. :-[
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 16 March, 2012, 10:06:33 am
I had to turn round and go back to check whether I'd really seen it.

If you live there, do you have to use the road sign rendition?
Is it round the back of a greengrocer's?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 16 March, 2012, 10:26:13 am
I had to turn round and go back to check whether I'd really seen it.

If you live there, do you have to use the road sign rendition?
Is it round the back of a greengrocer's?

It's Bampton, Mid-Devon. There's a 17C joke about the ruralness of Bampton folk, recounted by Thomas Fuller in The Worthies of England.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 16 March, 2012, 11:06:44 am
For me, it's the widespread use of "... upto  X%!" that grates the most.

I guess you see that alot. I notice that many commonly paired words are now being written as one, perhaps it is language development, just as to day became to-day and now we write today.

Noone has any standards anymore.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 16 March, 2012, 11:08:49 am

Noone has any standards anymore.


He never did. Them Hermits were rubbish.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 16 March, 2012, 11:39:54 am
I guess you see that alot. I notice that many commonly paired words are now being written as one, perhaps it is language development, just as to day became to-day and now we write today.

I've been getting alot of intriguing misprints in e-books recently which I suspect to be the fault of a particularly dim spell checker.  The first part of a word is instead appended to the previous word.  Both words are real, but the sentence becomes completely nonsensical.

Then there was the "Author's Notes" section in which the syllable "ind" had been replaced throughout with "notes" ???
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 16 March, 2012, 11:41:58 am
Possibly the ultimate, nuclear option, office prank if someone leaves their PC unlocked is to go into Word and set up AutoCorrect to replace "Chief Executive" with "Twat", etc.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 16 March, 2012, 12:15:37 pm

Noone has any standards anymore.


He never did. Them Hermits were rubbish.

 ;D

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 16 March, 2012, 12:18:18 pm
Then there was the "Author's Notes" section in which the syllable "ind" had been replaced throughout with "notes" ???

Ah yes, the perils of universal find-and-replace...

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/sleuth/2008/07/christian_sites_ban_on_g_word.html

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Efrogwr on 20 March, 2012, 10:37:33 pm
Metonomy. There was a cracker in The Budget Conjecture bit of PM this evening, "No10 picked it up and ran with it".

Who is the Government's outside half?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SandyV on 21 March, 2012, 12:07:44 pm
The word is sliver not slither.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: tatanab on 21 March, 2012, 12:11:48 pm
The word is sliver not slither.
Yes, that's been a popular one for about a year now.  Another common one, usually on find a house type programmes, is where the presenter invites the people to wonder around.  I wander what could be meant?
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 23 March, 2012, 11:57:20 am
Seen at Uni today.

(http://i738.photobucket.com/albums/xx30/Auntie_Helen/bd93dd4d.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SteveC on 23 March, 2012, 12:08:08 pm
Seen at Uni today.

(http://i738.photobucket.com/albums/xx30/Auntie_Helen/bd93dd4d.jpg)
That's another USAnian habit. An apostrophe isn't entirely unreasonable there as there are missing letters (as PC is an abbreviation) but it is considered poor style in English English.

S
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SteveC on 23 March, 2012, 02:39:19 pm
An apostrophe isn't entirely unreasonable there as there are missing letters (as PC is an abbreviation) ...

Should it not be consistent, ie. P'C's?
This is English we're talking about and you want consistency? :D


Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 25 March, 2012, 04:10:50 pm
It's PC gorn mad!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 25 March, 2012, 06:58:34 pm
Revenge, a la SMBC (http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2478#comic)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 25 March, 2012, 10:15:54 pm
Great video's in a learning centre!

(http://i738.photobucket.com/albums/xx30/Auntie_Helen/c2615dad.jpg)

(Sorry it's sideways on!)

And what the heck is all that about a new, welcoming building??!!! Who cares about that?!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 03 April, 2012, 09:21:21 pm
(http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae7/fboab/2012-04-03205010.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 15 April, 2012, 03:25:37 pm
(http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae7/fboab/2012-04-15142524.jpg)

Even aside from the irony of marketing Adnams as local to BSE, home of Greene King...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 15 April, 2012, 04:55:03 pm
Even aside from the irony of marketing Adnams as local to BSE, home of Greene King...

Yebbut Greene King don't brew any beer (worth drinking).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 16 April, 2012, 09:27:31 am
It's amazing how much they sell, given how rubbish beer snobs claim it is....

I don't know how Adnams do it, given their industrial process and equally voracious pub buying appetite, but they still manage to fool people into thinking they're a sweet local operator in comparison to the all consuming monster Greene King.

Biased? Job seeking? Me?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 16 April, 2012, 09:30:24 am
When we were in Scotland a couple of weeks ago the most common ale in the pubs we visited was Old Speckled Hen.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 16 April, 2012, 10:13:45 am
It's amazing how much they sell, given how rubbish beer snobs claim it is....

Quite right. Most of the public appear to want beer that tastes of nothing. I believe Fosters also sell a lot of "beer".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 16 April, 2012, 10:34:49 am
When we were in Scotland a couple of weeks ago the most common ale in the pubs we visited was Old Speckled Hen.
I suspect that's because Greene King ate Belhaven...

Greene King are in the business of keeping pubs open. You'd think that'd be popular with beer drinkers of all varieties. Yet it seems you'd rather curse their greedy ways and horrible beverages. I don't drink beer, but I'm hardly likely to slate one of the biggest employers locally, who use locally grown produce to manufacture an internationally successful range of stuff. None of which I'm likely to buy .
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 16 April, 2012, 10:59:13 am
It's amazing how much they sell, given how rubbish beer snobs claim it is....

Greene King IPA won champion beer at the Great British Beer Festival a few years ago. In a blind tasting. You can imagine how upset the beer snobs were.

It's not such a bad beer when it's well kept - light and refreshing. Not really an IPA though. The real problem is its ubiquity, which means it's more likely to be stocked by pubs that don't look after their beer so well, which means a much greater likelihood of encountering it in less than perfect condition.

The voracious expansionism of Greene King doesn't help their cause. I know what you mean about Adnams but they get away with it by making some Very Good beer. I've had a good few duff pints of Adnams in my time though.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 19 April, 2012, 12:31:05 pm
Caption beneath photo in today's Times:
Quote
Rebels in Tai Rifaat have to make their own grenades, and have only small arms

It ran on ', courage and prayer to rely on in battles against the regime's tanks, gunships and military mercenaries, who are blamed for destroying the home of "El Hajj" and his still tearful mother, above right', which is OK as far as the grammar is concerned - if a little long - but it still caused me to splutter.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 19 April, 2012, 12:59:31 pm
Superb!
Caption beneath photo in today's Times:
Quote
Rebels in Tai Rifaat have to make their own grenades, and have only small arms

On the plus side, they can make the grenades to a spec that suits their small arms; mass-produced ones might not be as suitable.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 19 April, 2012, 01:03:18 pm
Perhaps they had longer arms before they started making their own grenades.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 19 April, 2012, 11:00:29 pm
Ambiguous headline on Beeb website:
"Lightning strike disrupts trains in and out of London"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-17777918 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-17777918)

Would that be the weather or industrial unrest, then?

(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 29 April, 2012, 03:26:05 pm
OK, it's not grammar, it's maths, but Johnnie Walker has just introduced a segment by saying,

'...Billy Bragg was born in Barking in 1957 and was a teenager throughout the seventies...' :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 29 April, 2012, 03:27:32 pm
One from the train stations yesterday:

'Due to the current inclement weather, please take care...'
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 29 April, 2012, 03:33:26 pm
OK, it's not grammar, it's maths, but Johnnie Walker has just introduced a segment by saying,

'...Billy Bragg was born in Barking in 1957 and was a teenager throughout the seventies...' :facepalm:

The cringeworthy arithmetic that gets me is the advertisement on the BT webmail offering life insurance from 0.17p per dday.
£5 per month is  about 17p per day.
Out by a factor 100...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 17 May, 2012, 07:57:12 am
Subject: You're chance for Olympic Games tickets - Buy now
To: mattc@pedant.com
From: London 2012 Ticketing <marketing@tickets.london2012.com>
...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Chris L on 17 May, 2012, 10:19:28 am
On a sample photograph of the class brought home from school: Group Proof Photograph.  Which is OK.  Just.  More randomly, "Each photograph supplied with a mount," which if it's true will delight my daughter, but be a bit of a headache for us.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 17 May, 2012, 01:23:11 pm
I can't decide if this is wrong, or just jarring:

(http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae7/fboab/Untitled.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: why1040 on 17 May, 2012, 01:24:26 pm
Definitely somewhat jarring, but I think technically correct...at least I can't think of a better way to put it!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 17 May, 2012, 01:29:50 pm
Well "nite" is incorrect in British English ...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 17 May, 2012, 02:47:48 pm
The only valid usage is:
"Ye Olde Charity Quiz Nite"


Actually, what makes me cringe is those bloody ellipsis-es (plural sp?!?); but as boab put the "nite" sign in the foreground, I assume that was the 'subject' of the piccie.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 May, 2012, 02:52:40 pm
Definitely somewhat jarring, but I think technically correct...at least I can't think of a better way to put it!
Last Sunday of every month
?

But it doesn't look wrong as it is, to me.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 17 May, 2012, 04:24:30 pm
Definitely somewhat jarring, but I think technically correct...at least I can't think of a better way to put it!

Last Sunday of every month?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 May, 2012, 05:43:44 pm
Thank you, Helly.  ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 18 May, 2012, 12:28:26 pm
If I Was by Midge Ure.  I've just used it in Tune Association, and realised it still grates.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 18 May, 2012, 01:22:37 pm
Subject: You're chance for Olympic Games tickets - Buy now
To: mattc@pedant.com
From: London 2012 Ticketing <marketing@tickets.london2012.com>
...


I got that email too. I'd hardly finished reading the subject line before I'd hit the delete button.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 18 May, 2012, 01:24:06 pm
If I Was by Midge Ure.  I've just used it in Tune Association, and realised it still grates.
;D

(If lyrics are fair game, we're gonna need a bigger thread! )
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 18 May, 2012, 01:25:11 pm
Last Sunday of every month?

That works. "Every last" is more emphasis than restriction - cf "Every last man was prepared to die for his country."

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 May, 2012, 05:14:48 pm
I've just received an email with the subject line "Letter's". I wouldn't mind so much but it's from my son's school.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Arch on 27 May, 2012, 08:07:01 pm
Spotted today at the Yorkshire Air Museum, which is on an old WWII airbase:

(http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7213/7281234910_d73b8d08e9.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/59866846@N02/7281234910/)
DSCN3139 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/59866846@N02/7281234910/) by Panticle (http://www.flickr.com/people/59866846@N02/), on Flickr

Men fought and died so that we could have that standard of punctuation.... :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wendy on 27 May, 2012, 08:26:17 pm
NAFI means something quite different to me. (No Ambition, F'k all Interest).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Arch on 27 May, 2012, 09:17:16 pm
2 As in NAAFI.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navy,_Army_and_Air_Force_Institutes
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wendy on 27 May, 2012, 09:29:34 pm
Really? OMG!!!!!!!!11

I did actually spot that.  ;) :P
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Arch on 27 May, 2012, 09:34:26 pm
Given the quality of the rest of the notice, you might have thought the 2 As were a misprint....
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wendy on 27 May, 2012, 09:58:46 pm
Yeah, you've got me there.  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 28 May, 2012, 12:16:54 am
(http://peter.chesspod.com/gallery/d/16178-1/DSC08532.JPG)

Not just the apostrophe problems, but the bland assumption that women don't drink beer and men don't drink pimm's or champagne.

This was at the White Hart, Margaretting Tye, where the WARTY partook of late afternoon refreshments.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: bobb on 30 May, 2012, 04:14:31 pm
A beauty...

(http://www.zaribor.com/raz/pics/pans.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 30 May, 2012, 04:19:43 pm
That is appalling.

They missed out the apostrophes on both "sandwiche's" and "filling's" :o
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 30 May, 2012, 04:29:44 pm
It's also redundant as panini is Italian for sandwiches so it says "sandwiches, chips, sandwiches".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mike on 30 May, 2012, 04:41:42 pm
Our local is called the Red Cow.  It was taken over a couple of years ago by a couple who'd never run a pub before and they've had a tough time, but they're happily paying someone to help them with marketing and promotion stuff and it's driving me absolutely mental.

As an example of the evidence I'll use in court after I've burnt the place to the ground, they're having a music festival this weekend - lovely - except it's not a music festival, it's a 'moosic' festival, with 'incredi-bull' bands under one 'hoof', for people feeling 'socia-bull' who want an 'udderly' special day.   They dont have a weekly pub quiz, it's 'moo-niversity challenge', they dont do a newsletter it's a 'moosletter' and you can follow them heifery day on facebook or twitter.

Swear to god, I'm going to torch the place.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 May, 2012, 04:43:18 pm
A beauty...

(http://www.zaribor.com/raz/pics/pans.jpg)
Fillings? Who wants little bits of shaved metal in their paganini?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 30 May, 2012, 04:44:26 pm
Our local is called the Red Cow.  It was taken over a couple of years ago by a couple who'd never run a pub before and they've had a tough time, but they're happily paying someone to help them with marketing and promotion stuff and it's driving me absolutely mental.

As an example of the evidence I'll use in court after I've burnt the place to the ground, they're having a music festival this weekend - lovely - except it's not a music festival, it's a 'moosic' festival, with 'incredi-bull' bands under one 'hoof', for people feeling 'socia-bull' who want an 'udderly' special day.   They dont have a weekly pub quiz, it's 'moo-niversity challenge', they dont do a newsletter it's a 'moosletter' and you can follow them heifery day on facebook or twitter.

Swear to god, I'm going to torch the place.

What's your beef?  I think it's veally good.  If you had a steak in the business, you'd milk it for all it was worth.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mike on 30 May, 2012, 05:01:49 pm
Our local is called the Red Cow.  It was taken over a couple of years ago by a couple who'd never run a pub before and they've had a tough time, but they're happily paying someone to help them with marketing and promotion stuff and it's driving me absolutely mental.

As an example of the evidence I'll use in court after I've burnt the place to the ground, they're having a music festival this weekend - lovely - except it's not a music festival, it's a 'moosic' festival, with 'incredi-bull' bands under one 'hoof', for people feeling 'socia-bull' who want an 'udderly' special day.   They dont have a weekly pub quiz, it's 'moo-niversity challenge', they dont do a newsletter it's a 'moosletter' and you can follow them heifery day on facebook or twitter.

Swear to god, I'm going to torch the place.

What's your beef?  I think it's veally good.  If you had a steak in the business, you'd milk it for all it was worth.

You!!  Outside! Now!  (i bloody knew someone would, and had my suspicions about who it might be..)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 30 May, 2012, 05:04:01 pm
Just typing up the blurb on a new book. Who writes this copy - it was littered with mistakes and badly written all round. I had to correct it.

I loved this line:

Quote
Half a mile under Mont St Michel, Normandy, Adrian De Vere’s biological scientists and Lucifer’s dark Cabal Wizards release a weaponised toxin to decimate over a third of the earth’s population.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 May, 2012, 05:08:06 pm
The rest are still using shillings.  :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 30 May, 2012, 05:20:33 pm
Our local is called the Red Cow.  It was taken over a couple of years ago by a couple who'd never run a pub before and they've had a tough time, but they're happily paying someone to help them with marketing and promotion stuff and it's driving me absolutely mental.

As an example of the evidence I'll use in court after I've burnt the place to the ground, they're having a music festival this weekend - lovely - except it's not a music festival, it's a 'moosic' festival, with 'incredi-bull' bands under one 'hoof', for people feeling 'socia-bull' who want an 'udderly' special day.   They dont have a weekly pub quiz, it's 'moo-niversity challenge', they dont do a newsletter it's a 'moosletter' and you can follow them heifery day on facebook or twitter.

Swear to god, I'm going to torch the place.

What's your beef?  I think it's veally good.  If you had a steak in the business, you'd milk it for all it was worth.

You!!  Outside! Now!  (i bloody knew someone would, and had my suspicions about who it might be..)

 O:-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Zipperhead on 30 May, 2012, 06:51:54 pm
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Rl_D7v2cumc/T8ZdaMeDjCI/AAAAAAAAWEw/ZIN6crMVlkM/s647/DSC_1703.JPG)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jogler on 30 May, 2012, 09:15:08 pm
drive normally
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 30 May, 2012, 09:36:47 pm
(http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg254/scaled.php?server=254&filename=themallsign13may2012sma.jpg&res=landing)

American usage of "through" seen on a sign in the road in front of Buckingham Palace.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 30 May, 2012, 10:31:02 pm
Should be 'while' ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 30 May, 2012, 10:55:34 pm
Should be 'while' ;)

Bloody northerners. What's wrong with until?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: contango on 31 May, 2012, 09:55:04 am
One of my pet peeves

(http://cache2.allpostersimages.com/p/LRG/36/3633/8CMEF00Z/posters/rice-christopher-grasping-grammar-they-re-there-their.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 May, 2012, 12:30:08 pm
(http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg254/scaled.php?server=254&filename=themallsign13may2012sma.jpg&res=landing)

American usage of "through" seen on a sign in the road in front of Buckingham Palace.
It's Anglicised (or should that be Britannicised?) A true Americanism would be "thru".  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 01 June, 2012, 08:31:20 am
Typo in an ebook I am currently reading.

Woman has broken down at the side of the road, tow truck man arrives:

Quote
He moved around her and went to his truck. He started preparing her car to be towed, doing technical things with wenches, and hooks...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 01 June, 2012, 10:16:47 am
No, and I did think that as I wrote it but as I was using the iPad I couldn't be bothered to write that the woman's VW Beetle had broken down...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 01 June, 2012, 10:21:58 am
(http://desmond.imageshack.us/Himg254/scaled.php?server=254&filename=themallsign13may2012sma.jpg&res=landing)

American usage of "through" seen on a sign in the road in front of Buckingham Palace.

American use of "through" seen on a sign in the road in front of Buckingham Palace - unless you're American, possibly!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 01 June, 2012, 11:19:37 am
Woman has broken down at the side of the road, tow truck man arrives:

And there was me thinking that if this woman has broken down at the side of the road she needs a counsellor, not a tow truck man. But that wasn't the grammer you were pointing out, was it, Helen? Silly me!
As this is the "grammar" thread, I think I'm allowed to point out the lack of grammar defects in the passage. (or indeed grammer defects).

Still bloody funny!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 01 June, 2012, 11:21:54 am
Yeah but I wasn't sure if there was a 'typos that make you cringe' thread. I come across such disasters regularly in my reading.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 01 June, 2012, 12:06:40 pm
Helen's is part of a more elite group - typos that are not spellos or grammos, but lead to an amusing unintended meaning. [Listeners send lots of great ones to R4 News Quiz.]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Arch on 01 June, 2012, 12:19:10 pm
Helen's is part of a more elite group - typos that are not spellos or grammos, but lead to an amusing unintended meaning. [Listeners send lots of great ones to R4 News Quiz.]

I remember one about a village that were going to erect a commemorative plague on the village green....
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 01 June, 2012, 12:46:29 pm
Here's a t-shirt for you.

http://www.shotdeadinthehead.com/product_view.aspx?pid=4398

Warning, contains some words.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 01 June, 2012, 01:16:05 pm


American usage of "through" seen on a sign in the road in front of Buckingham Palace.

American use of "through" seen on a sign in the road in front of Buckingham Palace - unless you're American, possibly!

Certainly you can use "use", but "usage" sounds OK to me as well.

"Usage" from OED:

Quote
7

a. The established or customary manner of using a language; the way in which an item of vocabulary, syntax, or grammar is normally used, esp. by a specified group or in a particular domain or region.

c1400  (1380)    Chaucer tr. Boethius De Consol. Philos. (BL Add. 10340) (1868) iv. pr. vii. l. 4184   Wilt þou‥þat I proche a litel to þe wordes of þe poeple so it seme nat to hem þat I be ouer moche departid as fro þe vsage of man kynde?
1572   J. Bridges tr. R. Gwalther Hundred, Threescore & Fiftene Homelyes xxx. 220   Thys worde generation, according to the vsage of the Hebrues, is taken as well for the age of a man, as for his posteritie.
1697   D. Defoe Ess. Projects 236   The Voice of this Society should be sufficient Authority for the Usage of Words.
1700   E. Howard Remarks New Philos. Des-Cartes ii. 135   Vulgar usage of Words is, and will be more practicably Retain'd, by the generality of Mankind, than any Concise, or Philosophical Language of the Schools.
1785   W. Paley Moral & Polit. Philos. iii. 158   All senses of all words are founded upon usage, and nothing else.
1806   W. Cruise Digest Laws Eng. Real Prop. VI. 367   To make words stand for ideas, in opposition to the sense which usage had put upon them.
a1831   Encycl. Metrop. I. 132/1   When we speak of nouns and verbs, we only conform to the established usage.
1875   W. D. Whitney Life & Growth of Lang. xii. 231   As to the common name by which they shall be called, usage is very diverse.
1937   S. F. Armstrong Brit. Grasses (ed. 3) x. 207   Its old common English name was ‘Ray-grass’, but in general usage the word became corrupted to Rie-grass and so to Rye-grass.
1967   Adv. in Immunol. 7 277   At the present time it is generally agreed that correct usage includes the following terms.
2005   S. Elmes Talking for Brit. ii. 45 (Gloss.),   ‘My lover’ is Bristol usage, but also found quite widely in the West Country.

b. An instance of such language use; a word, phrase, construction, etc., used in a particular or characteristic way by a group, in a region, etc.

1799   Monthly Rev. June 141   When general practice has established any given manner of writing or uttering a word, this usage, even if inconsistent with analogy or internal etymology, ought perhaps to be considered as the binding law.
1833   Penny Cycl. I. 449/1   For other American usages which are somewhat peculiar, the reader may refer to the following words in Webster: to wagon (waggon), [etc.].
1895   H. Rashdall Univ. Europe in Middle Ages II. ii. xii. §9. 558   At Cambridge‥the more usual name was Hospicium or Hostel—not the only instance in which a Parisian usage has been preserved more faithfully at Cambridge than at Oxford.
1930   G. B. Johnson in B. A. Botkin Treasury Southern Folklore (1949) iv. iii. 697   Ax, ask. Not a Negroism, but a usage which was once good English.
1968   G. Jones Hist. Vikings iii. iv. 245   Similarly they translate Liudprand's Nordmanni as Normans, meaning Northmen, Scandinavians, a customary Russian usage.
2005   J. Kozol Shame of Nation v. 115   The term‥is ‘front-loading children,’ a usage that appears to have originated in the world of capital investment.

And of course there's "Fowler’s Modern English Usage", "A Dictionary of Modern English Usage" etc.

One definition of "through" from the OED:
Quote
U.S. Up to (a date, a number, a specified item, etc.) inclusively, up to the end of, up to and including, to, until; often correlative to from.

1798   T. Holcroft Jrnl. 4 Aug. in Mem. (1816) III. 31   Continued the opera through scene 9, Act 3.
1930   H. Brown (title)    Rabelais in English literature through Sterne.
1932   Atlantic Monthly May 538   Mr. Heffernan was mayor for four years, from 1927 through 1931.
1942   M. Kraitchik Math. Recreations vi. 130   Poisson calculated this probability, taking into account the cards dealt in the first hand. His result does not differ through the third decimal place.
1950   H. Craig Hist. Eng. Lit. 250   Spenser treats of England from the Reformation through the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
1967   N.Y. Times (Internat. Ed.) 11 Feb. 1/6   At a background briefing early in November, the American command made available infiltration figures covering the year through Sept. 30 and a rough estimate for October.
1971   Physics Bull. Dec. 738/1   In the review copy pages 1469 through 1472 are already loose which does not say too much for the quality of the binding.
1977   Time 8 Aug. 19/3   We will continue to govern through the end of our term.
1981   L. Deighton XPD xliii. 342   A‥notice stating that deliveries were only accepted between eight and eleven Monday through Friday.

Also re spelling:
Quote
thru: now used informally as a reformed spelling and abbreviation (chiefly) in N. Amer.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 01 June, 2012, 02:04:56 pm
h., I didn't say it was wrong, per se, although the references you cite refer, in the main, to a habit of language rather than to the equivalence of use with usage.  I'm not being a pedant, merely posting in the spirit of the thread title, because it makes me cringe!

Another I can't stand is "signage" for signs.  How about you?

Cheers

Peter
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 01 June, 2012, 02:10:11 pm
I don't mind "signage" when its referring to a general class of things  but if it's particular then "signs" is better. So "we need to design some signage for the motorway system" against "we need to install thirty stop signs" .
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Zipperhead on 01 June, 2012, 02:11:54 pm
Quote
He moved around her and went to his truck. He started preparing her car to be towed, doing technical things with wenches, and hooks...

I like doing technical things with wenches - it stops them getting out of the restraints.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 01 June, 2012, 02:17:08 pm
I don't mind "signage" when its referring to a general class of things  but if it's particular then "signs" is better. So "we need to design some signage for the motorway system" against "we need to install thirty stop signs" .

pc, I agree you can just about make a case for that (just about!) but what irks me is an exhortation to "follow the signage" or "the regulations are clearly dsplayed on the signage" and so on.  It's an example of people trying to make something sound more impressive or technical when there is no need and perfectly adequate language already exists.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Deano on 01 June, 2012, 02:24:13 pm
I don't mind "signage" when its referring to a general class of things  but if it's particular then "signs" is better. So "we need to design some signage for the motorway system" against "we need to install thirty stop signs" .

pc, I agree you can just about make a case for that (just about!) but what irks me is an exhortation to "follow the signage" or "the regulations are clearly dsplayed on the signage" and so on. It's an example of people trying to make something sound more impressive or technical when there is no need and perfectly adequate language already exists.


See also: excessive usage use of the reflexive pronoun, eg "I am writing to ask yourselves..."

Incidentally, while googling for a suitable example, I found this bit of hokum:

http://coa.ender.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=37559
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 01 June, 2012, 02:41:17 pm
h., I didn't say it was wrong, per se, although the references you cite refer, in the main, to a habit of language rather than to the equivalence of use with usage.  I'm not being a pedant, merely posting in the spirit of the thread title, because it makes me cringe!

Another I can't stand is "signage" for signs.  How about you?

Cheers

Peter

"Signage" sounds like a made up and unnecessary word to my ears, whereas "usage" in regards to language is well established and sounds perfectly normal, at least to me.

However I can't stand "utilise" and "utilisation", when "use" means the same thing exactly.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 01 June, 2012, 02:48:08 pm
I don't mind "signage" when its referring to a general class of things  but if it's particular then "signs" is better. So "we need to design some signage for the motorway system" against "we need to install thirty stop signs" .

pc, I agree you can just about make a case for that (just about!) but what irks me is an exhortation to "follow the signage" or "the regulations are clearly dsplayed on the signage" and so on.  It's an example of people trying to make something sound more impressive or technical when there is no need and perfectly adequate language already exists.
In general, using "more impressive" language is to be deplored, I agree.

However, although "signs" would almost certainly do the job here, there is a possiblity that just 1 sign would do the job suffice; hence "signage" would cover all scenarios. <pushes specs up nose>
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 01 June, 2012, 03:04:54 pm
Meanwhile:
(and by association the dangerising of cycling)
:o
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 01 June, 2012, 04:31:53 pm
Sensational, Dean!  More abusage than usage, I feel, though whether or not the language of people who don't exist can be regarded as incorrect I don't know!  It may be some specially mutated form of English in which mastooks are actively encouraged (or undisincentivised).  This is very popular in supermarkets and primary school "mission statements".  (Oh heck, I've just made myself cringe again!)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: docsquid on 01 June, 2012, 07:15:18 pm
Ah, the apostrophe pixie (not to mention the absence of commas or any other kind of punctuation pixie) strikes again in this comment on one of my photos on a web site

Quote
Wow just awesome love it! Wow you can actually see it’'s tiny eye’'s..
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 02 June, 2012, 08:07:57 am
"Signage" sounds like a made up and unnecessary word to my ears, whereas "usage" in regards to language is well established and sounds perfectly normal, at least to me.

However I can't stand "utilise" and "utilisation", when "use" means the same thing exactly.
"Componentry" where "components" would do? I accept a subtle difference, but Plain English wins every time.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 June, 2012, 06:57:33 pm
Meanwhile:
(and by association the dangerising of cycling)
:o
In the context, I think it was a pretty good word. I can't think of any other single word that could be used to give the same meaning, "making something appear to be dangerous".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 03 June, 2012, 07:06:26 pm
... assuming it is a word, that is.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Arch on 03 June, 2012, 10:31:01 pm
I just heard an American on TV use the word 'burglarise'.

Or 'burgle' as we say in English.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: LEE on 03 June, 2012, 10:43:44 pm
I just heard an American on TV use the word 'burglarise'.

Or 'burgle' as we say in English.

They'd have used a "z" in that I think.

Also, I think it's a legitimate US word. 

You realise that the French also have different words for things right?  You know.... different countries...different words?


I think it's a slippery slope to take the piss out of countries who use different words.  It means you need to take a look at every word you use, to make sure you aren't using one of their words in common parlance.

Are you sure you never use Americanisms?  They are incredibly common you know.  America has influenced the English language significantly in the last century.

Also, it's worth remembering that many American words are actually old English words, that we stopped using but they didn't.


(Nothing personal, I just like to revisit this thread occasionally, to remind me how pathetically pedantic it is).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: little miss mac on 03 June, 2012, 10:49:25 pm
Here's a t-shirt for you.

http://www.shotdeadinthehead.com/product_view.aspx?pid=4398

Warning, contains some words.

I love this. I may buy it in anticipation of son's need for a handy reference point, notwithstanding the fucking emphasis.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Arch on 03 June, 2012, 10:50:40 pm


Are you sure you never use Americanisms?

Forsooth, I trust not.

 ;)

I don't mind the French using different words, since they speak French, and I borrow many words from them. But Americans claim to speak English....

Actually, my main beef is that Burglarize uses more syllables than is necessary, and reminds me of people saying "yourself" when they mean "you".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: LEE on 03 June, 2012, 11:03:59 pm


Are you sure you never use Americanisms?

Forsooth, I trust not.

 ;)

I don't mind the French using different words, since they speak French, and I borrow many words from them. But Americans claim to speak English....

Actually, my main beef is that Burglarize uses more syllables than is necessary, and reminds me of people saying "yourself" when they mean "you".

At what point in time was English set in stone?   As far as I am aware it changes daily.  That's the beauty of it.  As long as we know the meaning it's fine, it gives us more options for song lyrics (something the English language, with all it's wonderful made-up and varied words, is great for. Much better than some rigid languages.)

Like I said, Americans use some old English words that we decided to change or drop from common use.

You probably borrow words/phrases from America all the time, they really have been rather influential.  It all adds to the rich tapestry...etc.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 04 June, 2012, 07:52:11 am
We are so exposed to US language through films & TV we often don't realise how different it is. We know the meanings of loads of US words even though we'd never use them in normal conversation. But going the other way, Americans have huge difficulty understanding non-American English - it's not hugely surprising that Trainspotting was dubbed at the beginning for the US release (subtitles were considered) but loads of other films were totally dubbed - Gregory's Girl and Mad Max for example.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 04 June, 2012, 09:39:20 am
Did they ever export Rab C. Nesbitt to America?  A lot of people in England thought its appeal would have been widened with the use of subtitles  ;D  It took me a fair few programmes to work out what "the malky" is.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 04 June, 2012, 09:47:08 am
Did they ever export Rab C. Nesbitt to America?  A lot of people in England thought its appeal would have been widened with the use of subtitles  ;D  It took me a fair few programmes to work out what "the malky" is.
Shirley that was written with the assumption that most viewers wouldn't understand most of it? A bit like Rowley Birkin QC.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 04 June, 2012, 11:41:39 am
If you watched it a lot, you eventually understood it all.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 June, 2012, 12:07:49 am
... assuming it is a word, that is.
It might not have been before and it might not catch on, but it's a word in that sentence. David Martin wordised it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 05 June, 2012, 03:53:50 pm
i look forward to its deusage.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 05 June, 2012, 04:00:17 pm
... assuming [dangerise] is a word, that is.

Lexicographer Erin McKean points out here (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/04/using-undictionaried-words/) that analysis of large corpora shows that “52 percent of the English lexicon—the majority of the words used in English books—consists of lexical ‘dark matter’ undocumented in standard references.” English is a productive language: speakers and writers can easily coin new words, by generalising from well-known morphological roots, by importing words from other languages, or just by making them up. Most words fall into desuetude, but some survive and prosper.

So it makes no sense to ask, as Matt does in the quote above, whether a lexical item is really a word. It makes sense to ask where (if anywhere) it's in use; it makes sense to ask in which reference works (if any) it can be found; and it makes sense to think about whether it's clear or useful or poetic or concise. But to ask if it's a word? Well, yes, it is. What made you think it might not be?

In this case, dangerize, meaning "to emphasize or exaggerate the danger of something", seems pretty useful to me given the current tendency of politicians and security professionals to engage in the practice: a Google Books search (https://www.google.com/search?q=dangerization&tbm=bks) finds hundreds of hits.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 05 June, 2012, 04:03:02 pm
Gareth, this is fine.

But the thread is about what makes you cringe and if 52% of the "English" found in books makes me cringe then it fits the bill.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Deano on 05 June, 2012, 04:14:49 pm
"Dangerise" is a good word. Its awkwardness draws attention to the weaseliness of those who do it. 

See also: "disconnect" as a noun. To me, "disconnection" would seem more correct, but I like the way the abrupt ending suggests the meaning of the word. 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 05 June, 2012, 04:18:59 pm
But the thread is about what makes you cringe and if 52% of the "English" found in books makes me cringe then it fits the bill.

What I'm trying to do is to encourage people to report their cringes as cringes, rather than trying to claim or imply that they have some kind of objective basis for their subjective opinions. "The word dangerize makes me cringe" is fine (personal preference is inarguable); as is "dangerize is not found in the OED" (indeed it isn't), but "is dangerize really a word?" is a rhetorical question that tries to pass off opinion as fact.

(Also, the "52%" refers to the proportion of unique words, not to the proportion of text. See the original research paper, Quantitative Analysis of Culture Using Millions of Digitized Books (http://www.librarian.net/wp-content/uploads/science-googlelabs.pdf).)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 05 June, 2012, 04:26:47 pm
Yes, I see and agree!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 05 June, 2012, 04:42:41 pm
"Dangerise" is a good word. Its awkwardness draws attention to the weaseliness of those who do it.
I think it draws attention to the writer's awkwardness.

(Oh, and Deano's post is pure bumtersquatch. )
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 05 June, 2012, 04:46:31 pm
power outage for power failure.  Must have come up already?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Deano on 05 June, 2012, 04:46:52 pm
"Dangerise" is a good word. Its awkwardness draws attention to the weaseliness of those who do it.
I think it draws attention to the writer's awkwardness.

(Oh, and Deano's post is pure bumtersquatch. )

;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 05 June, 2012, 06:36:13 pm
power outage for power failure.  Must have come up already?

Power cut.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 05 June, 2012, 06:42:16 pm
power outage for power failure.  Must have come up already?

(http://books.google.com/ngrams/chart?content=power%20outage%2Cpower%20failure%2Cpower%20cut&corpus=0&smoothing=3&year_start=1950&year_end=2008)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 05 June, 2012, 06:45:16 pm
The Queen's English Society is to close.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/lack-of-interest-spells-the-end-for-the-queens-english-society-7814791.html (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/lack-of-interest-spells-the-end-for-the-queens-english-society-7814791.html)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 05 June, 2012, 07:24:01 pm
power outage for power failure.  Must have come up already?

Things go down during a power outage, not come up  :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 05 June, 2012, 07:30:44 pm
Only partly true - my dander comes up!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 05 June, 2012, 07:37:57 pm
power outage for power failure.  Must have come up already?

(http://books.google.com/ngrams/chart?content=power%20outage%2Cpower%20failure%2Cpower%20cut&corpus=0&smoothing=3&year_start=1950&year_end=2008)

Gareth, I've only just seen this and it looks interesting.  I'm sure there are technical reasons for separating this terms but in normal speech, as far as end use is concerned, power failure covers them all.

Out of interest, I can see how a fault at the power-provider's end would be a power cut and a malfunction somewhere in the user's equipment could be described as a power failure (which would also successfully describe the first example) but what does the red line (outage) represent?

Again, I'm not denying the word exists!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 05 June, 2012, 07:46:00 pm
I always assumed "power outage" was American for "power cut", both specifically referring to an failure interruption somewhere upstream of your own equipment.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 05 June, 2012, 08:26:16 pm
Same here, so I hope Gareth comes back to explain the fascinating graph.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 05 June, 2012, 08:39:34 pm
Power cut does not necessarily mean power failure. It can be planned & scheduled, as with power cuts in Japan since the tsunami last year, where schedules have been published & warnings given.

'Outage' should mean the same as 'cut' in this context.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 05 June, 2012, 08:56:13 pm
Yes, but there are three lines on the graph....
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 05 June, 2012, 09:01:51 pm
Ooops!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 05 June, 2012, 09:02:30 pm
Yes, but there are three lines on the graph....

One for each phase :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 05 June, 2012, 09:16:55 pm
I suppose that both 'outage' and 'failure' could be used to describe an unknown loss of power, especially in the increasingly common situation of dealing with equipment on a remote site where you know that it's no longer receiving power, but have yet to determine why.

"The servers shut down due to a power outage" could mean the cleaner chose the wrong socket for the hoover, or the breakers tripped, or there was a power cut.


Incidentally, is anyone else irked by the trend to translate "shut down" as "turn off" in British English localisations of popular operating systems?  To me, the former implies the operating system cleanly (or not so cleanly) killing processes and unmounting volumes and so on, while the latter merely implies powering down the hardware.  It's almost as bad as using 'programme' to refer to software, especially as a verb.  :hand:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 05 June, 2012, 09:35:07 pm
The graph is from Google Ngram Viewer (http://books.google.com/ngrams). As I'm sure you know, Google have been digitizing books on an industrial scale for the last few years, and currently estimate that they have about 4% of all the books ever published. The Ngram Viewer uses this corpus to draw graphs showing changes in the usage of words or phrases over time (as a proportion of all printed words). If you've ever wanted to know when Chili became Chile (http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Chile%2CChili&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3) or the changing fortunes of Brontosaurus versus Apatosaurus (http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Brontosaurus%2CApatosaurus&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3), or when the Great War became the First World War (http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Great+War%2CFirst+World+War&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3), or any other question that can be phrased in terms of the relative popularity of particular words, then Ngram Viewer is your tool.

The graph I drew shows the relative frequency over time in Google's corpus of the three phrases, power outage, power failure, and power cut. You can see that power failure has always been the most popular term, but power outage started to appear in the early 1970s and has gained in popularity ever since, overtaking power cut in the mid-1980s and still going strong. So this confirms Peter's original suspicion that power outage is a term that has been gaining in popularity over the last few decades.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 June, 2012, 09:54:57 pm
Black out
Brown out
Load shedding
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Arch on 05 June, 2012, 10:00:57 pm
The graph is from Google Ngram Viewer (http://books.google.com/ngrams)....

Cool!

I just looked up something I've wondered about - when did 'haulage' become 'logistics'?

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=haulage%2Clogistics&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3

Not really relevant though, unless they are digitising the logos on HGV's too...  Fun though!

I refuse to look up 'supply chain solutions' though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 18 June, 2012, 09:19:57 am
Headline from an article on the "Utility Weekly" website:  SSE agrees to buy Ireland fossil generation assets.

I never knew they generated fossils in Ireland.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 18 June, 2012, 09:50:29 am
Utility Weekly sounds like a periodical for everyday cyclists. :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 18 June, 2012, 10:35:54 am
Utility Weekly sounds like a periodical for everyday cyclists. :thumbsup:

Sadly, UW (http://www.utilityweek.co.uk/) is not that exciting.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: madcow on 18 June, 2012, 10:46:24 am
 "due to an earlier accident" . It appears in most traffic reports .

"Earlier" has ben morphed into an adjective. It just sounds wrong (to me ) and yet we know what is meant. 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 18 June, 2012, 10:52:55 am
It would be ok if the "earlier" came "later"!  This is known as de-adjectivising.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: madcow on 18 June, 2012, 10:56:59 am
I agree but even the BBC (Radio 2 listener mostly) expresses it the" wrong" way.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 18 June, 2012, 10:59:22 am
"due to an earlier accident" . It appears in most traffic reports .

"Earlier" has ben morphed into an adjective. It just sounds wrong (to me ) and yet we know what is meant.
"Early" is an adjective as well as an adverb.  ("The Early bird...")  So "Earlier" is a comparative adjective, just as "Earliest" is a superlative adjective.  So I'm completely OK with "earlier accient".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 18 June, 2012, 11:05:46 am
I'm not bothered by "earlier" used as an adjective, but it got me to wondering what would be a better word to use in that context. Previous, perhaps?

Then I realised that the word is redundant. Of course the accident happened earlier. Or indeed previously. No one would close a road in anticipation of a later accident, would they? This isn't Minority Report.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 18 June, 2012, 11:15:28 am
"due to an earlier accident" . It appears in most traffic reports .

"Earlier" has ben morphed into an adjective. It just sounds wrong (to me ) and yet we know what is meant.
"Early" is an adjective as well as an adverb.  ("The Early bird...")  So "Earlier" is a comparative adjective, just as "Earliest" is a superlative adjective.  So I'm completely OK with "earlier accient".

Yes, it's fine. As long as there were two accidents, and the other was was also early.

Otherwise, surely it should be "because of an accident earlier"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 18 June, 2012, 03:36:55 pm
"Due to an earlier accident". It appears in most traffic reports. "Earlier" has been morphed into an adjective. It just sounds wrong (to me) and yet we know what is meant.

Can you explain why earlier sounds wrong to you here?

Do other comparatives sound wrong to you, or is it just earlier? How do you feel about "the taller man", "the later Roman Empire", "the higher learning", "a better world", "the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 18 June, 2012, 03:51:49 pm
Only if there is an equivalent comparator.  Earlier than what?  Earlier than now?  That's redundant.  Earlier than another accident, well maybe.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 18 June, 2012, 03:56:28 pm
"Earlier accident" meaning not happening now or the immediate results of an accident, ie they're not now dealing with the accident.

Meaning it happened earlier. Earlier than now.

Language is loaded with redundancies, it's perfectly normal.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 18 June, 2012, 03:59:04 pm
Stating why it is wrong doesn't explain why it sounds wrong, especially when "we know what is meant".

When something like this sounds wrong to us, I suspect it's often to do with the way we were brought up/educated/otherwise indoctrinated.

My first boss's pet hate was dangling modifiers. Since working for her, I find myself highly sensitised to them (as I may have mentioned earlier in this thread), though most people seem not to notice them, never mind care about them.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 18 June, 2012, 07:37:31 pm
... was was ...
<OT>Reminds me of the old challenge to use the same word consecutively, as many times as possible, in a sentence that still makes reasonable sense. Intervening punctuation is allowed, but not other words. For example, the dance "can-can" would be two instances of "can".</OT>

(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Salvatore on 18 June, 2012, 07:59:57 pm
... was was ...
<OT>Reminds me of the old challenge to use the same word consecutively, as many times as possible, in a sentence that still makes reasonable sense. Intervening punctuation is allowed, but not other words. For example, the dance "can-can" would be two instances of "can".</OT>

(click to show/hide)

See also here (http://www.futilitycloset.com/2008/11/19/what-3/)

I like the one about the walk in the Cambridgeshire town held in the early part of the year, and its associated piece of music called the 'March March March March'.

While riding in northern Germany in August 2010 I noticed that a farmer had created a tourist attraction in his crop of what the Americans call 'Indian corn'. The German expression is 'Maislabarynth', the english would be 'maize maze', and if it belonged to a Top Gear presenter, might be 'May's maize maze'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 18 June, 2012, 08:06:01 pm
Americans have "corn maze" which is a big FAIL compared to the beauty of "maize maze".  To Americans corn=maize, to us corn=some general unidentified cereal, or wheat.  The other stuff is, of course, sweetcorn.

A word that is particularly confusing is "momentarily", which to us means "for a short while" or "briefly" but to them means "in a short while", where we'd say "shortly" or "presently".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wendy on 18 June, 2012, 09:12:28 pm
Mealies. :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 18 June, 2012, 09:42:26 pm
I like the German sentence 'Ich will in baden Baden-Baden baden'
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 18 June, 2012, 09:48:25 pm
I like the German sentence 'Ich will in baden Baden-Baden baden'
One too many badens there, surely?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 18 June, 2012, 09:51:07 pm
I'm told it says that I'd like to bathe in the baths at Baden-Baden.  I may have been misinformed...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 18 June, 2012, 09:54:06 pm
That would have to be "ich will in Baden-Baden Bäder baden", so doesn't quite work.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: madcow on 18 June, 2012, 10:21:43 pm
Sorry but "earlier accident " just sounds wrong. Thanks for your comments .

As we have moved on in this vein there is always the story of the teacher correcting the Yorkshire school pupil over his use of dialect in written work.
Tha's  put putten when tha should have putten put.
Not quite consecutive but similar .

PS as a former resident of March I can asure you no such event exists.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 18 June, 2012, 10:53:09 pm
I'm too thick to work out the Scrabble one, it seems...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 18 June, 2012, 11:08:37 pm
That would have to be "ich will in Baden-Baden Bäder baden", so doesn't quite work.

How about: "Ich will bei den Bade in Baden-Baden baden." Does that work? I'm not sure off the top of my head if "bei den Bade" is grammatically correct.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 19 June, 2012, 06:51:18 am
Any language that puts the verb at the end just totally wrong is.

[Gets (bowler) hat and Colonel Blimp greatcoat, and leaves...]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Salvatore on 19 June, 2012, 07:17:27 am
At this juncture feel I outpoint must, that in German the finite verb the second element in a sentence is. Only in a subordinate clause does a finite verb to the end of the clause shoved get. You can with the word-order all sorts of aboutbuggering do, but the verb comes second.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Salvatore on 19 June, 2012, 07:25:27 am
Americans have "corn maze" which is a big FAIL compared to the beauty of "maize maze".  To Americans corn=maize, to us corn=some general unidentified cereal, or wheat.  The other stuff is, of course, sweetcorn.


The Atlas zur deutschen Sprache has a map showing the different meanings of Korn throughout the German speaking area (that is, the area German was spoken in about 1870, which extended much further east than it does now). It pretty much corresponds to whatever the dominant cereal crop was in any area (usually rye, but also wheat or barley), and also the spirit made by distilling it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Salvatore on 19 June, 2012, 07:36:05 am
A word that is particularly confusing is "momentarily", which to us means "for a short while" or "briefly" but to them means "in a short while", where we'd say "shortly" or "presently".

That reminds me. I was pretty sure I understood what people meant by  "now", until I moved to south Wales. There it refers to a point of time, possibly the present, but also possibly some time in the future, and often with an added phrase to add precision e.g. "I'll do it now in a minute", "I'll do it now this afternoon", "I'll do it now tomorrow morning". "I'll do it now" on its own can mean "I'll do it after I've had this cup of tea and a biscuit, and read the paper, and done numerous other things, but it's definitely on my things to do in the fullness of time."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 19 June, 2012, 08:14:36 am
That would have to be "ich will in Baden-Baden Bäder baden", so doesn't quite work.

How about: "Ich will bei den Bade in Baden-Baden baden." Does that work? I'm not sure off the top of my head if "bei den Bade" is grammatically correct.

d.
With that option (and I, too, am not sure if 'bei' would be right) it would be: "ich will bei den Bäder in Baden-Baden baden". The main problem is the word for baths is not Baden but Bäder (plural of Bad).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 19 June, 2012, 08:18:56 am
At this juncture feel I outpoint must, that in German the finite verb the second element in a sentence is. Only in a subordinate clause does a finite verb to the end of the clause shoved get. You can with the word-order all sorts of aboutbuggering do, but the verb comes second.
;D

Although you're missing the second "I" in the first sentence somewhere.

I always thought it weird that some conjuctions are in position 0 - und, aber, damit etc.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Salvatore on 19 June, 2012, 08:43:36 am
That would have to be "ich will in Baden-Baden Bäder baden", so doesn't quite work.

How about: "Ich will bei den Bade in Baden-Baden baden." Does that work? I'm not sure off the top of my head if "bei den Bade" is grammatically correct.

d.
With that option (and I, too, am not sure if 'bei' would be right) it would be: "ich will bei den Bäder in Baden-Baden baden". The main problem is the word for baths is not Baden but Bäder (plural of Bad).

But bei den Bädern (dative plural).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Salvatore on 19 June, 2012, 08:46:03 am
At this juncture feel I outpoint must, that in German the finite verb the second element in a sentence is. Only in a subordinate clause does a finite verb to the end of the clause shoved get. You can with the word-order all sorts of aboutbuggering do, but the verb comes second.
;D

Although you're missing the second "I" in the first sentence somewhere.


Yes, it should have been something like "At this juncture feel I, that I outpoint must, that ..."

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 19 June, 2012, 09:56:19 am
A word that is particularly confusing is "momentarily", which to us means "for a short while" or "briefly" but to them means "in a short while", where we'd say "shortly" or "presently".

That reminds me. I was pretty sure I understood what people meant by  "now", until I moved to south Wales. There it refers to a point of time, possibly the present, but also possibly some time in the future, and often with an added phrase to add precision e.g. "I'll do it now in a minute", "I'll do it now this afternoon", "I'll do it now tomorrow morning". "I'll do it now" on its own can mean "I'll do it after I've had this cup of tea and a biscuit, and read the paper, and done numerous other things, but it's definitely on my things to do in the fullness of time."

I've come to understand it as: "I'll do it... now go away"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wendy on 19 June, 2012, 10:02:12 am
"Just now" here in the UK seems to mean a few minutes ago.
"Just now" in Southern Africa means in a short while.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 June, 2012, 11:15:09 am
Somewhere or other I think I still have a cassette of Samoan music on which one song contains the line "I always love you sometimes"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 19 June, 2012, 11:30:45 am
At this juncture feel I outpoint must, that in German the finite verb the second element in a sentence is. Only in a subordinate clause does a finite verb to the end of the clause shoved get. You can with the word-order all sorts of aboutbuggering do, but the verb comes second.

Wunderbar!  ;D

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 19 June, 2012, 12:51:16 pm
As a former resident of March I can assure you no such event exists.

The March March march (http://www.marchmarchmarch.org.uk/) is a walk from March to Cambridge and has taken place in most years since 1979. It really does exist!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jogler on 19 June, 2012, 12:55:44 pm
In Cornwall things are done 'dreckly.

might be tomorrow
might be next year.

never means now
Title: The Apostrophe Police Visit
Post by: hellymedic on 19 June, 2012, 03:11:39 pm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-18502818 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-18502818)

Looks like lack of a few apostophes attracted the attention of The Law.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Chris S on 19 June, 2012, 03:30:35 pm
Oh dear. This one from Salvatore's link:

Wouldn’t the sentence “I want to insert a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips in my Fish And Chips sign” have been clearer if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and Chips — and after Chips?

caught me the wrong way and gave me a fit of the giggles. I'm not prone to being a giggly type. I think I need a lie down now...  ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: madcow on 19 June, 2012, 10:05:07 pm
Thanks Gareth, I must have missed it during my  5 years in the flatlands.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: madcow on 19 June, 2012, 10:13:00 pm
Ref. March March- Having looked at said event's website it appears to be a collection of "foriners" who started this. I suspect it was a bid for freedom.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 20 June, 2012, 06:38:01 am
In Cornwall things are done 'dreckly.

might be tomorrow
might be next year.

never means now
I heard that one defined as "Like the Spanish 'Mañana', but without the same sense of urgency."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jogler on 20 June, 2012, 09:03:52 am
In Cornwall things are done 'dreckly.

might be tomorrow
might be next year.

never means now
I heard that one defined as "Like the Spanish 'Mañana', but without the same sense of urgency."

that's a very good comparison
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jon P on 20 June, 2012, 11:03:11 pm
At this juncture feel I outpoint must, that in German the finite verb the second element in a sentence is. Only in a subordinate clause does a finite verb to the end of the clause shoved get. You can with the word-order all sorts of aboutbuggering do, but the verb comes second.

Though you'd say something like

"Da ich mich schwul fuehlte, wollte ich in die Stadt gehen, um abzukuehlen"

when it's the first position in the clause.  (Conoisseurs may notice a wry near double-entendre in the example sentence given!)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: LindaG on 07 July, 2012, 07:19:32 am
Quote
Physical Health Nurse
Posted: 03/07/2012
Bradford District Care Trust
The purpose of a Physical Health Nurse is to provide a comprehensive nursing service to substance misusers across the district, working with multi disciplinary teams and services. **Applicants must be a RGN with a degree and must have experiential experience of working with substance misusers**


 ;D ;D ;D

Must be, like, totally chilled, man.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Marco Stefano on 07 July, 2012, 08:54:14 pm
Pat Cash talking about people camping in Wimbledon Park overnight to get in the queue early tomorrow:

'It doesn't happen at any other grand slam tournament; that makes it a little bit more unique.'
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 08 July, 2012, 01:28:22 am
I'm not sure whether two words quite amount to 'grammar', but "Pedestrian Footpath", even with a helpful arrow, irritates me if it doesn't make me cringe.
Title: Re: Grammar what makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 08 July, 2012, 07:55:48 am
Grammar that turns me stone cold crazy:

ANYMORE. Anymore, cannot take it any more.

I think Freddy Mercury was with me on this one.

(It's not really a justifiable rage: anyone, anything, anybody, anyway, anyhow, anywhere, must all have begun life as two words, and anymore is not distinguishable from these---though I could have a good try. But oof! it is painful to watch new usage being forged.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jogler on 08 July, 2012, 10:39:14 am
The words "look to" or "looking to" grate on my nerves :(

"Seek to" or "seeking to" would be soother.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: EdinburghFixed on 08 July, 2012, 10:50:08 am
Pat Cash talking about people camping in Wimbledon Park overnight to get in the queue early tomorrow:

'It doesn't happen at any other grand slam tournament; that makes it a little bit more unique.'

Just to play devil's advocate here: he's really saying "another way in which it is unique".

So... accepting that different things can have a different number of ways in which they are unique (for instance, not unique in that tennis is being played; unique in that whites are worn; not unique in that the same people play, unique in that people camp outside) is it possible to rank or otherwise compare tournaments in terms of their uniqueness? Can one become increasingly unique as it becomes the only one to be unique in an increasing number of ways?

(I mean, one could be trite and say each Open is unique because it's the only open played at that court, but this seems dissatisfying)
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 08 July, 2012, 10:50:47 am
I'm not sure whether two words quite amount to 'grammar', but "Pedestrian Footpath", even with a helpful arrow, irritates me if it doesn't make me cringe.

What if there were two signs, one indicating a "pedestrian footpath", the other a "really exciting footpath"?

(Since you wondered it out loud... tautology is a figure of rhetoric rather than grammar, isn't it? The adjective-noun pairing is grammatically sound.)

d.
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 08 July, 2012, 10:54:02 am
(It's not really a justifiable rage: anyone, anything, anybody, anyway, anyhow, anywhere, must all have begun life as two words, and anymore is not distinguishable from these---though I could have a good try. But oof! it is painful to watch new usage being forged.)

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html?m=1
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 July, 2012, 08:43:57 pm
Nice link!  ;D I haven't noticed "alot" but I'll be looking out for it now.

Grammar that turns me stone cold crazy:

ANYMORE. Anymore, cannot take it any more.

I think Freddy Mercury was with me on this one.

(It's not really a justifiable rage: anyone, anything, anybody, anyway, anyhow, anywhere, must all have begun life as two words, and anymore is not distinguishable from these---though I could have a good try. But oof! it is painful to watch new usage being forged.)
But all those words exist! And "anymore" is subtly different in meaning from "any more". I don't want any more cake. I don't like it anymore. The first is article (or quantifier or whatever you want to call it) plus adjective, the second is an adverb. I think. However, this thread is "grammar that makes you cringe" rather than "grammar that's wrong" so it's ok to say that you can't take any more "anymore" anymore.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 08 July, 2012, 09:01:25 pm
I'm not sure whether two words quite amount to 'grammar', but "Pedestrian Footpath", even with a helpful arrow, irritates me if it doesn't make me cringe.

What if there were two signs, one indicating a "pedestrian footpath", the other a "really exciting footpath"?

(Since you wondered it out loud... tautology is a figure of rhetoric rather than grammar, isn't it? The adjective-noun pairing is grammatically sound.)

d.

It was a rhetorical wondering, in deference to the thread title. There've been a few really exciting fotpaths down here, with the flooding.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 July, 2012, 12:11:19 pm
X has done much better today that what he did yesterday / last week / in the last race etc.

The what is superfluous.  Take it out behind the barn and shoot it, sports commentators
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 09 July, 2012, 06:10:14 pm
Why are the BBC reporting that Paul Tucker refuted suggestions that he was involved in LIBOR rate fixing?  He may have denied it, he may have said he refutes it (and I think he did), but he has not refuted it at all.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 July, 2012, 11:06:03 am
Welsh news twonk!  You are on the BRITONS' Broadcasting Corporation, and therefore the correct pronunciation of Prince William's rank is LEF-tenant.  Call him LOO-tenant again, in the manner of a Base Colonial, and I shall set fire to your trousers.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 10 July, 2012, 11:18:24 am
Why are the BBC reporting that Paul Tucker refuted suggestions that he was involved in LIBOR rate fixing?  He may have denied it, he may have said he refutes it (and I think he did), but he has not refuted it at all.

This (refute as a synonym for deny) may well be a lost cause. The OED says,
Quote
refute, v. 5. trans. To reject (an allegation, assertion, report, etc.) as without foundation; to repudiate.
Criticized as erroneous in usage guides in the 20th cent.
You might be interested in David Stove's essay "Neutralizing success words (http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=f1BxO9yu1NIC&pg=PA21)", which considers the phenomenon more generally (especially knowledge used as a synonym for belief by philosophers of science).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tigerrr on 11 July, 2012, 02:15:57 pm
I got an email reply and this bloke thanked me for 'reaching out' to him.
Reaching out? Thats awful.
I was tempted to reach out and poke him, in the eye. 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SandyV on 11 July, 2012, 03:56:36 pm
I got an email reply and this bloke thanked me for 'reaching out' to him.
Reaching out? Thats awful.
I was tempted to reach out and poke him, in the eye.
That's the latest one from our HR people too (together with "onboarding" which apparently means making a new staff memb er welcome and part of the team.  At least they've moved on from "touching the business"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: De Sisti on 11 July, 2012, 04:32:25 pm
Quote from: live.cyclingnews.com
Temperatures in the early 20s, sunshine and very little wind.
The word early makes me cringe, it sounds time-based. I would prefer: Temperatures in the low 20s.


BBC weatherperson:


"Today's temperature will be 21 to 22 degrees centigrade."


Would "Today's temperature will be between 21 and 22 degrees centigrade" sound better?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 11 July, 2012, 04:54:24 pm
Not sure what the problem with the first one is, possibly missing the implied "from"?
"Today's temperature will be from 21 to 22 degrees centigrade."
The pedant in me says that the use of "between" is imprecise - does it include or exclude the extremities? Is it 21 < T < 22 or 21 ≤T ≤ 22?

Moreover, unless the temperature won't be less than 21 °C all day then what the weatherperson meant was "Today's maximum temperature will be 21 to 22 degrees centigrade." in which case they might as well have said "Today's maximum  temperature will be 22 degrees centigrade."

And more-moreover they should have said "Today's maximum  temperature will be 22 degrees Celcius." as the use of centigrade is deprecated.

There was a piece in the paper at the beginning of the week about how the weather was not going to be hot and summery this week which repeatedly had phrases like "The temperature in Scotland will drop as low as a chilly 12 °C". Chilly? What they meant was the highest temperature would be 12 °C, but they repeated the same "drop as low as..." for various parts of the country.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 11 July, 2012, 05:59:39 pm
I know it's not a grammar issue, but that misuse of the Max temp concept really irks me, too. Although the weather people often use much more confused/muddled terminology  ::-)

[But I cannot get worked up about the use of "centigrade" ! ]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 July, 2012, 01:11:40 pm
It was always referred to as centigrade when I was at school so that's how I still think of it now. But I rarely refer to either centigrade or Celsius or even "degrees C" because I would never give a temperature in Fahrenheit (or Reaumur or Kelvin for that matter).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 12 July, 2012, 01:25:04 pm
And more-moreover they should have said "Today's maximum  temperature will be 22 degrees Celcius." as the use of centigrade is deprecated.

"22 Celsius" surely? "Degrees" is redundant. ;)

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 12 July, 2012, 01:28:25 pm
I quite happily use Fahrenheit and Centigrade. A warm summer's day is 70°F or above. A really hot summer's day is 30°C or above.

However, it really irritates me when words like "warm" and "cold" are used to describe temperatures. The weather is warm or cold. The temperature is how we measure that heat or lack of it, and appropriate adjectives are "high" and "low". I also hate the increasingly popular "top" temperature. What's wrong with "maximum"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 13 July, 2012, 08:06:15 am
And more-moreover they should have said "Today's maximum  temperature will be 22 degrees Celcius." as the use of centigrade is deprecated.

"22 Celsius" surely? "Degrees" is redundant. ;)

d.

Apparently not (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celsius#Centigrade_and_Celsius). ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 13 July, 2012, 08:30:18 am
However, it really irritates me when words like "warm" and "cold" are used to describe temperatures. The weather is warm or cold. The temperature is how we measure that heat or lack of it, and appropriate adjectives are "high" and "low".

Heat is a form of energy, so it is not quantified by temperature. And neither are related to grammar.

You can be as pedantic as you like about this, it doesn't matter. Weather forecasts are about communication; a clear unambiguous message is all we need.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 13 July, 2012, 09:23:46 am
However, it really irritates me when words like "warm" and "cold" are used to describe temperatures. The weather is warm or cold. The temperature is how we measure that heat or lack of it, and appropriate adjectives are "high" and "low".

Heat is a form of energy, so it is not quantified by temperature. And neither are related to grammar.

You can be as pedantic as you like about this, it doesn't matter. Weather forecasts are about communication; a clear unambiguous message is all we need.

And that's another one!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 July, 2012, 09:46:59 am
And more-moreover they should have said "Today's maximum  temperature will be 22 degrees Celcius." as the use of centigrade is deprecated.

"22 Celsius" surely? "Degrees" is redundant. ;)

d.

Apparently not (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celsius#Centigrade_and_Celsius). ;)
Quote
The "degree Celsius" has been the only SI unit whose full unit name contains an uppercase letter since the SI base unit for temperature, the kelvin, became the proper name in 1967 replacing the term degree Kelvin. The plural form is degrees Celsius.[17]

The general rule of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) is that the numerical value always precedes the unit, and a space is always used to separate the unit from the number, e.g., "23 °C" (not "23°C" or "23° C"). Thus the value of the quantity is the product of the number and the unit, the space being regarded as a multiplication sign (just as a space between units implies multiplication). The only exceptions to this rule are for the unit symbols for degree, minute, and second for plane angle (°, ′, and ″, respectively), for which no space is left between the numerical value and the unit symbol.[18] Other languages, and various publishing houses, may follow different typographical rules.
Well, I didn't know any of that! No such thing as a degree Kelvin. Perhaps in time we will come to speak of "23 celsius" rather than "23 degrees Celsius".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 13 July, 2012, 11:55:38 am
I didn't know any of that either. Fair enough, °C it is!

Funny though - every publication I've ever worked on has had the house style rule not to use the degrees symbol. However, this is probably more to do with typesetting conventions than semantics - I guess it's for the same reason that you never use the % symbol either, always spell out "per cent", the reasons for which are no longer relevant but still widely observed.

I still think "degrees" is semantically redundant - Celsius is the name of the scale; a degree is just a unit of division of a scale. We don't talk of length, for example, in terms of "degrees metre".

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 13 July, 2012, 12:14:43 pm
I still think "degrees" is semantically redundant - Celsius is the name of the scale; a degree is just a unit of division of a scale. We don't talk of length, for example, in terms of "degrees metre".
The degree is the unit, in the same way a metre (or a centimetre) is.

The reason we don't name the scale when stating lengths is the lack of ambiguity.
2 Inches or
3 metres
are both entirely unambiguous.

It would also be normal to say "45 degrees" when describing an angle. The degree is the unit of measurement.

(I think it's that simple, but may have missed something!)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 13 July, 2012, 12:33:58 pm
There's nothing ambiguous about "22 Celsius" either...

I'm not going to argue the toss on this one though - I'm not trying to claim "22 degrees Celsius" is wrong.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 13 July, 2012, 01:09:24 pm
I also hate the increasingly popular "top" temperature. What's wrong with "maximum"?
It's a (relatively) modernism introduced by fussy Latin-lovers who were too snobbish to use the same words as poor people. What's wrong with 'highest' or 'greatest'?  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 July, 2012, 02:18:52 pm
From http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/13/drug-tunnels-us-mexico-border
Quote
The latest Arizona tunnel was discovered after state police pulled over a man who had 39 pounds of methamphetamine in his vehicle and mentioned the strip mall.
Who mentioned the strip mall? The police or the man they'd stopped?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 14 July, 2012, 10:16:59 am
I still think "degrees" is semantically redundant - Celsius is the name of the scale; a degree is just a unit of division of a scale. We don't talk of length, for example, in terms of "degrees metre".

There is semantic value in the degrees symbol. It indicates that Celsius is measured on the interval scale - that is, it has an arbitrary zero. For this reason you can calculate intervals between a pair of values, but not their ratio (20 degrees Celsius is not twice the temperature of 10 degrees Celsius, but it is 10 degrees warmer). In contrast, kelvin is measured on an absolute ratio scale where 0 indicates absence of quantity being measured (so 200K is correctly twice the temperature of 100K). Likewise it would make no sense to use the term "degrees metre" since length is also measured on the ratio scale.

For similar reasons, direction measured in degrees is also measured on the interval scale (the direction associated with 0 degrees is arbitrary). I suppose to be semantically consistent, an angle between two vectors should not be expressed in degrees, but units on the degrees scale (see Temperatures and intervals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celsius#Temperatures_and_intervals) in that Wiki article for the temperature equivalent).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 15 July, 2012, 06:42:52 pm
Quote from:  live.cyclingnews.com
The peloton are ...

Is peloton an automatically plural word as scissors and trousers are or should that read: The peloton is ...?

I assume the original source is British, as Brits can't grasp the concept that collective nouns are singular.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 15 July, 2012, 07:28:41 pm
Quote from:  live.cyclingnews.com
The peloton are ...

Is peloton an automatically plural word as scissors and trousers are or should that read: The peloton is ...?

I assume the original source is British, as Brits can't grasp the concept that collective nouns are singular.

The UK trend towards treating collective nouns as plural is recent.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 15 July, 2012, 09:44:04 pm
Quote from:  live.cyclingnews.com
The peloton are ...

Is peloton an automatically plural word as scissors and trousers are or should that read: The peloton is ...?

I assume the original source is British, as Brits can't grasp the concept that collective nouns are singular.

The UK trend towards treating collective nouns as plural is recent.

Good, there's still a chance to put an end to it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 16 July, 2012, 11:11:13 am
If we try very, very, hard.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 July, 2012, 12:41:40 pm
It indicates a philosophical difference between Brits and Yanks. The British, despite a tradition of team games followed by communal baths, view a collective noun as representing a group of individuals. The Americans, despite a tradition of rugged individualism, view it as one unit. Why the difference and why its recent appearance? Well, the Americans fought a war to keep their country one; while the recent trend towards collective plurality in the UK indicates that, even in grammar, yes... we can blame Thatcher!  :D



Just remember these are special YACF grammar rules which may not apply in real life.  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biggsy on 16 July, 2012, 12:51:27 pm
What's wrong with "maximum"?

It has three silly bubbles.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: why1040 on 16 July, 2012, 01:05:46 pm
I still think "degrees" is semantically redundant - Celsius is the name of the scale; a degree is just a unit of division of a scale. We don't talk of length, for example, in terms of "degrees metre".
The degree is the unit, in the same way a metre (or a centimetre) is.

The reason we don't name the scale when stating lengths is the lack of ambiguity.
2 Inches or
3 metres
are both entirely unambiguous.

It would also be normal to say "45 degrees" when describing an angle. The degree is the unit of measurement.

(I think it's that simple, but may have missed something!)

I think you're right, that's why we say metric tonne, to differentiate from imperial ones.

We don't have to say metric metre, because there is only one, but there are lots of degrees.

Completely off-topic, I was taught that Celsius originally started the other way round...100 was the freezing point and 0 boiling.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 16 July, 2012, 01:44:53 pm
Well, the Americans fought a war to keep their country one;
Some of them. A large minority fought to make it two.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 July, 2012, 02:20:52 pm
I'm sure a study of regional dialect in the USA would find the southern states use a plural verb with collective nouns.

Maybe. But it's all Lincoln's fault.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 20 July, 2012, 05:48:04 pm
From a BBC News report about the shooting in the Batman cinema

Quote
Police revised down the death toll from 14 earlier. They said about 50 people had been shot, including the deceased.

I'm not 100% sure what they mean here - did they swap 'deceased' for 'perpetrator'? Or are they saying there were 50 shootings in total, of which 14 died?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18921492
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 20 July, 2012, 06:08:12 pm
Something which is annoying is titles where every word starts with capital when they shouldn't, eg "Journey To The End Of The Night" should be "Journey to the End of the Night".

It's very common with the downloaded titles you get when ripping a CD and you have to manually correct them.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 20 July, 2012, 06:23:20 pm
Something which is annoying is titles where every word starts with capital when they shouldn't, eg "Journey To The End Of The Night" should be "Journey to the End of the Night".

It's very common with the downloaded titles you get when ripping a CD and you have to manually correct them.

I think Micro$oft 'Title Case' capitalises every word so blame the computers!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 25 July, 2012, 08:16:42 pm
http://static.happyplace.com/assets/images/2012/07/500ebb21b7092.jpeg
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: madcow on 31 July, 2012, 04:48:49 pm
(http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8164/7684810884_a6225cb0eb.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/16109958@N08/7684810884/)
Untitled (http://www.flickr.com/photos/16109958@N08/7684810884/) by madcow99 (http://www.flickr.com/people/16109958@N08/), on Flickr
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: eck on 31 July, 2012, 10:02:52 pm
BBC, 'medal' is not a verb.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 August, 2012, 12:35:48 am
Quote
Available in Gold (orange), Violet (purple), Sapphire (blue) and Carbon (black)
Okay, it's not strictly grammar, but what the fuck is the point of using names for colours which need further description? Besides, it's not as if gold, violet, sapphire and carbon are unknown terms. Either call them fancy names or just orange, purple, etc, it's stupid to have a 'name' and a 'description'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: madcow on 01 August, 2012, 09:22:06 am
BBC, 'medal' is not a verb.

Its not entirely  the Beebs fault , this has been around a while and I think it was used at the last Olympics as well.
Lazy athletes patois moved into mainstream by the commentators picking it up from competitors and trainers possibly.
It sounds wrong to you (and me) but to others it sums up "the act or process of winning a championship or Olympic medal placing".
Winning sums up 1st place so how else would you summarise 1st ,  2nd and 3rd place in one word?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 01 August, 2012, 09:27:34 am
"to podium" has also been spotted out in the wild
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: madcow on 01 August, 2012, 09:28:40 am
A member of the British olympic team was heard, on the radio this morning, to speak of her potential disappointment if she 'fails to medal.'  :facepalm:

I knew I'd seen it somewhere before.  Allegedly a  Pendletonism.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 01 August, 2012, 10:07:43 am
New doctors start today. There's a #tipsfornewdocs Twitter hashtag. One suggestion:

<<newbies starting in the ED today: dont b cocky and try and get in the gd side of the nurses. can make ur time gr8 or hell>>

I don't have the heart to suggest writing unambiguous English and using short sentences...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 01 August, 2012, 10:09:51 am
BBC, 'medal' is not a verb.

The OED says:

Quote
medal, v. 1. trans. To decorate or honour with a medal; to confer a medal upon as a mark of distinction. Usu. in pass. 2. intr. U.S. Sport. To win a medal.

with citations for sense 1 from 1822 and for sense 2 from 1966.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 01 August, 2012, 10:14:27 am
BBC, 'medal' is not a verb.

The OED says:

Quote
medal, v. 1. trans. To decorate or honour with a medal; to confer a medal upon as a mark of distinction. Usu. in pass. 2. intr. U.S. Sport. To win a medal.


with citations for sense 1 from 1822 and for sense 2 from 1966.

It may be "correct" but it still makes me (like eck) cringe and is therefore fair game for this thread, which is not "Grammar that is wrong"!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 01 August, 2012, 10:21:17 am
It may be "correct" but it still makes me (like eck) cringe and is therefore fair game for this thread, which is not "Grammar that is wrong"!

But eck didn't write, "verbal medal makes me cringe" (which would be fine). He wrote "'medal' is not a verb".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 01 August, 2012, 10:32:43 am
Fair enough, Gareth, I didn't trace it back far enough.  I'm not trying to pick a fight and your "interventions" are always very informative, thanks!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 01 August, 2012, 11:08:58 am
It makes me cringe.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 01 August, 2012, 11:10:49 am
My message has always been: have confidence in your judgement! If you don't like a word, then say so. Don't make up a bogus linguistic justification for your opinion. (If you didn't like broccoli, which would be a better way of putting it: "I don't like broccoli" or "broccoli is not a food"?)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: eck on 01 August, 2012, 02:07:17 pm
It may be "correct" but it still makes me (like eck) cringe and is therefore fair game for this thread, which is not "Grammar that is wrong"!

But eck didn't write, "verbal medal makes me cringe" (which would be fine). He wrote "'medal' is not a verb".
Using 'podium' as a verb makes me cringe.  :-*
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 01 August, 2012, 03:47:01 pm
Commentators make me cringe.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 01 August, 2012, 08:41:42 pm
Our local station has posters announcing that:

"Most babies born in Hertfordshire are delivered by a University of Hertfordshire educated midwife (http://www.herts.ac.uk/about-us/facts-and-figures/home.cfm)."

I don't know whether to be more bothered that the whole county is covered by less than two midwives, or that a University wrote that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 02 August, 2012, 11:40:27 pm
This sign, which I pass every other day, is just wrong somehow - it's the two different uses of 'in'

(http://i738.photobucket.com/albums/xx30/Auntie_Helen/cfe7bcd1.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 02 August, 2012, 11:47:00 pm
This sign, which I pass every other day, is just wrong somehow - it's the two different uses of 'in'


Being a considerate person, I would try not to block in their drive.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 03 August, 2012, 12:06:08 am
New doctors start today. There's a #tipsfornewdocs Twitter hashtag. One suggestion:

<<newbies starting in the ED today: dont b cocky and try and get in the gd side of the nurses. can make ur time gr8 or hell>>

I don't have the heart to suggest writing unambiguous English and using short sentences...
Yes. Replace ' and' with a full stop & you've saved yourself a little effort & made your meaning clear.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 03 August, 2012, 12:33:07 am
Maybe being cocky and getting in the good side of nurses was just what the doctor ordered...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Zipperhead on 03 August, 2012, 04:22:47 pm
I've met some very nice doctors and nurses this afternoon, but whilst waiting for my appointment I saw this on the notice board:

We are breastfeeding welcome
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 03 August, 2012, 05:00:00 pm
I've met some very nice doctors and nurses this afternoon, but whilst waiting for my appointment I saw this on the notice board:

We are breastfeeding welcome

<Cringe>
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 August, 2012, 05:54:16 pm
BBC, 'medal' is not a verb.

Its not entirely  the Beebs fault , this has been around a while and I think it was used at the last Olympics as well.
Lazy athletes patois moved into mainstream by the commentators picking it up from competitors and trainers possibly.
It sounds wrong to you (and me) but to others it sums up "the act or process of winning a championship or Olympic medal placing".
Winning sums up 1st place so how else would you summarise 1st ,  2nd and 3rd place in one word?
Aren't you happy that Hoy and Wiggins have golded and Armitstead has silvered?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 03 August, 2012, 06:09:18 pm
Aren't you happy that Hoy and Wiggins have golded and Armitstead has silvered?

Yup. And plenty will be happy that the beach volleyball teams have bronzed.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 August, 2012, 06:11:05 pm
 :D Nice one!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 09 August, 2012, 12:09:52 am
Ooh, two in a row; am I allowed this?

Quote (http://www.guitars.co.uk/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=301573#Post301573) about a picture posted on a forum: Not great quality as I don't have my camera at the moment so had to take them on my phone.

What is that thing called on a phone that enables you to take photos?

More importantly, Takamines usually play well but that sound-hole rose is just too much for me.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 17 August, 2012, 05:08:05 pm
'What do yo do to prevent your bike being one of the 26,000 stolen last year?'
http://www.londoncyclist.co.uk/what-do-you-do-to-prevent-your-bike-being-one-of-the-26000-stolen-last-year/ (http://www.londoncyclist.co.uk/what-do-you-do-to-prevent-your-bike-being-one-of-the-26000-stolen-last-year/)

Get a Kryptonite for your Time Machine, maybe...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 20 August, 2012, 02:23:06 pm
For 'fewer' fans:
http://notwatchingpointless.wordpress.com/tag/brian-gullivers-travels/

"...
I was listening to a radio serial in bed this morning, Brian Gulliver’s Travels*, in which – much to my sleepy surprise – Brian found himself in the small town of Lessington, formed when the people of Muchington had come to blows over grammatical differences. In Lessington people now ate only chicken nuggets and drank sweetened water; books, newspapers and films longer than three minutes had disappeared, but people were happy. The breakaway town of Furington was full of insufferable pedants, and infinitive-splitting was a criminal offence.  Worst of all, they had created an ironic chicken nugget stand.
"

*on R4 this Wednesday. Series I was excellent - on R7 recently.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 20 August, 2012, 02:30:58 pm
Heard that a while back on R4extra. Oh, how I laughed.  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: greenmeansgo on 20 August, 2012, 03:54:44 pm
an hotel, an historic hotel ... both flat out wrong, but I often see such things published in books and online. Who are these editors who allow such nonsense? You could have an 'otel if it was spoken colloquially, but an hotel? No. I'm not having that.  :hand:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 20 August, 2012, 03:58:15 pm
Is it not because we have borrowed those words from les Français, qui ne prononcent pas la lettre ache?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 20 August, 2012, 04:09:59 pm
an hotel, an historic hotel ... both flat out wrong, but I often see such things published in books and online. Who are these editors who allow such nonsense? You could have an 'otel if it was spoken colloquially, but an hotel? No. I'm not having that.  :hand:

I recall in episode of M*A*S*H a discussion of obtaining "an harmonica" (in taking the piss out of Charles Emerson Winchester III).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: greenmeansgo on 20 August, 2012, 09:42:42 pm
Is it not because we have borrowed those words from les Français, qui ne prononcent pas la lettre ache?
Could be, but it's still wrong. If it's written, you pronounce the "h" (when reading in your head). And while I'm at it setting the world to rights, it's "aitch", not "haitch".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 20 August, 2012, 11:09:39 pm
Is it not because we have borrowed those words from les Français, qui ne prononcent pas la lettre ache?
You mean like hospital?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 21 August, 2012, 12:49:58 am
Whether an initial H is pronounced in French-derived words is fairly arbitrary, & its pronunciation in particular words has often changed over time.

The use of 'an' rather than 'a' before words in which the initial H is pronounced usually reflects a relatively recent change to the pronunciation of H.

It's therefore obsolete, & should be deplored. Before an H which is pronounced, 'a' should always be used. 'An' should only be used before a silent H. When the pronunciation of H changes, the use of a or an should follow suit.

Obey, or I'll start in with "an herb", "an hospital", etc.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 21 August, 2012, 09:31:29 pm
Obey, or I'll start in with "an herb", "an hospital", etc.
But if you're a USAian you would say "an herb" as for some unfathomable reason you pronounce it "erb"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 21 August, 2012, 11:13:26 pm
There's a recent change in English English to pronouncing the 'H' in more words. 'An hotel' was the only acceptable version until the 1960s at least.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 21 August, 2012, 11:44:45 pm
There's a recent change in English English to pronouncing the 'H' in more words. 'An hotel' was the only acceptable version until the 1960s at least.
Nope. May I quote Henry Watson Fowler (1858-1933)? He said an was "formerly usual before an accented syllable beginning with h," citing an historian, an hotel, an hysterical scene, an hereditary title and an habitual offender. He continued: "But now that the h in such words is pronounced the distinction has become anomalous and will no doubt disappear in time."

I can't think of anyone whose opinion on such matters is more respected than Fowler's.

PS. It's not a recent change. It's continuous. Words with an initial h which is not pronounced tend to switch to having it pronounced eventually. It's a result of literacy. And remember, it was originally pronounced in all of them, before the French went all Cockney.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 August, 2012, 11:48:24 pm
I would have accented the second syllable in all those words he lists.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Chris L on 22 August, 2012, 01:59:31 pm
Britain's biggest retailer takes on local dialect (South London/Surrey)

(http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/7960/tescoy.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 22 August, 2012, 05:16:06 pm
Should be "owing to" anyway...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Sergeant Pluck on 22 August, 2012, 09:23:26 pm
Quote
It will likely also...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19342994

Is it incorrect grammar, or is it just clumsy? Or is it just me?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 22 August, 2012, 10:04:43 pm
Quote
It will likely also...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19342994

Is it incorrect grammar, or is it just clumsy? Or is it just me?
This is something that massively gets up my nose.

We say "probably" where Americans say "likely". For us, "likely" is a synonym for "probable".

However, I note TimO OTP uses "likely" for "probably" all the time so it is clearly crossing the Atlantic, although perhaps only amongst rocket scientists.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 22 August, 2012, 10:06:56 pm
However, I note TimO OTP uses "likely" for "probably" all the time so it is clearly crossing the Atlantic, although perhaps only amongst rocket scientists.

Only because it gets there faster.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 27 August, 2012, 01:34:54 pm
Pretty sure I just heard "bandwaggoned" from a R4 presenter. [should that have 2xg ? ]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 28 August, 2012, 09:57:15 am
"vinyls" instead of "records". Used in sentences such as "They brought some vinyls round for me to listen to." . It seems a recent construction. Records always used to be the plural (or LPs or 45s if you wanted to be more specific). Vinyl was used as a collective noun as well as in "we played some vinyl" but vinyls whilst I guess grammatically correct simply grates in the same way that "legos" does for more than one lego brick.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 28 August, 2012, 10:01:44 am
Yes, "vinyls" would grate with me too. I cannot explain why! I know similar terms are common elsewhere, such as "acetates".

( "vinyls" would be more appropriate to describe - say - a group of different "xyz-vinyl" chemicals. A bit like "esters". )
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 28 August, 2012, 11:00:24 am
... simply grates in the same way that "legos" does for more than one lego brick.

Lego is the company. It makes Lego bricks. Legos to me implies mulitple companies. Lego bricks sounds like multiple Lego pieces, brick shaped or not. Colloquially I hear, "We've got some Lego you can borrow." I think of Lego like sand, there are so many pieces that we treat it as a non-countable item.

Me too but try telling that to an American.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 28 August, 2012, 02:31:01 pm
Oay, the penny drops. Or the cent or dime, I wonder how Americans say they now understand.

The sense of the phrase is probably so rare that there isn't a colloquialism.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 28 August, 2012, 05:33:30 pm
Medalling, podiumed .... I give you:

"
"The [Olympic] village did have to be Paralympified," says director of Paralympic integration Chris Holmes.
"

 :facepalm:   ;D

(why is Chris Holmes not the Director of Paralympification ? Eh! )
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Julian on 28 August, 2012, 05:38:27 pm
Two separate lawyers this morning, two separate occurrences of "with whom he was living with."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 28 August, 2012, 06:01:18 pm
(If you didn't like broccoli, which would be a better way of putting it: "I don't like broccoli" or "broccoli is not a food"?)

Yebbut, broccoli is not a food...  :sick:

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 August, 2012, 01:27:14 am
Two separate lawyers this morning, two separate occurrences of "with whom he was living with."
(http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/CornellFlag.jpg)
Whom said that? (http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001437.html)
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 29 August, 2012, 06:43:06 am
I often cringe when I see "whom", even when it is used correctly - it has a tendency to look priggishly pedantic.

Same goes for semicolons.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 29 August, 2012, 08:04:20 am
I'm sorry to hear that; I suppose it makes me one of those to whom the "priggishly pedantic" label applies.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 29 August, 2012, 08:10:49 am
I'm sorry to hear that; I suppose it makes me one of those to whom the "priggishly pedantic" label applies.
I wouldn't worry - you're in good company on this thread.  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 29 August, 2012, 08:26:18 am
Seen on a news report here - lack of punctuation made me think there was a River Credit flowing its way gently somewhere in England on the borders of the county of ITV and one other:

Quote
The building collapsed into the river Credit: ITV Border

From here: http://www.itv.com/news/border/2012-08-28/building-collapse-egremont/
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 29 August, 2012, 08:27:52 am
The river Credit: cash flow.
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 29 August, 2012, 09:16:32 am
I'm sorry to hear that; I suppose it makes me one of those to whom the "priggishly pedantic" label applies.

"has a tendency to" = not always

I would have used a full stop in your sentence quoted above but I don't object to your semicolon (as you'll no doubt be very relieved to know). And your use of whom is unimpeachable - I didn't notice it immediately, which is always a good sign.

Maybe "priggishly pedantic" is a bit strong. "Self-consciously correct at the expense of sounding natural" would be another way of putting it. I have in mind a particular example of "whom" that a colleague used in a headline I read yesterday. It was grammatically correct but looked badly out of place.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 August, 2012, 12:41:29 pm
The river Credit: cash flow.
If a house in Crediton is repossessed does that make it Debiton?  :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 29 August, 2012, 01:42:49 pm
I often cringe when I see "whom", even when it is used correctly

Quote from: Knowing Me, Knowing You (BBC Radio 4)
ALAN PARTRIDGE: Now, Simon, you are a Fellow of Oxford University, and you're a child prodigy. As a child genius what do you do, what do you actually do in the day?

SIMON FISHER: Well I don't exactly do, I, I, I am, I, I see each day as a sort of gift that is to be unwrapped, which I do in my own unique way.

ALAN: Well of course you, you are very unique.

SIMON: One cannot have gradations of uniqueness, one either is or is not unique.

ALAN: Right. You, you know, you're right, you're right. I mean, I mean you couldn't be more right.

SIMON: Well, one is either right or not right.

ALAN: Well, you are, you're right, um, and so am I. Now, John Fisher...

JOHN FISHER: Yes.

ALAN: ...or Simon's dad, as you are more commonly known, um, Simon is obviously a lot of fun, I can see that, I see that in his little quips, but, erm, when did you first realise that Simon was abnormal?

JOHN: Uh, gifted, you mean.

ALAN: Abnormally gifted.

JOHN: Well, it's when Simon was about 14 months old, um, I remember looking at him there in his cot, and, um, I said to him, uh, "Who does Daddy love, Simon? Who? Who?", and guess what Simon said?

ALAN: What?

SIMON: "Whom does Daddy love? Whom? Whom?"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 29 August, 2012, 05:00:34 pm

Quote from: Knowing Me, Knowing You (BBC Radio 4)
...

JOHN: Well, it's when Simon was about 14 months old, um, I remember looking at him there in his cot, and, um, I said to him, uh, "Who does Daddy love, Simon? Who? Who?", and guess what Simon said?

ALAN: What?

SIMON: "Whom does Daddy love? Whom? Whom?"
How things move on - reading that last bit, I can't help hearing the voice of Stewie in Family Guy ...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 29 August, 2012, 11:33:07 pm
I would have used a full stop in your sentence quoted above...
So might I, had I not been responding to your preceding message regarding the use of "whom", and semi-colons.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 30 August, 2012, 02:22:06 pm
I would have used a full stop in your sentence quoted above...
So might I, had I not been responding to your preceding message regarding the use of "whom", and semi-colons.

The funny thing is that although I realised your use of the semicolon was wilful provocation, I didn't notice the "whom" immediately, so maybe I'm not as sensitive to it as I imagined.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 30 August, 2012, 02:28:39 pm
Given that the old place was brought down by the "Smileys War", if YACF ever falls (as opposed to fading away) it could well start with

"The Provocative Semi-Colon Incident"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 30 August, 2012, 03:54:06 pm
 ;D


(NB: that smiley uses a semicolon)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 30 August, 2012, 07:19:26 pm
The river Credit: cash flow.
If a house in Crediton is repossessed does that make it Debiton?  :D

To correct Wowbagger: it's the River Creedy.
Houses in Crediton are so cheap they're probably not worth repossessing.
http://goo.gl/maps/rkp8d
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 30 August, 2012, 08:22:45 pm
Given that the old place was brought down by the "Smileys War", if YACF ever falls (as opposed to fading away) it could well start with

"The Provocative Semi-Colon Incident"
One wag once said that recent US foreign policy could be explained on the basis that they had been late for the last two world wars, and were planning on being right on time for the next. Any suggestion that my contributions to this thread can be explained on the basis that I was late for the Smileys War will be deeply resented.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: meddyg on 05 September, 2012, 08:53:22 am
" We are currently seeking medical officers to work in one of Western Australia's many boutique country towns...." reads the ad in the BMJ.

I first came across 'boutique' hotels in New Zealand and had the same laugh out loud moment.

I don't know Western Australia, but the expression about making a silk purse out of a sow's ear came to mind.

(I'll just go back and check they've included the obligatory 'exciting' - all medical jobs have to include this)

ah yes there it is  "visit www.health.wa.gov.au/doctors4ruralWA for more information about this exciting opportunity."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Riggers on 06 September, 2012, 11:46:08 am
"My bad."

Time to load the shotgun on that one.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 06 September, 2012, 06:38:49 pm
"My bad."

Time to load the shotgun on that one.

As neologisms go, I quite like that one, being a straightforwardly honest statement of humility.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 September, 2012, 09:28:03 pm
From a leaflet about taking care of guinea pigs:
Quote
supersonic hearing
It's not at all clear whether they actually mean guinea pigs can hear frequencies above the range humans can, or just that they have sharp hearing.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 06 September, 2012, 10:51:31 pm
From a leaflet about taking care of guinea pigs:
Quote
supersonic hearing
It's not at all clear whether they actually mean guinea pigs can hear frequencies above the range humans can, or just that they have sharp hearing.

If a tree falls down in the forest, can a guinea pig hear it?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 06 September, 2012, 11:03:08 pm
No, because it does not live in the forest.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 07 September, 2012, 09:49:52 am
From a leaflet about taking care of guinea pigs:
Quote
supersonic hearing
It's not at all clear whether they actually mean guinea pigs can hear frequencies above the range humans can, or just that they have sharp hearing.
It just means they can hear faster than sound. Simples!

[I suspect ultrasonic might be what they meant? Frequencies higher than wot us people can hear.]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 September, 2012, 10:06:57 am
The whole sentence reads
Quote
Teeth and claws that keep growing, supersonic hearing and a keen sense of smell are all part of his standard equipment - pretty impressive for a small furry animal!
I expect it means "very keen hearing" but they quite likely do have ultrasonic hearing as well. Though of course if they can hear at those frequencies, they're not ultrasonic for a guinea pig...  :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 07 September, 2012, 02:04:10 pm
From a leaflet about taking care of guinea pigs:
Quote
supersonic hearing
It's not at all clear whether they actually mean guinea pigs can hear frequencies above the range humans can, or just that they have sharp hearing.

The OED says:

Quote from: OED
supersonic adj. 1. Designating sound waves or vibrations with a frequency above the range of human hearing (i.e. greater than 20 kilohertz).

(There are citations from 1919: this is thus an earlier meaning than sense 2. "greater than the speed of sound" which is first attested in 1932.) But it's also possible that the authors are using the word in sense 3.b.:

Quote from: OED
supersonic adj. 3. colloq. b.  Excellent, wonderful, admirable, very exciting.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 07 September, 2012, 05:08:21 pm
If the authors were born before 1932, I'll let them off.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 07 September, 2012, 05:11:25 pm
If the authors were born before 1932, I'll let them off.

The OED's citations for sense 1 span the range 1919–2009, so it's clearly still a current sense of the word. If you search for supersonic frequency you'll see that the sense is widespread.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 07 September, 2012, 05:24:44 pm
In Murderball - sorry, "Wheelchair Rugby" - they use "Inbound" as a verb quite extensively.

This is particularly grating as they could have used an existing term like throw-in. It took me several games to work out what on earth they were talking about. This is what happens when we let americans invent new sports  ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 07 September, 2012, 05:31:01 pm
Yes, only Victorian English public schoolboys should be allowed to invent sports.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 07 September, 2012, 05:34:07 pm
If the authors were born before 1932, I'll let them off.

The OED's citations for sense 1 span the range 1919–2009, so it's clearly still a current sense of the word. If you search for supersonic frequency you'll see that the sense is widespread.

I wonder how many citations are included where a word is used in error, in a new sense.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 07 September, 2012, 06:30:52 pm
I wonder how many citations are included where a word is used in error, in a new sense.

That's one way in which new senses of words appear. But in the particular case of supersonic, the "frequency above the range of human hearing" sense was the original one, so the early citations can't be mistakes for the "faster than the speed of sound" sense. The first citation given is this one:

Quote
1919   Electrician 25 Apr. 494/2   The French have experimented with a system in which a continuous wave signal is heterodyned to a supersonic frequency.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 07 September, 2012, 06:37:10 pm
I think we're barking up the wrong tree here - Cudzo's example was just ambiguous. Seems to me that this word needs a modifier, hence "supersonic frequency" OR "supersonic speed" are both fine.

I grew up with a lot of fuss around supersonic flight etc - so when I hear the word I reflexively think of high speed. That doesn't make it the default or correct meaning!

[ And I still don't agreee with incorrect usage just being "different" - if it's wrong, it's wrong! But we've been round this before ... ]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 07 September, 2012, 06:42:08 pm
Gareth's citations raise an interesting possibility, though: The use of supersonic to describe speed may be 'incorrect' usage in the sense we know it.

I don't have access to the references Gareth does (and wish I did), and would be interested to hear the first recorded uses of hypersonic, trans-sonic, and ultrasonic.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 07 September, 2012, 07:11:28 pm
Gareth's citations raise an interesting possibility, though: The use of supersonic to describe speed may be 'incorrect' usage in the sense we know it.

This seems like a very inflexible position to take in the light of the evidence. All three words (supersonic, hypersonic and ultrasonic) have been used to describe both frequencies and speeds.

Quote
I don't have access to the references Gareth does (and wish I did)

I get access to the online OED via my local public library, so you might well be able to do the same.

Quote
and would be interested to hear the first recorded uses of hypersonic, trans-sonic, and ultrasonic.

Well, the first uses recorded by the OED are as follows.

Quote
hypersonic 1. Of, pertaining to, or designating sound waves or vibrations with a frequency greater than about 1000 million Hz.

1937   B. V. R. Rao in Nature 22 May 885/1   Spontaneously existing sound-waves of thermal origin of very high frequencies (‘hyper-sonic waves’).

hypersonic 2. Involving, pertaining to, capable of, or designating speeds greater than about five times the speed of sound.

1946   Jrnl. Math. & Physics 25 247   Hypersonic flows are flow fields where the fluid velocity is much larger than the velocity of propagation of small disturbances, the velocity of sound.

transonic Pertaining to, involving, capable of, or designating speeds close to that of sound, at which some of the flow round a body is supersonic and some subsonic and there are characteristic changes in the behaviour of an aircraft.

1946   Britannica Bk. of Year (U.S.) 833/2   Trans-sonic, speeds ranging from 550 to 760 m.p.h.

ultrasonic 1. a. The more usual synonym of supersonic adj. 1.

1923   Proc. & Trans. Royal Soc. Canada 17 iii. 145   The wave-lengths of ultra-sonic waves are very convenient for experiment.

ultrasonic 2. Designating speeds above that of sound.

1942   Jrnl. Royal Aeronaut. Soc. 46 85   Equations of general application are derived, proving that both for infrasonic and for ultrasonic (supersonic) velocities, an extremum of the cross-section is possible.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 07 September, 2012, 07:50:28 pm
I'm not positing an inflexible position, just suggesting that our assumption that the earlier usage of a word is naturally the correct one gets overturned by our concurrent, but in this case contradictory, belief that the most common use is correct.

Where words have a technical use, the specific meaning being clearly understood is important.  In my former profession, there was an important difference in meaning between light, lantern, luminaire, lamp etc.  Confusion could have been very dangerous.  I suspect that, in technical environments, ultrasonic would be used for the audio meaning, and supersonic for velocity, almost exclusively.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 10 September, 2012, 08:11:16 pm
From an interesting article someone linked to in the Forgers Gazette, featuring photos of lumberjacks felling redwoods:

Quote
Dramatic photos show the measure of a man in contrast to the enormity of nature
::-)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2198481/Magical-photos-lumberjacks-California-redwoods.html#ixzz265zAclxZ
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 11 September, 2012, 12:27:24 pm
meaning 4 (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/measure)

Or was it something else making you cringe?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 11 September, 2012, 12:37:09 pm
Er, yes.  It was.  But that dictionary's Meaning 3 undermines good usage and robs us of another useful word.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 September, 2012, 02:18:25 pm
Meaning 3 (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/enormity?s=t)
 ;)
 :o
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 11 September, 2012, 02:21:37 pm
Meaning 3 (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/enormity?s=t)
 ;)
 :o
That usage was shot down recently; either in this thread (which is obviously my primary source for grammar and style) or by The Times pedantry columnist. It's quite recent, and dilutes the earlier meanings. Oh well.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 11 September, 2012, 02:22:46 pm
Zackly.  Cudz, that's what I was alluding to.

I wonder, if I use the word 'Teaspoon' to mean Jeremy Hunt, as I just have - mark that, Lexicographers! - it becomes a meaning.  Rendering all language teaching hatstand*


* by which I mean 'meaningless', natch ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 11 September, 2012, 02:27:06 pm
I wonder, if I use the word 'Teaspoon' to mean Jeremy Hunt, as I just have - mark that, Lexicographers! - it becomes a meaning.
I'm guessing that YACF won't be indexed. So either sneak it into an academic paper, or get a letter published in a (grown-up) newspaper. Good luck!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 September, 2012, 03:11:00 pm
If only you do it, it's wrong. If YACF does it, it's wacky. If cyclists generally do it, it's slang. If an academic does it, it's an idiosyncrasy. If a group of academics does it, it's jargon. If enough people do it for long enough, it becomes correct.

I expect "enormity" is approaching the last stage, in that enough people use it that way for it to be easily understood. Even people whose business is words use it that way, as the example shows. (I think it's fair to see the Daily Mail deals in words rather than news.) This leaves us with the problem of how to say "enormity" in its original meaning, but I think that's less of a problem than it would appear. Those who understand the word will know what you mean, while those who think it means "enormousness" are unlikely to have understand the concept of enormity in the first place.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 11 September, 2012, 03:17:17 pm
If only you do it, it's wrong. If YACF does it, it's wacky. If cyclists generally do it, it's slang. If an academic does it, it's an idiosyncrasy. If a group of academics does it, it's jargon. If enough people do it for long enough, it becomes correct.

I expect "enormity" is approaching the last stage, in that enough people use it that way for it to be easily understood.
That's not why it's easily understood - it's because it looks like it's related to enormous, so the reader can make a reasonable guess.

(You should of realised that  ;) )
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: why1040 on 11 September, 2012, 03:22:54 pm
Homonym rather than straight grammar, but it led me to choke on an almond, never mind cringe.

A building site near here actually has a sign stating that the "principle contractor" is [name removed to protect the guilty]   :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 11 September, 2012, 03:25:49 pm
Naughty matt! ;D

Why, perhaps their principles are contracting...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 19 September, 2012, 12:16:52 am
Missouri seems to be keen on its "Adult Superstores", which I presume is a bowdlerised term for "sex shops".  Anyway, I have this afternoon seen a Several of billboards which read:

"Passion's: Couple's Adult Superstores" at the side of I-70.  The letters are about six feet high ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: why1040 on 24 September, 2012, 11:45:29 pm
Traffic report at 18:32 today on Magic "And the Tubes are still running good"   :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 25 September, 2012, 12:03:01 am
Traffic report at 18:32 today on Magic "And the Tubes are still running good"   :facepalm:

Those'll be the ones that provide the interwebs, presumably?   ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 27 September, 2012, 11:00:21 am
Quote
With the launch of FFX, the vision will always been the same
  • Our best possible price
  • Delivered quickly
  • With great service

But not with consistent tenses.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 27 September, 2012, 11:01:17 am
Shouldn't that be the launch of FFS?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: why1040 on 27 September, 2012, 09:11:14 pm
This just turned up on a friend's facebook status:

"extra special early bday cake for a very special someone going in the oven shortly"

It genuinely took me a minute to figure out it wasn't the son that was going into the oven-but I may be tired!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 28 September, 2012, 12:28:59 am
This might appeal to fans of this thread:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19670686

There is little that irks British defenders of the English language more than Americanisms, which they see creeping insidiously into newspaper columns and everyday conversation. But bit by bit British English is invading America too.

...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 28 September, 2012, 12:32:49 am
Do you think it might be a dialect of English English (or English, as it used to be known)?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 01 October, 2012, 05:10:27 pm
Correct or not? Or perhaps just, does it sound right?

Quote
Surrey police confirms that Sir Jimmy Savile was questioned over allegations of child sex abuse in 2007, but the case was not pursued.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 01 October, 2012, 05:14:06 pm
Correct or not? Or perhaps just, does it sound right?

Quote
Surrey police confirms that Sir Jimmy Savile was questioned over allegations of child sex abuse in 2007, but the case was not pursued.

I'd say that that was unknowable because I think the word "police" can be both singular and plural
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 01 October, 2012, 06:30:45 pm
Correct or not? Or perhaps just, does it sound right?

Quote
Surrey police confirms that Sir Jimmy Savile was questioned over allegations of child sex abuse in 2007, but the case was not pursued.

I'd say that that was unknowable because I think the word "police" can be both singular and plural

I found myself grimacing, even though, as you say, it ain't actually wrong.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 02 October, 2012, 11:17:12 am
We've done this one before...

http://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2205.msg1014879;topicseen#msg1014879

My Collins dictionary has this sense of police "functioning as plural".

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Feanor on 02 October, 2012, 10:10:13 pm
Well, not grammar, perhaps but words...

1)  Floor vs Ground.

A floor is a man-made finished surface.
The ground is what you stand on.

The ground *may* be a floor, if you are indoors.
If you are indoors and land on your arse, you have landed on both the floor and the ground.
If you are out-doors and land on your arse, you do not end up on the floor.  You end up on the ground.

2) Drawers ( of the furniture kind! ).

The thing that slides in-and-out of an Ikea cabinet is a drawer, not a draw.
Is this error a result of southern Ingerland pronunciation suppressing the trailing R?

This is truth-by-assertion, the most basic axiom of logic, and you cannot disagree with it :-)

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wombat on 03 October, 2012, 07:56:48 am
Not Southern England-ish, I don't think.  Being a S.Englandish person, its not something I've heard much of round here.  My first hearing of it was on "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" on TV, with reference to undergarments, so I suspect it may have crept across from that to other uses of the word "drawers".  Whatever the cause, it really, really pisses me off!  So maybe its hip black dude-speak?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 03 October, 2012, 08:01:52 am
I pronounce it to rhyme with ground floor.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 03 October, 2012, 09:19:06 am
The BBC's use of apostrophes irritates me. For example:
  • Italian bicycle sales 'surpass those of cars'
  • Crowd backs Tunisia 'rape' woman outside court
  • Hezbollah military commander 'killed in Syria'
  • 'No proof' vitamin D stops colds

It's the fear of being seen to take sides, especially the wrong side.

Cars are good, bicycle are bad, so we mistrust anything which appears to favour cycling.

We can't be seen to say that this woman was raped: that imples that there's a rapist somewhere, and we know how unreliable supposed "rape" victims are.

Hezbollah is the enemy so we automatically suspect anything they say as lies.

Don't know about the last one.

Another one is "claim". Southend Councils says something so it must be true, even though they are a bunch of proven liars.

The anti-airport expansion group "claims" that Councillor Lamb made such-and-such an untrue statement, even though the paper themselves has already printed it and the evidence that he was lying.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 03 October, 2012, 10:44:27 am
The BBC's use of apostrophes irritates me. For example:
  • Italian bicycle sales 'surpass those of cars'
  • Crowd backs Tunisia 'rape' woman outside court
  • Hezbollah military commander 'killed in Syria'
  • 'No proof' vitamin D stops colds

It's the fear of being seen to take sides, especially the wrong side.

Cars are good, bicycle are bad, so we mistrust anything which appears to favour cycling.

We can't be seen to say that this woman was raped: that imples that there's a rapist somewhere, and we know how unreliable supposed "rape" victims are.

Hezbollah is the enemy so we automatically suspect anything they say as lies.

Don't know about the last one.

Another one is "claim". Southend Councils says something so it must be true, even though they are a bunch of proven liars.

The anti-airport expansion group "claims" that Councillor Lamb made such-and-such an untrue statement, even though the paper themselves has already printed it and the evidence that he was lying.

Not really, they are actually quoting, so it's quite correct to use 'surpass those of cars', after all they're reporting that some other entity has said or written this (in this case La Repubblica). I think you're reading a little too much into it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 03 October, 2012, 11:00:37 am
Yes and no, ian. The use of quotes in this way is entirely disingenuous. It's a way of reporting a claim made by someone else as fact while also distancing yourself from the claim. The Daily Mail are past masters at this.

See also: phrasing headlines as questions, eg Does cycling give you cancer? - The simple rule to remember with any headline phrased as a question is that the answer is always no.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 08 October, 2012, 12:47:55 pm
Near the bottom of this article about the X Factor, which I have never watched: http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/19867751

"He just text me to say..."

Nooooooooooooooöooooooo! The past participle is 'texted', not 'text'.

I hate it!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 October, 2012, 01:15:28 pm
Oh dear AH, if you were a purist you would be ranting about the use of 'text' as a verb!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 08 October, 2012, 01:26:27 pm
Oh dear AH, if you were a purist you would be ranting about the use of 'text' as a verb!
Well I don't mind that in this case as "send a text" is quite longwinded. Plus I am always impressed by the Germans' facility in inventing new verbs (they have 'SMSen' or 'Simsen' which is to send an SMS), but the Germans at least largely stick to the grammatical rules, so it'd be "ich simse, du simsest" etc etc. It's the lack of understanding that 'text' as a verb needs to be declined that drives me bonkers.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 08 October, 2012, 01:27:33 pm
If you say, "He just text me to say...," fast enough the 'ed' syllable can become less pronounced.
Well that is how people say it, they don't use the 'ed' at all at the end (I hear it a lot when I wander around this bit of Essex). I just thought that on the BBC News website, albeit the Yoof section, they might have corrected it...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 08 October, 2012, 01:29:09 pm
Oh dear AH, if you were a purist you would be ranting about the use of 'text' as a verb!
Well I don't mind that in this case as "send a text" is quite longwinded. Plus I am always impressed by the Germans' facility in inventing new verbs (they have 'SMSen' or 'Simsen' which is to send an SMS), but the Germans at least largely stick to the grammatical rules, so it'd be "ich simse, du simsest" etc etc. It's the lack of understanding that 'text' as a verb needs to be declined that drives me bonkers.

May I be a grammar pedant and point out that nouns decline but verbs conjugate? Or would that send us into NSFW territory?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 08 October, 2012, 01:34:42 pm
Oh dear AH, if you were a purist you would be ranting about the use of 'text' as a verb!
Well I don't mind that in this case as "send a text" is quite longwinded. Plus I am always impressed by the Germans' facility in inventing new verbs (they have 'SMSen' or 'Simsen' which is to send an SMS), but the Germans at least largely stick to the grammatical rules, so it'd be "ich simse, du simsest" etc etc. It's the lack of understanding that 'text' as a verb needs to be declined that drives me bonkers.

May I be a grammar pedant and point out that nouns decline but verbs conjugate? Or would that send us into NSFW territory?
Good point. Clearly I have been away from language studies too long (5 months...)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 October, 2012, 01:51:23 pm
Oh dear AH, if you were a purist you would be ranting about the use of 'text' as a verb!
Well I don't mind that in this case as "send a text" is quite longwinded. Plus I am always impressed by the Germans' facility in inventing new verbs (they have 'SMSen' or 'Simsen' which is to send an SMS), but the Germans at least largely stick to the grammatical rules, so it'd be "ich simse, du simsest" etc etc. It's the lack of understanding that 'text' as a verb needs to be declined that drives me bonkers.
Just to be clear, I'm completely in favour of turning nouns into verbs in cases like this. As you've given a German example, I'll mention that Poles have reduced 'SMS' to 'eska' - onomatopoeia diminutivised! That's a noun though, I think you can say 'esemesować' as a verb but as in German, it would conjugate - esemesuję, esemesujesz, etc - but it looks a bit odd written down.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 08 October, 2012, 02:19:39 pm
Oh dear AH, if you were a purist you would be ranting about the use of 'text' as a verb!

If you accept "text" as a verb, you also have to accept the possibility of it being an irregular verb.

Bid, for example. The preterite of which is...

Bid.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 08 October, 2012, 02:22:35 pm
May I be a grammar pedant and point out that nouns decline but verbs conjugate?

Many posts here have been about the sad decline in our nouns.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 08 October, 2012, 02:42:43 pm
I don't think new verbs are allowed to be irregular. Irregularity is only for old, popular verbs! 'Text' does not fit into that scheme.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 08 October, 2012, 02:50:32 pm
Oh dear AH, if you were a purist you would be ranting about the use of 'text' as a verb!

If you accept "text" as a verb, you also have to accept the possibility of it being an irregular verb.

Bid, for example. The preterite of which is...

Bid.

d.

Maybe it's because "text" already sounds like a past tense word, like taxed, boxed, cast etc.

I think it should be written as text and texted but pronounced the same, ie in one syllable "text".

http://phonetic-blog.blogspot.de/2009/10/texting.html
http://david-crystal.blogspot.com/2011/07/on-texted-vs-texed.html
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 08 October, 2012, 03:29:06 pm
I don't think new verbs are allowed to be irregular. Irregularity is only for old, popular verbs!

We do tend to regularise new verbs but there's no reason why a new verb shouldn't be irregular - "allowed" doesn't come into it. We're not French!

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 08 October, 2012, 03:36:04 pm
I don't think new verbs are allowed to be irregular. Irregularity is only for old, popular verbs!

We do tend to regularise new verbs but there's no reason why a new verb shouldn't be irregular - "allowed" doesn't come into it. We're not French!

d.

I don't see why 'new' verbs should not be 'strong' or irregular. Surely the past of 'ping' should be 'pung'? Something that works for 'sing' 'sting' or 'ring' should be OK with 'ping'!!!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Arch on 08 October, 2012, 03:39:54 pm
Since someone at work signed up to Twitter, we've adopted 'twat' instead of tweet, 'coz that's the sort of people we all are.  She's twatting about us all the time....

However, we are still treating it as a regular verb, I guess.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 08 October, 2012, 03:45:45 pm
Well I like Helly's 'pung' and would like to use it in future.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 08 October, 2012, 04:30:34 pm
Sting, stung
Ring, rung, rang

Stang? Isn't is a great and greatly inconsistent language we have?

Gah! Stang...  is in Lancashire.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 October, 2012, 06:23:15 pm
ping, pang, pung
king, kang, kung

hmmm...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: why1040 on 08 October, 2012, 08:07:21 pm
Heard just now on 'Nothing to Declare UK'

"Now we need to get him downstairs and custodised" (which, apart from sounding ridiculous, I heard as custardized  ;D )

*shivers*
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 09 October, 2012, 07:52:57 am
Heard just now on 'Nothing to Declare UK'

"Now we need to get him downstairs and custodised" (which, apart from sounding ridiculous, I heard as custardized  ;D )

*shivers*
Thats brilliant. If the speaker doesn't realise how stupid that sounds ...well .. they deserve to look stupid on prime-time TV. (It could always be an in-joke. Please?)

I can't imagine saying "custodised" in any way that stops it sounding like "custardized" !
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 09 October, 2012, 07:54:29 am
Maybe it's because "text" already sounds like a past tense word, like taxed, boxed, cast etc.

Perhaps the noun is "text" but the verb is "to tex"

I sent him a text.
When did you tex him?
I texed him yesterday.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 09 October, 2012, 03:40:51 pm
Quote
Good Afternoon,
I Regret To Inform You That There Has Been A Error With Our Listing, We Unfortunately Have The Description For The Part 2 & The Title For Part 1. Can I Ask You To Confirm Which You Wish To Receive Prior To Dispatch? We Do Have Both In Stock At The Moment.

Are You German? Or What? Just, Erm, Ill Educated, Then.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 09 October, 2012, 05:30:17 pm
German's Don't Capitalize Every Word, Just Nouns.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 09 October, 2012, 07:32:54 pm
Better Safe Than Sorry.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Chris S on 10 October, 2012, 01:52:49 pm
(http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8039/8073783172_65dbb248fe.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/40735552@N05/8073783172/)
less chores (http://www.flickr.com/photos/40735552@N05/8073783172/) by Pelotonhound (http://www.flickr.com/people/40735552@N05/), on Flickr

 :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 11 October, 2012, 08:26:19 am
Quote from: parentmail
Yours sincerely 
 
Mrs Taylor and Miss George
Food Technology Teacher’s

Detailed Programme of Study attached for printing

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 11 October, 2012, 02:30:17 pm
"Will soundcloud you later tonight..."

I know we have mentioned Google before, as in, "I will google it later tonight," but to turn every proper noun into a verb makes me cringe, as does using an ellipsis instead of a full stop.
Legitimate gripes, but I've decided to concede both these battles. Technology creates some tricky sentences anyway (cos old/normal words get reused for new concepts - such as cloud, or tweet).

And I don't mind terminating ellipsises (sp?) in 'casual' usage - they're much better than endless mid-paragraph ones!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 11 October, 2012, 05:41:24 pm


And I don't mind terminating ellipsises (sp?) in 'casual' usage - they're much better than endless mid-paragraph ones!

...why?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 11 October, 2012, 05:49:01 pm
1 is ok!

(and I've just realised that 'cloud' is a perfectly good verb, so why not SoundCloud?!?)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 October, 2012, 05:51:23 pm
What's happened to the grammar pedant MattC we all know and love? Where have you hidden him? We can't cope with this new, chilled out, imposter!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 11 October, 2012, 05:58:14 pm
1 is ok!

(and I've just realised that 'cloud' is a perfectly good verb, so why not SoundCloud?!?)

Sound is a perfectly good verb as well. So "to soundcloud" is two perfectly good verbs for the price of one!

d.
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 13 October, 2012, 11:28:43 pm
(and I've just realised that 'cloud' is a perfectly good verb, so why not SoundCloud?!?)
Not so much answering your question as simply pointing out the difference: cloud is a noun whereas SoundCloud is a proper noun.

So is Google. So is Hoover.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jon P on 14 October, 2012, 07:20:35 pm
I don't often spontaneously laugh out loud when I come across mistakes I did with this one:
Quote
I have been practacing for the last week and compleated lesson 4 with only a few fumbels.

It's always been my ambition to have a few fumbels with a dumbbell (preferably one from Essex ...)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 14 October, 2012, 11:18:32 pm
(http://www.alfiecat.co.uk/yetacf/grammar.jpg)

It's going in Silly Signs too.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 17 October, 2012, 04:14:37 pm
(http://i738.photobucket.com/albums/xx30/Auntie_Helen/E09AC335-3188-4DAE-8548-3364AF675FDB-4121-000005A29E273C06.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 17 October, 2012, 04:26:19 pm
While we're on apostrofail, I noticed a Tattoo parlour with "Tattoo's" on the sign the other day.  Now, I'm not really one for non-accidental body art, but I'd probably rate proofreading skills just below a rigorous approach to hygiene when choosing one...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 17 October, 2012, 07:12:50 pm
"Apostrofail".  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 18 October, 2012, 08:46:37 pm
Nah. 'Tis Criminal: Apostrophe Crime. To be pounced on by the Grammar Police.

(Of which I am a Special Constable: think I'm God, actually know nothing and have no power  :facepalm:)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 18 October, 2012, 08:55:05 pm
While we're on apostrofail, I noticed a Tattoo parlour with "Tattoo's" on the sign the other day.  Now, I'm not really one for non-accidental body art, but I'd probably rate proofreading skills just below a rigorous approach to hygiene when choosing one...

When we had one set up in our village (we're over-provided with charity shops, bookies and skin-cancer parlours), I notices the same as you, Kim.  I pointed the error out to the owner and he just smiled as if I was touched or something.  All perfectly amicable but you can't tell some people anything!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 22 October, 2012, 08:52:08 am
(click to show/hide)
:facepalm:
Having a Roomba doesn't make for fewer chores: the hoovering still has to be done. It just makes it less of a chore.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 29 October, 2012, 06:54:13 pm
(http://peter.chesspod.com/gallery/d/17770-1/DSC09054.JPG)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Feanor on 29 October, 2012, 09:34:07 pm
This morning, I was behind an HGV with professional spray-painted signage which claimed to be a "Hualage Contractor'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 30 October, 2012, 09:19:37 am
A pub that thinks it is a greengrocer.
(http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae7/fboab/2012-10-29124551.jpg)

My folks had just been sharing their enjoyment at a wedding they'd been to on Saturday, where the menu had offered them Deserts, when the waitress came over and asked if we wanted to look at the desert menu. We had already started laughing when we realised she wasn't joking.
 :-[
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: andrew_s on 31 October, 2012, 01:17:37 am
Quote
If working as freelance news/sports photographer, the winner is the person who's photo first hits the picture desk.
"who's" == "who is", or "who has". Should be "whose".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: andrew_s on 31 October, 2012, 01:20:14 am
This phenomenon.
These phenomena is probably better.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 31 October, 2012, 10:33:40 am
These phenomena is are probably better.
FTFY  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 31 October, 2012, 12:08:38 pm
These phenomena is are probably better.
FTFY  ;D

"These phenomena" is probably better.

;)

It's not the phenomena that are better, it's the phrase!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 31 October, 2012, 02:00:56 pm
Why do you think I edited out the post that was being replied to? It's called humour.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 November, 2012, 12:36:43 pm
A handful of puggle. Bo, a 55-day-old baby Echidna, or a puggle as they are often known, rests in the hands of a vet nurse at Taronga zoo in Sydney, Australia. The puggle was bought to the zoo after being found by itself on a walking track north of Sydney and will be fed by hand until it is weaned at about six months.

From Yacfers' fave. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2012/nov/01/picture-desk-live-the-best-news-pictures-of-the-day
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 01 November, 2012, 01:32:10 pm
And I suppose you're going to claim 2 errors in the one article, are you?!? Greedy!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 November, 2012, 05:21:16 pm
I'm not clever enough to spot two errors in there.  :(

I did see a nice notice in a local shop window though. It was advertising "fall wears". I like it, in so many ways, but I'll avoid that shop just to be safe.  :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 01 November, 2012, 05:37:59 pm
I've been reading a consultation document which repeatedly refers to forums rather than fora.  Aargh!  I know that is the common modern usage, but every time I see forums I have an overwhelming desire to take a ruler to the knuckles of the author.  If this is allowed to continue people will start referring to stadiums rather than stadia!  :o  Where will it end?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 November, 2012, 05:39:23 pm
I think it will pervade all mediums.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 01 November, 2012, 05:43:45 pm
I should have seen that one coming.  ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 01 November, 2012, 06:32:41 pm
Stick it up your ba!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SteveC on 01 November, 2012, 09:09:29 pm
Stick it up your ba!
He has more than one?!  :o
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 03 November, 2012, 09:00:57 am
Though curiously, in the case of media, it is the plural that is surviving the singular, as in "a storage media". :hand:
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 04 November, 2012, 10:00:14 pm
I should of seen that one coming.  ::-)

ftfy ;)

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 04 November, 2012, 10:29:04 pm
While we're on apostrofail, I noticed a Tattoo parlour with "Tattoo's" on the sign the other day.  Now, I'm not really one for non-accidental body art, but I'd probably rate proofreading skills just below a rigorous approach to hygiene when choosing one...

When we had one set up in our village (we're over-provided with charity shops, bookies and skin-cancer parlours), I notices the same as you, Kim.  I pointed the error out to the owner and he just smiled as if I was touched or something.  All perfectly amicable but you can't tell some people anything!

Tense issue there.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Dave_C on 04 November, 2012, 11:43:35 pm
I appologise if this has been said before but I'm not going to reveiw over 250 (taptalk) pages....

'I aven't done nuffink wrong'...

Ah so you HAVE done SOMETHING wrong?
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 05 November, 2012, 02:25:43 pm
Litotes?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ham on 06 November, 2012, 10:34:23 am
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-piaRAQ8FHSg/UJjm7XOnfYI/AAAAAAAAktY/JsRTFyRWtRg/s640/20120623_185240.jpg)

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 06 November, 2012, 12:39:55 pm
<<Tweet us your banging picures from the amazing display last night!>>

Usage, spelling & grammar cringes, all in one neat Tweet from Brent Council a few minutes ago.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 November, 2012, 03:14:00 pm
<<Tweet us your banging picures from the amazing display last night!>>

Usage, spelling & grammar cringes, all in one neat Tweet from Brent Council a few minutes ago.
I think banging is a good pun in the context and the sentence matches the style of the 'tweets' the council hopes to receive.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: eck on 07 November, 2012, 07:47:06 pm
TV ad tonight:
"On 9 November, The House of Bruar commences its once a year annual sale."

Does it really?  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 08 November, 2012, 02:46:07 pm
Is the House of Bruar annual like the Beano annual?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 08 November, 2012, 02:50:35 pm
I assume they are selling Beano annuals. And others, I hope.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 10 November, 2012, 08:07:55 pm
I know it's not actually grammar but "wattage", "amperage" and (worst of all) "ohmage" grate terribly.  The battle has been lost on "voltage"  ("electromotive force" and "potential difference" both being a bit of a mouthful) but can we please use "power", "current" and "resistance"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 November, 2012, 08:25:36 pm
Surely ohmage is what you pay to Caesar?

 :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 10 November, 2012, 08:28:11 pm
Recognise your age, it's a Teenage Ampage...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 10 November, 2012, 08:28:16 pm
And a wattage is a small country house made from straw and mud.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 10 November, 2012, 08:30:06 pm
Traffic report at 18:32 today on Magic "And the Tubes are still running good"   :facepalm:

Those'll be the ones that provide the interwebs, presumably?   ::-)

Why's traffic report could be related to the presenter on the local community radio station I heard the other day. The one who thought when speaking about a single effigy being burnt on a November 5th bonfire referred to it as a "Guy Fawke", singular.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 11 November, 2012, 07:49:44 pm
Quote
With a fifth of Ohio’s votes yet to be counted and Obama ahead by a slither,

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/this-election-wasnt-pretty-but-obamas-victory-is-a-triumph-for-science-over-superstition-8294590.html

Edit: actually, that's not a grammatical error. It's just ignorance, but quite a common mistake.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 11 November, 2012, 09:45:56 pm
Yes it's a sort of crossover to the pronunciation thread, where poor enunciation ends up affecting spelling/grammar. One might expect better from the Independent though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Deano on 11 November, 2012, 09:48:18 pm
Obama was snaking ahead...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: PhilO on 12 November, 2012, 09:18:30 am
Quote
With a fifth of Ohio’s votes yet to be counted and Obama ahead by a slither,

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/this-election-wasnt-pretty-but-obamas-victory-is-a-triumph-for-science-over-superstition-8294590.html

Edit: actually, that's not a grammatical error. It's just ignorance, but quite a common mistake.

TBF, that strikes me as more likely to be an auto-correct problem, and therefore poor proof reading more than ignorance. Still cr@p, though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 12 November, 2012, 09:22:05 am
11 years ago our local council wanted to build a road, for which they said they intended to take "a slither" of park land.

Slither is about right where Southend Council are concerned.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 20 November, 2012, 09:33:54 am
Just checking my parcel delivery status and I see from DPD's website that we have the following stages:

Quote
Collected
At Sortation Facility
In Transit
At Delivery Depot
Out For Delivery
Delivered

Sortation??????
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 20 November, 2012, 09:44:18 am
Just checking my parcel delivery status and I see from DPD's website that we have the following stages:

Quote
Collected
At Sortation Facility
In Transit
At Delivery Depot
Out For Delivery
Delivered

Sortation??????

Agreed.  Any fool knows the word is sortification!  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 20 November, 2012, 09:57:01 am
And, once they are sortificationized, they are ready for transitizing.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 November, 2012, 10:12:05 am
ITYM "they are preparified".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 20 November, 2012, 11:01:06 am
Excellent blog post on the old that/which chestnut:

http://stancarey.wordpress.com/2012/11/19/a-comma-which-muddles-meaning/
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 20 November, 2012, 08:27:54 pm
Has George W Bush gotten himself a new job writificating documents for delivery companies?
Shouldn't that be deliverification companies?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SandyV on 20 November, 2012, 09:29:45 pm
De-escalate!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 November, 2012, 09:43:50 pm
De-escalate!
Does that mean take the stairs?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 21 November, 2012, 10:13:24 am
Excellent blog post on the old that/which chestnut:

http://stancarey.wordpress.com/2012/11/19/a-comma-which-muddles-meaning/

Indeed, but I think I disagree when he says, "nor do they need which changed to that." I'd change them.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 21 November, 2012, 11:12:42 am
Excellent blog post on the old that/which chestnut:

http://stancarey.wordpress.com/2012/11/19/a-comma-which-muddles-meaning/

It's always been my contention that the more grammatical people try to be, the less intelligible their writing becomes. We have a couple of writers (OK, all of them) who are like this. You can almost smell the grammatical perspiration, the effort they've put into obeying arcane, arbitrary rules. Those clunkers of an attempt to avoid a split infinitive. Sentences that meander, evidently scared to move forward in case they encounter a terminal preposition. Indecisive commas dumped like literal litter.

Of course, this could be my excuse for being shit at grammar. I make up words all the time too.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SandyV on 21 November, 2012, 11:52:03 am
De-escalate!
Does that mean take the stairs?
;D
Perhaps throw down the stairs like defenestrate?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 21 November, 2012, 04:59:18 pm
Indeed, but I think I disagree when he says, "nor do they need which changed to that." I'd change them.

You wouldn't be wrong to change them but the point is that they don't need to be changed. It's one of those rules like not splitting an infinitive and not ending a sentence with a preposition that serves only itself and adds nothing to communication. And as his example shows, dogmatically following the rule can create rather than solve problems.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 22 November, 2012, 09:18:08 pm
(http://i738.photobucket.com/albums/xx30/Auntie_Helen/8D85D7FD-6C04-49D7-8F16-08F280F94B89-500-00000058D28D5C1D.jpg)

This is where ending a sentence with a preposition is really wrong!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 22 November, 2012, 09:19:10 pm
Another one from today's ride:

(http://i738.photobucket.com/albums/xx30/Auntie_Helen/1AC32FBE-5F17-458F-9369-C97DFA991DEE-500-00000058CB933676.jpg)

There's something deeply wrong about the last word (the whole sentence is unnecessarily passive) but I'm not sure why it is so grating.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 23 November, 2012, 11:13:52 am
I'm just amused by the name of the garden centre in that context.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 November, 2012, 11:49:35 pm
Hertz makes sense!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 27 November, 2012, 03:04:56 pm
(http://static.someecards.com/someecards/usercards/1345083472401_4207977.png)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 27 November, 2012, 05:24:55 pm
(http://peter.chesspod.com/gallery/d/17870-2/IMAG0073.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 November, 2012, 10:14:08 am
This morning I found myself saying "She's a policeman." Should I report myself to the nearest Grammar Policeman/woman/constable/officer the next reader of this thread?  :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 November, 2012, 10:41:35 am
Your in Twitter speak Tweet (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/28/your-in-america-grammar-fascists)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 29 November, 2012, 10:45:38 am
I like that. :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 29 November, 2012, 11:39:16 am
In a similar vein, I like this (mainly for the enraged responses (http://laughingsquid.com/stealth-mountain-twitter-bot-that-corrects-misuse-of-sneak-peak/)):

http://laughingsquid.com/stealth-mountain-twitter-bot-that-corrects-misuse-of-sneak-peak/

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 29 November, 2012, 02:35:25 pm
Just washing my Altura Night Vision jacket.

Now how many times do I need to fill the cap with the liquid?

(https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/481600_10151119114181786_621201863_n.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 02 December, 2012, 02:35:27 pm
ON the Facebook posting from my local pub:

Quote
Roasts Today Beef,Pork and Chicken ..not a Turkey insight £8.50 or 2 course £9.95 ,3 course £12.95 Open All Day today as usual
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 02 December, 2012, 03:13:47 pm
 :facepalm: I think they could do with some insight.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 05 December, 2012, 04:28:53 pm
Not strictly grammar, but I was amused by the elegant variation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elegant_variation) in this piece:

http://londonist.com/2012/12/horniman-walrus-goes-on-tour.php
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 05 December, 2012, 04:39:18 pm
Not cringeworthy at all.  That's funny.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 05 December, 2012, 04:48:59 pm
Agreed, but it still jars a bit - it's obviously self-conscious silliness on the writer's part but it distracts from the story. Just because it's a light-hearted piece, you don't have to come over all PG Wodehouse. Unless you are PG Wodehouse and thus have the skill to pull it off.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Arch on 05 December, 2012, 08:57:23 pm
Not cringeworthy at all.  That's funny.

I particularly like 'bulky pinniped'. I will try to remember that for the next time I want to mildly insult someone!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: RJ on 06 December, 2012, 09:21:42 am
All users e-mail from a service dep't, titled:  "Thanks for baring with us"

 :-\
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 06 December, 2012, 02:20:40 pm
The service department of this publication?  ;D

NSFW
http://www.henaturist.net/joom2/ (http://www.henaturist.net/joom2/)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: FatBloke on 06 December, 2012, 07:16:43 pm
Recently I've been dealing with fecking lowlife pond-sucking scumbags not fit to exist in this world or any other recruitment consultants. One phrase that they love, which is driving me to kill, is "My client are..." For <insert diety of your choice>'s sake, don't they realise that "client" is singular??!       :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: orienteer on 09 December, 2012, 10:46:10 am
Always understood it to be roofs.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: otherdave on 09 December, 2012, 10:52:13 am
The plural of roof is what?

At school I was taught the pural of roof is rooves (as well as hooves, calves, shelves, etc.) but reading the Bible, where I don't expect to find grammatical errors, I read Luke 12:3 (TNIV): What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.

It seems odd that the Bible includes a grammatical error so I checked in my computer's dictionary: roofs. I checked my Oxford English Dictionary; it doesn't mention the plural. I searched YACF: 30 roofs and 3 rooves. If the internet is to be believed it appears that rooves is old fashioned and not used anymore apart from in New Zealand English. Really?

What do you say and write: roofs or rooves?

Roofs is the most widely accepted plural of Roof both spoken and spelt,
it is often pronounced as "Rooves" which has lead to all this confusion!
http://www.matchatile.co.uk/roofing-articles/35-rooves-or-roofs.html
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 09 December, 2012, 12:36:13 pm
It seems odd that the Bible includes a grammatical error

<bites tongue>
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: TimO on 09 December, 2012, 01:24:28 pm
The plural of roof is what?
... I checked my Oxford English Dictionary; it doesn't mention the plural. ...

The online OED (I have access through work) says:

"noun (pl. roofs) ... 

... origin Old English hrōf, of Germanic origin; related to Old Norse hróf '‘ boat shed’ ', Dutch roef '‘ deckhouse’ '. English alone has the general sense ‘‘ covering of a house’ ’; other Germanic languages use forms related to thatch."


So roof would make more sense, given the Dutch similar usage of roef.

I've never seen rooves.  Comparison with other similar words in English is a bit pointless, because exceptions probably outweigh other usages.  English is a horribly inconsistent language.  New words sometimes get shoe horned into older syntactical mechanisms, but they're just as likely to come in via another language, that does it completely differently.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 09 December, 2012, 03:00:05 pm
I remember reading that the plurals are optional for roof/roofs/rooves and wharf/wharves/wharfs etc.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 09 December, 2012, 03:17:19 pm
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029583/
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: FatBloke on 09 December, 2012, 07:05:36 pm
The plural of roof is what?

At school I was taught the pural of roof is rooves (as well as hooves, calves, shelves, etc.) but reading the Bible, where I don't expect to find grammatical errors, I read Luke 12:3 (TNIV): What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.

It seems odd that the Bible includes a grammatical error so I checked in my computer's dictionary: roofs. I checked my Oxford English Dictionary; it doesn't mention the plural. I searched YACF: 30 roofs and 3 rooves. If the internet is to be believed it appears that rooves is old fashioned and not used anymore apart from in New Zealand English. Really?

What do you say and write: roofs or rooves?

The plural of 'roof' is 'roofs'! I don't know what school you went to but it wasn't a grammar school!!   ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 10 December, 2012, 10:08:27 am
The plural of roof is what?

At school I was taught the pural of roof is rooves (as well as hooves, calves, shelves, etc.) but reading the Bible, where I don't expect to find grammatical errors, I read Luke 12:3 (TNIV): What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.

It seems odd that the Bible includes a grammatical error so I checked in my computer's dictionary: roofs. I checked my Oxford English Dictionary; it doesn't mention the plural. I searched YACF: 30 roofs and 3 rooves. If the internet is to be believed it appears that rooves is old fashioned and not used anymore apart from in New Zealand English. Really?

What do you say and write: roofs or rooves?

The plural of 'roof' is 'roofs'! I don't know what school you went to but it wasn't a grammar school!!   ;D

FattersbethinkingthatSouthendHighissomethingtoboastabout. :P
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: fred the great on 10 December, 2012, 03:33:42 pm
Perhaps he's right :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 11 December, 2012, 12:11:40 pm
Tweet from ONS today-

<<Blaenau Gwent had the least amount of residents declaring 'no skills in Welsh' >>

AAARRRGGGHHH!
Seems their English is not too hot...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Efrogwr on 11 December, 2012, 09:47:47 pm
The plural of roof is what?

At school I was taught the pural of roof is rooves (as well as hooves, calves, shelves, etc.) but reading the Bible, where I don't expect to find grammatical errors, I read Luke 12:3 (TNIV): What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.

It seems odd that the Bible includes a grammatical error so I checked in my computer's dictionary: roofs. I checked my Oxford English Dictionary; it doesn't mention the plural. I searched YACF: 30 roofs and 3 rooves. If the internet is to be believed it appears that rooves is old fashioned and not used anymore apart from in New Zealand English. Really?

What do you say and write: roofs or rooves?

The plural of 'roof' is 'roofs'! I don't know what school you went to but it wasn't a grammar school!!   ;D


"Rooves" are conical copper rivets that are clenched over the nails (also copper) that are traditionally used to fasten the planks together in a clinker-built boat.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Arch on 11 December, 2012, 09:52:24 pm
The plural of roof is what?

At school I was taught the pural of roof is rooves (as well as hooves, calves, shelves, etc.) but reading the Bible, where I don't expect to find grammatical errors, I read Luke 12:3 (TNIV): What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.

It seems odd that the Bible includes a grammatical error so I checked in my computer's dictionary: roofs. I checked my Oxford English Dictionary; it doesn't mention the plural. I searched YACF: 30 roofs and 3 rooves. If the internet is to be believed it appears that rooves is old fashioned and not used anymore apart from in New Zealand English. Really?

What do you say and write: roofs or rooves?

The plural of 'roof' is 'roofs'! I don't know what school you went to but it wasn't a grammar school!!   ;D


"Rooves" are conical copper rivets that are clenched over the nails (also copper) that are traditionally used to fasten the planks together in a clinker-built boat.

I thought that was 'roves'...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Efrogwr on 12 December, 2012, 10:54:44 am
The plural of roof is what?

At school I was taught the pural of roof is rooves (as well as hooves, calves, shelves, etc.) but reading the Bible, where I don't expect to find grammatical errors, I read Luke 12:3 (TNIV): What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs.

It seems odd that the Bible includes a grammatical error so I checked in my computer's dictionary: roofs. I checked my Oxford English Dictionary; it doesn't mention the plural. I searched YACF: 30 roofs and 3 rooves. If the internet is to be believed it appears that rooves is old fashioned and not used anymore apart from in New Zealand English. Really?

What do you say and write: roofs or rooves?

The plural of 'roof' is 'roofs'! I don't know what school you went to but it wasn't a grammar school!!   ;D


"Rooves" are conical copper rivets that are clenched over the nails (also copper) that are traditionally used to fasten the planks together in a clinker-built boat.

I thought that was 'roves'...


Bugger!!!!!

You're right ;D.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Efrogwr on 12 December, 2012, 11:03:03 am
Because I'm a sad old bastard, I've just Googled "boat nails rooves" and seen that it's not a rare error*. However, according to The Chambers Dictionary, Arch is correct.


* I can't remember where I heard/read it.

 ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 12 December, 2012, 11:11:20 am
Perhaps he's right :D

He's not.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 12 December, 2012, 11:15:29 am
I don't think I've ever seen "rooves" before. This is the first time I've seen it and it certainly doesn't look correct to my eyes.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 14 December, 2012, 04:52:40 pm
You lot are amateurs...

The Self-Appointed Grammar Police Casebook (http://sagp.miketaylor.org.uk/casebook/index.html)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 14 December, 2012, 05:48:39 pm
You lot are amateurs...

The Self-Appointed Grammar Police Casebook (http://sagp.miketaylor.org.uk/casebook/index.html)

*like*
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Arch on 14 December, 2012, 06:01:18 pm

Bugger!!!!!

You're right ;D.

I only know because when I was at Uni, my assessed seminar was on the subject of Viking shipping, so I read a lot about wooden boat construction.  I also lodged myself in the assessors minds by converting the potential maximum payloads of the various types of ship into the weights of double decker buses. ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 17 December, 2012, 01:20:40 am
Hoax nurse body arrives in India...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 17 December, 2012, 01:25:50 am
Yes, Helly.

I get infuriated by that kind of language-mangling from teletext news, yahoo pages and other information services.  It's not as if there isn't space to write "nurse's".

Further, what on earth has this to do with the general public, anyway?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ham on 17 December, 2012, 01:57:06 pm
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-6ZeNA90tFKo/UM8kibH_z1I/AAAAAAAAlZk/e19C-KtIWhs/s640/20121216_111336.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biff on 22 December, 2012, 05:02:57 pm
You lot are amateurs...

The Self-Appointed Grammar Police Casebook (http://sagp.miketaylor.org.uk/casebook/index.html)


yebbut I'm an official. I have the badge

(http://i46.tinypic.com/x1bu38.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 24 December, 2012, 11:40:28 am
Yes, Helly.

I get infuriated by that kind of language-mangling from teletext news, yahoo pages and other information services.  It's not as if there isn't space to write "nurse's".

But " Hoax nurse's body " would still be ambiguous. It's the brevity that's the problem, not the grammar or lack of apostrophe.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 24 December, 2012, 03:25:36 pm
Seen on today's ride in Elmstead Market

(https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/c38.0.403.403/p403x403/165046_10151150865306786_1698344406_n.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 January, 2013, 12:28:03 pm
Quote
It's Sundays evening (6pm) and your due to start work on Monday morning. You're not feeling very well but you know that it will be hard to find cover at this short notice. Tick which actions you would take

Quote
You're on the way to your lesson and your car break's down. What do you do?

This is from an application form for teaching jobs. Teaching English amongst other things.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jane on 10 January, 2013, 12:38:02 pm
You lot are amateurs...

The Self-Appointed Grammar Police Casebook (http://sagp.miketaylor.org.uk/casebook/index.html)

You're all lightweights.  My colleagues and I spent a whole staff meeting discussing how we should teach comma use this week.  We still haven't made a decision about the Oxford comma.  (Roll on retirement).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: anotherdeadhero on 10 January, 2013, 01:13:15 pm
We still haven't made a decision about the Oxford comma.  (Roll on retirement).

Easy: use it or don't. Consistent usage is the primary consideration.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 10 January, 2013, 01:29:09 pm
You lot are amateurs...

The Self-Appointed Grammar Police Casebook (http://sagp.miketaylor.org.uk/casebook/index.html)

You're all lightweights.  My colleagues and I spent a whole staff meeting discussing how we should teach comma use this week.  We still haven't made a decision about the Oxford comma.  (Roll on retirement).

It's simple.  If you, your colleagues and management agree, then you should use it with care, precision, and consistency.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jane on 10 January, 2013, 02:01:59 pm
You lot are amateurs...

The Self-Appointed Grammar Police Casebook (http://sagp.miketaylor.org.uk/casebook/index.html)

You're all lightweights.  My colleagues and I spent a whole staff meeting discussing how we should teach comma use this week.  We still haven't made a decision about the Oxford comma.  (Roll on retirement).

It's simple.  If you, your colleagues and management agree, then you should use it with care, precision, and consistency.
You might think it would be that simple, wouldn't you?  But a wealth of angst and frustration is generated by those  words highlighted above.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 10 January, 2013, 02:03:04 pm
;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jane on 10 January, 2013, 05:21:32 pm
To be fair to me and my colleagues, I am exaggerating a bit. The meeting was actually discussing the introduction of an explicit grammar component into the English curriculum which will be tested separately, which one would expect to generate a serious amount of discussion amongst a group of primary school teachers.  The Oxford comma debate was just part of it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: contango on 10 January, 2013, 11:09:42 pm
(http://cache2.allpostersimages.com/p/LRG/36/3633/8CMEF00Z/posters/rice-christopher-grasping-grammar-they-re-there-their.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 14 January, 2013, 01:57:02 pm
Boxted Village Hall's sign:

(https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/431355_10151180270766786_338901160_n.jpg)

Third time's the charm!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 14 January, 2013, 03:23:31 pm
From the polar bear programme on BBC.  "I couldn't do it without polar bear and Arctic expert Jason Roberts". 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Arch on 14 January, 2013, 05:29:05 pm
Boxted Village Hall's sign:

(https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/431355_10151180270766786_338901160_n.jpg)

Third time's the charm!

That's what always puzzles me about the Greengrocer's apostrophe, the inconsistency. In a list, you'll often find it in some plurals and not in others.  Hedging their bets perhaps.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 14 January, 2013, 05:47:03 pm
It's perfectly consistent!

Quiz's is a shortening of Quizes
Prizes is OK without an apostrophe
Cash Pot's .... er sorry, can't help you there ...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 14 January, 2013, 05:49:40 pm
You have to understand a rule to be able to apply it consistently.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 14 January, 2013, 06:22:04 pm
Quiz's is a shortening of Quizes

It's probably a shortening of quizzes. Quiz'es would still require an apostrophe.
Thanks. I'll probably shorten Quizzes to Quizz's in future.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 16 January, 2013, 07:54:37 pm
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/484043_515449481809330_1123658858_n.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 16 January, 2013, 08:37:36 pm
So two abuse's means two puppy's die? :o
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 January, 2013, 11:17:30 pm
Awww! Who's puppie's died?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 21 January, 2013, 05:38:55 pm
"Since 1992, Nad's has been developing and selling unwanted hair removal products."

Does this mean what they want it to mean?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 14 February, 2013, 12:53:36 pm
Yay.  Go Nads.

Grammar not irritating, given that it's a classified ad on a works intranet, but I didn't know where else to put it.  I can't help but think that there's a word missing.

Quote
One long haired boy really small type and short haired little girl born on 30-09-2012. Looking for kind, loving homes only. Wormed from two weeks old, flea’d with frontline.  Reduced to £400 due to need new homes.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Littlesox on 19 February, 2013, 05:45:34 am
I detest "innit".

I hear it more and more, and it makes me shudder.

Generally the younger "yoof" type I have to say, but in conversation with a 55 year old colleague yesterday, it made two cringeworthy apearances.

I was talking to a mid-twenties lad last week, who appeared to have replaced all of his full-stops with "innits" to the point where I thought it was a new form of puntuation. It went something along these lines.

Got an appointment.
I'm sorry?
Got an an appointment, innit.
What time for?
8 o'clock, innit
It's twenty past
Traffic, innit. Accident, stuck for ages, innit.
Can you go to reception at the front of the building, and they will help you.
Parking here innit.
No, you need to be in the bays at the front out of the way of the trucks.
Leave it here, then get appointment innit
No, take your car, drive round to the bays and report to reception, they will help you there.
Just walk across there, innit.
No, they will need your car. Get in it (Oh, blimey, I've started now) and go to reception.

Anyway, you get the picture.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: LEE on 27 February, 2013, 03:59:32 pm
Why do I think, like many other people of my generation, that "dilemma" should be spelled "dilemna" (with an "n")?

I have always thought this.

Many people think this.

There is very little to back me up that I have ever been correct.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 27 February, 2013, 04:18:29 pm
http://www.dilemna.info/index.php

I remember this came up on Mark Kermode's R5 programme when the film The Dilemma came out because he's another one who has always spelt it with an N. I've always been a double-M man myself so I have no idea where the N spelling comes from. But at least it has some provenance.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 27 February, 2013, 08:27:50 pm
I have never seen the spelling "dilemna" before now. I think it is, quite simply, just wrong.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 28 February, 2013, 12:03:21 pm
You know that thing, where you're happily spelling a word that you think you're entirely right and comfortable with, and then you suddenly lose faith in yourself and wonder, and the longer you look at it, the more you can't decide if it's right, and in fact, it and the other option both look both wrong, and meaningless? That.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 28 February, 2013, 02:01:00 pm
Great cars, them dilemmas...

Taxi!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 28 February, 2013, 11:08:51 pm
I have never seen the spelling "dilemna" before now. I think it is, quite simply, just wrong.
Ditto.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 01 March, 2013, 10:43:19 am
You know that thing, where you're happily spelling a word that you think you're entirely right and comfortable with, and then you suddenly lose faith in yourself and wonder, and the longer you look at it, the more you can't decide if it's right, and in fact, it and the other option both look both wrong, and meaningless? That.

I'd always thought that was just me. If I actually look at any written word, the amount of time I spend looking at it is inversely proportional to how correct it appears to be. In very short periods of time I've convinced myself it must be wrong.

I've never seen 'dilemma' written as 'dilemna'. Even Apple thinks it's wrong and has applied the underline of shame. It likes 'reflexion' though and so do I.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 01 March, 2013, 11:17:24 am
You know that thing, where you're happily spelling a word that you think you're entirely right and comfortable with, and then you suddenly lose faith in yourself and wonder, and the longer you look at it, the more you can't decide if it's right, and in fact, it and the other option both look both wrong, and meaningless? That.

I'd always thought that was just me.

No, it's me too.

I'd never heard of the "dilemna" spelling until Mark Kermode brought it up, but the phenomenon appears to be widespread enough, and to have been around long enough, that it can't be dismissed as "simply just wrong". I don't have my Chambers dictionary to hand but I wouldn't be surprised if it's listed in there.

According to Wikipedia, "The incorrect spelling dilemna is often seen in common usage." The problem I have with that statement is that it's a contradiction - "correct" spelling is defined by common usage. It doesn't matter that it comes from the Greek word "lemma" - there are plenty of English words from foreign roots that don't exactly follow the original spelling - and in any case, "lemma" is a transliteration, so who's to say that lemna isn't correct?.

d.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: anotherdeadhero on 01 March, 2013, 11:32:56 am
None of my usual authorative references even mention the alternative spelling, thus I am forced to conclude it is simply wrong.

Common usage only goes so far, the use of 'your' when the author means 'you're' for example.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 01 March, 2013, 11:52:38 am
None of my usual authorative references even mention the alternative spelling, thus I am forced to conclude it is simply wrong.

Common usage only goes so far, the use of 'your' when the author means 'you're' for example.

Personally, I'm happy for usage to lead language. If English usage eventually ends up dropping the apostrophe, then so be it. It's the way it's ever been. I like apostrophes. Obviously.

I suspect the staring words into incomprehension thing says something fundamental about written language, but it's too early to think about it. My other quirk is omitting words, it's like my brain knows they're there, so it doesn't bother telling my fingers to type them. Why waste the time and effort? Of course, then I reread what I've written and my brain still fills in the gap, so it looks correct. The only way I can spot them is if someone reads the text to me, which is why – after the cat proved ineffective – I make heavy use of the nice lady who lives inside my computer.

This is probably why when I had the job title 'editor' it was rapidly amended to 'managing editor'. I do it to other people's writing too.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 01 March, 2013, 12:55:03 pm
Although my spelling (if not my typing) is excellent, I have long advocated phonetic spelling.  However, a lot of people down here don't pronounce words properly, so the poor dears would be disadvantaged.

German's a much more sensible language, to my mind.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 01 March, 2013, 12:59:25 pm
The Concise Oxford has no mention of "dilemna".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 01 March, 2013, 01:15:08 pm
It's a mnystery.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 01 March, 2013, 01:22:39 pm
The Concise Oxford has no mention of "dilemna".

I would expect the only dictionary to list it, if any, would be Chambers, which lists many common alternative* spellings not included in other dictionaries (this being the reason why it tends to be the dictionary of choice for crossword compilers).

d.

*wrong spellings, if you prefer.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 01 March, 2013, 01:26:36 pm
Although my spelling (if not my typing) is excellent, I have long advocated phonetic spelling.  However, a lot of people down here don't pronounce words properly, so the poor dears would be disadvantaged.

German's a much more sensible language, to my mind.
German has cases! And that abomination, grammatical gender! How can you call it more sensible?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 01 March, 2013, 01:28:21 pm
It's always clear what you're talking about, and has fewer cases than, say Latin.  I think the tenses are simpler, too.

Most importantly for people who might struggle with spelling, it's consistent.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SteveC on 01 March, 2013, 01:38:48 pm

Most importantly for people who might struggle with spelling, it's consistent.
So is Welsh...

And Spanish
And Italian
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: CrinklyLion on 01 March, 2013, 01:42:47 pm
It's always clear what you're talking about, and has fewer cases than, say Latin.  I think the tenses are simpler, too.

Most importantly for people who might struggle with spelling, it's consistent.
It's always clear what you're talking about, and has fewer cases than, say Latin.  I think the tenses are simpler, too.

Most importantly for people who might struggle with spelling, it's consistent.

True. I still gave up on German after I learnt how to say "tram stop" but had to give up half way through due to writer's cramp.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 01 March, 2013, 01:42:57 pm
Spanish, Portuguese or Italian spelling is simpler, consistent, & phonetic, tenses are simpler than English, they're clear, & there are no cases. They still have grammatical gender, though.

Fewer cases than Latin is like saying fewer potholes than Reade's Lane (a road I try to avoid on my road bike except in fine weather & daylight). It's condemning with faint praise. "Not as bad as" =/ good.

And spelling is not inherent to the language. Several languages are written in more than one script. Claiming German is a more sensible language because of its spelling is therefore mistaken. You are confusing the language with how it is represented.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 March, 2013, 02:35:28 pm
The Concise Oxford has no mention of "dilemna".

I would expect the only dictionary to list it, if any, would be Chambers, which lists many common alternative* spellings not included in other dictionaries (this being the reason why it tends to be the dictionary of choice for crossword compilers).

d.

*wrong spellings, if you prefer.
It's not in Chambers online, fwiw. I wonder if the "dilemna" spelling started with misread handwriting? Or maybe a simple typo. I don't think I've ever heard anybody pronounce it as if it had an "n".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 01 March, 2013, 02:38:56 pm
I'd never seen it spelled with an 'n' before the mention in this thread, and I am amazed that anyone would go to the trouble of a webpage about a basic error. 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 01 March, 2013, 02:54:33 pm
Growing up in Bristol, a true Bristolian faced with a difficult choice between two options is faced with a dilemmal.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 01 March, 2013, 03:25:06 pm
Spanish, Portuguese or Italian spelling is simpler, consistent, & phonetic, tenses are simpler than English, they're clear, & there are no cases. They still have grammatical gender, though.

Fewer cases than Latin is like saying fewer potholes than Reade's Lane (a road I try to avoid on my road bike except in fine weather & daylight). It's condemning with faint praise. "Not as bad as" =/ good.

And spelling is not inherent to the language. Several languages are written in more than one script. Claiming German is a more sensible language because of its spelling is therefore mistaken. You are confusing the language with how it is represented.

I'm curious (don't worry, it's partly rhetorical, I don't expect you to have the answer), but are 'regular' languages easier to learn? English is famed for irregularity yet seems remarkably easy to learn (sure, people gripe, but they learn it all the same and do a good job). I can say this as someone dim enough to have accepted a bet to learn Japanese which in many ways is quite regular but takes a lot of rote learning and mental re-adjustment (owing to the confidence kryptonite that is beer, I was temporarily of the belief I had developed some kind of learning superpower – I'm just glad I didn't make the same bet in Hong Kong, Cantonese* would reduce my mind to glue).

*yeah, yeah, Hong Kong Cantonese, even worse than Guangdong Cantonese, though they'll fight over that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 01 March, 2013, 03:56:01 pm
I am amazed that anyone would go to the trouble of a webpage about a basic error.

I'm not - basic language errors are the stock in trade of countless internet bores.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 01 March, 2013, 11:17:07 pm
Spanish, Portuguese or Italian spelling is simpler, consistent, & phonetic, tenses are simpler than English, they're clear, & there are no cases. They still have grammatical gender, though.

Fewer cases than Latin is like saying fewer potholes than Reade's Lane (a road I try to avoid on my road bike except in fine weather & daylight). It's condemning with faint praise. "Not as bad as" =/ good.

And spelling is not inherent to the language. Several languages are written in more than one script. Claiming German is a more sensible language because of its spelling is therefore mistaken. You are confusing the language with how it is represented.

I'm curious (don't worry, it's partly rhetorical, I don't expect you to have the answer), but are 'regular' languages easier to learn? English is famed for irregularity yet seems remarkably easy to learn (sure, people gripe, but they learn it all the same and do a good job). I can say this as someone dim enough to have accepted a bet to learn Japanese which in many ways is quite regular but takes a lot of rote learning and mental re-adjustment (owing to the confidence kryptonite that is beer, I was temporarily of the belief I had developed some kind of learning superpower – I'm just glad I didn't make the same bet in Hong Kong, Cantonese* would reduce my mind to glue).

*yeah, yeah, Hong Kong Cantonese, even worse than Guangdong Cantonese, though they'll fight over that.
English isn't easy to learn. We just think it is because so many non-native speakers learn it, but they do so despite it being difficult, because it's the most important language in the world & therefore very useful to know. But listen to the mistakes they make: they're in areas you probably take for granted, such as our fiendishly complicated (but very precise, when used correctly) tenses, or articles, which many languages (e.g. Japanese) lack.

Google translate is utter crap at Japanese, BTW.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Arch on 02 March, 2013, 09:38:35 am
Spanish, Portuguese or Italian spelling is simpler, consistent, & phonetic, tenses are simpler than English, they're clear, & there are no cases. They still have grammatical gender, though.

Fewer cases than Latin is like saying fewer potholes than Reade's Lane (a road I try to avoid on my road bike except in fine weather & daylight). It's condemning with faint praise. "Not as bad as" =/ good.

And spelling is not inherent to the language. Several languages are written in more than one script. Claiming German is a more sensible language because of its spelling is therefore mistaken. You are confusing the language with how it is represented.

I'm curious (don't worry, it's partly rhetorical, I don't expect you to have the answer), but are 'regular' languages easier to learn? English is famed for irregularity yet seems remarkably easy to learn (sure, people gripe, but they learn it all the same and do a good job). I can say this as someone dim enough to have accepted a bet to learn Japanese which in many ways is quite regular but takes a lot of rote learning and mental re-adjustment (owing to the confidence kryptonite that is beer, I was temporarily of the belief I had developed some kind of learning superpower – I'm just glad I didn't make the same bet in Hong Kong, Cantonese* would reduce my mind to glue).

*yeah, yeah, Hong Kong Cantonese, even worse than Guangdong Cantonese, though they'll fight over that.

Oh dear. MFWHTBAB's Dad presented me this week with a "Learn Cantonese" course - a book and 4 cassettes (Lord knows how old it is).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ham on 02 March, 2013, 10:04:21 am
Spanish, Portuguese or Italian spelling is simpler, consistent, & phonetic, tenses are simpler than English, they're clear, & there are no cases. They still have grammatical gender, though.

Fewer cases than Latin is like saying fewer potholes than Reade's Lane (a road I try to avoid on my road bike except in fine weather & daylight). It's condemning with faint praise. "Not as bad as" =/ good.

And spelling is not inherent to the language. Several languages are written in more than one script. Claiming German is a more sensible language because of its spelling is therefore mistaken. You are confusing the language with how it is represented.

I'm curious (don't worry, it's partly rhetorical, I don't expect you to have the answer), but are 'regular' languages easier to learn? English is famed for irregularity yet seems remarkably easy to learn (sure, people gripe, but they learn it all the same and do a good job). I can say this as someone dim enough to have accepted a bet to learn Japanese which in many ways is quite regular but takes a lot of rote learning and mental re-adjustment (owing to the confidence kryptonite that is beer, I was temporarily of the belief I had developed some kind of learning superpower – I'm just glad I didn't make the same bet in Hong Kong, Cantonese* would reduce my mind to glue).

*yeah, yeah, Hong Kong Cantonese, even worse than Guangdong Cantonese, though they'll fight over that.

I think it depends (clearly) on how you define difficult and regular, and how much of the language you want to learn - just to communicate or to be able to appreciate its literature. (for the record I'd only claim 2, maybe 3 other languages to that level but around 10 to converse, given a little time to brush up in some cases)

Georgian I found relatively easy to learn, as there is one great aspect to it - what you see is what you say. Once you have learnt the alphabet, you can read.  That ignores the manifold nuances of the languages that make it a right bugger. However, in practice, the locals were that surprised that anyone had bothered to try we normally managed to converse. In contrast, Mandarin as a tonal language is completely alien to our western brains. Moreover, where in most languages if you try to say something with a bit of goodwill on both sides you can understand each other, in vocal Mandarin that's often impossible if you don't get the sound right - don't get me started on regional variations. Thankfully, if you have learned to write a little communication is possible (which was a bit of a lifesaver for me).

In short, the difficulties aren't really regularity or irregularity - all languages have their quirks - but how closely it fits to the neural pathways of our brains. Japanese, with an alphabet(ish) is much closer than Mandarin in that respect.

Must get on with learning some Thai for the summer hol.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: CAMRAMan on 02 March, 2013, 11:02:49 am
Hungarian is a very phonetic language, so WYSIWYG applies to pronunciation. However, the grammar is infernally tricky. An example:

Child = gyerek
Children = gyerekek
My child = gyerekem
My children = gyerekeim
Your child = gyereked

And so it goes on...

Granted I never used my Hungarian often enough, but the thought process behind forming the ending of each noun (and the suitable verb) baffled me. I could however, given time, read any Hungarian passage relatively clearly, but not understand more than the gist.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 02 March, 2013, 11:35:41 am
Hebrew also varies the noun in a similar manner. Cuts down the number of words.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 02 March, 2013, 02:21:03 pm
German is always clear what you're talking about, and has fewer cases than, say Latin.  I think the tenses are simpler, too.

Most importantly for people who might struggle with spelling, it's consistent.
Erm, not entirely!

There are advantages to written rather than spoken German, as you can see from this:

English - German
They went to visit their friend – Sie sind ihr Freund besuchen gegangen.
You went to visit your friend – Sie sind Ihr Freund besuchen gegangen.
You went to visit their friend – Sie sind ihr Freund besuchen gegangen.
They went to visit your friend – Sie sind Ihr Freund besuchen gegangen.
They went to visit her friend – Sie sind ihr Freund besuchen gegangen.
You went to visit her friend – Sie sind ihr Freund besuchen gegangen.

If you hear the German alone you can't tell who is visiting whom!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Paul on 02 March, 2013, 07:14:27 pm
Just because you've become a young man now,
There's still some things that you don't understand now


(Smokey Robinson, Shop Around)

I think your Momma meant: Despite the fact you've become a young man now...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 02 March, 2013, 07:22:57 pm
Surely the canonical example of bad grammar in music is Deacon Blue's "Real Gone Kid" in which, to make it rhyme, "I do what I should have did".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 02 March, 2013, 10:04:21 pm
The Concise Oxford has no mention of "dilemna".

I would expect the only dictionary to list it, if any, would be Chambers, which lists many common alternative* spellings not included in other dictionaries (this being the reason why it tends to be the dictionary of choice for crossword compilers).

d.

*wrong spellings, if you prefer.

Chambers doesn't list it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 03 March, 2013, 07:34:35 am
This from a comment on a Swindon Advertiser story.

Quote
why don,t they repair all the hole,s in the road,s
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Arch on 03 March, 2013, 10:29:08 am
This from a comment on a Swindon Advertiser story.

Quote
why don,t they repair all the hole,s in the road,s

Presumably all the apostrophes fell into the all the potholes....
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 03 March, 2013, 07:32:52 pm
"You may think you are some great Batman of Apostrophes... But in reality, you are a jerk who has defaced a sign..."

http://korystamper.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/a-plea-for-sanity-this-national-us-grammar-day/
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 03 March, 2013, 07:53:48 pm
That post does nicely sum up the conflicting issues.

Love that quote - who will be first to use "Batman of Apostrophes" in their sig?!?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 04 March, 2013, 10:16:44 am
For some reason I can't recall, I removed the phrase 'Holy gratuitous use of apostrophes, Batman' from an earlier post. There must be a theme. Maybe if they persuade Nolan back to do a fourth Dark Knight, Batman can fight his new nemesis, the Grocer's Apostrophizer. I'd like that.

Marvellous piece though, sums up my thoughts on grammar nerdism. Also uses the word corybantic, which is one of my large arsenal of rarely used words slated for inclusion in any email that I send up to the mothership bridge. I like to think of our 'executive leadership' sending their PAs scurrying out to look up words on the off-chance I'm calling them rude names.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 March, 2013, 11:43:19 am
"Peeververein" is a good word too (and one that applies to quite a bit of YACF  :-\). I'd like a "piwoverein" myself (look it up if you really want to know - you could shine a light on it from your Pifco torch)  :).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 06 March, 2013, 08:12:29 am
But but but! Piwoverein is a mixture of Germanic & Slavic languages! The language Nazis will get you, watch my words.

It has led me to a this, though, which can't be bad - http://www.piwo.org/page/index.html (http://www.piwo.org/page/index.html)  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 March, 2013, 11:50:08 am
Quote
So if you live in the countries affected, please write in with your views on how we have scored them. [address should go here]
Ok, not grammar, just - well, that whole article about papal candidates and the summaries of the cardinals http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/12/cardinal-candidates-pope clearly hasn't been read by anyone before publishing.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 March, 2013, 05:11:48 pm
Headline in Every Yacfer's Favourite Journal of News and Views:
Quote
Swine flu resistance 'increasing'
Does that mean people's resistance to swine flu or swine flu's resistance to treatment? Or perhaps pigs' resistance to swine flu?

(ok, I'm being moany)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 18 March, 2013, 07:27:10 pm
I've always wondered about the "survivability" of military equipment. Usability means "Can you use it?" Flexibility means "Can you flex it?" I thought that the whole idea was for a tank not to be survivable ???
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 20 March, 2013, 06:04:26 pm
http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/10302147.Boy_injured_by_bus_released_from_hospital/

They really should have kept the vehicle in for observation until they were sure it was fully recovered, and no longer a danger to boys.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 20 March, 2013, 07:10:58 pm
"If the baby does not thrive on raw milk, boil it."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 20 March, 2013, 07:27:35 pm
Roll-up, Roll-up - Apostrophe Competition!

A sign at work is crying out to be 'enhanced', and they've even left a space for me to scribble in.
It's something like this:

Please leave the toilet's _________*
in the same state
you would like to
find them
.


Suggestions welcome for the asterisked space!

(i was hoping for something erudite - like 'morals', which doesn't quite work ... )
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 20 March, 2013, 08:03:43 pm
Roll-up, Roll-up - Apostrophe Competition!

A sign at work is crying out to be 'enhanced', and they've even left a space for me to scribble in.
It's something like this:

Please leave the toilet's _________*
in the same state
you would like to
find them
.


Suggestions welcome for the asterisked space!

(i was hoping for something erudite - like 'morals', which doesn't quite work ... )
Inner feelings?

The old joke goes:

The sign said "Please leave this toilet as you would expect to find it".  So I pissed on the seat, shat on the floor and stole the bog roll.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Basil on 20 March, 2013, 08:24:42 pm
The toilet's hopes and dreams
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 20 March, 2013, 10:19:13 pm
But if the toilet has a plural characteristic or possession, then it does work.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 20 March, 2013, 10:52:22 pm
skid marks?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 21 March, 2013, 11:15:48 am
"If the baby does not thrive on raw milk, boil it."

We should start a new thread for "grammar that makes you chortle with glee".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 21 March, 2013, 11:17:43 am
Roll-up, Roll-up - Apostrophe Competition!

A sign at work is crying out to be 'enhanced', and they've even left a space for me to scribble in.
It's something like this:

Please leave the toilet's _________*
in the same state
you would like to
find them
.


Suggestions welcome for the asterisked space!

(i was hoping for something erudite - like 'morals', which doesn't quite work ... )

Nothing in the space but there should be a comma after "leave".

"Them" is here being used as a gender-neutral singular.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: orienteer on 21 March, 2013, 12:32:59 pm
Email from Uniqlo: This seasons essential Polo's! £14.90!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Paul on 21 March, 2013, 02:05:42 pm
Please leave the toilet's notices
in the same state
you would like to
find them
.

:thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: eck on 21 March, 2013, 06:13:59 pm
Spotted by our lovely daughter
Quote
"In our organization we have: - A night shelter for the homeless witch every night.."
She commented:
Quote
Nice volunteering opportunity for all the occult fans out there
:)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 21 March, 2013, 09:29:30 pm
Email from Uniqlo: This seasons essential Polo's! £14.90!
Maybe it was from group head office in 宇部市, 山口県.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 29 March, 2013, 10:27:12 am
Yesterday's Guardian: "However the freezing temperatures in January meant that some species of birds saw an increase in gardens..."

To be fair the online version has been corrected to, "However the freezing temperatures in January meant that some species of birds increased in gardens..."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 29 March, 2013, 06:32:40 pm
Please leave the toilet's notices
in the same state
you would like to
find them
.




As ever, lateral thinking wins the day  :thumbsup:

(with Honourable Mention prize to Roadrunner for "Inhabitants" )

Both prizes are book tokens for £0 - collect them when you next see me.

(It's my last day there on Tuesday :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 02 April, 2013, 09:44:31 am
In an email this morning:

Quote
Please find below last week’s bulletin which was due to unforeseen problems with the server. However, the bulletin will always was be on the website page every Thursday via this link http://<linky>/weekly_bulletin. All the bulletins can be reviewed on the left hand navigation bar.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 02 April, 2013, 07:50:13 pm
Yesterday's Guardian: "However the freezing temperatures in January meant that some species of birds saw an increase in gardens..."

To be fair the online version has been corrected to, "However the freezing temperatures in January meant that some species of birds increased in gardens..."

At what point does a temperature freeze?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 04 April, 2013, 07:24:37 pm
Ellipsis litter.
Stop it...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 04 April, 2013, 07:29:43 pm
CTC email today "Make Cycling History".

Oh Dear!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 04 April, 2013, 08:00:35 pm
CTC email today "Make Cycling History".

Oh Dear!
One thread not enough for you Helly?

This one isn't even bad grammar - someone's really got an anti-CTC bee in their bonnet today!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 04 April, 2013, 10:43:27 pm
I managed to use your instead of you're in an email today  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Regulator on 04 April, 2013, 10:47:54 pm
Pedal and pedalling.... not peddle and peddling.

You're supposed to be a cyclist.  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 07 April, 2013, 08:11:47 pm
Shame really.
Quote
Same Lorries,
More Luxury
would have been fine!


(although I still can't give a toss about less/fewer ...)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 08 April, 2013, 07:55:57 am
If you're not sure, just try it  both ways, you'll be 50% correct:

Quote from: Pearson Cycles
Whether you’re commuting or training, the single speed now makes sense. A lightweight fixed/free frame with traditional features and geometries that work with your body, not against it.

Once More Unto The Breach, whether your commuting or training in the fierce, winter cold, this 7005 butted aluminium frame is ready for anything; poised like a greyhound in the slips, straining upon the start.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 10 April, 2013, 09:47:29 am
"Rate of speed"  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 10 April, 2013, 09:49:18 am
"Rate of speed"  :facepalm:

That would be acceleration then.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 10 April, 2013, 10:01:13 am
Nope. Not referring to changes in speed, just speed.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 15 April, 2013, 10:57:29 am
Grammar quiz that makes me cringe:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationquestions/9987757/Good-grammar-test-can-you-pass.html

I got 10/12...

(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 April, 2013, 05:48:07 pm
Ugly. I got 9/12, getting the same ones wrong as you, plus number 9.
(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: TimO on 17 April, 2013, 03:40:25 pm
This, on some advertising blurb from our caterers, in one of our common rooms today (SCR=Senior Common Room).

(http://jakal.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~timo/xanthus/Random/AnStGeorgeDay.jpg)

:facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 17 April, 2013, 05:12:18 pm
Perfectly good English, as spoken by St. George himself!  :smug:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Arch on 17 April, 2013, 06:09:03 pm
Perfectly good English, as spoken by St. George himself!  :smug:

Nah, wasn't he Turkish? He'd have spoken perfect English!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 17 April, 2013, 07:52:27 pm
Perfectly good English, as spoken by St. George himself!  :smug:

Nah, wasn't he Turkish? He'd have spoken perfect English!

 ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rafletcher on 19 April, 2013, 11:34:02 am
Not grammar really, but irritating nonetheless.

On the BBC Sport website...

"Pirelli switch tact".

No, that's tack.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 19 April, 2013, 02:15:53 pm
Perfectly good English, as spoken by St. George himself!  :smug:

Nah, wasn't he Turkish? He'd have spoken perfect English!
Greek. Before the Turks moved in.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SteveC on 19 April, 2013, 02:34:42 pm
But he died quite a long time before there were any English to speak English
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 22 April, 2013, 08:07:36 pm
http://www.happyplace.com/23324/accidentally-homoerotic-pickup-truck-emphasizes-importance-of-commas

 ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 April, 2013, 12:18:55 am
Big Horn truck!  :D :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 26 April, 2013, 12:04:33 pm
One for the "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks:

(http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k170/smutchin/quotes_zps604d2f5d.jpeg) (http://s88.photobucket.com/user/smutchin/media/quotes_zps604d2f5d.jpeg.html)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 26 April, 2013, 02:32:33 pm
Is that the one near the Tate Modern?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 26 April, 2013, 03:13:09 pm
The very same.

However, far worse than their crimes against language is the fact that when m'colleague had his leaving do in there the other night, they ran out of beer before 9pm!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 26 April, 2013, 03:30:33 pm
So now it's on the internet they can add "Famous" for running out of beer. Nearly as good as making fish and chips differently to everyone else.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 26 April, 2013, 04:13:21 pm
 ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 30 April, 2013, 01:34:57 pm
This URL came from my Twitter feed.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/wales/10027400/Driver-takes-roof-off-bungalow-after-crashing-25000-Audi-convertible.html?utm_source=feedly (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/wales/10027400/Driver-takes-roof-off-bungalow-after-crashing-25000-Audi-convertible.html?utm_source=feedly)
The story is shocking enough but the grammar is horrendous in places.
This is the Telegraph FFS. Could do better!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 30 April, 2013, 06:00:41 pm
And what the heck is the point of the third, fourth, fifth and sixth words in that article? Hardly germane!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 30 April, 2013, 06:21:07 pm
It's to appeal to the GTRGPM (Geriatric Telegraph-Reading Grand-Parental Market). You just don't appreciate how much that snippet of information turns on the empathy switch of a certain type of reader.  :P
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 07 May, 2013, 02:47:35 pm
"The ugly face of prescriptivism" - excellent blog by David Crystal:

http://david-crystal.blogspot.ie/2013/05/on-testing-time.html
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 12 May, 2013, 10:48:15 am
Apostrophes again:

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v326/ado15/IMAG0107_zps3cff504f.jpg) (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/ado15/media/IMAG0107_zps3cff504f.jpg.html)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 12 May, 2013, 02:44:45 pm
Mixed font choice is rubbish too!
Wording's not too clever either. 'Mum's to be Room' suggests women will magic into something else.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 12 May, 2013, 07:07:21 pm
Tautology, innit?

("Antenatal mums-to-be", I mean - not "mums-to-be room")
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: De Sisti on 13 May, 2013, 11:12:35 am
The  BBC website  (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22403731) takes up the case today.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 13 May, 2013, 11:30:04 am
Sample question from the new test:
Quote
A pair of commas can be used to separate words or groups of words and to clarify the meaning of a sentence. Insert a pair of commas to clarify each sentence below:

    a) My friend who is very fit won the 100-metre race.

 :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Illegal Combat Ant on 14 May, 2013, 05:17:31 pm
The last sentence makes me shudder.

https://twitter.com/timothy_stanley/status/334005361860308992/photo/1
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Rhys W on 21 May, 2013, 09:08:24 pm
Audaxers who keep saying they've been to "Menai" - there's no such place. The name of the town is "Porthaethwy".

 >:(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 21 May, 2013, 10:33:53 pm
The last sentence makes me shudder.

https://twitter.com/timothy_stanley/status/334005361860308992/photo/1

Touchy-feely or what?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Arch on 21 May, 2013, 10:53:00 pm
Our resident Mrs Malaprop at work said today that she'd not taken cornflour on her recent self catering holiday, and that this proved to be an "undersight".

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jasmine on 22 May, 2013, 10:40:53 am
Audaxers who keep saying they've been to "Menai" - there's no such place. The name of the town is "Porthaethwy".

 >:(

Ah, I am not alone.  Does it conjure up images of cyclists having fallen into the Menai Strait?

Which reminds me about another thing that annoys me.  I hate the use of "Menai Straits", which is used by most people here.  There's only one, so it's "Strait".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 28 May, 2013, 11:53:03 pm
From the organiser of the local Job Club -

Quote
I hope you all had a lovely long bank holiday weekend.  Wasnt the weather lovely for it.  Im sure lots of BBQ's were had.
 
Just a small reminder about tomorrows job club, Reading Voluntary Action are coming in again to do a session.  They was very good last time and I think volunteering is a great way to start back into the world of work.  Some of you may of been out of work a long time . . . .  so i know where i can take the club further  ...  We are running the club up until 17th July 2013 to which we will need break ... return back ... I cant help ...
:facepalm:

The current co-ordinator has asked for feedback re the fall-off in attendance since he took over.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 06 June, 2013, 09:39:39 am
I'd go for number 2.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 06 June, 2013, 10:01:28 am
how do you correctly quote inside a quote?

I'd say that's a style thing more than a grammar thing. Usually single quotes inside double quotes or vice versa, depending on preference. But grammatically, there's nothing wrong with double quotes inside double quotes.

Personally, of your examples, I think the third looks neatest, leaving out the nested quotes.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 09 June, 2013, 06:23:12 am
From the WNBR, so clearly NSFW. I chatted briefly to this chap and asked him if he was a founder member of GTAOD (Grammar Teachers Against Oil Dependency).

(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 10 June, 2013, 11:34:27 am
Dunno if it's cringeworthy or more suitable for a full-on rant.

expedia.co.uk

Just what the @#~ :o%>} is "Travel yourself interesting" supposed to mean? :sick:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 10 June, 2013, 11:44:02 am
Just what the @#~ :o%>} is "Travel yourself interesting" supposed to mean? :sick:

I quite like that. "X yourself Y" is a common enough format.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 10 June, 2013, 11:47:11 am
You can't just take an existing correct bit of grammar, swap 2 of the words for new ones, and expect it to stay correct!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 10 June, 2013, 12:12:21 pm
Correct schmorrect.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 10 June, 2013, 12:25:06 pm
I don't think "almost correct" is good enough for the contributors to this thread!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 June, 2013, 01:26:32 pm
I reckon we could use that construction for a few threads:
Cringe yourself pedantic
Rant yourself happy
Fettle yourself shiny
Ride yourself somewhere
Baton yourself woody
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 10 June, 2013, 02:49:02 pm
I reckon we could use that construction for a few threads:
Cringe yourself pedantic
Rant yourself happy
Fettle yourself shiny
Ride yourself somewhere
Baton yourself woody

 ;D

I particularly like "Fettle yourself shiny".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 10 June, 2013, 03:51:39 pm
I reckon we could use that construction for a few threads:
Cringe yourself pedantic
Rant yourself happy
Fettle yourself shiny
Ride yourself somewhere
Baton yourself woody
;D

I might be forced to nick that'n :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 10 June, 2013, 04:12:38 pm
"St John's Ambulance"

Hint: http://www.sja.org.uk/sja/default.aspx
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 10 June, 2013, 04:13:18 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC939SwIsuE
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 10 June, 2013, 06:28:16 pm
Dunno if it's cringeworthy or more suitable for a full-on rant.

expedia.co.uk

Just what the @#~ :o%>} is "Travel yourself interesting" supposed to mean? :sick:

These days it seems possible to verb any noun.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 10 June, 2013, 06:50:46 pm
Yebbut verbing weirds language innit?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 June, 2013, 09:53:04 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC939SwIsuE
Do you think Bobb would like those red shorts?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 11 June, 2013, 08:08:11 am
Um, before you move that to the "Spelling that makes you cringe" thread, can I just point out that the author of that quote is almost certainly dyslexic.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 11 June, 2013, 08:18:52 am
Dunno if it's cringeworthy or more suitable for a full-on rant.

expedia.co.uk

Just what the @#~ :o%>} is "Travel yourself interesting" supposed to mean? :sick:

Thinking about this last night (sad, I know) I wonder if the EDL use the same advertising agency to come up with classic slogans like "SPORT ARE TROOPS" :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 June, 2013, 10:40:03 am
Grammarians that make you cringe:

A while ago I was on a proofreading course (not terribly useful as it turned out) and one of the attendees, who was using the course as an opportunity to plug her firm, mentioned that she had just moved to Folkestone and was standing in the county council elections there. She came across as a bit of a grammar peever, even more than might be expected in the context - she'd love some of this thread! I've just looked her up and she was standing for UKIP. Somehow I'm not surprised.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 12 June, 2013, 04:53:27 pm
Yebbut it is possible to be a grammar pedant without being a racist bigot.
I believe.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 June, 2013, 04:55:27 pm
It's also possible to be a UKIP candidate without being a racist bigot. I think.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biff on 12 June, 2013, 05:06:09 pm
Audaxers who keep saying they've been to "Menai" - there's no such place. The name of the town is "Porthaethwy".

 >:(

The town of 'Menai Bridge' doesn't exist?  Genuine q.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 12 June, 2013, 05:30:14 pm
There are definitely road signs to "Menai Bridge" - but not "Menai", that I've seen anyway.

(Of course they may refer to the bridge itself.)

EDIT: Gmaps is convinced it's a place (on Anglesey). For what it's worth!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wombat on 12 June, 2013, 06:20:51 pm
I always have been of the opinion that such signs did indeed refer to the bridge itself, as its a moderately wondrous thingy.  The mere concept of such a thing as a town, on Anglesey seems mildly amusing.  I suppose Holyhead sort of counts...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Greenbank on 12 June, 2013, 06:57:56 pm
Ordnance Survey maps say "MENAI BRIDGE / PORTHAETHWY".

And if you stick "LL59 5DD" into Royal Mail's Address finder then example addresses look like:-

Auckland Arms Hotel
13 Water Street
MENAI BRIDGE
LL59 5DD
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 25 June, 2013, 01:31:00 pm
"The Regional IT Support Analyst will respond to and resolute incidents involving Information Systems and related equipment used at the workplace."

The firm advertising has 2500 employees, & a turnover of several hundred million pounds.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 25 June, 2013, 01:41:27 pm
He will be resolute in finding a resolvsion?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 25 June, 2013, 07:45:58 pm
Quote
English includes many words originally press-ganged from latin, which have changed their grammatical type.

‘Stamina’ and ‘agenda’ are two well-known ones, and ‘media’ is apparently becoming one. Separately from its botanical sense, a ‘stamen’ was the warp of a fabric, or figuratively some essential element of a thing; the word ‘stamina’ now refers to a completely different concept, which has no need, and no room, for a singular form – it makes no sense to speak of one of the things of which stamina is the plural.
Surely 'stamina' is singular (and uncountable)? As in "Stamina is what you need in long distance cycling." I'm not sure the author doesn't think so too, because he goes on to say:
Quote
We can even watch the word changing its grammatical ‘number’, from plural to singular. In the list of OED usages for this sense (3a) of ‘stamina’ – from ‘her stamina could not last much longer’ (the earliest, in 1726) to ‘his stamina is gone entirely’ (1834) – we see a century or so where the word is used in contexts where its number is ambiguous; and in the first case in this list where its number is clear, it is clearly singular, and the word is being used in its modern sense. The OED's last spotting of the relevant sense of ‘stamen’ used as a singular is in 1794.
A bit confusing. Not that it matters anyway!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 25 June, 2013, 07:49:47 pm
Isn't that 1726 example ambiguous?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 June, 2013, 07:27:42 am
Yes - that's what he says too.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 26 June, 2013, 12:13:38 pm
From the Standard, is this correct? It certainly grates:
Quote from: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/andrew-gilligan-figures-show-why-we-must-invest-in-cycle-schemes-8671109.html
A quarter of all rush-hour traffic in central London is now bicycles...

The transport editor preferred this way of saying it (different article, same day):
Quote from: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/move-over-amsterdam-the-london-cycling-revolution-is-in-top-gear-8671069.html
The biggest ever census of bike use in the city reveals one in four road users during the morning rush hour is a cyclist
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 26 June, 2013, 12:23:22 pm
Well, as you mentioned 'grating':
the first does grate, but I don't think 'are' instead of 'is' would help. It's just an awkward phrase.

the 2nd grates too - _I_ would have written " are cyclists" - cos we know there are more than one. (It would be a stoopid census if there were exactly one IMHO).

(I have no idea of the 'correct' wording.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 27 June, 2013, 01:29:19 pm
But it probably was a count of vehicles: I doubt they counted every bus passenger.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 27 June, 2013, 02:37:30 pm
As we're doing numbers ...

5Live Tennis commentator, describing a close line call:

"...by the square-root of an inch."

[We're allowed any old rubbish in this thread, IIRC]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 04 July, 2013, 01:01:06 pm
Surely 'stamina' is singular (and uncountable)? As in "Stamina is what you need in long distance cycling."

Yes, that's right—it's become a "mass noun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_noun)"—but formerly stamina was plural:

Quote from: OED
1782   H. Walpole Let. 11 July in Corr. (1965) XXXIII. 345   Though the relapse will be much more dangerous to Mr. Fox than to Mr. Fitzpatrick, whose stamina are of stouter texture.
1791   W. Maxwell in J. Boswell Life Johnson anno 1770 I. 344   [Paraphrasing Johnson:] He said..it was the bad stamina of the mind, which, like those of the body, were never rectified.
1823   J. Gillies tr. Aristotle Rhetoric i. v. 180   If the stamina are not sound, disease will soon ensue.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 04 July, 2013, 01:28:16 pm
So what was the singular?  And was that ever used?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 04 July, 2013, 01:28:28 pm
the 2nd grates too - _I_ would have written " are cyclists" - cos we know there are more than one.

So you prefer (2) over (1), is that right?

(1) One in four road users is a cyclist.
(2) One in four road users are cyclists.

How do you feel about (3) versus (4)?

(3) One road user in four is a cyclist.
(4) One road user in four are cyclists.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 04 July, 2013, 01:34:07 pm
So what was the singular?  And was that ever used?

The singular was stamen, and the OED quotes a few uses:

Quote from: OED
1701   C. Wolley Two Years Jrnl. N.-Y. 13   A person seemingly of a weakly Stamen and a valetudinary Constitution.
1753   L. M. tr. J. Du Bosc Accompl. Woman I. 246   Bad example hath not less influence upon education than a bad stamen upon the constitution.

(The word comes from Latin stāmen meaning "the warp on a loom (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warp_(weaving)); a thread or fibre" via the mythological metaphor by which a person's life was a thread on the loom of the Fates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moirai).)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 04 July, 2013, 01:46:31 pm
Same as for the stamen of a flower, then.

Thanks.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 05 July, 2013, 12:30:19 am
As we're doing numbers ...

5Live Tennis commentator, describing a close line call:

"...by the square-root of an inch."

[We're allowed any old rubbish in this thread, IIRC]

Obviously that's nonsense - but it's a nice turn of phrase, and more broadcastable than 'a baw-hair'
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biff on 07 July, 2013, 03:08:43 pm
Could sell a few of these on here

(http://rlv.zcache.com/literally_figuratively_insane_tees-r512d5c14f11a422eba2d529ea2d90a38_va6p2_512.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 07 July, 2013, 03:26:19 pm
We considered buying those for everyone in my previous team, on account of the two sisters we had working in said team.   Bright girls, but listening to them speak was often cringe-worthy.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 08 July, 2013, 06:39:43 pm
http://www.happyplace.com/24894/brazilian-schoolkids-are-learning-english-by-correcting-grammar-in-celebrity-tweets

The Boys From Brazil - little (grammar) Nazis, the lot of them.  Technically, some of these are spelling errors, but "their" still funny.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 08 July, 2013, 06:42:13 pm
It seems that Nouvelle have employed the same copywriter as Tesco (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2205.msg1456401#msg1456401)

(http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3823/9114475381_0373559e7a_n.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/oranjh/9114475381/)
Fewer_2 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/oranjh/9114475381/) by Oranj (http://www.flickr.com/people/oranjh/), on Flickr
Same product, less lorries, smaller tube, fewer options when the roll runs out and it's cardboard or hand time.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 18 July, 2013, 05:31:14 pm
(http://i738.photobucket.com/albums/xx30/Auntie_Helen/null-34.jpg)

They make nice cakes though!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 18 July, 2013, 05:32:25 pm
(http://i738.photobucket.com/albums/xx30/Auntie_Helen/null-33.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 18 July, 2013, 07:46:09 pm
Ah.  I see the error.  It should be
Quote
Partie's catered for
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Arch on 18 July, 2013, 08:02:50 pm
Ah.  I see the error.  It should be
Quote
Partie's catered for

Yes, why is it that some people stick a greengrocers' apostrophe in some things in a list, but not others?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Butterfly on 19 July, 2013, 02:54:05 am
They missed the one in roll's too :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biggsy on 23 July, 2013, 02:10:47 pm
"The Duchess of Cambridge was safely delivered of a son".

This makes me cringe, whether or not it's "correct".  "Delivered of"?  What nonsense.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 23 July, 2013, 02:33:51 pm
"The Duchess of Cambridge was safely delivered of a son".

This makes me cringe, whether or not it's "correct".  "Delivered of"?  What nonsense.

That is, indeed, correct. Pregnancy is a parlous stated and the labouring woman is safely delivered of the infant who threatens her existence.
Obstructed labour still kills women.
A live-born baby is a bonus.

This is the correct usage.
You may not like it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 23 July, 2013, 02:37:18 pm
This makes me cringe, whether or not it's "correct".  "Delivered of"?  What nonsense.

Yes, this phrase is a bit of a "fossil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_word)", isn't it? You'd never use it conversation, but it somehow survives in the "births, marriages and deaths" newspaper columns for posh people. Here's a chart from Google Ngrams (http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=delivered+of+a+son%2Cgave+birth+to+a+son&year_start=1700&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3):

(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-BBWFdNILRcM/Ue6Gb_Gt9ZI/AAAAAAAABi8/AWAsKx0FcUg/w799-h356-no/delivered.png)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biggsy on 23 July, 2013, 04:23:46 pm
They could just say that the Duchess "delivered a son".  Actually, I suspect she just despatched it.  Probably the midwife delivered it from the bed to the cot.

Anyway, the notion that grammer and spellin can be correct or incorrect makes me cringe more than anything!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 23 July, 2013, 04:25:49 pm
Presumably it's "delivered of" because the mother gives birth and its the midwife or doctor that does the delivery.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biggsy on 23 July, 2013, 04:28:18 pm
Oh.  Ok, if that's what "delivered of" means!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 23 July, 2013, 04:33:57 pm
This sense of the word comes from deliver meaning "to set free, liberate, release, rescue, save" as in "deliver us from evil". Hellymedic makes the point above that "pregnancy is a parlous state and the labouring woman is safely delivered of the infant who threatens her existence".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 23 July, 2013, 04:37:52 pm
They could just say that the Duchess "delivered a son".  Actually, I suspect she just despatched it.  Probably the midwife delivered it from the bed to the cot.

Anyway, the notion that grammer and spellin can be correct or incorrect makes me cringe more than anything!
"Despatch" more usually refers to removing someone from the world, rather than bringing them into it. You may want the POBI Monarchy thread.

The Christmas story has "the time came that she should be delivered" in the King James bible---there's "delivered of" here and there in the Old Testament too---and my guess is that that keeps the usage alive.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biggsy on 23 July, 2013, 04:48:11 pm
Despatches, matches and despatches.  Despatched from the womb first.  I'm not thaaaat much against the Monarchy that I want the sprog to be despatched from the world on day 1.  :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 23 July, 2013, 04:54:07 pm
I thought it was: Hatches; Matches; Despatches.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 23 July, 2013, 04:59:00 pm
It is:  Hatched, matched, despatched, referred to the notices in the papers.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tewdric on 23 July, 2013, 05:05:57 pm
"The Duchess of Cambridge was safely delivered of a son".

This makes me cringe, whether or not it's "correct".  "Delivered of"?  What nonsense.

That is, indeed, correct. Pregnancy is a parlous stated and the labouring woman is safely delivered of the infant who threatens her existence.
Obstructed labour still kills women.
A live-born baby is a bonus.

This is the correct usage.
You may not like it.

I agree - "delivery" is derived from the Latin liberare, so "freed away" of a baby.

"Delivered from a son" is also arguably correct but doesn't sound nearly as charitable.

I'm not sure how good a classicist I'd like my gynaecologist to be, having said all this.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biggsy on 23 July, 2013, 05:07:45 pm
Oh, shut up, you lot. :)  This thread is not about grammar that is incorrect!  It's about grammar that makes you cringe!  :P

I thought it was: Hatches; Matches; Despatches.

It was.  It is now despatches, matches and despatches.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tewdric on 23 July, 2013, 05:10:59 pm
Or no catch matches but lots of dispatches, if you are an Australian cricketer.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 July, 2013, 08:04:48 pm
"The Duchess of Cambridge was safely delivered of a son".

This makes me cringe, whether or not it's "correct".  "Delivered of"?  What nonsense.

That is, indeed, correct. Pregnancy is a parlous stated and the labouring woman is safely delivered of the infant who threatens her existence.
Obstructed labour still kills women.
A live-born baby is a bonus.

This is the correct usage.
You may not like it.

I agree - "delivery" is derived from the Latin liberare, so "freed away" of a baby.

"Delivered from a son" is also arguably correct but doesn't sound nearly as charitable.

I'm not sure how good a classicist I'd like my gynaecologist to be, having said all this.
Your gynaecologist?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tewdric on 23 July, 2013, 08:15:26 pm
The wonder of the present conditional!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Arch on 23 July, 2013, 09:32:02 pm


It was.  It is now despatches, matches and despatches.

Who says? I've never heard that. It doesn't make sense.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biggsy on 30 July, 2013, 04:27:21 pm


It was.  It is now despatches, matches and despatches.

Who says? I've never heard that. It doesn't make sense.

I says.  Despatched from the womb first, despatched from the world last.  Optional (and ultimately pointless) stuff in the middle.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 31 July, 2013, 04:15:01 pm
The beauty of 'hatched, matched & despatched' is that the meaning is immediately obvious & it has a good rhythm. Your alternative is, to put it bluntly, crap. It sounds ugly & leaves those who hear it wondering what the hell it's about.

The original's been around for a very long time. I can't imagine your clumsy alternative replacing it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biggsy on 31 July, 2013, 08:29:20 pm
That is all true!  :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: RJ on 07 August, 2013, 01:07:36 pm
[paraphrase]This report updates and supersedes the earlier one[/paraphrase]

It would be helpful to know which.  *sigh*
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 07 August, 2013, 01:45:00 pm
So being delivered from evil is very different from being delivered of evil.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 07 August, 2013, 01:57:38 pm
[paraphrase]This report updates and supersedes the earlier one[/paraphrase]

It would be helpful to know which.  *sigh*

Couldn't it be both?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: RJ on 07 August, 2013, 02:03:29 pm
[paraphrase]This report updates and supersedes the earlier one[/paraphrase]

It would be helpful to know which.  *sigh*

Couldn't it be both?

Quote from: Chambers
supersede verb (superseded, superseding) 1 to take the place of (something, especially something outdated or no longer valid)

To my mind, "supersede" implies an entirely new, standalone {report/thing}, whereas "update" means you need both old and new {reports/things} in combination with each other.

(The documents concerned are as long as and drier than {a} Russian novel{s}, hence my grumpiness ...)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Squarewheels on 07 August, 2013, 02:11:04 pm
People who say quality without a qualifier. When someone says quality do they mean high quality or low quality? Obviously what they mean is high quality - but it really annoys me. Grrr...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 07 August, 2013, 02:19:58 pm
whereas "update" means you need both old and new {reports/things} in combination with each other.

There's another way of using update, whereby "A updates B" means "A is a revised (up to date) version of B".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 07 August, 2013, 02:23:20 pm
whereas "update" means you need both old and new {reports/things} in combination with each other.

There's another way of using update, whereby "A updates B" means "A is a revised (up to date) version of B".

 :sick:

Luckily I've never seen that usage before now.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: RJ on 07 August, 2013, 02:26:59 pm
whereas "update" means you need both old and new {reports/things} in combination with each other.

There's another way of using update, whereby "A updates B" means "A is a revised (up to date) version of B".

In which case, "supersede" renders "update" redundant?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 07 August, 2013, 02:43:46 pm
In which case, "supersede" renders "update" redundant?

Yes, I expect so: the phrase is like a legal doublet (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_doublet) in that respect. Google estimates 15 million hits for "updates and supersedes (https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=%22updates+and+supersedes%22)" so it seems to be a set phrase.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: RJ on 07 August, 2013, 03:10:26 pm
 :)

15 million Google hits might make common usage, but not necessarily good grammar  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 07 August, 2013, 05:45:29 pm
So being delivered from evil is very different from being delivered of evil.
Escape does not equal exorcism.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 08 August, 2013, 04:51:23 pm
Reader's Listener's* letter on <R4 Science Programme>:

"
...blah blah ... bacteria not bacterium ... blah blah ..

I turned off immediately, and shall not be listening to this programme again.
"

 ;D




*Does anyone else find they make more typos etc on this thread than any other? Just me?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 08 August, 2013, 04:56:36 pm
They just had a whole item on the programme of the presenter trying to justify his slack and ignorant usage.

I never thought I'd miss Quentin Cooper...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Basil on 16 August, 2013, 12:30:13 pm
Oh dear.  Literally is literally not.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/10240917/Uproar-as-OED-includes-erroneous-use-of-literally.html
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 August, 2013, 01:46:03 pm
That use of literally does make me cringe or, just as often, burst out laughing. Now I'm more conservative than the OED.
Pipe, slippers.
Or should that be "tweed, fixie"? No, too hip.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 16 August, 2013, 02:57:19 pm
Quote
Ms McPherson said: “Our job is to describe the language people are using. The only reason this sense is included is because people are using it in this way."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: meddyg on 16 August, 2013, 08:33:35 pm
On 16/08/2013 17:45, CTC, the national cycling charity wrote:

CTC welcomes the  'cycling revolution'
"Gift CTC membership to a friend or family."

(they did it last week too)

'Arrgh ! No, please stop ! no - 'gift' is a noun and 'Give' a verb'
I Emailed them today (I did it last week too)

'may we have 'Give CTC membership to a friend or family (member)' next time around ?'


please help


Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 16 August, 2013, 09:46:47 pm
Is that "literally" with no literalism, in the same way that the Alannis Morissette song contains no examples of irony (the only irony being that a song called "Ironic" isn't ironic, so it works on a sort of meta-ironic level).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Squarewheels on 16 August, 2013, 10:23:07 pm
It should be figuratively...

"I have to go"

"But you literally just got here..."

"I really hate it when people misuse that word"

"So do I, but you literally just here"


^That was a bit random - you had to be there...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 17 August, 2013, 09:01:00 am
On 16/08/2013 17:45, CTC, the national cycling charity wrote:

CTC welcomes the  'cycling revolution'
"Gift CTC membership to a friend or family."

(they did it last week too)

'Arrgh ! No, please stop ! no - 'gift' is a noun and 'Give' a verb'
I Emailed them today (I did it last week too)

'may we have 'Give CTC membership to a friend or family (member)' next time around ?'


please help

Not according to the OED, which says
Quote
verb
[with object]
    give (something) as a gift, especially formally or as a donation or bequest:
the company gifted 2,999 shares to a charity

I agree it has suddenly started being overused and does tend to grate in sentences like the one you quote. It can be useful to show that something was given as a gift - the word give is much looser, eg you can be given a speeding ticket, but not gifted one.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 17 August, 2013, 01:34:17 pm
'Arrgh ! No, please stop ! no - 'gift' is a noun and 'Give' a verb'

Gift as a verb was good enough for:
* Henry Fielding (Tom Jones "Nothing but the Inspiration with which we Writers are gifted, can possibly enable any one to make the Discovery")
* Jane Austen (Persuasion "It seemed as if Mr Shepherd ... had been gifted with foresight")
* Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre "he was just the sort of wild, fierce, bandit hero whom I could have consented to gift with my hand")

We discussed this previously (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2205.msg1078256#msg1078256): gift has the advantage, in the kind of context that the CTC is using it, that it unambiguously means "bestow gratuitously", whereas give has multiple meanings (the OED gives 14 major senses).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 17 August, 2013, 02:12:41 pm
Quote
Ms McPherson said: “Our job is to describe the language people are using. The only reason this sense is included is because people are using it in this way."

You don't say why you're quoting this—is it because you're surprised? or because this is an important point that you think people here are missing?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 17 August, 2013, 03:23:08 pm
I agree it has suddenly started being overused and does tend to grate in sentences like the one you quote. It can be useful to show that something was given as a gift - the word give is much looser, eg you can be given a speeding ticket, but not gifted one.
That Kylie Minogue - i'd gift her one.
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 17 August, 2013, 03:40:34 pm
You don't say why you're quoting this—is it because you're surprised? or because this is an important point that you think people here are missing?

The latter.

CBA to add further comment because like most of this stuff, it's been gone over countless times. People who get indignant about particular words/meanings being included in dictionaries either don't know what a dictionary is for, or are French.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 17 August, 2013, 03:45:12 pm

'Arrgh ! No, please stop ! no - 'gift' is a noun and 'Give' a verb'
I Emailed them today

Out of interest, what is it about the particular use of "gift" as a verb that piques you so? Clearly the same problem doesn't apply to use of "email" as a verb.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 17 August, 2013, 03:46:45 pm
'Arrgh ! No, please stop ! no - 'gift' is a noun and 'Give' a verb'

Gift as a verb was good enough for:
* Henry Fielding (Tom Jones "Nothing but the Inspiration with which we Writers are gifted, can possibly enable any one to make the Discovery")
* Jane Austen (Persuasion "It seemed as if Mr Shepherd ... had been gifted with foresight")
* Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre "he was just the sort of wild, fierce, bandit hero whom I could have consented to gift with my hand")

We discussed this previously (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2205.msg1078256#msg1078256): gift has the advantage, in the kind of context that the CTC is using it, that it unambiguously means "bestow gratuitously", whereas give has multiple meanings (the OED gives 14 major senses).

But all those examples are historical/obsolete usages, ie not from current English. If you're going to use descriptive grammar to judge current "correct" usage, then you have to use the language as it is used now.

And yes, "gift" is used by some as a verb but is considered by many others as "incorrect" and they don't use it as a verb.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 17 August, 2013, 04:09:40 pm

'Arrgh ! No, please stop ! no - 'gift' is a noun and 'Give' a verb'
I Emailed them today

Out of interest, what is it about the particular use of "gift" as a verb that piques you so? Clearly the same problem doesn't apply to use of "email" as a verb.

Language is not based on logic like maths. Eg, 3 very common words that sound the same: two, to, too.

The reason people get so worked is because they have learnt and speak and write a language, it's closely connected with who they are, their identity etc, at least for their native/first language. So when someone comes along and uses a word in a different way or the opposite meaning, people don't like it.

For some "gift" is OK as a verb, but what about "car"?

"I'm going to car to work today."

It would have the specific meaning of driving by car, "drive" could mean driving any motor vehicle.

If you object to "car" as a verb, then you are reacting in the same as someone objecting to "gift" as a verb.

Email: noun and verb
Letter: noun
Write (to somebody): verb
Write (somebody): US verb, wrong in the UK
Email (somebody): verb, OK in the UK

It's basically what you're used to.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 August, 2013, 04:27:52 pm
You can bike to work so I see nothing wrong in carring. If enough people start saying it, it becomes part of the language.

Certainly our reactions to language are illogical. Figurative uses of "literally" still grate on me, but "totally" used in a similar way no longer does.

And to be "gifted with foresight" or inspiration or a similar quality is still a pretty common saying, IMO.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 17 August, 2013, 05:14:27 pm
But all those examples are historical/obsolete usages, i.e. not from current English.

Certainly they are historical, but what makes them obsolete? Can you actually make an argument to that effect? My point in picking these examples was to demonstrate that this verb has been used by some of the best writers in English. Here are some modern examples, courtesy of Google Books search:

1999   H. Abts How to settle your living trust 117   it may be desirable for the partner with the larger estate to gift a portion of his or her estate to the partner with the smaller estate
1999   P. Yeoman Pilgrimage in medieval Scotland 109   in 1497 he gifted a silver case for a cross
2000   M. Angold Church and Society in Byzantium Under the Comneni 143   he suggested that prosperous suffragans should gift monasteries to their metropolitan bishops
2000   M. Stackpole Dark tide: Onslaught 148   Jacen had never really felt he'd been gifted a vision by the Force

For some "gift" is OK as a verb, but what about "car"?

Funnily enough, the OED says:

Quote from: OED
car, v. Now rare.
 1. trans. To place or carry in a car; (also) to transport in to a marketplace, etc.
 2. intr. To go by car (in various senses). Also trans. with it (colloq.).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 17 August, 2013, 06:02:24 pm

If you object to "car" as a verb...

I don't.

I was commenting on meddyg objecting to gift as a verb  but not email as a verb, so you're just agreeing with me really. The use of email as a verb will be frowned on by some people for the same reason they object to gift as a verb. Personally, I object to neither. 

People get worked up about language because they've been trained to have fixed ideas about what is right and what is wrong.

Gareth's reference to historical use of gift merely served to show that it's not a neologism. But even if it were, would that be a bad thing? Not all neologisms are bad.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 17 August, 2013, 06:04:42 pm

Language is not based on logic like maths. Eg, 3 very common words that sound the same: two, to, too.

I have literally no idea what this is supposed to mean.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 17 August, 2013, 06:07:08 pm
While we're on the subject of "car", it's worth noting that the word predates the automobile by hundreds of years.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 August, 2013, 06:12:47 pm
As do coach and truck (not sure about lorry).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 17 August, 2013, 06:30:14 pm
I'm not trucking going to stand for "
Quote
automobileing your brother from the station"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 August, 2013, 01:56:25 pm
This, from the index to a report, is completely correct:
Quote
4.15 Basis for identification and selection of stakeholders with whom to engage.
But I can't help feeling, especially as it's going to be read by people who don't have English as their first language, it might be better if it weren't. The "with whom" jars, but it's not wrong, so I'll leave it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 August, 2013, 02:53:32 pm
I also found in the same document that MS Word does not recognise "carers" and wants to change "MWh" to "Mwah". Which could say something about the psychology of whoever it is that compiles their dictionary.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 18 August, 2013, 03:16:39 pm
'Arrgh ! No, please stop ! no - 'gift' is a noun and 'Give' a verb'

Gift as a verb was good enough for:
* Henry Fielding (Tom Jones "Nothing but the Inspiration with which we Writers are gifted, can possibly enable any one to make the Discovery")
* Jane Austen (Persuasion "It seemed as if Mr Shepherd ... had been gifted with foresight")
* Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre "he was just the sort of wild, fierce, bandit hero whom I could have consented to gift with my hand")

We discussed this previously (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2205.msg1078256#msg1078256): gift has the advantage, in the kind of context that the CTC is using it, that it unambiguously means "bestow gratuitously", whereas give has multiple meanings (the OED gives 14 major senses).

But all those examples are historical/obsolete usages, ie not from current English. If you're going to use descriptive grammar to judge current "correct" usage, then you have to use the language as it is used now.
While some of Austen's & Fielding's usages may sound odd today, I think there might be (small, restrained, rather polite) riots if you tried to bar one of Jane's usages on the grounds that it's obsolete.

"Gifted" has never ceased to be current, & it's a form of 'gift' the verb.

Note that I feel that 'gift' as a verb is overused nowadays, & 'give' would very often be more appropriate, but I can't find any reason to argue against it in other cases.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 18 August, 2013, 04:15:55 pm
This, from the index to a report, is completely correct:
Quote
4.15 Basis for identification and selection of stakeholders with whom to engage.
But I can't help feeling, especially as it's going to be read by people who don't have English as their first language, it might be better if it weren't. The "with whom" jars, but it's not wrong, so I'll leave it.

It's the word 'stakeholders' that jars with me. They are precisely the people with whom one does not engage (i.e. disinterested parties, 'holding the stake' as they have no interest in a bet going one way or the other). But I think I might have lost that one to the forces of common usage.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 18 August, 2013, 04:28:15 pm
As usual, it's sports (especially football) commentators to blame. Someone came up with using gift to convey the idea of making it too easy for your opponent by performing below the standard expected of you - eg "Arsenal gifted Villa that win." - which would have been quite interesting the first time it was used that way, but it's become a bit of a cliché now.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 August, 2013, 06:14:45 pm
This, from the index to a report, is completely correct:
Quote
4.15 Basis for identification and selection of stakeholders with whom to engage.
But I can't help feeling, especially as it's going to be read by people who don't have English as their first language, it might be better if it weren't. The "with whom" jars, but it's not wrong, so I'll leave it.

It's the word 'stakeholders' that jars with me. They are precisely the people with whom one does not engage (i.e. disinterested parties, 'holding the stake' as they have no interest in a bet going one way or the other). But I think I might have lost that one to the forces of common usage.
The term used for 'stakeholder' in the Polish version is 'interesariusz'. No ambiguity there. All we need now is to introduce the term 'nie-interesariusz'.  :D More seriously, I don't recall ever hearing the word 'stakeholder' in its other (presumably original) meaning.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 18 August, 2013, 06:27:50 pm
It is still commonly used in its original sense in law. Courts often act as stakeholders in disputes.

What I think is interesting is how two almost opposite meanings of the same word can evolve in such a short space of time.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 18 August, 2013, 06:40:07 pm
Cleave.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 August, 2013, 07:03:28 pm
I'm not sure that stakeholder is a Janus word in the same way as cleave or fast. Rather, it's two separate words which happen to be the same but have evolved separately - as opposed to one word developing two opposite meanings. I think this was possible because the original meaning is mostly used in a context (law) with which most people have little contact, while the second is used in a more everyday context, and more importantly because both meanings are logical; the person who holds the stake as a neutral party and the one who holds a stake in the outcome because they have an interest.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 18 August, 2013, 09:08:47 pm
And to be "gifted with foresight" or inspiration or a similar quality is still a pretty common saying, IMO.
"Gifted child" is probably the most common use.  Ironically it means "born with natural abilities" rather than being given anything as a gift.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 18 August, 2013, 09:33:39 pm
Gifted by God.  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 18 August, 2013, 09:45:19 pm

* Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre "he was just the sort of wild, fierce, bandit hero whom I could have consented to gift with my hand")


'gift with my hand' sounds like a euphemism.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 18 August, 2013, 11:53:15 pm
Well, it is. But not for what you thought, you naughty boy!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: meddyg on 19 August, 2013, 09:54:06 am
Quote
As usual, it's sports (especially football) commentators to blame.  "Arsenal gifted Villa that win."


Yes, well it's sexing up with cool language something that's actually pretty boring vis.

'and Shahid Ikram  top-scored to get man of the match title'
'he carded 6 on the twelfth and then went on to win'


( I have a little list)


Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 19 August, 2013, 10:01:52 am
We're almost back to 'medalled'.  Shall I reopen that wound? :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 19 August, 2013, 01:06:01 pm

Yes, well it's sexing up with cool language something that's actually pretty boring...
( I have a little list)

Is "sexing up" on the list?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: meddyg on 19 August, 2013, 09:07:38 pm
Quote
( I have a little list)

This was after my in-laws were leaving a job in Texas last century


'They were farewelled at the airport and gifted a rosebowl.'



of course whatever goes on across the pond will eventually reach us here...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 19 August, 2013, 10:23:36 pm
'They were farewelled at the airport and gifted a rosebowl.'

The OED says:

Quote from: OED
farewell, v. To take leave of, bid or say good-bye to

with citations back to 1586. Richard Burton (the explorer, not the actor) seems to have been particularly fond of the word:

Quote from: Richard Burton
whilst making ready to farewell his folk he heard one of his many farm dogs
whilst I looked on and made sure of death and she farewelled me with her dying eyes
we all made sure of death-doom and each and every one of us farewelled his friend
After he had bidden adieu to everybody except his youngest daughter, he proceeded to farewell her
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Clare on 20 August, 2013, 01:48:52 pm
So, when I was first taught letter writing at school the process included:

Dear Title Surname,
                          blah, blah, blah, blah blah blah etc


Now I have been told that it is policy to have:

Dear Title Surname,
Blah, blah blah blah blah blah etc.


The loss of the inset I can cope with but the capitalisation is really grating.  I was taught that the first letter of the main content should be lower case because it was a continuation of the sentence beginning Dear... the capital letter there just looks wrong.

The person who specified this layout has just sent me an e-mail riddled with grammatical mistakes but she is a manager and therefore is to be obeyed.

I need a new job, preferably with illustrated manuscripts.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: LEE on 20 August, 2013, 02:07:46 pm
We're almost back to 'medalled'.  Shall I reopen that wound? :demon:

Jimmy Savile medalled kids, in that he gave them all a "Jim Fixed it for me" medal.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 20 August, 2013, 02:29:57 pm
I was taught that the first letter of the main content should be lower case because it was a continuation of the sentence beginning Dear.

Did your teacher claim that this was the only convention for letter-writing? At the time, I guess it would have been difficult for you to confirm or refute this, but these days the Internet makes it easy to research questions like this. I used Google Book search to search for letter writing model (https://www.google.com/search?tbo=p&tbm=bks&q=letter+writing+model&tbs=,bkv:p) (with preview or full view), and looked at all five relevant results on the first page (the books that give advice on writing letters, not books that describe the sociology of letter-writing). These books start the main content with an upper-case letter:

1001 Letters For All Occasions (2004)
How to Write Better Business Letters (2007)
Analysis of Letter-writing (1872)
The Complete Sales Letter Book (1998)
Martine's perfect letter writer (1866)

I could find no books among the first ten results that advocate starting the content with a lower-case letter. This suggests to me that your teacher's advice was and is a minority view. (Which does not mean you shouldn't do it: these things are just conventions.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 20 August, 2013, 03:26:52 pm
I too was taught to capitalise.

Indenting - hmm. I've certainly never done it for a typed/WP letter, but I think I always used to start handwritten letters without an indent either. Certainly if I'm writing a card these days I don't indent - would lose too much space ...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 20 August, 2013, 04:43:20 pm
I was taught to capitalise and we were especially taught during the German degree that when writing a letter in German you DON'T capitalise and it's something we get wrong a lot as it feels incorrect to us.

I haven't used indents in letter writing for the last twenty years either, just new paragraphs.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Clare on 20 August, 2013, 09:14:58 pm
Did your teacher claim that this was the only convention for letter-writing?

I was in primary school and probably about 9 or 10 when I was taught how to set out a formal letter, I don't remember having an in depth discussion about the grammatical rights or wrongs of the process. I don't think either is "the one true way" but one method looks odd if you are used to the other.


Having done a random poll of one other person (Vernon) this house agrees that there should be no capital so it wasn't just my teacher.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 20 August, 2013, 10:44:22 pm
I was taught to indent the line for hand-written letters, and found it difficult to remember not to when typing.

As for capitalisation, I was taught that it was a continuation of the sentence which opened with the greeting.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 21 August, 2013, 12:20:37 am
I can't remember being taught specifically about capitalisation after the initial salutation. Logically, it would make sense not to capitalise.
I now realise I've started almost every letter with 'I' so the matter is academic.
Oh dear!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wombat on 21 August, 2013, 08:23:38 am
And I was taught that it was the one situation where you used a capital letter after a comma.  As for the indent, they seem to have gone out of fashion quite a few years ago. I did RSA2 wordprocessing about 1998 or so, and it was "out" by then.  That RSA course also strengthened my hate of folk who underline capitalised headings, and generally over-use capitalisation. 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biggsy on 21 August, 2013, 12:00:39 pm
I was taught letter writing by my mum, but later simplified it.  Develop your own style.  Rules are for wimps!  :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 August, 2013, 12:06:15 pm
'They were farewelled at the airport and gifted a rosebowl.'

The OED says:

Quote from: OED
farewell, v. To take leave of, bid or say good-bye to

with citations back to 1586. Richard Burton (the explorer, not the actor) seems to have been particularly fond of the word:

Quote from: Richard Burton
whilst making ready to farewell his folk he heard one of his many farm dogs
whilst I looked on and made sure of death and she farewelled me with her dying eyes
we all made sure of death-doom and each and every one of us farewelled his friend
After he had bidden adieu to everybody except his youngest daughter, he proceeded to farewell her
I adieued my son when I left him at his friend's house earlier today.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 21 August, 2013, 02:05:09 pm
I adieued my son when I left him at his friend's house earlier today.

The OED says:

Quote from: OED
adieu, v. To say ‘adieu’; to take one's leave.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 August, 2013, 02:21:18 pm
It really is quite difficult to invent genuinely new words, isn't it? Or rather, genuinely new versions of/uses for existing words.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 21 August, 2013, 02:44:17 pm
It really is quite difficult to invent genuinely new words, isn't it? Or rather, genuinely new versions of/uses for existing words.

It's not that difficult, but you do need to check them dictionariwise to ensure their prior unlexical status.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biggsy on 21 August, 2013, 04:28:27 pm
"Genuinity" is a word I invented easily, and used on this forum.  Someone replied with a question mark, as if to complain that it wasn't a word, but a word is a word once someone's used it, and you can have a go at working out what it means.  If you don't get it, ok, the attempted communication failed.  Otherwise, it's a success!  Jolly goodywobbles, eh?

...Oh shit, I see I wasn't first with "genuinity" and "goodywobble" after all.  Bloody/lovely Google.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Euan Uzami on 21 August, 2013, 04:52:57 pm
"Genuinity" is a word I invented easily, and used on this forum.  Someone replied with a question mark, as if to complain that it wasn't a word, but a word is a word once someone's used it, and you can have a go at working out what it means.  If you don't get it, ok, the attempted communication failed.  Otherwise, it's a success!  Jolly goodywobbles, eh?

...Oh shit, I see I wasn't first with "genuinity" and "goodywobble" after all.  Bloody/lovely Google.

another one is "irregardless".  :-\ :-\ ::-) ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biggsy on 21 August, 2013, 05:07:33 pm
Yeah, "irregardless" dates back to at least 1795.

That's established enough for me, so I have now added it to my Firefox dictionary.  :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 21 August, 2013, 05:55:24 pm
If I can't think of an appropriate word, I just make up one that sounds about right. The English language is riotously democratic. Grammar should be surfed like a stoned Californian. I'm a promiscuous verbificator.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 21 August, 2013, 11:24:53 pm
Sometimes the "correct" solution is the most elegant.

Sometimes it isn't.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 22 August, 2013, 04:13:45 pm
"Genuinity" is a word I invented easily, and used on this forum.

You might be glad to hear that the OED says:

Quote from: OED
genuinity, n. rare.
  Genuineness.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biggsy on 26 August, 2013, 07:13:40 pm
People seem to have forgotten the word "effected".   EDIT: And the word "affected".

From http://www2.ebay.com/aw/uk/201308.shtml#2013-08-24093057?_trksid=p3984.m2301.l3955:
Quote
Sellers that were impacted by this outage are covered by the protections in our site outage policy. We will provide impacted sellers with additional information regarding applicable credits in the coming days.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Arch on 26 August, 2013, 07:21:58 pm
People seem to have forgotten the word "effected".

From http://www2.ebay.com/aw/uk/201308.shtml#2013-08-24093057?_trksid=p3984.m2301.l3955:
Quote
Sellers that were impacted by this outage are covered by the protections in our site outage policy. We will provide impacted sellers with additional information regarding applicable credits in the coming days.

Affected, I think?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 26 August, 2013, 07:29:13 pm
Effected is OK when used properly, e.g. "I effected a withdrawal from the room after Biggsy trumped."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 26 August, 2013, 09:28:18 pm
Effected is OK when used properly, e.g. "I effected a withdrawal from the room after Biggsy trumped."

"I effected a withdrawal from the room after I was affected by Biggsy's trumping."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biggsy on 26 August, 2013, 11:22:47 pm
A dose of lactulose for me effected a huge amount of trumping.  Is that ok?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 28 August, 2013, 01:08:36 pm
Is that because you were impacted?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 28 August, 2013, 01:17:39 pm
My affect was flattened after Biggsy's trumps.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 28 August, 2013, 01:35:36 pm
Less/Fewer again, but the other way round:

Quote from: Eastern Daily Press
Chinese lanterns have caused eight fires across Norfolk in fewer than three years, according to official figures.

That would be two years then?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 28 August, 2013, 02:59:48 pm
Effected is OK when used properly, e.g. "I effected a withdrawal from the room after Biggsy trumped."

"I effected a withdrawal from the room after I was affected by Biggsy's trumping."

Was Biggsy trumping after being dealt a void?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 August, 2013, 05:20:39 pm
Whether his void was a delta or any other shape, you'd best avoid it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 06 October, 2013, 08:46:53 am
'Genius' as an adjective. As in "Wow! USB powered chocolate biscuits. That's genius!"

It just feels wrong, as if there is a silent but clumsy [an idea created by a] crammed into the sentence. Perhaps it is used because it sounds a bit like the similar but unrelated word 'ingenious'.

I blame beardy funster Dave Gorman.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 06 October, 2013, 08:57:33 am
I'm not sure about that. Oscar Wilde had nothing to declare but his genius, so it is a state of mind as well as the person that possesses it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 06 October, 2013, 09:12:25 am
I'm not sure that you can declare an adjective though.

On the other hand, you can put other nouns into the original construct, for example:

"Climbing Hard Knott on 67" fixed. That's strength!"

"Infinitely-variable gears with a hidden electric drive. That's the answer!"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 07 October, 2013, 03:45:14 pm
I'm just wondering* where I can get me** some of these USB-powered biscuits...


*inappropriate use of present continuous. I am not loving it.  :sick:
**redundant reflexive personal pronouns. I myself am not a fan.  :sick:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 08 October, 2013, 12:12:49 am
I'm not sure that you can declare an adjective though.

On the other hand, you can put other nouns into the original construct, for example:

"Climbing Hard Knott on 67" fixed. That's strength!"

"Infinitely-variable gears with a hidden electric drive. That's the answer!"

I was treating "genius" as an abstract noun, not an adjective. "That's genius!" Compare to "That's happiness!" or "That's show-business!" I think that Dave Gorman's use of it fits that pattern.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 08 October, 2013, 06:25:43 pm
Seconded. I move to throw out the challenge to Mr Gorman's [use of the word] genius!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 08 October, 2013, 07:15:27 pm
Quote from: Dave Gorman, 48 seconds into the very first television episode
And to prove it we've asked you to send in your most genius notions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGZaCuavUfI&t=48s
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 08 October, 2013, 07:23:54 pm
Quote from: Dave Gorman, 48 seconds into the very first television episode
And to prove it we've asked you to send in your most genius notions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGZaCuavUfI&t=48s

Oh dear. I'm not sure we can accept late evidence submissions ... but if we could, this would be quite damning.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 08 October, 2013, 11:52:37 pm
Jo is right and wins this round of applause!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 09 October, 2013, 01:29:06 pm
How about "otherwise" as a verb?

Quote from: CTC Information Team
If you suspect they’re worse – or better – than average, new CTC research might confirm or otherwise your suspicions.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 12 October, 2013, 11:25:38 pm
Expiry v. expiration  :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 17 October, 2013, 11:06:47 am
Encroaching without the on.  "Encroaching the blue paint".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 17 October, 2013, 01:29:33 pm
I know it's been mentioned on a number of occasions but the English speaking world needs reminding regularly.

It's "might have" not "might of"!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 17 October, 2013, 01:31:59 pm
Quite right, Nicknack. There were some examples of that particular offence in the Graun comments page the other day. I would imagine they were Daily Mail readers on a trolling expedition.

Arising out of T42's "encroaching - on", also, "protest" requires "against". I have never protested nuclear weapons. I have always protested against them.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 17 October, 2013, 02:28:28 pm
Quite right, Nicknack. There were some examples of that particular offence in the Graun comments page the other day. I would imagine they were Daily Mail readers on a trolling expedition.

Arising out of T42's "encroaching - on", also, "protest" requires "against". I have never protested nuclear weapons. I have always protested against them.

Dead on. After all, one can protest innocence.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 17 October, 2013, 03:09:50 pm
 "**** has excepted your revised quotation please take this email as an instruction to proceed with the works next Tuesday" does not mean what he thinks it means.

(Just because you have letters after your name, doesn't mean you're not a fuckwit).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 17 October, 2013, 06:29:49 pm
... I have never protested nuclear weapons. I have always protested against them.

Dead on. After all, one can protest innocence.
+1. A nice example of how laziness loses distinctions in meaning.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 01 November, 2013, 07:04:18 am
My sis-in-law used the expression "early doors" yesterday. I think she meant "early".

Is this footballing parlance? I seem to have heard it somewhere before, but I can't quite pin it down.

It's not exactly a point of grammar, but ICBA to start a "bloody stupid footballing sayings" thread in the "Sporting Life" board.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: JonBuoy on 01 November, 2013, 07:15:38 am
The phrase appears to have been adopted by football commentators but not their invention: (http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/uptodate/2010/11/101116_kyeutd_early_doors_page.shtml)

Quote
"They try to play a very physical game and get on top of you early doors." That comes from a report on a football match I read recently. Early doors? What's that all about? It means 'at an early stage in the proceedings'.

But why 'doors'? Where did that come from? Nobody knows for certain, but the best guess is that it originally referred to theatres, music halls and similar places opening their doors in advance of the time when the advertised entertainment was due to begin.

Customers who slipped in then had a much better choice of seats than people who left it to the last moment, so from the outset 'early doors' implied gaining an advantage by taking action at the first opportunity.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SteveC on 01 November, 2013, 07:42:57 am
The phrase appears to have been adopted by football commentators but not their invention: (http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/uptodate/2010/11/101116_kyeutd_early_doors_page.shtml)

Quote
"They try to play a very physical game and get on top of you early doors." That comes from a report on a football match I read recently. Early doors? What's that all about? It means 'at an early stage in the proceedings'.

But why 'doors'? Where did that come from? Nobody knows for certain, but the best guess is that it originally referred to theatres, music halls and similar places opening their doors in advance of the time when the advertised entertainment was due to begin.

Customers who slipped in then had a much better choice of seats than people who left it to the last moment, so from the outset 'early doors' implied gaining an advantage by taking action at the first opportunity.
I've always assumed it was a theatrical expression as well. But the whole point is that 'early doors' is before the performance starts. In the quotation from the football commentary the word 'doors' is just a filler. The sentence means exactly the same with out the word 'doors'. Which is possibly the subject for an entirely different rant thread!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 01 November, 2013, 08:34:42 am
I thought it referred to pubs, but theatres makes more sense.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 01 November, 2013, 12:19:09 pm
I though pubs too, from when they used to have strict opening hours, early doors meaning to go in the pub at 11:00am or 6:00pm as soon as they opened the doors. The theatre thing makes more sense though. I have always liked "snackle rattling" for the act of waiting for the pub to open its doors.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 01 November, 2013, 12:33:49 pm
It's not exactly a point of grammar, but ICBA to start a "bloody stupid footballing sayings" thread in the "Sporting Life" board.

Good, because the internet isn't big enough for that thread!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Paul on 01 November, 2013, 03:38:54 pm
I though pubs too, from when they used to have strict opening hours, early doors meaning to go in the pub at 11:00am or 6:00pm as soon as they opened the doors.

Me three.

I used to work in an office in Ilkeston overlooking a pub. A queue would form at about 10:50 most mornings.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 01 November, 2013, 08:06:26 pm
Me 4!

Never heard the theatrical derivation before - I call foul.

Whatever the history of "early doors", it's modern usage definitely has a different meaning to just "early". Only a small difference, admittedly ...

And it's not just footballers - it's common in other sports. Rare - but not extinct - in Real Life.

(I rather like these phrases that are commonly used in sport but hardly ever elsewhere.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 01 November, 2013, 08:10:25 pm
Early doors is a reasonably common saying in and around York still. Always with the pub connotation though never heard it used about football.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 01 November, 2013, 09:15:31 pm
First time I ever heard it was in the 1990s, in rugby. The game, not the town.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 02 November, 2013, 05:49:17 am
https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=77392.0;topicseen
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 02 November, 2013, 08:10:33 am
Yes, I cringed too.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 04 November, 2013, 09:32:34 am
Quote
A tie between David and I.

Tut.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 05 November, 2013, 04:52:15 pm
The OED says:

Quote from: OED
early doors
A. n. In a theatre, etc.: a period of admission ending some time before the performance begins, during which a wider selection of seating is available, usually for a higher price. Now hist.
B. adv. Early on; near the beginning. Freq. in the context of Association Football.

First quote for sense A is from 1883; for sense B from 1979.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: CrinklyLion on 05 November, 2013, 09:32:23 pm
Early doors is a reasonably common saying in and around York still. Always with the pub connotation though never heard it used about football.

Indeed - there were three distinct shifts at the John Bull when I worked there - lunchtime, early doors and the evening shift.
Title: Re: Grammar as what makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 06 November, 2013, 08:57:56 am
First time I ever heard it was in the 1990s, in rugby. The game, not the town.

Talking of rugby, the reason I was never really cut out for that game can be summarised in one line of verse:
     "... And when the ball was over, there were four-and-twenty fewer."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 07 November, 2013, 10:17:47 am
This was forwarded by a piss-taking Major down at HQLF this morning. It's a bit long, but worth a read. ;D

Quote
Dear Colleagues,

MOD TRANSFORMATION – HEADLINE UPDATE BRIEF

1.   Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF).  Left of centre, right of arc, flash to bang, the deep dive into the kinetic degradation of ground-based facilities has been conducted.  Despite reports that when the adversary smells flowers, he looks for the funeral, in actual fact there’s a lot of air in the sky and there’s been more heat than light crossing the impasse across the strategy landscape.  The paradigm shift of the glide path’s trajectory has been mitigated, socialised, dovetailed and is gaining traction into a functional decomposition of the problem.

2.   Background.

a.   Playing with a straight bat.  Checks and balances from the slop chit have been tossed into the sea to see if they float and both hot threads and major strands have been tied up with belts and braces leading to some seriously nutritional and protein-rich blue water downstream in the basin of priority.  Going forward to derisk our germane posture in the oxygenated vector, there are a number of generic worry beads and stray volts nested and couched in the backwash, but if you keep your powder dry and lean into the issue there’s no need to set the hares running or waste any heartbeats.

b.   Hub of the problem.  Ground truthing, force sensing and heavy lifting have provided some positive dynamics attenuating energy projectile on this buoyant lily pad, leading into a space where we have covered off some other people’s sandwiches.  En passant, the calculus of the non-viable mission capability is something for Town to scope with 5, albeit we can wait that out until we’ve run the opening salvo to ground, got our ducks in a row, harvested the low hanging fruit, squared the circle, fitted a round peg in a round hole, and taken the crocodiles closest to the canoe off message.  It’s all about the dead cat bounce opportunity.

c.   Showing a bit of leg.  Entre nous, the cognisant wolves nearest to the sledge are providing buckets of sub-optimal friction in the shifting sands of their swim lane, but with some thoughts and ideas they can be handed off to prevent the stovepipes going nuclear – and everyone knows that in a game of prep school football there’s no traction without friction anyway.  In this Spinal Tap scenario we can continue to ride these two horses at the same time, and not asking a question to which you won’t get an answer is always better than a custard pie.

3.   Lines To Take (LTTs).

a.   Dogs.  Given that the political atmosphere is so febrile, in our locale it is important not to step outside the policy box and into the generic media space across the piece, especially as most of these fundaments remain in the small box space of enhanced sensitivity.  On the subject of force projection and airframe generation, we must be reticent about releasing this excarnation of effects-based targeting more widely to wider Whitehall, and instead break out and excel in the area of augmentation and dimension management.  After all, everyone knows that a camel is a horse designed by a committee.

b.   Stray dogs.  In changing the dialogue’s pH balance, we must remain alive to a streamlined, zero sum battle rhythm and take stock at the stocktake by brigading our niche upticks of activity to ensure that the theory of change remains explicit from the outset.  The staccato mood music in the minimalist camp provides putative granularity, while a weather eye warrants a situating of the estimate in order to get greater fidelity and more bang for our buck.  The ambiguity of our posture and stance is quite constructive, but only if the nascent sidebar is segued and the blue sky thinking is expedited once the dust has settled.

c.   Stray dogs with fleas.  This clique is clearly apposite to the clarity of communications, so long as the conditionality chimes and users appreciate that this is not a cost-cutting exercise: it is about delivering improved value for money within the same resource envelope.  There are a number of evolving and interconnected strands of activity echoing and resonating, seeking to relife discipline in the contingent space – but we must remain concise, relevant, focussed and to the point while ensuring the rigour is there.

4.   Recommendations.

a.   Carry the can.  We don't want anyone to throw their toys out of the pram completely on the grounds that this is a self-licking lolly pop, about as much use as a chocolate fireguard or tits on a fish.  We must ensure that this reaches the lights-out parts of the organisation which are otherwise below the radar screen, because if we are going to hoot with the owls we have to be able to soar with the eagles, all the while remaining within our C2 – ensuring that everyone is singing from the same song sheet and kicking in the same chorus line (although not concurrently) in order to have an impactive approach.

b.   Take one for the team.  There are tunes to be played here, and definite memories of the future.  We must look out for burning platforms and vapourware.  Don’t be a trouble magnet; be a shock absorber, not a lightning conductor.  Despite being on a sticky wicket, we must ensure we aren’t bowled a googly; instead we must throw them a spin pass to see if they catch it.

c.   Roll over and take it.  Remember: pain heals; chicks dig scars; glory lasts forever.  There’s a bit of spaghetti to be done here, and if that fails don’t forget that bad things happen to bad people, unless they’re built like Japanese racing snakes in which case our OODA loop will be pounded and we’ll have to swallow our own smoke.  We may be on a piece of string here, but it’s simply a case of Press to Test.

d.   Bend over and invite them to ‘Please Park Your Bicycle Here’.  As a heads up, this will be managed with a long screwdriver, so the wave of chaos will need to be surfed.  It may not be our train set, but we need to get the engine straight before we can get the carriages on track.  Hope is not a plan of action, but we should be able to leverage synergies and clean fatigue it nonetheless.  The bête noire of working with OGDs doesn’t need to be like being handcuffed to a toddler with ADD.  Don't lose the will to live – suck it up, and don't piss in your chips.

5.   Summary.  Robbing Peter to pay Paul may seem a little Janet and John, but it could go Pete Tong (and let’s not forget that he’s an expeditionary plenipotentiary of considerable sand) – so be sure to put pedal to the metal when the rubber hits the road.  It is literally a Clapham omnibus test and 100% of the plan is subject to refinement: the market is open for bright ideas to be bottomed out.  Not wishing to cartoon it, this Question Four moment is high-octane stuff, and flying a kite is pretty aerodynamic: these are principles, not articles of faith.  We’ve all got skin in this game, so buoy rounding will be an important caveat to the strawman on whether we are to solutionise or soultioneer, but the two mission critical questions that most need to be tracked are: Who is holding the pen on this?; and Is the juice worth the squeeze?  In sum, that’s me climbing out of the pulpit for now, d’accord?

{Signed electronically on Dii}

J Argon MBE MSc BA FRAeS DiiF ASAP JPA RAF
Wg Cdr
SO1 Transformation Projection Taxonomy
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 07 November, 2013, 10:44:08 pm
https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=77392.0;topicseen

The verb to of seems to of crept into quite a few posts on YACF lately. It's horrific.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 07 November, 2013, 11:25:43 pm
Oh, yes! I hate it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 10 November, 2013, 10:32:12 pm
The verb to of seems to of crept into quite a few posts on YACF lately. It's horrific.

Writing of rather than 've is just a spelling error — the two words are pronounced identically, so it's an easy mistake to make.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 10 November, 2013, 11:26:59 pm
The verb to of seems to of crept into quite a few posts on YACF lately. It's horrific.

Writing of rather than 've is just a spelling error — the two words are pronounced identically, so it's an easy mistake to make.

No one who understands grammar would make that mistake though. It's glaringly awful.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 11 November, 2013, 12:17:45 am
Of is pronounced "ov". 've is pronounced "uv".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 11 November, 2013, 07:30:44 am
Exactly.  Not pronounced the same at all.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 11 November, 2013, 09:16:27 am
No one who understands grammar would make that mistake though. It's glaringly awful.

I am not sure that it's an understanding of grammar that distinguishes those who get these things right from those who don't. Much of it is about recalling and applying rules and conventions rather than a true understanding of the underlying linguistics.

I think we use internal verbalisation to help recall those conventions, so it is understandable that words that sound similar or identical become confused. A two-year old will understand the difference between to and too but may go though adult life confusing them in written form. See also (evident in this forum), past and passed; worse and worst; er and err. People understand the difference between those pairs but may select the wrong (near) homophone.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 11 November, 2013, 09:40:35 am
No one who understands grammar would make that mistake though. It's glaringly awful.

I am not sure that it's an understanding of grammar that distinguishes those who get these things right from those who don't. Much of it is about recalling and applying rules and conventions rather than a true understanding of the underlying linguistics.

I think we use internal verbalisation to help recall those conventions, so it is understandable that words that sound similar or identical become confused. A two-year old will understand the difference between to and too but may go though adult life confusing them in written form. See also (evident in this forum), past and passed; worse and worst; er and err. People understand the difference between those pairs but may select the wrong (near) homophone.

Though, in this case, it seems to be a simple case of failing to connect 'I have' with 'I could have'. No-one writes 'I of done it'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 11 November, 2013, 10:11:12 am
True, but I think we frequently use heuristics to recall phrases rather than construct them from first principles, even for "simple cases". People tend not to say "I could at done..." even though "at" is just as incorrect as "of" and as easy to say. It's its similarity of sound to "have" that leads to their mixing. I sometimes find myself using the wrong too/to/two when writing, even though I know the difference between them. There's something going on in our brains other than grammar neurones sorting out which word to pick from the pile. 

I think the subject of how much of our grammar is learned, copied, constructed or just made up is an interesting one. I haven't read it yet, but this book (http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1848548370) looks like a good read.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 11 November, 2013, 10:35:00 am
I reckon the difficulty is following formal grammar rules - not grammar itself, which is mostly learned by example or comes naturally. Which I would guess is the premise of that book.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 11 November, 2013, 11:09:22 am
Of is pronounced "ov". 've is pronounced "uv".

If that's true for you (and count me skeptical) then you have an unusual accent. For most English speakers in the UK, of is pronounced /ʌv/ (/ʌ/ as in mud or dull). Listen to this BBC video (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23274432), where at 0:38 the reporter says "much of it". Or to this one (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-22927683), where at 0:42 Dave Brailsford says, "bunch of schoolfriends".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 11 November, 2013, 11:55:43 am
I reckon the difficulty is following formal grammar rules - not grammar itself, which is mostly learned by example or comes naturally. Which I would guess is the premise of that book.

Yes it would appear so. The author was on R4 the other week talking about it, and one of the interesting things he briefly brought up was young children's capacity to adopt grammar rules without formally understanding them. I remember going for a walk with a two year old who pointed at some sheep declaring "Sheeps!". She probably had never heard that word uttered before yet had unconsciously constructed a plural form.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 11 November, 2013, 12:19:17 pm
Completely normal.

First stage - everything specific, no generalisation. Very quickly followed by rules & over-generalisation.

Small children are programmed to learn language - any & every language, whatever's being spoken around them. Turn a four year old loose with a bunch of other children who speak a different language, & the results are awesome. The speed with which the new language is learned is mind-boggling.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 11 November, 2013, 12:27:35 pm
Small children are programmed to learn language - any & every language, whatever's being spoken around them. Turn a four year old loose with a bunch of other children who speak a different language, & the results are awesome. The speed with which the new language is learned is mind-boggling.

Indeed. And then we go and beat the enthusiasm out of them with apostrophes.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 11 November, 2013, 12:38:54 pm
Of is pronounced "ov". 've is pronounced "uv".

If that's true for you (and count me skeptical) then you have an unusual accent. For most English speakers in the UK, of is pronounced /ʌv/ (/ʌ/ as in mud or dull). Listen to this BBC video (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23274432), where at 0:38 the reporter says "much of it". Or to this one (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-22927683), where at 0:42 Dave Brailsford says, "bunch of schoolfriends".

It depends, doesn't it, on the stress? "He didn't do that". "But he must of".  The "of" could be [ə] (unstressed) or [ɔ].  There are certainly times where many people will have wanted to correct a spoken "could of" to "could have" so I don't think it's true to say the two are (always) pronounced identically.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 11 November, 2013, 12:44:53 pm
True, but I think we frequently use heuristics to recall phrases rather than construct them from first principles, even for "simple cases". People tend not to say "I could at done..." even though "at" is just as incorrect as "of" and as easy to say. It's its similarity of sound to "have" that leads to their mixing. I sometimes find myself using the wrong too/to/two when writing, even though I know the difference between them. There's something going on in our brains other than grammar neurones sorting out which word to pick from the pile.
I think you're not right about this. All the people I know who use of instead of have/'ve genuinely don't know they're doing anything wrong. They've never been taught grammar properly and they don't know they're saying "could have/would have/should have." They've never been taught how to form it and therefore how to write it, so they're going by what they've heard and they genuinely believe it's could of/would of/should of.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biggsy on 11 November, 2013, 01:12:30 pm
It's rather unexcellent to criticise the grammar of a particular YACF member, or to use their posts as examples.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 11 November, 2013, 06:42:41 pm
It depends, doesn't it, on the stress? "He didn't do that". "But he must of".  The "of" could be [ə] (unstressed) or [ɔ].
I'm confused. It shouldn't be an "of" at all. It should be "But he must have".

When he finally confesses, we will know that he had done it, not that he of done it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 11 November, 2013, 06:48:20 pm
I'm confused. It shouldn't be an "of" at all. It should be "But he must have".

Yes, have (or 've) is the correct spelling. But the point is that the pronunciation of 've is the same as the pronunciation of of, which makes it easy to get the spelling wrong. (Like its versus it's, or their versus they're.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 11 November, 2013, 07:08:51 pm
The verb to of seems to of crept into quite a few posts on YACF lately. It's horrific.

Writing of rather than 've is just a spelling error — the two words are pronounced identically, so it's an easy mistake to make.

No one who understands grammar would make that mistake though. It's glaringly awful.

Why not?  Most people learn both vocabulary and grammar by osmosis, and I correctly used the verb 'of' as I heard those around me doing until some years after I learned to write.  It wasn't for a couple of years after that that my hearing improved to a point where I could notice the difference reliably in speech (at which point I noticed how many others made the same error).

My generation were taught almost no formal grammar at school, until foreign languages appeared on the syllabus at age 11 or so.  Of/have was treated as a spelling mistake.  Which, with hindsight, makes me cringe.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 November, 2013, 07:26:14 pm
When I was about 8 or 9, I went through a phase of wanting to spell "our" as "are" because with the accent I had at the time, they sounded the same, and completely unlike "hour". I certainly knew they were different words and remember asking grown ups which way it should be written, but because they didn't say it the same way, they always told me a-r-e.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 11 November, 2013, 07:48:06 pm
Small children are programmed to learn language - any & every language, whatever's being spoken around them. Turn a four year old loose with a bunch of other children who speak a different language, & the results are awesome. The speed with which the new language is learned is mind-boggling.

Indeed. And then we go and beat the enthusiasm out of them with apostrophes.
I refused to use the possessive apostrophe from when I was about 12, & discovered its origins. None of my English teachers ever objected, though some other teachers did.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 11 November, 2013, 07:53:10 pm
What did you object to about its origins?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 11 November, 2013, 08:04:27 pm
Middle English had a genitive ending -es. For example, Chaucer says of the Knight, "Ful worthy was he in his lordes werre" (you can tell that the -e- in lordes was pronounced because of the scansion of the line). But by the Early Modern period the -e- was mostly no longer pronounced, so some printers used the spelling -'s with an apostrophe to indicate an elision. (Other printers just wrote the ending -s, as it was pronounced, for example the Shakespeare First Folio has "my Lords diſpleaſure". Still others continued to use the archaic spelling -es, for example the first edition of Shakespeare's Sonnets has "Thy end is Truthes and Beauties doome and date" but the -e- could not have been pronounced by the poet because it would break the scansion.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 11 November, 2013, 09:44:52 pm
It depends, doesn't it, on the stress? "He didn't do that". "But he must of".  The "of" could be [ə] (unstressed) or [ɔ].
I'm confused. It shouldn't be an "of" at all. It should be "But he must have".

When he finally confesses, we will know that he had done it, not that he of done it.
Yes.  Sorry.  It shouldn't be 'of'.  But if it is and is used in speech, can you tell the difference?  I would suggest yes, sometimes.
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 11 November, 2013, 10:12:50 pm
Of/have was treated as a spelling mistake.  Which, with hindsight, makes me cringe.

Arguably, it is a spelling mistake more than a grammatical error.

Using an inappropriate tense of the verb "to have" (eg "He could having...") would be a grammatical error. Writing "of" instead of "have" is incorrect transcription of a grammatically correct statement.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 11 November, 2013, 10:35:33 pm
In the trailer for Jack Whitehall's new chat show with his dad, he says "...join me and my father", which Whitehall Sr immediately corrects to "my father and me".

But why? How is the second version more "correct" than the first? Grammatically, the two forms of the statement are identical. 

I suppose I should be grateful at least that he didn't correct it to "My father and I".  :sick:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 11 November, 2013, 10:40:08 pm
It's not really grammar, but manners. When speaking about another and oneself, one always puts the other first. Hence, "Brian and me", not "Me and Brian".

Grammatically, either is correct, provided that (as in your allusion) the case of both nouns is correct. Of course, in English, proper names don't decline, so only the pronoun can be in the wrong case.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 11 November, 2013, 11:53:07 pm

It's not really grammar, but manners.

Is it well mannered to dogmatically humiliate your son on national TV like that?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 12 November, 2013, 12:00:36 am
And to split your infinitives? :hand: :o ;) ;D

Presumably, if he wrote the script, it's OK...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 12 November, 2013, 12:04:19 am

And to split your infinitives? :hand: :o ;) ;D

If ever a grammar rule deserved to be broken, it's that one. I do it as a matter of principle.  :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 12 November, 2013, 06:29:06 am
It depends, doesn't it, on the stress? "He didn't do that". "But he must of".  The "of" could be [ə] (unstressed) or [ɔ].
I'm confused. It shouldn't be an "of" at all. It should be "But he must have".

When he finally confesses, we will know that he had done it, not that he of done it.
Yes.  Sorry.  It shouldn't be 'of'.  But if it is and is used in speech, can you tell the difference?  I would suggest yes, sometimes.
I agree that you can very often hear the difference. However, you will only hear a difference if you know what you are listening for! If you're expecting "of", you will hear it whenever you choose, whatever the speaker intended.


Some people have learned a form of English that includes "could of", "must of" etc.  My guess is they've picked it up by listening - unconsciously - and just aren't the sort of people to analyse their written English at all. (Whereas most of us on this thread are very anal indeed about our written English!) Arguably their teachers should of thrashed it out've them...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 12 November, 2013, 09:23:35 am
Not really grammar, but spelling: Metro again had a mention of 'Polari' this morning.  Good heavens, it's great that underground gay culture gets so many positive mentions in a widely read paper, but couldn't they just manage to spell 'Palare' correctly?  It was originally a mangling from European languages, and was usually said with a long first 'a' (hence the occasional contemporary spelling of 'parlare', like 'parler').

Just stop it, will you?  It's like hipsters are trying to appropriate Queer culture without understanding it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 12 November, 2013, 09:56:56 am
Not really grammar, but spelling: Metro again had a mention of 'Polari' this morning.  Good heavens, it's great that underground gay culture gets so many positive mentions in a widely read paper, but couldn't they just manage to spell 'Palare' correctly?  It was originally a mangling from European languages, and was usually said with a long first 'a' (hence the occasional contemporary spelling of 'parlare', like 'parler').

Just stop it, will you?  It's like hipsters are trying to appropriate Queer culture without understanding it.
It might be more complicated than that. (http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/staff/paulb/polari/home.htm)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 12 November, 2013, 10:59:41 am
The author agrees that Polari is a new spelling, which seems at odds with the others he (I'm assuming Paul Baker wrote the page) cites.

Polari is still wrong, a recent invention by people who don't know the history.  Can we have our Palare/parlaree/parlyaree* back, please?

* this one I've only ever heard as a knowing variant.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 12 November, 2013, 11:19:26 am
The OED's citations for polari include:

Quote
1967   K. Williams Diary 28 Mar. (1993) 300   We walked right into Dennis ‘My dear I know Danny La Rue terribly well..& introduced Tennessee Williams to loads of trade’ etc. etc. & so we got landed with the round of drinks and the polari.

I don't think Kenneth Williams can really be accused of being a "hipster trying to appropriate Queer culture without understanding it."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 12 November, 2013, 11:27:24 am
Fair enough.  But I never encountered that spelling until a couple of years ago.  Palare was the dominant one for most of the period.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 12 November, 2013, 11:34:37 am
Fair enough.  But I never encountered that spelling until a couple of years ago.  Palare was the dominant one for most of the period.

The OED also notes the spellings pallary, palarey, palari, palary, parlare, parlari, parlary, and parlyaree. With so many alternatives, I don't think it's possible to read all that much into any one choice of spelling.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 12 November, 2013, 11:36:54 am
All of those have a as the second letter, and four have an r after it.  How can people mistake this for the o?  That's my real irritation.

But Palare is definitely the most common spelling.  I'm sure the OED lists variants for many other words which have regularised spelling.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 November, 2013, 12:10:25 pm
What's striking in that list of core words from Palari/palare/polari/whatever is how many of them have entered mainstream English. "Send up" isn't even slang, is it? The inclusion of "cod" to mean "awful" seems rather similar to "codswallop" and "cod piece" and other fishy slang, which makes me wonder how much of that list actually originated as, er, this gay slang beginning with P.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 12 November, 2013, 12:18:18 pm
All of those have a as the second letter, and four have an r after it.  How can people mistake this for the o?  That's my real irritation.

The spelling polari comes from the pronunciation /pəˈlɑːri/. Listen to this BBC interview with Paul Baker (http://goo.gl/sfydHY), or this video by David Benson (http://goo.gl/vNVKSh).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 12 November, 2013, 12:22:38 pm
Is this spelling uncertainty anything to do with it being, until recently, an unwritten language? Think of spelling variations before print.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 12 November, 2013, 12:32:32 pm
What did you object to about its origins?
If we did it for every letter lost from Middle English, we'd have apostrophes everywhere, which would be silly, I also thought it pandered to the idiots peddling the "It shows the omission of 'hi' as in 'John his horse'" nonsense, which I though had helped to perpetuate it.

I already knew that 's' is derived from the common Germanic genitive ending.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 12 November, 2013, 12:33:21 pm

And to split your infinitives? :hand: :o ;) ;D

If ever a grammar rule deserved to be broken, it's that one. I do it as a matter of principle.  :)
Hear hear!

Ain't it one of them Latinisms forced onto English by the sort of classical scholar which imagined Latin to be the ubersprach?


It's not really grammar, but manners.

Is it well mannered to dogmatically humiliate your son on national TV like that?
If the son's Jack Whitehall, yes.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 12 November, 2013, 12:44:52 pm
It's like hipsters are trying to appropriate Queer culture

Didn't the Queers appropriate it from the Punch & Judy men?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 12 November, 2013, 03:38:22 pm
What's striking in that list of core words from Palari/palare/polari/whatever is how many of them have entered mainstream English. "Send up" isn't even slang, is it? The inclusion of "cod" to mean "awful" seems rather similar to "codswallop" and "cod piece" and other fishy slang, which makes me wonder how much of that list actually originated as, er, this gay slang beginning with P.
It's like hipsters are trying to appropriate Queer culture

Didn't the Queers appropriate it from the Punch & Judy men?


Quite.  Even the name Palare indicates that it's a magpie language, using elements of foreign languages - some picked up on the newly fashionable foreign holidays, some from immigrant communities in London (notably Yiddish), Cockney rhyming slang, backslang from the market porters etc etc.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 12 November, 2013, 04:19:37 pm
Which reminds me...

For a brilliant take on what happens to words when an oral tradition makes the transition into written form, read Riddley Walker. It's apposite to the case under discussion, not least for the prominent role played in the story by Mr Punch.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 November, 2013, 11:32:15 pm
What's striking in that list of core words from Palari/palare/polari/whatever is how many of them have entered mainstream English. "Send up" isn't even slang, is it? The inclusion of "cod" to mean "awful" seems rather similar to "codswallop" and "cod piece" and other fishy slang, which makes me wonder how much of that list actually originated as, er, this gay slang beginning with P.
It's like hipsters are trying to appropriate Queer culture

Didn't the Queers appropriate it from the Punch & Judy men?


Quite.  Even the name Palare indicates that it's a magpie language, using elements of foreign languages - some picked up on the newly fashionable foreign holidays, some from immigrant communities in London (notably Yiddish), Cockney rhyming slang, backslang from the market porters etc etc.
Yiddish is causing me quandaries right now. I'm reading some short stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer and each one is translated from the Yiddish by a different person in a different way. This is fine when purely Yiddish or Hebrew terms are used, as I don't know them anyway! But most of the stories are set in Frampol, which is a real town in Poland - I've never been there but I lived in the region and I've been to lots of the places mentioned. So in one story we have Zamosc and in another Zamoshoh. The first is the Polish spelling, bar diacritics, but the second - is that a reproduction of the Yiddish pronunciation? Is the "oh" a misprint for "ch"? Does Yanover refer to the town of Janów or possibly to Janówa or even Janowo? Almost certainly the first as it's the next town but the others are far away. Not really a problem and the logic of presenting Janów as Yanover for an English-speaking audience who don't know the places is clear - but then a word like halacha is used, which apparently is something to do with Jewish religious law - is that "halatcha" as if it was English or "halakha" as if it was written in Polish? Or maybe something else?

Not really grammar, more like marketing! and the stories are good anyway!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 13 November, 2013, 02:32:05 pm
Halacha is indeed Jewish Law and practice.
It is derived from the Hebrew verb for 'to walk'.

It's rather moot discussing spelling when a word has travelled from Hebrew to English via Polish and Yiddish (and quite probably several others en route) when these languages have different script systems. Yiddish was mostly written using Hebrew script for a middle European language1, to stymie censors.

1) Known pejoratively as 'schlechtes Deutsch' by Jews in Germany.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 13 November, 2013, 03:03:27 pm
So in one story we have Zamosc and in another Zamoshoh. The first is the Polish spelling, bar diacritics, but the second - is that a reproduction of the Yiddish pronunciation? Is the "oh" a misprint for "ch"?

If you do a Google Books search (https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Zamoshoh&tbm=bks) on Zamoshoh you'll see that the Singer story is the only place this spelling appears, so it's clearly a misprint, and your guess that it was supposed to be Zamoshch seems plausible: Wikipedia says (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zamo%C5%9B%C4%87) that the Yiddish for Zamość is Zamoshtsh.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 November, 2013, 05:43:39 pm
I think there are two ways you can go, at least with the place names: you can use the conventional Polish spelling or you can transliterate the Yiddish into something that represents the pronunciation to an English speaker. The first is accurate, checkable and reproducible, but doesn't really help most people reading the stories; the second is vague and subjective but potentially more comprehensible to the average reader. Lack of consistency is a problem and both rely on knowing what the original name is. Sometimes the inconsistency is in the source - I've encountered this problem with Japanese names in Polish documents I've been translating into English. Have they been declined as if they were Polish? Sometimes they have, sometimes not, and sometimes they've been transliterated into an English spelling - which then might have been subjected to Polish declinations! If you're not familiar with the original it can be easy to accidentally mangle a name.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 13 November, 2013, 07:35:57 pm
I think there are two ways you can go, at least with the place names: you can use the conventional Polish spelling or you can transliterate the Yiddish into something that represents the pronunciation to an English speaker. The first is accurate, checkable and reproducible, but doesn't really help most people reading the stories; the second is vague and subjective but potentially more comprehensible to the average reader. Lack of consistency is a problem and both rely on knowing what the original name is. Sometimes the inconsistency is in the source - I've encountered this problem with Japanese names in Polish documents I've been translating into English. Have they been declined as if they were Polish? Sometimes they have, sometimes not, and sometimes they've been transliterated into an English spelling - which then might have been subjected to Polish declinations! If you're not familiar with the original it can be easy to accidentally mangle a name.

This is often a problem for genealogists when names have been transliterated by generations of wandering Jews.
In Israel, people's names are given in Hebrew, sometimes with no reference to any European spelling, which might have remained consistent despite multiple changes in pronunciation. Much information can be lost this way; there are many ways to pronounce 'Goldstein'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 14 November, 2013, 01:48:44 pm
My sons personal statement for UCAS. Full of commas in the wrong places, incorrect use of apostrophes, semicolons sprinkled in seemingly at random and incorrect capitalisations of the first letter of words. Worse it had been run past his tutor and the head of year both of whom had pronounced it excellent. Perhaps they should run them all past the head of English as well ....
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 14 November, 2013, 02:34:46 pm
My sons personal statement for UCAS. Full of commas in the wrong places, incorrect use of apostrophes, semicolons sprinkled in seemingly at random and incorrect capitalisations of the first letter of words. Worse it had been run past his tutor and the head of year both of whom had pronounced it excellent. Perhaps they should run them all past the head of English as well ....
chip off the old block?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 14 November, 2013, 02:38:57 pm
My sons personal statement for UCAS. Full of commas in the wrong places, incorrect use of apostrophes, semicolons sprinkled in seemingly at random and incorrect capitalisations of the first letter of words. Worse it had been run past his tutor and the head of year both of whom had pronounced it excellent. Perhaps they should run them all past the head of English as well ....
chip off the old block?

Oh hell !
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 14 November, 2013, 02:39:37 pm
Oh he'll what? ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 17 November, 2013, 06:14:15 pm
My sons personal statement for UCAS. Full of commas in the wrong places, incorrect use of apostrophes, semicolons sprinkled in seemingly at random and incorrect capitalisations of the first letter of words. Worse it had been run past his tutor and the head of year both of whom had pronounced it excellent. Perhaps they should run them all past the head of English as well ....
chip off the old block?

Oh hell !
Fine, as long as you're consistent. There's no good reason for the possessive apostrophe. Refusing to use it didn't stop me getting a grade one English language O level, back in the days of six passing grades.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 November, 2013, 10:08:20 am
Uggh! It's ugly but your rewriting alters the meaning - the comma after technology implies Apple should not have ownership over any technology. In practice both are clear in meaning though. I'm already cringing at myself.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 22 November, 2013, 10:18:58 am
'such as'?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 22 November, 2013, 10:43:40 am
2) Speech marks for emphasis.

Surely the speech marks are there because it's a quote?

Anyway, while I'm here...

Good.

As in: "How are you?" "I'm good."

I dare say Gareth will be along in a minute to cite some 17th-century example of good being used as an adverb, and I've already accepted that it's a battle not worth fighting, but it still grates somewhat.

(The earliest example that springs readily to my mind is James Brown. I admit that "I feel well" wouldn't have quite the same ring to it.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 November, 2013, 11:11:38 am
"I feel well" implies, to me, that your health is good, whereas "I feel good" is an emotional state. Similarly "I'm good" would once have anticipated "...at [activity]". I reckon it's the slow death of the adverb. Run quick, walk slow.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 22 November, 2013, 11:13:00 am
I annoy my children in lots of ways, but one of them is to say that I'll be the judge of their morality when they answer 'good' to a 'How are you?'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 November, 2013, 11:18:26 am
Do you also give them absolution when they say "My bad"?  :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Salvatore on 22 November, 2013, 11:42:06 am
I annoy my children in lots of ways, but one of them is to say that I'll be the judge of their morality when they answer 'good' to a 'How are you?'.

He's not joking.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 22 November, 2013, 11:51:32 am
Extra grumpy points for using "I'm good" to indicate that you do not wish to receive a refill* of your beverage* of choice by your server* this morning*.


* Give me surly European cafe culture over US below-minimum-wage-I-need-tips-to-survive imperialism any day.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 22 November, 2013, 11:53:52 am
Heh. I seem to have touched a nerve with that one.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 23 November, 2013, 01:06:54 am
I tease children with the good/well substitution which has become current newspeak.

Doubleplusunwell = sickasaparrot.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: tiermat on 25 November, 2013, 11:18:34 am
An email circulated today, at work:

Subject: Christmas Tree's

Please note that the Christmas Tree’s will now be installed on Tuesday 26th November starting in $LOCATION_1* from 06.30am and in $LOCATION_2* about 10.00am.

*Locations changed to protect the innocent :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 25 November, 2013, 12:31:11 pm
I think that's legitimate if the tree's bought from a greengrocer's shop.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 25 November, 2013, 12:59:15 pm
I annoy my children in lots of ways, but one of them is to say that I'll be the judge of their morality when they answer 'good' to a 'How are you?'.

As a parent who habitually responds with 'is that like safely or actually safely? In what way is it like?' I would happily appropriate that.


Except that I use it myself.  :-[
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 25 November, 2013, 01:00:31 pm
I thought you plant trees. Does installing them imply that these are software trees?

I think you have to have root privileges to do that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ewan Houzami on 25 November, 2013, 01:31:36 pm
Not exactly grammar, but pretentious types who end a comment with 'plus ca change...' when they mean ''twas ever thus' . Often seen on CiF.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 25 November, 2013, 04:23:20 pm
I dare say Gareth will be along in a minute to cite some 17th-century example

I'm glad to see that my message is getting through!

Quote
of good being used as an adverb

But this can't be right. In "I'm well" and "I'm good", "well" and "good" are adjectives, not adverbs. That's because you can say "I'm X" when X is an adjective ("I'm happy", "I'm busy") but not when X is an adverb ("*I'm happily", "*I'm busily").

In the OED the relevant senses are well adj. 5a ("Sound in health; free or recovered from sickness or infirmity") and good adj. 3c ("of state or condition, health, order, etc.: Such as should be desired or approved, right, satisfactory; sound, unimpaired. Of state of mind, courage, spirits: Not depressed or dejected.")
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 25 November, 2013, 04:48:42 pm
In "I'm well" and "I'm good", "well" and "good" are adjectives, not adverbs. That's because you can say "I'm X" when X is an adjective ("I'm happy", "I'm busy") but not when X is an adverb ("*I'm happily", "*I'm busily").

I'm going to argue the toss on this one... In the intended sense (ie in answer to the question "How are you?"), good modifies the verb "to be", hence is an adverb.

But perhaps that's a specious distinction. In any case, it's not really important - what matters, as per Nuncio's comment, is the different meanings of "I'm good" and "I'm well". Substituting "good" for "well" in the latter example renders the sentence ambiguous... though admittedly only to the kind of pedant who goes looking for ambiguities of this kind. ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 25 November, 2013, 05:14:32 pm
In "I'm well" and "I'm good", "well" and "good" are adjectives, not adverbs. That's because you can say "I'm X" when X is an adjective ("I'm happy", "I'm busy") but not when X is an adverb ("*I'm happily", "*I'm busily").

I'm going to argue the toss on this one... In the intended sense (ie in answer to the question "How are you?"), good modifies the verb "to be", hence is an adverb.

You're arguing that the sentence "I am good" is to be understood as being parallel to "I walk slowly". But there are three reasons why I find this interpretation implausible. First, you can't substitute other adverbs for good (if you try, you get wholly ungrammatical sentences like "*I am happily" or "*I am busily"). Second, you can't substitute other verbs for am (if you try, you get sentences like "*I exist good" or "*I run good" — these are grammatical in some dialects and registers but not in formal British English). Third, the sentence "I am X" is perfectly grammatical when X is an adjective: you can say "I am tall" or "I am happy".

So my interpretation (in which good is an adjective) is straightforward and productive, whereas your interpretation (in which good is an adverb) is forced and unproductive.

You seem to be implicitly relying on a theory whereby a how question must be answered with an adverb, but surely you wouldn't answer "How was the meal?" with "*It was tastily."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 25 November, 2013, 05:54:15 pm
First, you can't substitute other adverbs for good (if you try, you get ungrammatical sentences like "*I am happily" or "*I am busily"). Second, you can't substitute other verbs for am (if you try, you get ungrammatical sentences like "*I exist good" or "*I run good"). Third, the sentence "I am X" is perfectly grammatical when X is an adjective: you can say "I am tall" or "I am happy".

The problem is not that the examples in the first case are ungrammatical, only that they make no sense in English. "I exist happily" works. More or less. The second case illustrates exactly why I believe "good" is being used as an adverb in the case under discussion - it's dictated by the form of the sentence.

The third case is an elliptical idiom, thus a quirk rather than a paradigm. What you are actually saying is: "I am [a] tall/happy [person]." Logically, the subject and object of the sentence are identical, hence don't need to be mentioned twice.

Quote
You seem to be implicitly relying on a theory whereby a how question must be answered with an adverb, but that's also wrong. You wouldn't answer "How was the meal?" with "*It was tastily."

That fails for the same reason as your first case above. In English, tastily is not an adverb that can apply to a state of being. (Tbh, I'm struggling to think of a verb that "tastily" could modify in a meaningful way.)

But like I said, I'm just arguing the toss on this one. For practical purposes, it doesn't matter if it's an adverb or an adjective.

The important point remains that "I am good" and "I am well" have distinct meanings in English.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 25 November, 2013, 06:00:11 pm
As a parent who habitually responds with 'is that like safely or actually safely? In what way is it like?' I would happily appropriate that.

My advice to your offspring would be to indicate the ambiguity that results in making every statement a simile by ensuring every sentence is delivered with an interrogative inflection. If they wish to modify emphasis to indicate certainty, just insert the word 'literally' in front of 'like'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 25 November, 2013, 07:17:22 pm
You come across older (18th/19th century?) examples such as "How was the meal?" "It tasted very well" where now we would say "It tasted very good". I'd say that "well" is an adverb here describing the way the meal tasted and "good" is an adjective describing the meal itself. In practice the meaning is the same in both cases.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 25 November, 2013, 08:40:12 pm
The problem is not that the examples ("*I am happily" and "*I am busily") are ungrammatical, only that they make no sense in English.

If you think sentences of the form "I am ADVERB" are grammatical, then you should be able to illustrate it with examples (other than the ones we are disputing, of course). Here's a list of 100 common adverbs for consideration (http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/parts-of-speech/adverbs/list-of-100-adverbs.html): which ones can appear in sentences of this form? Can any of them? Remember that you're the one making the claim that sentences of this form are grammatical, so it's really up to you to come up with convincing examples.

Quote
The third case is an elliptical idiom, thus a quirk rather than a paradigm. What you are actually saying is: "I am [a] tall/happy [person]." Logically, the subject and object of the sentence are identical, hence don't need to be mentioned twice.

The modern grammatical analysis of "I am X" is that X is a predicative expression (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predicative_expression) — a clause which expresses a property of a noun (in this case the subject "I"). Predicative expressions can take several forms: they can be adjectives ("I am tall"), nouns ("I am a walrus"), prepositional clauses ("I am in trouble"), but they can't be adverbs like "happily".

This analysis seems more satisfactory than yours because (i) there's no need to invent a missing object (entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor)); and (ii) even if you do invent a missing object this can change the meaning: for example "I am right" does not mean the same thing as "I am a right person".

Quote
That fails for the same reason as your first case above. In English, tastily is not an adverb that can apply to a state of being.

So, what adverb would be grammatical in "It was ADVERB" as a reply to "How was the meal?" Again, remember that you're the one claiming that sentences of this form are grammatical.

Quote
(Tbh, I'm struggling to think of a verb that "tastily" could modify in a meaningful way.)

From Living Like Indians by Allan A. Macfarlan:

Quote
One elementary mode of cooking was passed down from the prehistoric Indians to their descendants in all habitats, that of cooking directly on the hot coals and embers of a fire. This simple, non-utensil form of cooking, broiled meats tastily, evenly, and well.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 25 November, 2013, 08:46:40 pm
You come across older (18th/19th century?) examples such as "How was the meal?" "It tasted very well" where now we would say "It tasted very good". I'd say that "well" is an adverb here describing the way the meal tasted and "good" is an adjective describing the meal itself. In practice the meaning is the same in both cases.

I agree with your analysis, but note that they said "It tasted very well" and not "*It was very well".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 26 November, 2013, 08:52:56 am
As a parent who habitually responds with 'is that like safely or actually safely? In what way is it like?' I would happily appropriate that.

My advice to your offspring would be to indicate the ambiguity that results in making every statement a simile by ensuring every sentence is delivered with an interrogative inflection. If they wish to modify emphasis to indicate certainty, just insert the word 'literally' in front of 'like'.

/me  removes jo from christmas list.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ham on 26 November, 2013, 11:42:42 am
Isn't it time for a grandma that makes you cringe?

NSFW LINK

http://www.bizarremag.com/tattoos-and-bodyart/tattoos/6666/tattooed_granny.html (http://www.bizarremag.com/tattoos-and-bodyart/tattoos/6666/tattooed_granny.html)

(actually while I'm quite glad she wasn't mine, I rather like her)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 26 November, 2013, 12:00:32 pm
/me  removes jo from christmas list.


I'm literally like whatever?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 26 November, 2013, 12:16:48 pm
If you think sentences of the form "I am ADVERB" are grammatical, then you should be able to illustrate it with examples (other than the ones we are disputing, of course).

"I am poorly." ;)

I'm making a distinction between grammatical and meaningful that relies on a definition of grammatical that roughly equates to "logically valid". But yeah, I know that's not how language works in practice.

Quote
The modern grammatical analysis of "I am X" is that X is a predicative expression (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predicative_expression) — a clause which expresses a property of a noun (in this case the subject "I"). Predicative expressions can take several forms: they can be adjectives ("I am tall"), nouns ("I am a walrus"), prepositional clauses ("I am in trouble"), but they can't be adverbs like "happily".

OK, that works for me.

Quote
Quote
(Tbh, I'm struggling to think of a verb that "tastily" could modify in a meaningful way.)

From Living Like Indians by Allan A. Macfarlan:

Quote
One elementary mode of cooking was passed down from the prehistoric Indians to their descendants in all habitats, that of cooking directly on the hot coals and embers of a fire. This simple, non-utensil form of cooking, broiled meats tastily, evenly, and well.

OK, that'll do, thanks - the reason I couldn't think of one was because I tend to think of tastiness as a quality of eating, not of cooking, but the example makes a kind of sense.
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 26 November, 2013, 12:35:31 pm
Isn't it time for a grandma that makes you cringe?

I think that link needs an NSFW warning, Ham!

(Or even an NSFE warning - not safe for eyes!)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ham on 26 November, 2013, 01:01:23 pm
Sorry - you're right - fixed
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 26 November, 2013, 02:21:31 pm
Have we done "can I get a tall skinny latte?"?  No, you can't, you're not allowed behind the counter. "I'd like a tall skinny latte please" is much nicer.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 26 November, 2013, 02:54:43 pm
/me  removes jo from christmas list.


I'm literally like whatever?

Did you forget to add 'innit'? 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 26 November, 2013, 04:01:45 pm
Have we done "can I get a tall skinny latte?"?  No, you can't, you're not allowed behind the counter.

Similarly,
"What grade did I get?" "You can't get a grade, you're not the examiner."
"Did you get a reply to your letter?" "I can't get a reply, I'm not the correspondent."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 26 November, 2013, 08:19:56 pm
My dictionary includes to receive as one definition of get and uses I got a letter from my fiancé as the example sentence. If the examiner (or the marker) gives a grade then you receive or get a grade. Likewise, if you receive a reply it could be said that you get (or got) a reply.

So, if the barista makes you a latte, it could be said that you get a latte?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 26 November, 2013, 09:05:21 pm
Harrumph.  I think Gareth was gently pointing out where my original statement was wrong.

I'll not get upset about it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 26 November, 2013, 10:02:07 pm
Harrumph.  I think Gareth was gently pointing out where my original statement was wrong.

I'll not get upset about it.

I didn't think it was wrong. Certainly, unless you have very long arms you can't get a latte from the only side of the counter you're allowed on.

However, the can I get construction used is a mixture of the confusion between can and may (which probably owes something to may sounding weaker than can) and an American usage of get, which probably in turn derives from German usage (immigrants had it dinned into them that ich bekomme does not mean I become but I get, in its easiest form, so the German ich bekomme einen Kaffee was most easily translated as I get a coffee, and passed from there into Murkan before leaking into English.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 26 November, 2013, 10:24:53 pm
I didn't question Gareth's comment on the latte as I agreed with it. I was just advertising my ignorance by not understanding his two other examples using the word get. Time for bed, I think.

Yes. Get to bed.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 28 November, 2013, 03:43:28 pm
Quote
Do you have fine, limp, breaking hair?
With advice, help and support we can improve it
Call for an appointment
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 28 November, 2013, 04:02:52 pm
I didn't think it was wrong. Certainly, unless you have very long arms you can't get a latte from the only side of the counter you're allowed on.

Similarly, unless you have very long arms, you can't get a reply to a letter, right?

To be completely clear, one of the many meanings of get, one that is found in every good dictionary, is "to receive". This is sense 10a in the OED. It's perfectly standard English to get a grade, a letter, a tip, an answer, a reward, a gift. And if you can get all of these things, surely you can get a coffee? To complain about "can I get a latte?" on the grounds that the speaker's arms are not long enough, seems to me to show such wilful misunderstanding that I doubt it can be sincere. How can you call yourself a fluent English speaker if you have such trouble with this very minor ambiguity?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 28 November, 2013, 04:20:22 pm
I didn't think it was wrong. Certainly, unless you have very long arms you can't get a latte from the only side of the counter you're allowed on.

Similarly, unless you have very long arms, you can't get a reply to a letter, right?

To be completely clear, one of the many meanings of get, one that is found in every good dictionary, is "to receive". This is sense 10a in the OED. It's perfectly standard English to get a grade, a letter, a tip, an answer, a reward, a gift. And if you can get all of these things, surely you can get a coffee? To complain about "can I get a latte?" on the grounds that the speaker's arms are not long enough, seems to me to show such wilful misunderstanding that I doubt it can be sincere. How can you call yourself a fluent English speaker if you have such trouble with this very minor ambiguity?

Tut tut, dear chap, let us not descend to the personal.  I'm very much aware of the manifold meanings of get, verb as well as noun (which latter are not all scurrilous).

There is in fact no real problem in the instance given. The barista wilfully understands can meaning may as can meaning am I able to (i.e. he takes it literally) and get meaning receive as get meaning prepare.  The customer means one thing, the barista chooses to interpret his request differently - and indeed, more closely to the English we were taught at school, although we were taught to avoid get whenever possible as being inelegant.

Personally, I dislike the usage of get in this context. I would tend to use I would like or could I have: but then, I learned English before such Americanisms as can I get were imported.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 28 November, 2013, 04:36:33 pm
I'm very much aware of the manifold meanings of get ... There is in fact no real problem in the instance given.

Then what did you mean by, "unless you have very long arms you can't get a latte"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 28 November, 2013, 04:37:16 pm
I don't get it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 November, 2013, 04:57:05 pm
You're going to get it, one way or another.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 28 November, 2013, 06:36:53 pm
If this word has (at least) 10 OED-approved meanings, then there are probably situations where it will create uncertainty. The "latte incident" appears to be one of them.

So I would recommend using a more clearerer wording. "May I ..." is also more polite, a double-win!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 28 November, 2013, 08:44:57 pm
If this word has (at least) 10 OED-approved meanings, then there are probably situations where it will create uncertainty. The "latte incident" appears to be one of them.

There are 34 major and 94 minor senses of get in the OED, so nearly every use of the word has lots of ambiguity. But there's nothing particularly special about get in this respect: most common English words have multiple meanings. Ambiguity is inherent in the language, and coping with ambiguity is a mark of fluency in the language.

So I'm puzzled by the comments (from Tim Hall originally and later from T42—though possibly repudiated in the latter case) where posters claimed to be having trouble with the use of get in the sentence "can I get a latte?" Either these comments are confessing to a surprising level of disfluency in English, or they are being insincere in their claim not to understand this meaning of the word get. (I guess there's a third possibility: they really do understand the meaning of the word, but they object to some other aspect of the word—perhaps its register, or its association with American usage—but they have trouble explaining that, and light on the lexical ambiguity as a way out of the difficulty. But I don't know: as I say, I'm puzzled.)

I should be careful about coming down too hard here: difficulty with lexical ambiguity resolution could be due to language impairment or autism spectrum disorder. So I apologise if that's the case for anyone posting here.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 28 November, 2013, 09:26:46 pm
If this word has (at least) 10 OED-approved meanings, then there are probably situations where it will create uncertainty. The "latte incident" appears to be one of them.

There are 68 senses of get in the OED, so nearly every use of the word has lots of ambiguity. But there's nothing particularly special about get in this respect: most common English words have multiple meanings. Ambiguity is inherent in the language, and coping with ambiguity is a mark of fluency in the language.

So I'm puzzled by the comments (from Tim Hall originally and later from T42—though possibly repudiated in the latter case) where posters claimed to be having trouble with the use of get in the sentence "can I get a latte?" Either these comments are confessing to a surprising level of disfluency in English, or they are being insincere in their claim not to understand this meaning of the word get. (I guess there's a third possibility: they really do understand the meaning of the word, but they object to some other aspect of the word—perhaps its register, or its association with American usage—but they have trouble explaining that, and light on the lexical ambiguity as a way out of the difficulty. But I don't know: as I say, I'm puzzled.)

I should be careful about coming down too hard here: difficulty with lexical ambiguity resolution could be due to language impairment or autism spectrum disorder. So I apologise if that's the case for anyone posting here.

Including, perhaps...?

Re my "long arms" comment: that was, of course, interpreting get from the point of view of the barista's reply.  Pardon me for neglecting to make that even more blindingly obvious that it already was.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 28 November, 2013, 10:05:49 pm
Re my "long arms" comment: that was, of course, interpreting get from the point of view of the barista's reply.

Yes, I got that, thank you. What I'm saying is that a barista who replied in that way would be misunderstanding or insincere.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 28 November, 2013, 10:27:25 pm
If this word has (at least) 10 OED-approved meanings, then there are probably situations where it will create uncertainty. The "latte incident" appears to be one of them.

There are 34 major and 94 minor senses of get in the OED, so nearly every use of the word has lots of ambiguity. But there's nothing particularly special about get in this respect: most common English words have multiple meanings. Ambiguity is inherent in the language, and coping with ambiguity is a mark of fluency in the language.

So I'm puzzled by the comments (from Tim Hall originally and later from T42—though possibly repudiated in the latter case) where posters claimed to be having trouble with the use of get in the sentence "can I get a latte?" Either these comments are confessing to a surprising level of disfluency in English, or they are being insincere in their claim not to understand this meaning of the word get. (I guess there's a third possibility: they really do understand the meaning of the word, but they object to some other aspect of the word—perhaps its register, or its association with American usage—but they have trouble explaining that, and light on the lexical ambiguity as a way out of the difficulty. But I don't know: as I say, I'm puzzled.)

I should be careful about coming down too hard here: difficulty with lexical ambiguity resolution could be due to language impairment or autism spectrum disorder. So I apologise if that's the case for anyone posting here.
You say "there's nothing particularly special about get in this respect: most common English words have multiple meanings."
Yet in your post above - with its many words! - I didn't sense any ambiguities.

So the phrase "can I get a latte?" seems to have a very high ambiguity/word_count!
Sure, most people would correctly guess the intended meaning - but avoiding ambiguity is a good thing, all else being equal. There are several common words that could have been used instead.

I'm not saying "get" was wrong in this context - just that there were much better wordings available. IMHO!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 28 November, 2013, 10:47:56 pm
Yet in your post above - with its many words! - I didn't sense any ambiguities.

There are many ambiguities (just from the first paragraph, consider lots, common, inherent, language, coping and mark), but you're a fluent English speaker so you have no difficulty picking among these meanings to find an interpretation that makes good sense.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 28 November, 2013, 11:02:39 pm
Yet in your post above - with its many words! - I didn't sense any ambiguities.

There are many ambiguities (just from the first paragraph, consider lots, common, inherent, language, coping and mark), but you're a fluent English speaker so you have no difficulty picking among these meanings to find an interpretation that makes good sense.
OK, fair point. but I still believe that with its "34 major and 94 minor senses of get in the OED" this tiddler can create a LOT* of ambiguity. Hence it's a word to avoid where practicable.

[I only know one meaning for inherent and coping (as a verb anyway!). But I'm not as fluent as thee.]

*Hope that was clear!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 29 November, 2013, 10:36:34 am
Re my "long arms" comment: that was, of course, interpreting get from the point of view of the barista's reply.

Yes, I got that, thank you. What I'm saying is that a barista who replied in that way would be misunderstanding or insincere.

Insincere? I wouldn't put it that way, but I'd say that he might just be an Eng. Lang. moonlighter administering a deserved correction by deliberately misinterpreting the request.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 29 November, 2013, 10:47:08 am
Maybe coffee was being served by a barrister with a good command of English who applied for the job over the phone.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 29 November, 2013, 11:06:18 am
Insincere? I wouldn't put it that way

No, maybe disingenuous would be a better word.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 29 November, 2013, 11:15:52 am
The joy and irritation of English is how it can be twisted, mangled, subverted, inverted and still make sense. Of course, the English lost control of English some time ago. Here's some twisted language for you:-

Me up at does

out of the floor
quietly Stare

a poisoned mouse

still who alive

is asking What
have i done that

You wouldn’t have
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 29 November, 2013, 03:06:04 pm
Insincere? I wouldn't put it that way, but I'd say that he might just be an Eng. Lang. moonlighter administering a deserved correction by deliberately misinterpreting the request.

Deliberate misinterpretation is a form of insincerity (the OED says "insincere, adj. assuming a false guise in speech or conduct" which seems to accurately describe someone who is pretending to misinterpret). But more importantly, your phrase "deserved correction" assumes what's under dispute here. How can a deliberate misinterpretation possibly be a "correction"? If the question was understood, what is there to correct?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 29 November, 2013, 03:40:46 pm
Insincere? I wouldn't put it that way, but I'd say that he might just be an Eng. Lang. moonlighter administering a deserved correction by deliberately misinterpreting the request.

Deliberate misinterpretation is a form of insincerity (the OED says "insincere, adj. assuming a false guise in speech or conduct" which seems to accurately describe someone who is pretending to misinterpret). But more importantly, your phrase "deserved correction" assumes what's under dispute here. How can a deliberate misinterpretation possibly be a "correction"? If the question was understood, what is there to correct?

Should the aim be to simply understand?  In a real-life coffee-shop, perhaps, but I rather think the example was invented to push things to the extreme as an illustration.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 29 November, 2013, 05:11:42 pm
Should the aim be to simply understand?  In a real-life coffee-shop, perhaps

QED
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 November, 2013, 11:50:00 am
The joy and irritation of English is how it can be twisted, mangled, subverted, inverted and still make sense. Of course, the English lost control of English some time ago. Here's some twisted language for you:-

Me up at does

out of the floor
quietly Stare

a poisoned mouse

still who alive

is asking What
have i done that

You wouldn’t have
I, up and doing,
out of the door,
calmly look at
a poisoned mouse,
who, still alive,
is asking, What
have I done that
you wouldn't have?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jacomus on 30 November, 2013, 03:12:00 pm
The joy and irritation of English is how it can be twisted, mangled, subverted, inverted and still make sense. Of course, the English lost control of English some time ago. Here's some twisted language for you:-

Me up at does

out of the floor
quietly Stare

a poisoned mouse

still who alive

is asking What
have i done that

You wouldn’t have
I, up and doing,
out of the door,
calmly look at
a poisoned mouse,
who, still alive,
is asking, What
have I done that
you wouldn't have?

A poisoned mouse, still alive, quietly stares up at me from the floor, asking 'why have you done that? I wouldn't have'.

I'd love to know the actual answer Ian H!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 30 November, 2013, 06:45:12 pm


I'd love to know the actual answer Ian H!

You 'd have to ask the American poet, E.E. Cummings.*


*Cue for someone to get tiresome about capitals.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 01 December, 2013, 01:03:25 am


I'd love to know the actual answer Ian H!

You 'd have to ask the American poet, E.E. Cummings.*


*Cue for someone to get tiresome about capitals.

I can be tiresome at 1 in the morning after a long day's drinking.

Oh, I believe you mean e e cummings.

Yah boo.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 02 December, 2013, 12:17:11 am


I'd love to know the actual answer Ian H!

You 'd have to ask the American poet, E.E. Cummings.*


*Cue for someone to get tiresome about capitals.

I can be tiresome at 1 in the morning after a long day's drinking.

Oh, I believe you mean e e cummings.

Yah boo.

The Wikipedia entry (yeah, I know ...) suggests that Ian H did in fact mean E. E. Cummings, with one of the references supporting the idea that the poet himself preferred E.E. Cummings, at least when it came to the title page of one of his books ...

(Yes, there's a difference in the spacing there. I can be tiresome too.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Salvatore on 10 December, 2013, 01:41:36 pm
The OED says:

Quote from: OED
early doors
A. n. In a theatre, etc.: a period of admission ending some time before the performance begins, during which a wider selection of seating is available, usually for a higher price. Now hist.
B. adv. Early on; near the beginning. Freq. in the context of Association Football.

First quote for sense A is from 1883; for sense B from 1979.

See the bottom of this  1916 theatre poster (http://www.flickr.com/photos/nlireland/11307040295/in/photostream/) for an example whereas this one (http://www.flickr.com/photos/nlireland/11307078726/in/photostream/) also from 1916 is quite clear - "No early doors".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 11 December, 2013, 04:28:01 pm
http://toys.usvsth3m.com/control-your-inner-pedant/

Quote
The results are in! Your inner pedant is
80% under control
You can tollerate most mistakes.

Actually, my inner pedant wanted to point out that several of the examples aren't actually misteaks.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 December, 2013, 04:55:55 pm
http://toys.usvsth3m.com/control-your-inner-pedant/

Quote
The results are in! Your inner pedant is
80% under control
You can tollerate most mistakes.

Actually, my inner pedant wanted to point out that several of the examples aren't actually misteaks.
Is that part of the test?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 11 December, 2013, 05:45:14 pm
;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 11 December, 2013, 10:13:37 pm
Did anyone else want to be able to type 'No, your a dick'?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 11 December, 2013, 10:16:54 pm
http://toys.usvsth3m.com/control-your-inner-pedant/

Quote
The results are in! Your inner pedant is
80% under control
You can tollerate most mistakes.

Actually, my inner pedant wanted to point out that several of the examples aren't actually misteaks.
Is that part of the test?

Depends what you can tollerate...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 16 December, 2013, 05:58:59 pm
(there may be a better thread for this, but anyway ... )

Heard on the Today programme recently:
"It's heart-rendering".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 16 December, 2013, 07:18:11 pm
Were they describing the Turkey Twizzler manufacturing process?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 16 December, 2013, 07:22:37 pm
 ;D

Sadly no - it was actually quite a heart-rending sad item, so I thought twice about posting.

... but of course taking the piss out of the ignorant always wins out.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Palinurus on 22 December, 2013, 08:19:48 pm
Not grammar,more like a typing error,but spacing errors in typing always make me cringe.Even though they probably shouldn't.

Sometimes used on Twitter to considerable comic effect .See ,for example,@crimershow .

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 January, 2014, 09:47:05 pm
Quote
He had been stricken with a heart attack while reading proofs. Perhaps he died of a printing error.
Title: Re: Grammar what makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 31 January, 2014, 08:20:18 am
Sanguivoriphilia
Ouch! That's a horrible Latin/Greek hybrid. Try aimophagophilia, bdellophilia or bdelugmophilia. Love of, respectively, blood-eaters, bloodsuckers (specifically leeches, qv. bdellophobia, which is actually a word) and horrors and abominations. I like the last, with the echo of bdello-; "blood-sucking horror" is the mot juste.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 31 January, 2014, 08:26:29 am
.See ,for example,@crimershow .
Yes! Everyone should see this. The website is here (http://here), for the far too many people who will need to catch up with the first two seasonries.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 31 January, 2014, 04:17:19 pm
This lunchtime, I encountered a bit of a grammar issue which irked me.  I was sitting in the cafe, and glanced across to the big chaps at the next table.  I think they probably worked out.  Anyway, one of them was wearing a nice looking flying jacket labelled in two places as 'Aviatrix'.

I've seen nonsense on t-shaped shirts before, but this grated more, for some reason.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 31 January, 2014, 04:37:28 pm
Did they look like Amy Johnson?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 31 January, 2014, 04:39:14 pm
Did they look like Amy Johnson?

I was going to ask if the jacket buttoned/zipped the 'wrong' way.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 January, 2014, 04:41:55 pm
I think you're suffering from a variant of hochkommakrankheit (I'm not convinced that this is a genuine word). It's just a brand name or slogan.  :) But still, if it makes you cringe, that's what it does.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 31 January, 2014, 05:24:24 pm
This lunchtime, I encountered a bit of a grammar issue which irked me.  I was sitting in the cafe, and glanced across to the big chaps at the next table.  I think they probably worked out.  Anyway, one of them was wearing a nice looking flying jacket labelled in two places as 'Aviatrix'.

I've seen nonsense on t-shaped shirts before, but this grated more, for some reason.
I've seen a few adverts for US micro-brewers with a picture of a so-called 'brewster' with a bushy beard. Unless they're all like Steph, I think they're suffering from the same misunderstanding.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 06 February, 2014, 04:30:58 pm
I've received notification from The School that teacher X is unavailable for parent-teacher consultation this evening, due to 'unexpected illness'.
Is there expected illness then?
(Awaits examples, fellow pedants).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 06 February, 2014, 05:35:48 pm
You can expect a baby and its birth and plan elective surgery or medical investigations, I suppose.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 06 February, 2014, 06:03:05 pm
^^^Given pestilential kids, that fits.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 06 February, 2014, 08:28:32 pm
You can expect a baby and its birth and plan elective surgery or medical investigations, I suppose.

They're not illnesses, though, are they? Turns out (according to No2Daughter who had chemistry with him this morning) he's not ill, he had to go to A&E, as last night's football injury ballooned today into not-something-you-can-ice-away.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 06 February, 2014, 09:19:56 pm
We're experiencing the tail end of a round of expected illness in this house, after putting up visitors from Forn Parts whose immune systems weren't tuned into the Piccadilly Line.

I don't think it's entirely uncommon to go into some situation in the full knowledge that you're likely to contract lurgy from it.  Primary school teaching, epidemiology fieldwork, freshers' week, that sort of thing.
Title: Re: Grammar that doesn't make you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 07 February, 2014, 01:53:36 am
The Home Service, earlier this evening (well, yesterday evening now); some chap from a cancer research mob:-

"these data," repeatedly.

Hurrah!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 07 February, 2014, 08:35:05 am
Ooh that's a tough one. Datum is the latin singular and data is plural but even the OED admits that data is a word in flux and that common usage is for it to be treated as singular. It's sort of on it's way to being a collective noun. You would never say these flock when referring to a group of sheep. Agenda is similar in that it's technical plural but no one ever says "these agenda" unless referring to the fact that say your and my agendas (ooh look a plural plural) clash.
I like the older usage though but it does get confusing as "these data" could be referring to two separate collections of datums, you would need more context. 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 07 February, 2014, 08:51:35 am
I struggle with it too. I prefer to use "these data". But then, I still write, and sometimes say, "whom".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 07 February, 2014, 09:19:30 am
Yes, I agree with the idea that it's becoming a sort-of collective noun. I almost always initially use 'this data' (or another singular indicator), cringe internally, and find another way of phrasing it.

I rather admired the guy on the wireless using it correctly and sticking with it: by the third or fourth repetition it was beginning to sound right. ('Right' as in 'not unusual' -it was always 'right' as in 'correct'!)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 07 February, 2014, 09:27:48 am
Yes, I agree with the idea that it's becoming a sort-of collective noun. I almost always initially use 'this data' (or another singular indicator), cringe internally, and find another way of phrasing it.

I rather admired the guy on the wireless using it correctly and sticking with it: by the third or fourth repetition it was beginning to sound right. ('Right' as in 'not unusual' -it was always 'right' as in 'correct'!)

I think 'this data' for a data set, and 'these data' for several sets, is fine.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 07 February, 2014, 10:59:51 am
Have we already had medium/media/medias?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 February, 2014, 11:11:42 am
I don't remember coming across "medias" but I can think of contexts where both "medias" and "mediums" could be used. Mediums: different types of medium, such as floppy disk, cassette, hand signals, etc. Medias: different types of media, such as TV, newspapers, etc, or different TV stations and so on. "Most medias are available on many mediums. TV stations broadcast on the internet and newspapers run their own radio channels." It's ugly but they do or can have distinct meanings.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 07 February, 2014, 11:42:04 am
They shouldn't. The media (newspapers etc.) are media because there are more than one of them. Storage media ditto.

If you've only got one disc, or one newspaper, it's a medium. Pretty basic meaning, because a medium is a means of transmitting or transferring or carrying something.

But we've done all that...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 07 February, 2014, 01:13:48 pm
'Fora' and the proper use of 'data' have been the subject of many debates in this office.  Thankfully correct usage was come out on top. :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 07 February, 2014, 01:24:08 pm
Thankfully correct usage was come out on top.
???
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tigerrr on 07 February, 2014, 01:38:37 pm
Have we done 'pre-prepared' yet?   
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 07 February, 2014, 01:50:21 pm
Its a double "pre" but it's correct and makes sense. Prepare has lost most of the sense of the original latin formation through its journey through Middle French to English. We don't have "pare" as a word for make so that pre-pare would mean make in advance or before.
Anyone know if the French use prepare or its equivalent and if it retains the original latin meaning or the English usage ?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 07 February, 2014, 01:56:36 pm
Thankfully correct usage was come out on top.
???

The pitfalls of multi-tasking, should say has.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 February, 2014, 01:59:06 pm
Its a double "pre" but it's correct and makes sense. Prepare has lost most of the sense of the original latin formation through its journey through Middle French to English. We don't have "pare" as a word for make so that pre-pare would mean make in advance or before.
Anyone know if the French use prepare or its equivalent and if it retains the original latin meaning or the English usage ?
"Here's one I made earlier" works so much better than "Here's one I prepared".  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 07 February, 2014, 03:35:14 pm
I am doing an online course...

Sorry to pick on you, rr, but this is a personal bugbear - the ubiquitous use of "doing" when an alternative verb might be more elegant.

Taking a course, perhaps?

But it's no biggie. I shan't lose any sleep over it.

Fora, stadia, genii etc are ugly and unwelcome pedanticisms.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 07 February, 2014, 03:40:31 pm
Where might he be taking it to?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 07 February, 2014, 03:48:38 pm
I am doing an online course...

Sorry to pick on you, rr, but this is a personal bugbear - the ubiquitous use of "doing" when an alternative verb might be more elegant.

In a similar vein, my English teacher has left me with an abhorrence of 'get' or 'got' where any other construction can offer more precision or elegance.

Quote
Fora, stadia, genii etc are ugly and unwelcome pedanticisms.

I quite like stadia - stadiums feels ponderous. Fora risks being read as a typo for flora (and it's ugly), while genii is just silly. Back-formations like Guinnii were amusing once (and still are, after sufficient, um, Guinnii).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 07 February, 2014, 03:55:03 pm
I struggle with it too. I prefer to use "these data". But then, I still write, and sometimes say, "whom".

Ah, but I suspect you are old enough to recall Britain's unknown prime minister, Sir Alec Douglas Whom?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 07 February, 2014, 03:55:39 pm
Fora / Forums is contextual. If I was writing about Rome I would definitely use fora but about online stuff then forums. Not sure why but it would feel wrong otherwise.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 07 February, 2014, 03:56:28 pm
Where might he be taking it to?

The same place he takes his newspaper of choice. Or his medicine.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 07 February, 2014, 04:01:02 pm
Or a nap.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 07 February, 2014, 04:02:34 pm
I almost always treat data as plural to the extent I get surprised when someone else raises an eyebrow at my use of 'these data are...' etc. For me this is more than language pedantry. I deal with lots of data in my job and probably use the word 30+ times a day at work. I am usually discussing this in the context of how to process individual items within a dataset, and so it is handy to have a word that implies the plurality of the data. Whether or not there is more than one collection of data is often a moot point as this may be an arbitrary distinction based on file formats, collection organisation etc. So generally I have no need to make the distinction that Ian H refers to.

I still find myself referring to 'an item of data' rather than 'datum' when needing to reference the singular, but that is partly because in my line of work 'datum' is more commonly associated with a sea-level type benchmark for height measurements and geodesy.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 07 February, 2014, 04:58:47 pm
It's a useful distinction, though. "Data" used as a plural says something about what is being handled that "data" as a singular does not - that it's a collection that probably needs to be organised, handled and given structure.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SteveC on 07 February, 2014, 07:00:38 pm
As for Latinate plurals: I was once told that insects have antennae, radars have antennas.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 07 February, 2014, 09:48:23 pm
I thought radar used aerials.

Interesting: the difference in pronunciation between ablative used in grammar and ablative used in engineering.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 February, 2014, 10:09:11 pm
Fora / Forums is contextual. If I was writing about Rome I would definitely use fora but about online stuff then forums. Not sure why but it would feel wrong otherwise.
Because the meanings are different.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 07 February, 2014, 10:23:18 pm
Why different? A forum is a meeting place. The Web ones are just virtual.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 February, 2014, 10:33:28 pm
And that's the difference. In a hundred years it will probably cease to be important and we'll use one form again.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 February, 2014, 07:48:27 am
A group of people who claim they can contact the dead: media or mediums?
Their online meeting places: Mediums' forums? Media fora? Mediums' fora? Media forums? Medias' fora? How do you make a word like media possessive without talking Latin?

Or maybe "chat rooms for psychics"!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 08 February, 2014, 09:57:25 am
What about the use of "education" where "training" is meant? Education tends to imbue broad, re-usable skills that can be applied in many areas. Training is more aimed at how to do specific tasks. Many companies now have "customer education" departments, when they mean "training". I'm not sure that "educating" customers that your product is best is appropriate; the word there is "indoctrination", surely?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 08 February, 2014, 12:13:21 pm

How do you make a word like media possessive without talking Latin?

Apostrophe-S seems fine to me.

The different meanings have a common etymology so it would be consistent to use the same plural form for both... except that "media" for "more than one psychic" sounds utterly ridiculous. And sounding ridiculous for the sake of pedantic correctness is generally to be avoided.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 08 February, 2014, 12:13:47 pm
What about the use of "education" where "training" is meant? Education tends to imbue broad, re-usable skills that can be applied in many areas. Training is more aimed at how to do specific tasks. Many companies now have "customer education" departments, when they mean "training". I'm not sure that "educating" customers that your product is best is appropriate; the word there is "indoctrination", surely?
I think this is a fair criticism, but it's typical of marketing speak ("previously cherished" 2nd hand cars anyone?).

Also I think it's too grey an area. Do we train doctors? Or educate them? And do schools not teach any specifics?

[I hadn't really thought about the education/indoctrination doublespeak thing before  - good observation. I shall think of this sinister overtone next time I see "customer education" !]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 February, 2014, 12:26:24 pm
I don't think I've come across this "customer education" phrase. What's wrong with "customer information"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 February, 2014, 12:28:59 pm

How do you make a word like media possessive without talking Latin?

Apostrophe-S seems fine to me.

The different meanings have a common etymology so it would be consistent to use the same plural form for both... except that "media" for "more than one psychic" sounds utterly ridiculous. And sounding ridiculous for the sake of pedantic correctness is generally to be avoided.
It does and it is.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 08 February, 2014, 04:07:43 pm
Do we train doctors? Or educate them? And do schools not teach any specifics?
I'd have said that we educate doctors in human biology, and then train them to conduct specific surgery, or whatever. And no, schools don't do much training, because they don't know their pupils' future careers.

I am not, however, arguing that it's very hard and fast. A lot of the time, someone would be using his, or her, training and education together, and it would be hard to say precisely which was which, any more than you can separate playing football from running - there are things that are clearly one or the other, and other things that are both.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 11 February, 2014, 11:52:31 am
I a'ssume it's becau'se it's the con'struction indu'stry we don't get literate emails?

Quote from: Speedy
Hello,
Employer's who's staff who may be required to use Abrasive Wheels during the course of their everyday duties are required to comply with the Provision and Use of Work Equipment regulation's (PUWER) to ensure that their staff are competent in the safe use of this hazardous piece of equipment
Title: Re: Grammar what makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 11 February, 2014, 07:31:12 pm
I almost always treat data as plural to the extent I get surprised when someone else raises an eyebrow at my use of 'these data are...' etc. For me this is more than language pedantry. I deal with lots of data in my job and probably use the word 30+ times a day at work. I am usually discussing this in the context of how to process individual items within a dataset, and so it is handy to have a word that implies the plurality of the data. Whether or not there is more than one collection of data is often a moot point as this may be an arbitrary distinction based on file formats, collection organisation etc. So generally I have no need to make the distinction that Ian H refers to.

I still find myself referring to 'an item of data' rather than 'datum' when needing to reference the singular, but that is partly because in my line of work 'datum' is more commonly associated with a sea-level type benchmark for height measurements and geodesy.

Yes. Data are what scientists deal with. Data is what computer programmers deal with. The borderline between the two is a Sorites problem.

Datum for a singular piece of data is wrongy wrong wrong. Also, the plural of datum is datums.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 27 February, 2014, 12:12:00 am
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-26351494
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 February, 2014, 09:05:27 am
Never mind the bridge collapsing, there's a grossers's apostrophe. How groce!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 27 February, 2014, 09:11:12 am
It's not the apostrophe that is wrong but rather the rest of the sign. It should have read:

Road closed due to the fact that it's structurally unstable.

See no problem with apostrophe now :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 27 February, 2014, 10:06:28 am
...owing to...  ;D ;D ;D

I'm with Fowler, even if the author of this good summary (http://www.dailywritingtips.com/owing-to-vs-due-to/) has reservations. I'm one of the sad souls who get a judder inside when the "wrong" one is used.

You could say "Closure of road due to the fact that it's structurally unstable" (where the reference is to the noun "closure"), but "Road closed owing to the fact that it's structurally unstable" (where the reference is to the verb "close").
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 February, 2014, 10:27:24 am
But road signs need to be read quickly and have limited space, so you end up with
"Closed because structurally unstable"
 :-\
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 27 February, 2014, 10:56:06 am
Oh yes, definitely, on a road sign, the shorter the better:

Closed - structurally unstable

But the original sign wasn't short, which is probably a worse problem than the greengrocer's apostrophe.

In fact, since you have to pause and consider what "structural instability" means in real terms, maybe "Weak bridge" or "Subsidence", depending on which section is actually at risk, might be better, if less precise.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 February, 2014, 09:25:21 am
Yes to the above!

Meanwhile:
(https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7444/12830890383_4ce2c8af7d_n.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 28 February, 2014, 09:45:36 am
If they'd put "toyses" it would have been arch, but as it is it's just thick.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 02 March, 2014, 09:59:26 am
Formally/formerly - erk!

http://www.harrowtimes.co.uk/news/11046273.Synagogues_to_join_together/?ref=eb (http://www.harrowtimes.co.uk/news/11046273.Synagogues_to_join_together/?ref=eb)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 02 March, 2014, 10:43:42 am
It passes the spellcheck, it must be right!  ::-)

My submission for today, not so much the grammar*, but more for changing the laws of physics:

Quote from: http://www.outboundmaps.co.uk/product.php/5280/silva-headlamp-siju-cube
The Cube has 48 hours of battery life and powers a 16 lumen LED bulb for an arc of light of 15m in length.



* though the subject of the verb looks suspect, as does the "for".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 02 March, 2014, 06:24:20 pm
The BBC News website again:

Quote
Glimpses of Prince George, seen here leaving hospital after his birth, are likely to be fleeing during the official tour

Caption on a picture from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26409594
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 02 March, 2014, 07:06:25 pm
Another  one for Lost Consonants, it would appear.
Peter Walker in the Guardian seems to have written 'nothing' when he meant 'noting' today.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 03 March, 2014, 11:01:43 am
Saw a sign by some roadworks on Saturday's ride that made me think of this thread, would have stopped to take a pic but couldn't be bothered. The wording was:

"Slow down your speed"

???

Surely "reduce your speed" or "slow down your vehicle"? But "slow down your speed" just makes me itch.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 March, 2014, 11:43:17 am
Just "slow down" would have been enough. Short and unambiguous.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 03 March, 2014, 11:50:20 am
Indeed.

Although that makes me think of Simon & Garfunkel.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 03 March, 2014, 12:11:29 pm
Saw a sign by some roadworks on Saturday's ride that made me think of this thread, would have stopped to take a pic but couldn't be bothered. The wording was:

"Slow down your speed"

???

Surely "reduce your speed" or "slow down your vehicle"? But "slow down your speed" just makes me itch.

Hmm, in a recent press release from our faulty marketing drones of subdeck 38G Section 554xb3 they used the line

'...accelerate the time to...'

I'm still not sure that entirely meant what they meant it to mean. They could have just reduced, of course. Mind you, they mostly just spark and emit entire gobbledygook and bad smells, so that's possibly an improvement.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 03 March, 2014, 12:50:59 pm
Seen on another forum: "I am loathed to throw them away...".

For some reason this reminds me of a chum who once said "...and they spurned on him".  I didn't have the courage to ask what he thought spurn meant.

Another one made me chuckle just now, in that organ of august scholarship History Today, no less: "...rather that illiciting a prickly denial of overlordship..."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 04 March, 2014, 09:22:40 pm
(http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k170/smutchin/6F35F01A-940D-4750-BCA5-3C3801701354_zpspjfiwdvy.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 04 March, 2014, 09:31:09 pm
Oh dear! Sentencing is obviously too good for them.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 05 March, 2014, 12:22:21 am
I counted 12. Any more?

That's quite an achievement.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 05 March, 2014, 06:53:38 am
It was the best of signs, it was the worst of signs.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 05 March, 2014, 07:57:33 am
I counted 12. Any more?

That's quite an achievement.
I got 13 but one or two are more stylistic than pure grammar.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 05 March, 2014, 08:21:35 am
I counted 12. Any more?

That's quite an achievement.
I got 13 but one or two are more stylistic than pure grammar.

I got to 14 and gave up, but at least one was an inconsistency (homemade and home made can't both be right in the same paragraph).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 05 March, 2014, 09:36:13 am
I counted at least 17 errors, though as Auntie Helen says, some more of style than grammar (I count the homemade/home made inconsistency as one of those).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 05 March, 2014, 10:04:37 am
I am genuinely puzzled as to how that got through all the processes to finished sign without anyone either noticing or caring enough to correct it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 05 March, 2014, 12:11:19 pm
Yes that puzzled me too. It seems to be a perfect storm of ignorance of grammar, Dickens, communication style and layout. You'd like to think that at least some of those bases would be covered between all who must have been involved in getting that sign made.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 March, 2014, 12:16:57 pm
Sign makers have fallen on hard times and are in a bleak place.


I'll let myself out...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 05 March, 2014, 01:08:43 pm
Nowadays it might just be a customer with a PC who sends a word processor file to the person with a big sign printer. Which equally begs the question, who would set themselves up as sign printing outfit if they're incapable of spotting basic errors?
It's very interesting though. Whoever typed it up is not a complete novice: they've managed to use the same typeface throughout for a start, there's no underlining and the font sizes are appropriate to the content. On the other hand they've clearly got autocorrect turned on (copper field) and are blindly trusting it, but they're ignoring any other errors which would surely have been highlighted.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Phil W on 05 March, 2014, 01:11:20 pm

It was the best of signs, it was the worst of signs.

That should be

"it was the Best of sign's, It was the worst of Signs"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 05 March, 2014, 01:12:35 pm
Across the road is a wonderful poster in the window of the corner shop.  It lists the fruit & veg they typically sell.  All goes well until the last item: Pear's.  Unless, of course, they keep the soap in the fresh fruit section, in which case I apologise for any false assumptions I have made.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 05 March, 2014, 02:13:29 pm
Nowt to do with grammar, but I can just imagine the scene in the cafeteria:

Waitress: Here we are, love, your tea and scones.

Love: So where's the bubbly?

Waitress: Just coming up. [Pours milk into glass, inserts straw and blows bubbles.] There we are, dear.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 March, 2014, 02:22:02 pm
Nowt to do with grammar, but I can just imagine the scene in the cafeteria:

Waitress: Here we are, love, your tea and scones.

Love: So where's the bubbly?

Waitress: Just coming up. [Pours milk into glass, inserts straw and blows bubbles.] There we are, dear.
;D

For YACF, that was a surprisingly clean version of bubbly.  :o
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 05 March, 2014, 02:48:53 pm
Across the road is a wonderful poster in the window of the corner shop.  It lists the fruit & veg they typically sell.  All goes well until the last item: Pear's.  Unless, of course, they keep the soap in the fresh fruit section, in which case I apologise for any false assumptions I have made.

Your only false assumption appears to be that the shop is something other than a grocer's.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 05 March, 2014, 03:51:17 pm
As I was toiling up East Hill in Colchester this morning on the trike I saw this:

(https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/t1/1888611_10151903667246786_1287560224_n.jpg)

Not sure what I do if I want to sell them my records.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 March, 2014, 05:20:07 pm
"Bring and sell" is a small, logical step from "bring and buy"...

I presume that's not your bike leaning against the bench and bin (on the basis that it's not a recumbent) so is it a customer's or is it an "antique" for sale?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 05 March, 2014, 05:21:44 pm
It's an "antique" for sale - at least I assume so as it's been there the last few times I passed.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 March, 2014, 05:23:45 pm
Let's hope they don't sell Alfie(?) while you're in there!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 05 March, 2014, 11:31:01 pm
Not exactly grammar, but amusing - seen on a sign outside a pub on my way home this evening:-

"Live karache here", with sundry bits of musical notation around it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: shyumu on 19 March, 2014, 06:18:21 pm
(http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg53/shyumu/Grammar_zpsf22f2ed0.jpg) (http://s245.photobucket.com/user/shyumu/media/Grammar_zpsf22f2ed0.jpg.html)

Um.  What?

Later on during the same day I overheard one gentleman telling another, "We're nearly finished deplaning the plane".  I wondered what they would have left when they'd finished that job.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 March, 2014, 10:47:15 pm
From Anne Mustoe's book about riding round the world. Here she is in the Sind desert:
Quote
The kilometre stones gave the place names in Urdu and the distances in Arabic numerals.
That's ambiguous; does she mean the numerals we use and call Arabic or the numerals actually used in Arabic? I'd have presumed the first but Wikipedia shows numerals included in the Urdu alphabet so probably that, particularly as she was there in 1987.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: tiermat on 20 March, 2014, 12:11:34 pm
A particularly annoying one from "Dead Trigger 2"

"Clear area from zombies"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 20 March, 2014, 07:56:55 pm
Across the road is a wonderful poster in the window of the corner shop.  It lists the fruit & veg they typically sell.  All goes well until the last item: Pear's.  Unless, of course, they keep the soap in the fresh fruit section, in which case I apologise for any false assumptions I have made.

(http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7162/13294052703_6c8967fc5d.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/93751227@N04/13294052703/)
P3050027 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/93751227@N04/13294052703/) by TJ Clarion (http://www.flickr.com/people/93751227@N04/), on Flickr
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 20 March, 2014, 09:37:06 pm
Saw a sign by some roadworks on Saturday's ride that made me think of this thread, would have stopped to take a pic but couldn't be bothered. The wording was:

"Slow down your speed"

???

Surely "reduce your speed" or "slow down your vehicle"? But "slow down your speed" just makes me itch.
That is the direct parallel of weatherpersons who refer to hot and cold temperatures.

"Don't touch that temperature! It's hot and will burn you!"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 21 March, 2014, 10:03:11 am
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BjPh0LXIYAAs4E3.jpg)

"St. Michael's Infants is still outstanding!"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 March, 2014, 10:15:15 am
As they haven't included "school" arguably there's no need for an apostrophe on "infants". Even if they had said "infants school", it's a common enough pairing for "infants" to be considered an adjective. In fact, I note the sign behind says "infant school".

Infant always strikes me as an odd sounding word.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 21 March, 2014, 10:26:57 am
The implied subject of the verb is school, singular. I agree that it's perfectly acceptable for that word to be omitted for the sentence to make sense and sound less formal, but in that context "infants" is still possessive plural and therefore requires an apostrophe. Just because something is in common use does not make it right, and you should of known that! :P
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 March, 2014, 10:31:12 am
You've learnt me proper now.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 21 March, 2014, 11:44:09 am
Another way of looking at it: "Infants" is a metonym and functionally singular.

Anyway, slightly tangential but it makes me think: "Not just Infants... M&S Infants!" (One for older readers.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 21 March, 2014, 03:31:35 pm
M  & S - masculine and singular?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 March, 2014, 01:33:07 pm
Text are not GR8 for English skills in youngsters

http://www.gloucestercitizen.co.uk/GR8-English-skills-youngsters/story-20845296-detail/story.html#ixzz2wt26XAMY

If you're going to moan about kids' English, you could at least make sure your verb agrees with its subject.  ::-)
Or should that be "...your verbs agrees with their subject"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 24 March, 2014, 02:11:04 pm
(http://i952.photobucket.com/albums/ae7/fboab/20140315_114239.jpg)

Really. These people are by appointment.
The Post Office need to take the test (http://www.tolearnenglish.com/exercises/exercise-english-1/exercise-english-337.php)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 24 March, 2014, 02:41:25 pm
The post office have* previous - I thought I'd posted this in this thread before but can find no record of having done so...

(http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k170/smutchin/postoffice_zpsb4684ea0.jpg)



*Thought struck me while I was typing that: I'm sure Andrij or someone is going to complain about my use of "have" there. ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 24 March, 2014, 03:20:06 pm
Collective nouns are grammatically singular, I thought...   ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 March, 2014, 04:19:04 pm
Clearly the Post Office employ an uber-geek who was upset by the lack of verb in that sentence, so added the apostrophe to create one.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 24 March, 2014, 04:27:46 pm
Clearly the Post Office employ an uber-geek who was upset by the lack of verb in that sentence, so added the apostrophe to create one.

...which has just made me think of a suitable riposte to the one fboab spotted:

"Yes, it does."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 24 March, 2014, 08:08:43 pm

*Thought struck me while I was typing that: I'm sure Andrij or someone is going to complain about my use of "have" there. ;)

 ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Vince on 31 March, 2014, 01:20:13 pm
I'm not sure if this is a grammar issue (I was away from school the day we did grammar) but a sign outside a Brightlingsea school says:

VI FORM COLLEGE

I was trying to work out what a vi form was for about 20 second before realising that 6th Form College (including the use of lower case letters) would have made a more reasonable description.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 31 March, 2014, 01:40:58 pm
VI form is quite a traditional way to write it ???
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Zipperhead on 31 March, 2014, 02:03:45 pm
No, it's just a college for unix geeks.

(emacs freeaks can just go and play with the traffic)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 31 March, 2014, 02:13:56 pm
VI form is quite a traditional way to write it ???

It is. Before we had that new year numbering, where the First Year in secondary school became Year 7, Posh Schools started at the Upper Third.
Years 10 & 11 were the Lower and Upper Fifth.
Sixth Form followed this...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 31 March, 2014, 02:15:33 pm
No, it's just a college for unix geeks.

(emacs freeaks can just go and play with the traffic)

 ;D

Re: use of 'VI' for 6th, Newham Sixth Form College here in Londinium is known as NewVIC.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 31 March, 2014, 03:27:22 pm

Re: use of 'VI' for 6th, Newham Sixth Form College here in Londinium is known as NewVIC.

That seems a little dramatic.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 31 March, 2014, 06:28:38 pm
I studied for my A-levels at SEEVIC (South East Essex Sixth Form College)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 31 March, 2014, 06:36:18 pm
Collective nouns are grammatically singular, I thought...   ;)
Indeed, but are increasingly being treated as plural.

Some of the nouns now given plural forms of verbs surprise me.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 01 April, 2014, 07:47:41 am
Collective nouns are grammatically singular, I thought...   ;)
Indeed, but are increasingly being treated as plural.

Some of the nouns now given plural forms of verbs surprise me.

Collective nouns may take the singular or the plural.  I have not noticed any tendency in current writing to prefer the one over the other; on the other hand, I have noticed an increasing tendency for writers to get confused halfway through a sentence.  "People cannot get it through their head" - presumably the Roman people as wished for by Caligula.  "A line of people was making their way through a tent" is another example I read a couple of days ago. Admittedly, this latter is probably the result of wrongheaded desire to apply the word their everywhere possible for fear of arousing hyperegalitarians.

The naive use of plurals where a perfectly good collective singular form exists is also on the increase. Cannons instead of cannon, etc.

Anent the PC their, its abuse is now so prevalent as to constitute an epidemic worthy of WHO attention.  Theoden as written by Tolkein: "No father should have to bury his son". As rewritten by Peter Jackson's cohorts: "No parent should have to bury their child".  YETCH!!!  And it used to be that the pronoun for a child was it. Three guesses as to what's prevalent nowadays. It it ain't.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 April, 2014, 10:22:30 am
It as a pronoun for humans sounds... dehumanising. If you're talking about a particular child, you can use he or she. If you don't know the child then you can find another way to phrase the sentence, avoiding animate it and singular they.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 01 April, 2014, 11:00:05 am
Most people's children are inhuman.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 01 April, 2014, 11:20:45 am
on the other hand, I have noticed an increasing tendency for writers to get confused halfway through a sentence.  "People cannot get it through their head"

Nothing wrong with that, if you presume that the people have only one head each.

(Compare and contrast: "Men with big noses." / "Men with a big nose.")
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 01 April, 2014, 11:47:30 am
If there were more than one man, you'd hope for more than one nose.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 01 April, 2014, 11:55:27 am
It as a pronoun for humans sounds... dehumanising. If you're talking about a particular child, you can use he or she. If you don't know the child then you can find another way to phrase the sentence, avoiding animate it and singular they.
Many languages don't have male or female pronouns. Some distinguish between people & objects, but in many others everyone is 'it'.

I've read a diary entry from a few hundred years ago, written after the death of a small child. The author was obviously heartbroken at the death of his beloved daughter - & consistently referred to her as 'it'. It wasn't at all dehumanising in his mind.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 01 April, 2014, 12:47:31 pm
If there were more than one man, you'd hope for more than one nose.

Yesbutnobut... This is all sounding boringly familiar.... I'm sure we've done this discussion before so I won't labour the point.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 April, 2014, 01:27:03 pm
It as a pronoun for humans sounds... dehumanising. If you're talking about a particular child, you can use he or she. If you don't know the child then you can find another way to phrase the sentence, avoiding animate it and singular they.
Many languages don't have male or female pronouns. Some distinguish between people & objects, but in many others everyone is 'it'.

I've read a diary entry from a few hundred years ago, written after the death of a small child. The author was obviously heartbroken at the death of his beloved daughter - & consistently referred to her as 'it'. It wasn't at all dehumanising in his mind.
But that doesn't necessarily mean it's the same in English now.

<Digression into other languages>"Child" is neuter in Polish, but forms a plural and is used with particular forms of numbers typical of people. English doesn't have those, which is occasionally a shame.</Digression>
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 01 April, 2014, 03:27:03 pm
If there were more than one man, you'd hope for more than one nose.

Yesbutnobut... This is all sounding boringly familiar.... I'm sure we've done this discussion before so I won't labour the point.

We've done ellipsis litter before but that doesn't mean we can't do it again...

(Yours is fine, it's just reminded me of all the others...)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 01 April, 2014, 04:02:41 pm
But have we done ellipsis singular / plural yet? It one of those comparatively rare instances where the the 'correct' written form of the plural is more ambiguous than the incorrect...

Ellipse or ellipses?

            ... ... ...
    ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
    ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
            ... ... ...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 01 April, 2014, 04:11:49 pm
We've done ellipsis litter before but that doesn't mean we can't do it again...

(Yours is fine, it's just reminded me of all the others...)

Thank you for highlighting it. It's an annoying habit that is far too easy to fall into.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 02 April, 2014, 08:07:38 am

Ellipse or ellipses?


Don't know.  Shall we make it an agendum?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 02 April, 2014, 09:28:48 am
But have we done ellipsis singular / plural yet? It one of those comparatively rare instances where the the 'correct' written form of the plural is more ambiguous than the incorrect...

Ellipse or ellipses?

            ... ... ...
    ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
    ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
            ... ... ...

Very good!


Paragraphs of a hundred+ words with only ellipsises for punctuation are a bit naff. Citoyen's [ellipsiseses] made sense in their context.

With trailing ellipses, I just assume the poster hasn't finished writing yet, so the content can be safely ignored.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 02 April, 2014, 09:58:34 am
[...] naff [...] Citoyen's [...] writing [...] can be safely ignored.

I hope I haven't quoted you out of context, but that's a bit harsh isn't it?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 02 April, 2014, 10:08:41 am
yes, you have!

(and I'm not sure how serious you're being, so I'll leave it at that ...   . )
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 02 April, 2014, 12:09:05 pm
Harsh but probably fair!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 02 April, 2014, 01:02:29 pm
on the other hand, I have noticed an increasing tendency for writers to get confused halfway through a sentence.  "People cannot get it through their head"

Nothing wrong with that, if you presume that the people have only one head each.

(Compare and contrast: "Men with big noses." / "Men with a big nose.")

Wrong: if people have one head each then people have heads.

"Men with a big nose" is wrong as well, unless they're brandishing some kind of papier maché effort in a pageant.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 02 April, 2014, 01:18:43 pm
It can matter quite a lot. 100 soldiers with a machine gun would be a lot less worrying if your side had 10 soldiers with machine guns ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 02 April, 2014, 01:22:06 pm
Naturally, but despite US protestations to the contrary, firearms are not a natural part of the human anatomy.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Vince on 02 April, 2014, 01:26:19 pm
Naturally, but despite US protestations to the contrary, firearms are not a natural part of the human anatomy.
Clean up to isle 3 please - Coffee to be removed from keyboard
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 02 April, 2014, 01:30:34 pm
Naturally, but despite US protestations to the contrary, firearms are not a natural part of the human anatomy.

They get brandished though - I think it was you who set me on that train of thought by using the word ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 02 April, 2014, 01:33:15 pm
Naturally, but despite US protestations to the contrary, firearms are not a natural part of the human anatomy.
And following on this, isn't ambiguity important here?
US Cidzuns have 0,1 or several guns.

Most humans have 1 nose. So you can say "the mens' noses" or "men with big noses" and it is implied that there are as many noses as men i.e. no confusion.

But "women with big guns" leaves a lot to ... er ... the imagination.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 April, 2014, 01:51:41 pm
Naturally, but despite US protestations to the contrary, firearms are not a natural part of the human anatomy.
And following on this, isn't ambiguity important here?
US Cidzens have 0,1 or several guns.

Most humans have 1 nose. So you can say "the mens' noses" or "men with big noses" and it is implied that there are as many noses as men i.e. no confusion.

But "women with big guns" leaves a lot to ... er ... the imagination.
Does that mean all the men are grocers? Or even grocer's? :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 02 April, 2014, 03:55:43 pm
Naturally, but despite US protestations to the contrary, firearms are not a natural part of the human anatomy.
And following on this, isn't ambiguity important here?
US Cidzuns have 0,1 or several guns.

Most humans have 1 nose. So you can say "the mens' noses" or "men with big noses" and it is implied that there are as many noses as men i.e. no confusion.

But "women with big guns" leaves a lot to ... er ... the imagination.

It gets even murkier in US states with a concealed/unconcealed-carry law.
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 02 April, 2014, 08:39:52 pm
it is implied that there are as many noses as men i.e. no confusion.

No, it would be a reasonable assumption most of the time but it is still an assumption and not logically implied.

Another example:
"Men with a big nose and a small nose" - would that describe a group of men with two noses each or two noses between them?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 02 April, 2014, 09:24:54 pm
"Men with a big nose and a small nose":  I would infer that the aforesaid men had two noses each, and that whoever formulated the sentence didn't really know how to say so clearly.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 April, 2014, 09:35:19 pm
"Men with a big nose and a small nose" is a very strange sentence. Without any context it's so ambiguous as to be meaningless, other than as an example or question or in a pedantic grammar book.

"Men with big noses and small noses" clearly means men with any size nose, unless the context is so particular as to make it clear that we are dealing with multi-hootered individuals.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 02 April, 2014, 09:38:31 pm
Apologies. I removed my posting because I made an error after the part that T42 quoted, and I wanted to rethink.

I would understand the meaning to be two between them.

The singular implies collective possession of one item, and the plural is most likely to mean one each; the plural could mean that the crowd shares more than one, but less than one each, but the context should make this clear.

If ambiguity is a real concern, you can introduce "each" to resolve it: Men, each with a big nose and a small nose. As Cudzoziemiec suggests, given that the possession of anything other than one nose per person is inherently improbable, the need to resolve ambiguity would always apply to noses.

If you wanted to express the fact that many men shared fewer, but more than one, noses, you would have to write this more explicitly. I doubt that you will find yourself doing that too frequently.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 02 April, 2014, 09:40:47 pm
OK, I killed mine too.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 03 April, 2014, 12:16:47 am
I doubt that you will find yourself doing that too frequently.

True but that's missing the point somewhat.

"Men with a big nose and a small nose" is entirely clear and unambiguous if you follow the logic of it. You're all making this far more complicated than it needs to be.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 03 April, 2014, 12:18:14 am
I would infer that the aforesaid men had two noses each, and that whoever formulated the sentence didn't really know how to say so clearly.

It appears to be clear enough that you were able to make the correct inference.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 03 April, 2014, 12:37:32 am
I doubt that you will find yourself doing that too frequently.

True but that's missing the point somewhat.

"Men with a big nose and a small nose" is entirely clear and unambiguous if you follow the logic of it. You're all making this far more complicated than it needs to be.

Except that where clear and unambiguous logic leads us beyond the grounds of physical possibility (at least, absent mutations), it's arguable that it's not us introducing the complexity.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 03 April, 2014, 09:08:05 am
I would infer that the aforesaid men had two noses each, and that whoever formulated the sentence didn't really know how to say so clearly.

It appears to be clear enough that you were able to make the correct inference.

Much of the Internet would be unintelligible if we weren't capable of reading past what the author really meant to say.  That doesn't mean it's sparkling prose.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 04 April, 2014, 02:17:30 pm
May - permission.
Might - probability.
Due - time.
Owing - cause and effect.

"Due to leaves on the line the train may be late" - no, no, no.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 10 April, 2014, 06:32:13 am
Spotted on the way home from work this evening. I must have passed this many hundreds of times in the last few years but have never noticed it before.

(http://www.soi.city.ac.uk/~jwo/acf/yourBeautiful.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 10 April, 2014, 06:43:24 am
Nice juxtaposition of the word launderette reflected in the glass though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 10 April, 2014, 08:08:51 am
Seems fair enough to me - after all, they're your beautiful nails or tan, not mine. Or maybe it's just run by a Ms or Mr Your.

(Yes, the juxtaposition of Launderette makes it.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 April, 2014, 09:12:24 am
File under "accidents that make you smile".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Steph on 10 April, 2014, 04:21:05 pm
I find myself yet again wanting to shout at train guards. The train will shortly be arriving AT, not INTO!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 10 April, 2014, 07:04:07 pm
Young person serving in a pub the other day: "May you enter in your PIN number now please, sir."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 10 April, 2014, 07:08:04 pm
I find myself yet again wanting to shout at train guards. The train will shortly be arriving AT, not INTO!

Which station stop was that?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 10 April, 2014, 11:22:32 pm
I find myself yet again wanting to shout at train guards. The train will shortly be arriving AT, not INTO!

Which station stop was that?

 ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 April, 2014, 03:00:18 pm
At that point the Bluefin 21 submersible drone will be sent down to search for wreckage on the sea floor, but this could be a laborious and pain-staking task made more difficult by the presence of silt.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-26984162

It would have been even more painful if there had been not only stakes but slits instead of silt.
 ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 April, 2014, 02:53:35 pm
From the blurb of a Festival of Ideas event about some local campaigners against FGM:
Hear how they have managed to break down the wall of silence around FGM and why they won't be stopping to talk about it any time soon.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 April, 2014, 03:01:58 pm
And one that's grammar only in the widest sense of the word:

S ON L
G E
O A
D D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 29 April, 2014, 03:47:20 pm
Dextrous toes!

<<Insp Richard Mallett, of the Surrey Roads Policing Unit, said officers had also spotted a lorry driver texting with one foot on the dashboard.>>

From http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-27196621 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-27196621)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 05 May, 2014, 11:39:08 am
(http://handsonit.co.uk/images/IMG_0188.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: tiermat on 06 May, 2014, 04:06:25 pm
From a ticket in our queue today:

"After logging users sessions off and them logging back in users no longer experience the issue until it occurs again."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: phantasmagoriana on 06 May, 2014, 11:00:03 pm
Radio 4 presenters: please learn the difference between "temporarily" and "temporally".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 07 May, 2014, 01:44:17 pm
Radio 4 presenters: please learn the difference between "temporarily" and "temporally".

Agreed. https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2205.msg520595#msg520595 (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2205.msg520595#msg520595)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 19 May, 2014, 10:36:17 am
The Germans can't get apostrophes right either!

(https://scontent-b-fra.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/t31.0-8/10368920_10152034420811786_7674302193685080171_o.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 28 May, 2014, 01:07:08 am
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.

And if she meant "LOL", why, that's even worse...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 28 May, 2014, 08:36:44 am
From our Helldesk web page:
Quote
Some DII Users will have being unable to of had their UADs rebuilt. A fix has being delivered from engineering
??? :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 28 May, 2014, 09:26:34 am
From our Helldesk web page:
Quote
Some DII Users will have being unable to of had their UADs rebuilt. A fix has being delivered from engineering
??? :facepalm:

They should have written the message before shooting up.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 28 May, 2014, 06:30:30 pm
From our Helldesk web page:
Quote
Some DII Users will have being unable to of had their UADs rebuilt. A fix has being delivered from engineering
??? :facepalm:

They should have of written the message before shooting up.

FTFY 8)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 28 May, 2014, 09:21:01 pm
^^^should of wrote, surely?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 05 June, 2014, 06:26:16 pm
A beard described as "grizzled with grey"  :facepalm:
In a book I plucked from a library shelf & took out after a too cursory glance. I only managed to read a few pages.

Fiction, publication of which was aided by some fund for the promotion of Welsh (as in from Wales, not in Welsh) writing. Always a bad sign, & I wish I'd spotted it before I got the book home.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 09 June, 2014, 08:56:14 pm
From this evening's (low) Standard:

Quote
The MPs include former children's minister Tim Loughton, Labour MP SAimon Danczuk, who wrote a book about the abuse perpetrated by late MP Cyril Smith, Green leader Caroline Lucas and Labour MP Tom Watson
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 June, 2014, 06:53:20 pm
"Banks can now borrow at low rates and on-lend that money."

On-lend?  :o
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 16 June, 2014, 05:22:54 pm
Use of the ersatz singular "bicep" irritates me far more than it ought to. But it is wrong none the less, akin to "a pair of trouser".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Clare on 17 June, 2014, 09:14:42 am
Help me out here...


'You would need the Extended Diploma to achieve the 120 credits required for entry onto the Masters' course'

Master's
Masters'
Masters

or any of the above without the capital. This is relating to an MSc.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: fields5069 on 17 June, 2014, 09:37:21 am
A waiter in a posh pub kept on referring to me as "yourself", I suppose believing that this was more formal and polite, when in fact it was just THICK.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 17 June, 2014, 10:43:35 am
Help me out here...


'You would need the Extended Diploma to achieve the 120 credits required for entry onto the Masters' course'

Master's
Masters'
Masters

or any of the above without the capital. This is relating to an MSc.

Interesting! It's not a course in the subject of mastery, or about Masters or even by a Master - it's a shortening of "master's degree course". So it should be master's course - it's not pluralised even in master's degrees or master's courses. It would be capitalised for a specific degree, e.g., Master of Science, but not in the general case.

A pedant might also not like "onto" (unless it's a maths master's).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 June, 2014, 11:26:50 am
From Road.cc:
You can use them [Dura-Ace shifters] to shift up through multiple gears, so panicky monster-hill-round-a-blind-bend downshifts are easily accommodated.

I'm sure when I started cycling, shifting up meant to a smaller cog, which was called a higher gear. Nowadays, some people call that shifting down, which is logical because the chain physically moves down to a smaller cog, and you can also mathematically justify calling that a lower ratio. But it's confusing when you don't know which way someone means by "shifting down (or up)". Using both in one sentence is just silly!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 23 June, 2014, 11:33:45 am
Grrr!  Pet hate is perfectly good and specific technical language being muddied by idiots.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 23 June, 2014, 12:12:33 pm
See also the "clutch in/out" conundrum...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 23 June, 2014, 12:38:08 pm
From Road.cc:
You can use them [Dura-Ace shifters] to shift up through multiple gears, so panicky monster-hill-round-a-blind-bend downshifts are easily accommodated.

I'm sure when I started cycling, shifting up meant to a smaller cog, which was called a higher gear. Nowadays, some people call that shifting down, which is logical because the chain physically moves down to a smaller cog, and you can also mathematically justify calling that a lower ratio. But it's confusing when you don't know which way someone means by "shifting down (or up)". Using both in one sentence is just silly!

Old cyclists often use up to mean to a larger cog. They'd never use the word 'shift', though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: orienteer on 23 June, 2014, 02:52:25 pm
Empty units in our local mall have signs in them: "Are you interested in letting this unit?".

Shades of lending and borrowing confusion.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 June, 2014, 08:39:03 pm
There's very little in this thread that actually makes me cringe. More of it makes me laugh, but I really did cringe when I read this letter to a local paper:
I recently went to a Clifton restaurant and the lady manager there told me ...

I'm not sure whether it's the tautology or the attitude it hints that is making me wince. Probably both.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 23 June, 2014, 11:15:23 pm
Apparently in the Croatia - Mexico foopball match, a Croatian player was "red-carded".  The colemantator responsible for this revolting construct wants badly to be pelted with rotting vegetables and then sat upon by Mexico's manager.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 23 June, 2014, 11:46:42 pm
And if you have witnessed a BRITISH defending men's singles champion playing at Wmbldn, you must be "at least over 80".

I really must stop watching ITV ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 25 June, 2014, 01:52:59 pm
Not grammar per se, but I've just heard an appalling misuse of the word 'curate'.  'Select' or 'choose' would have been much better.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 28 June, 2014, 02:14:25 pm
OOh look! A visible solar 'farm'!

Quote

Residents in a Leicestershire village have called for proposed solar farms in the area to be sighted elsewhere.


from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-28062884 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-28062884)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 28 June, 2014, 05:02:30 pm
Not grammar per se, but I've just heard an appalling misuse of the word 'curate'.  'Select' or 'choose' would have been much better.

As in selected, or chosen, egg?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 30 June, 2014, 06:17:56 pm
Fifteen minutes into tonight's ITV London news bulletin and we have already learned that the police raid which sparked off the Brixton Riots took place at "7 am in the morning".  And that a new bridge across the Thames in east Londonton, while it is "far" overdue, may well "exasperate" existing problems caused by traffic.

Gah!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: orienteer on 01 July, 2014, 10:20:47 am
"Bus passengers will have to walk on foot during Putney Bridge repair works"

Evening Standard website.

What, they are not being forced to walk on their hands?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 July, 2014, 03:33:04 pm
In similar vein, ITV4's coverage of the BTCC on Sunday:

"[Collard] has his front headlights on"

As opposed to the ones set vertically into the roof, Paul O'Neill, you rank buffoon?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 08 July, 2014, 10:44:39 am
One of the exhibits at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition has the less/fewer business wrong...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 08 July, 2014, 11:38:28 am
One of the exhibits at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition has the less/fewer business wrong...

When I was in a school library yesterday I noticed a book by the Pointless Pair. I opened to a random page on which Alexander Armstrong was waffling about the number of complaints he received over the less/fewer debate and that he didn't think it mattered.

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?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 08 July, 2014, 02:46:07 pm
RA visitor who agreed with my rantette yesterday suggested journalists don't learn Proper English any more. Said artwork was quote from The Media.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 July, 2014, 08:34:51 pm
"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!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Crumbling Nick on 08 July, 2014, 09:56:04 pm
Quote from: Wowbagger
<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 ;).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Deano on 28 July, 2014, 11:22:29 pm
(https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3872/14768290061_f00f09de3e_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/ov2m7H)

Name removed to protect the guilty.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 06 August, 2014, 05:03:58 pm
"Banks can now borrow at low rates and on-lend that money."

On-lend?  :o

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

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

Sense 1 is much older: the Doom Book (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_book) of King Alfred (c. 893) says:

Quote
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 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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:

Quote
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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 07 August, 2014, 03:43:51 pm
Quote
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.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 August, 2014, 06:25:38 pm
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?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 26 August, 2014, 07:08:57 pm
Dez has been managing a webcast from somewhere transatlantic.

Quote
The Social Media landscape is bludgeoning as we speak

Perhaps this should be in the Management Speak thread, but this will have to do.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 29 August, 2014, 11:45:18 am
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?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 29 August, 2014, 03:47:43 pm
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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 31 August, 2014, 09:40:44 pm
Here's a point of view that doubtless is intended to be controversial.

[quote from Will Self on Orwell (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28971276)]
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]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 01 September, 2014, 12:42:58 pm
Saw a billboard ad for Volkswagen this morning, proclaiming their new safety features, with the sign off line: "Drive confident."

 :sick:

Thinking of starting a campaign for the preservation of adverbs.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 01 September, 2014, 12:46:20 pm
Thinking of starting a campaign for the preservation of adverbs.

It could have the strapline "You wouldn't let it ly!"
Title: Re: Grammar what makes you cringe
Post by: HTFB on 01 September, 2014, 12:53:52 pm
They want to say "be confident as you drive", I think.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 01 September, 2014, 01:12:09 pm
It could have the strapline "You wouldn't let it ly!"

:thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: αdαmsκι on 01 September, 2014, 05:02:25 pm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gv0H-vPoDc)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 03 September, 2014, 12:07:17 pm
Here's a point of view that doubtless is intended to be controversial.

[quote from Will Self on Orwell (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28971276)]
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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 03 September, 2014, 12:12:57 pm
Here's a point of view that doubtless is intended to be controversial.

[quote from Will Self on Orwell (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28971276)]
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)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bairn Again on 04 September, 2014, 03:30:57 pm
"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. 


Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 04 September, 2014, 05:33:20 pm
 Will Self on Orwell (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-28971276)

...

...

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 ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 05 September, 2014, 01:08:13 am
Not really. I was hoping I might find some agreement among the present constituency.

Maybe I overestimated you. ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Biff on 07 September, 2014, 01:08:37 pm
(http://static.tumblr.com/b58ce6cdfe474423552632d1aa8c2666/8rrzbxz/7dQmlui6p/tumblr_static_grammar-nazi.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 September, 2014, 11:33:11 am
Guardian article on eggcorns here. (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/16/that-eggcorn-moment)

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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 16 September, 2014, 11:35:07 am
I had a letter about eggcorns published in the Guardian several years ago. Hmph.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 September, 2014, 11:39:28 am
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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Polar Bear on 16 September, 2014, 11:47:11 am
"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...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 September, 2014, 11:58:08 am
The comments on the eggcorn article are making me laugh out loud. I'm spitting my slides.

Quote
The teacher asked the class to come up with a sentence including the word contagious.
Johnny shoots his hand up "Our neighbour's painting his fence with a 1 inch brush and my dad says it's going to take the contagious"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 16 September, 2014, 02:31:00 pm
I had a letter about eggcorns published in the Guardian several years ago. Hmph.

My favourite, printed, embarrassingly enough, in our club newsletter, is 'pre-madonna'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Deano on 16 September, 2014, 04:29:20 pm
Synchronicity!

One of Boss Caine's (York's answer to Springsteen) lyrics leapt out at me the other day, and now I know what to call it.

The lyric was "poking his head above the pulpit".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 16 September, 2014, 09:36:36 pm
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.

"Spit and image" is biblical in origin and refers to God's creation of Adam from mud & spittle.  I'd agree, though, that intrinsic meaning or logic in that is pretty hard to discern. Mr. Cabell made it much more amusing.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 17 September, 2014, 12:20:49 am
I have a wonderful vision of Sarah Palin and her elk, charging triumphant from Alaska to free the world from somethingorother.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 17 September, 2014, 01:26:20 am
Synchronicity!

One of Boss Caine's (York's answer to Springsteen) lyrics leapt out at me the other day, and now I know what to call it.

The lyric was "poking his head above the pulpit".

I called out Davina McCall for the same crime last month. (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2205.msg1723764#msg1723764)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 17 September, 2014, 06:32:01 am
Oh I do like these eggcorns; especially Ian's pre-Madonna. I hope the originator had Ms Ciccone in mind rather than Mary.

Not an eggcorn as such, but a friend of mine is fond of using the phrase 'white elephant in the room'. I love the metaphor of  something obvious that is so useless it is left uncommented upon.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 17 September, 2014, 10:08:28 am
I have to admit that in my dim and distant youth, I thought the phrase was pre-madonna - as in the UB40 song with the line "I'm a pre-madonna". Which made a kind of sense because, of course, UB40 did predate Madonna by some years.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 September, 2014, 10:38:45 am
There should be an adjective pre-Madonnaite (pre-Madonnan?) referring to a return to the supposed golden period in popular music before Madonna, along the lines of pre-Raphaelite.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 17 September, 2014, 10:52:35 am
There should be an adjective pre-Madonnaite (pre-Madonnan?) referring to a return to the supposed golden period in popular music before Madonna, along the lines of pre-Raphaelite.

That's Sweet!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 17 September, 2014, 12:33:17 pm
There should be an adjective pre-Madonnaite (pre-Madonnan?) referring to a return to the supposed golden period in popular music before Madonna, along the lines of pre-Raphaelite.

My first dynamo lamp was made before the introduction of overpriced yet very stylish cycling attire. 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 17 September, 2014, 01:33:18 pm
There should be an adjective pre-Madonnaite (pre-Madonnan?) referring to a return to the supposed golden period in popular music before Madonna, along the lines of pre-Raphaelite.

That's Sweet!

Not just Sweet,  mind.  There's the whole of the rest of Glam rock, too. ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 September, 2014, 01:43:46 pm
That's Sweet, that's Sweet, that's Sweet, that's Sweet,
Really like your tiger feet.

But that wasn't Sweet, that was Mud - which is more what you'd expect on tiger feet, anyway.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 17 September, 2014, 10:26:34 pm
Talking of eggcorns and suchlike. Part of headline from local rag:

Quote
potato from out of space

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 17 September, 2014, 11:58:36 pm
Talking of eggcorns and suchlike. Part of headline from local rag:

Quote
potato from out of space

How many letters?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 18 September, 2014, 12:42:45 pm
Is it 'Eric Pickles'?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 18 September, 2014, 12:53:40 pm
I'm spending my workdays constantly cringing at the moment.

People of Suffolk:
Which and What are not interchangeable. Ever.
Shew is not the past tense of show. (I ought to let this one pass, as it's dialect, but I'm still cringing).
Due does not mean what you seem to think it means.

I need to go for a lie down...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 18 September, 2014, 01:01:24 pm
Shew is an archaic form of show isn't it?

Past is shewn/shown, I thought.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 18 September, 2014, 01:03:08 pm
Yes. Used by George Bernard Shaw, in an attempt to re-popularise it at a time when it was already archaic.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 18 September, 2014, 01:05:14 pm
Archaic=Still alive and kicking in Suffolk.
Yup, sounds about right.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 18 September, 2014, 01:08:48 pm
Do you mean spelling or pronunciation? Because the old 'shew' didn't represent a different pronunciation, at least not in the last couple of hundred years.

Shew was pronounced like blow or grow, not blew or grew. Shew/shewn sounded like sew/sewn.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 18 September, 2014, 01:29:27 pm
Shew is an archaic form of show isn't it?

Past is shewn/shown, I thought.

Best eschewed.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 18 September, 2014, 02:07:43 pm
Shew is not the past tense of show. (I ought to let this one pass, as it's dialect, but I'm still cringing).

I feel much the same about snuck and dove used as past tenses for sneak and dive, though I feel I'm swimming against the tide there.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 18 September, 2014, 02:23:08 pm
Do you mean spelling or pronunciation? Because the old 'shew' didn't represent a different pronunciation, at least not in the last couple of hundred years.

Shew was pronounced like blow or grow, not blew or grew. Shew/shewn sounded like sew/sewn.

Pronounced like shoe.

(With a stalk of grass in the corner of your mouth.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hbunnet on 18 September, 2014, 02:57:16 pm


http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/best-cash-isa#best (http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/best-cash-isa#best)

"However, once the bonus ends, the rate will be 0.75% so you'll need to diarise to transfer in 18 months' time"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jasmine on 18 September, 2014, 03:11:16 pm

Shew is not the past tense of show. (I ought to let this one pass, as it's dialect, but I'm still cringing).


Local past tense of jump is jamp   ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 18 September, 2014, 03:21:56 pm
Shew is an archaic form of show isn't it?

Past is shewn/shown, I thought.

When Lt. Col. Larrington (retd.) was operating an MOD desk in the early seventies a sign by the reception desk of the building in which he toiled in the Service of Her Majesty read:

PASSES MUST BE SHEWN

I don't think they had any of the mucking around with different coloured light bulbs to denote "Threat Level" back in those days since it was automatically assumed that the Russkies and/or the Provos were going to bomb the fuck out of us anyway.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 18 September, 2014, 06:59:49 pm
Do you mean spelling or pronunciation? Because the old 'shew' didn't represent a different pronunciation, at least not in the last couple of hundred years.

Shew was pronounced like blow or grow, not blew or grew. Shew/shewn sounded like sew/sewn.

Pronounced like shoe.

(With a stalk of grass in the corner of your mouth.)
Aaah. So it's dialect, not the old spelling.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 19 September, 2014, 12:21:07 am
Shew is an archaic form of show isn't it?

Past is shewn/shown, I thought.

When Lt. Col. Larrington (retd.) was operating an MOD desk in the early seventies a sign by the reception desk of the building in which he toiled in the Service of Her Majesty read:

PASSES MUST BE SHEWN

I don't think they had any of the mucking around with different coloured light bulbs to denote "Threat Level" back in those days since it was automatically assumed that the Russkies and/or the Provos were going to bomb the fuck out of us anyway.

When I worked at HMCE in the 1980s there was a permanent notice displaying the "security level". By default it was "Black special". The fact that this was the alert state for probably at least 90% of the time I spent working there, I think the word "special" was a lie. If something is "special" it is out of the ordinary. In those days the colloquial meaning of "special", as in "special needs child" had not, so far as I recall, been coined.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 19 September, 2014, 01:12:25 am
Some terrifying apostrophe abuse on display in the International UFO Museum & Research Center in Roswell, NM, this morning.  A typical example:

(https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3925/15279429431_9141869dfe_o.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 19 September, 2014, 07:13:19 am
It was correct when they put it up then one foggy night a blue light washed across it and all the punctuation had been changed ...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 19 September, 2014, 07:14:48 am
From the BBC website today:

More explainers, backgrounders and analysis on the referendum debate can be found on our special index.

More explanation, background and analysis for god's sake !
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 19 September, 2014, 10:13:46 am
Shew is an archaic form of show isn't it?

Past is shewn/shown, I thought.

When Lt. Col. Larrington (retd.) was operating an MOD desk in the early seventies a sign by the reception desk of the building in which he toiled in the Service of Her Majesty read:

PASSES MUST BE SHEWN

I don't think they had any of the mucking around with different coloured light bulbs to denote "Threat Level" back in those days since it was automatically assumed that the Russkies and/or the Provos were going to bomb the fuck out of us anyway.

When I worked at HMCE in the 1980s there was a permanent notice displaying the "security level". By default it was "Black special". The fact that this was the alert state for probably at least 90% of the time I spent working there, I think the word "special" was a lie. If something is "special" it is out of the ordinary. In those days the colloquial meaning of "special", as in "special needs child" had not, so far as I recall, been coined.

"Special school" was certainly usual usage then.

On alert states, the Scottish Office building my father worked in had a similar sign: I never saw it display anything other than Black or Black Special, but Black was fairly common.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: The Seldom Killer on 19 September, 2014, 12:19:31 pm
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-49O9prlNS4Q/UuVgjusd-HI/AAAAAAAAFig/uQVAk5GVf7Y/s1600/ACROLOGIA.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 19 September, 2014, 01:02:33 pm
'post-dramatic stress disorder'   ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 19 September, 2014, 01:15:26 pm
"That ghastly play!"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 19 September, 2014, 03:44:20 pm
Just found the glorious word cacographer - one who writes or spells badly.

I was really looking for the visual equivalent of cacophony to describe the Scottish Parliament building. No luck yet.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: The Seldom Killer on 19 September, 2014, 04:23:39 pm
Carbuncle is the usual.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 19 September, 2014, 08:13:25 pm
Speaking of dialect, a locally born and bred friend and I were discussing the declension of to be in East Devon.

I'm
You'm
He'm or she'm - though occasionally 'er is (applied to any gender)
We'm
You'm
They'm

This contrasts interestingly with the use of be a little further north (I've heard older Bristolians say you bist)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 19 September, 2014, 11:48:30 pm
There's the Black Country
Oi am
yo am
her/him is...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 20 September, 2014, 12:00:20 am
In Lancashire (and other non-devolved Northern areas) there's a tendency to swap the gender* endings in the past tense, so we get, I were, she/he/it were but we/you/they was.

However, in Rochdale at least, there is pretension to refinement at administrational level: Outside the new municipal offices there is a steel sign, rather like the one at New Scotland Yard, which says "Accessible Access".  If you think it is -ist to put "disabled access" - and you'd have a point - why not put "alternative entrance".  I try to stand up for Rochdale in the face of the shocking public image it has.  This doesn't help.  I'll voice my irritation but it won't be removed unless metal thieves help out. 

* sorry, I didn't mean gender, I meant singular/plural
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 20 September, 2014, 06:45:54 am
This contrasts interestingly with the use of be a little further north (I've heard older Bristolians say you bist)

That's a great  Anglo Saxson survival.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 21 September, 2014, 10:15:28 pm
Gah, people using i.e. when they mean e.g.  :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 22 September, 2014, 10:27:52 am
There's the Black Country
Oi am
yo am
her/him is...

You don't want to know what we do with this in the more impenetrable parts of the East Midlands.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 22 September, 2014, 02:36:54 pm
The NYT calls Africans heading for Italy migrants, as if they're going back & forth every year like swallows.  OK, the word does also apply to bods & beasts moving in one direction only, but it's most commonly used for Arctic Terns, lemmings, etc.  Unless of course the NYT is taking their ultimate deportation into account.

Emigrants or refugees would be much better.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 22 September, 2014, 03:55:58 pm
Speaking of dialect, a locally born and bred friend and I were discussing the declension of to be in East Devon.

I'm
You'm
He'm or she'm - though occasionally 'er is (applied to any gender)
We'm
You'm
They'm

This contrasts interestingly with the use of be a little further north (I've heard older Bristolians say you bist)

I've told you a thousand times! Verbs conjugate, nouns decline!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 22 September, 2014, 04:24:00 pm
The NYT calls Africans heading for Italy migrants, as if they're going back & forth every year like swallows.  OK, the word does also apply to bods & beasts moving in one direction only, but it's most commonly used for Arctic Terns, lemmings, etc.  Unless of course the NYT is taking their ultimate deportation into account.

Emigrants or refugees would be much better.
I think it's deliberate. They are Economic Migrants and therefore undeserving of our sympathies.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 22 September, 2014, 05:09:08 pm
Speaking of dialect, a locally born and bred friend and I were discussing the declension of to be in East Devon.

I'm
You'm
He'm or she'm - though occasionally 'er is (applied to any gender)
We'm
You'm
They'm

This contrasts interestingly with the use of be a little further north (I've heard older Bristolians say you bist)

I've told you a thousand times! Verbs conjugate, nouns decline!

Oh dear. I am shamed. Declining standards in conjunction with age.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 September, 2014, 10:43:34 am
Hmmm. One of the devilishly difficult questions has me a little unsure.
(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 24 September, 2014, 10:51:54 am
Augustus doesn’t care either way, he's been dead for centuries and classical Latin didn’t have apostrophises anyway :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 September, 2014, 10:59:07 am
Augustu's is Mr Gloops' childs'es name!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 24 September, 2014, 11:05:58 am
Oxford Dictionary and I agreed in 100% of the "trick" set.

In the "devilishly difficult" set, the dictionary got two wrong.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 24 September, 2014, 11:48:51 am
Oxford Dictionary and I agreed in 100% of the "trick" set.

In the "devilishly difficult" set, the dictionary got two wrong.

I got 10 for the 'tricky' set and 7 for the 'difficult' set. I have scant English qualification. (O Level 1973, Use of English ?1975)
I thought apostrophe placement and use of an 's' for possessives terminating with 's' was acceptable in two forms, as in St James' Park or St James's Park.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: tiermat on 24 September, 2014, 11:54:41 am
My score matches, exactly, Helly's
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 24 September, 2014, 11:58:25 am
I think you get into the "dark arts" when it comes to "the number of m's in 'recommend'" or whether DJ'ing needs an apostrophe, or in dates eg the 1940s (1940's).

If it's DJ'ing, then why not D'J'ing, or, for that matter, D.J.ing?

For the apostrophe, a succinct flow diagram could be written for normal use, as in possessives, both singular and plural, and where a letter is missing. To my mind, where two words (disc jockey, member of parliament) have been abbreviated to their initials, then a full stop represents the removal of multiple letters, the apostrophe just the one.

Is there an accepted set of rules for these anomalies, or do we just muddle through?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Riggers on 24 September, 2014, 12:52:20 pm
… and 70s for that matter too, which is acceptable rather than slavishly apostrophising '70s which, may be apostrophisingly* correct, but everyone knows, through constant use without the apostrophe if fine.


*sorry for that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 24 September, 2014, 03:38:40 pm
Maybe our resident ex-English teacher could enlighten us!
I suspect we might not have really been wrong!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 24 September, 2014, 06:10:18 pm
Obsolete apostrophes: 'bus, p'ram, 'phone.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: PhilO on 24 September, 2014, 06:28:46 pm
I still insist on 'phone, personally, although I concur wrt the other two.  O:-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 25 September, 2014, 02:39:43 am
Shouldn't it be p'ram' ?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 25 September, 2014, 10:02:15 am
Shouldn't it be p'ram' ?

Probably, though I've only ever read it with one.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 25 September, 2014, 12:06:39 pm
Back to the verbs.

"She's back now because Helen come back tomorrow don't she".

No she fecking doesn't- she comes.

Bloody Suffolk.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 26 September, 2014, 10:42:48 am
I've often seen 'cello but never piano'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 26 September, 2014, 12:08:51 pm
Attaching technically correct apostrophes to commonly abbreviated words like piano, cello, bus just seems a bit "I'm smarter than you" to me. A bit like insisting on a circumflex in rôle or complaining about words that mix latin and Greek etymology (as seen on TV). Nobody likes a wiseacre.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 26 September, 2014, 12:36:52 pm
Attaching technically correct apostrophes to commonly abbreviated words like piano, cello, bus just seems a bit "I'm smarter than you" to me. A bit like insisting on a circumflex in rôle or complaining about words that mix latin and Greek etymology (as seen on TV). Nobody likes a wiseacre.

To be pedantic, I think you mean 'pedantic'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 26 September, 2014, 04:49:51 pm
Back when I worked in publishing I used to refer to such things as excessive grammar pedantry and insistence on writing stuff like 'reflexion' and putting apostrophes before bus as knobeditry. I'm pleased to see it's still going strong.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 26 September, 2014, 06:00:42 pm
Is there an accepted set of rules for these anomalies, or do we just muddle through?

This is what we have style guides for - where there is more than one 'correct' answer, the style guide will help you choose consistently.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: orienteer on 27 September, 2014, 11:25:12 am
Quote from a BBC feature on bromine:
Because the bromine is itself so hyper-reactive, in effect it cue-jumps the oxygen and re-bonds with the fuel, rendering it inert.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 27 September, 2014, 11:37:28 am
Is cue-jumping done by snooker players?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 27 September, 2014, 01:11:20 pm
There'll be people cueing up to take a pot-shot at the BBC.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 29 September, 2014, 07:01:39 am
www.thepoke.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/10678640_799754660064829_4742930850410394747_n.jpg
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 29 September, 2014, 01:17:05 pm
www.thepoke.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/10678640_799754660064829_4742930850410394747_n.jpg
Classic!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Euan Uzami on 29 September, 2014, 03:00:28 pm
heard the other day: "that bar's a right dive, I frequented it once and never went back!"
;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 29 September, 2014, 06:42:19 pm
www.thepoke.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/10678640_799754660064829_4742930850410394747_n.jpg
Classic!
I could have posted it in the
Saw This and Thought of You/Helly

thread  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 29 September, 2014, 09:45:04 pm
One that pops up more and more is the confusion of number, along the lines of "a thousand people scratched their head".  I see several examples of this every day now, it seems.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 29 September, 2014, 10:17:38 pm
In the shop at work:

ICE CREAM'S
HALF PRICE

It still works...completely by accident!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: frankly frankie on 02 October, 2014, 09:46:05 am
Use (not to mention over-use) of the present historic tense.

As I write, some woman on R4 bleating about ancient Rome - "the generals are revolting" and "Caesar is getting quite concerned".

 :sick:

R4 should have a style guide banning this sort of dumbing-down.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 02 October, 2014, 09:49:46 am
Use (not to mention over-use) of the present historic tense.

As I write, some woman on R4 bleating about ancient Rome - "the generals are revolting" and "Caesar is getting quite concerned".

 :sick:

R4 should have a style guide banning this sort of dumbing-down.

I'd tolerate it in unscripted discussions such as this one, but not otherwise.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 02 October, 2014, 12:11:16 pm
Use (not to mention over-use) of the present historic tense.

The favoured tense of that unlikely alliance of radio historians and television football pundits.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 02 October, 2014, 01:36:35 pm
Is using the word "yourself" instead of "you" standard Scottish practice?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 02 October, 2014, 02:18:11 pm
Well, people use 'myself' instead of 'me' all over BRITAIN.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 02 October, 2014, 04:02:25 pm
Not to mention himself or herself as in "herself wouldn't stand for it".

I can't imagine using yourself or myself as the subject of a sentence, though.  Myself don't like cats is kinda weird, whatever you think about the furry bastards.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 02 October, 2014, 05:40:33 pm
I think ***self is used more in the dative (and accusative) than the nominative. It is still wrong IME.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 02 October, 2014, 06:41:00 pm
It seems that Hanwell murder victim Alice Gross was victimed by her killer.  I don't have a favourite cause of DETH but being victimed would be high on the list of least-preferred.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 02 October, 2014, 07:18:09 pm
As they said in The Shed, verbing weirds language.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 02 October, 2014, 07:20:58 pm
Anyway, murdering language is several degrees less serious than murdering people.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 02 October, 2014, 07:53:45 pm
My current level of tolerance may mean that the former leads to the latter.

What's wrong with 'which'1?

I spent some time muttering "which which which which which" this afternoon. My English-mangling-colleague probably thinks I'm accusing her of owning a black cat and riding a broom.

[1]: Them(sic) guards what(sic) was(sic) sent back for getting the cable holes made bigger, them(sic) what(sic) we brung(sic) in from China
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 02 October, 2014, 09:15:21 pm
As they said in The Shed, verbing weirds language.

The normally-Excellent Shed quoting the godawful "Calvin & Hobbes" does not render the whole thing either Big or Clever >:(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 02 October, 2014, 09:21:33 pm
I think ***self is used more in the dative (and accusative) than the nominative. It is still wrong IME.

Maybe I'm thick or sleepy or both but I find it hard to think of any legitimate usage other than as a reflexive or as emphasis. Oh, and as -what would you call it in general? - a personal identifier, as in I'm not feeling myself, he did it himself, etc.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 02 October, 2014, 09:24:18 pm
Gah, people using i.e. when they mean e.g.  :demon:

Ah yes, Gah indeed!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: orienteer on 02 October, 2014, 09:25:21 pm
As they said in The Shed, verbing weirds language.

This habit is spreading to the Japanese language too, apparently.

Chin suru - means make "chin" sound, the sound a microwave makes, so the meaning is to microwave something.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 02 October, 2014, 09:30:10 pm
I think ***self is used more in the dative (and accusative) than the nominative. It is still wrong IME.

Maybe I'm thick or sleepy or both but I find it hard to think of any legitimate usage other than as a reflexive or as emphasis. Oh, and as -what would you call it in general? - a personal identifier, as in I'm not feeling myself, he did it himself, etc.

"If you call back, ask to speak to myself". A former business partner  did that to such an extent that I had to get rid of him.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 02 October, 2014, 09:31:47 pm
I think ***self is used more in the dative (and accusative) than the nominative. It is still wrong IME.

Maybe I'm thick or sleepy or both but I find it hard to think of any legitimate usage other than as a reflexive or as emphasis. Oh, and as -what would you call it in general? - a personal identifier, as in I'm not feeling myself, he did it himself, etc.

"If you call back, ask to speak to myself". A former business partner  did that to such an extent that I had to get rid of him.

With extreme prejudice, I hope.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 02 October, 2014, 09:47:52 pm
Seen elsewhere:
Quote
Thanks, Sam. My laziness has travailed once more :)

 ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 03 October, 2014, 03:51:58 pm
Quote
Having reviewed this matter for you, I have been unable to evidence that you were notified of a MEAF applicable upon early redemption of your mortgage account.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 03 October, 2014, 06:33:02 pm
Quote
Having reviewed this matter for you, I have been unable to evidence that you were notified of a MEAF applicable upon early redemption of your mortgage account.

Let's stick to English
(or this thread will swamp the server)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Feanor on 03 October, 2014, 08:17:49 pm
As they said in The Shed, verbing weirds language.

The normally-Excellent Shed quoting the godawful "Calvin & Hobbes" does not render the whole thing either Big or Clever >:(

Now, now.

Back in the day, reading fare for visitors to The Smallest Room at Feanor Towers was Bloom County ( US political comic-strip, featuring Opus the penguin ); Calvin and Hobbes, and the RS catalogue ( when it was a single volume and you could design stuff in your head by leafing through the application notes it contained ).

Trufax.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 October, 2014, 11:17:29 pm
As they said in The Shed, verbing weirds language.

The normally-Excellent Shed quoting the godawful "Calvin & Hobbes" does not render the whole thing either Big or Clever >:(

Now, now.

Back in the day, reading fare for visitors to The Smallest Room at Feanor Towers was Bloom County ( US political comic-strip, featuring Opus the penguin ); Calvin and Hobbes, and the RS catalogue ( when it was a single volume and you could design stuff in your head by leafing through the application notes it contained ).

Trufax.

One out of three ain't bad, as the peot didn't quite sing.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 October, 2014, 07:42:05 pm
erm...  (http://www.theguardian.com/science/shortcuts/2014/oct/06/um-er-conversation-english-speakers-socio-linguistics-edinburgh-university)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 06 October, 2014, 07:50:11 pm
erm...  (http://www.theguardian.com/science/shortcuts/2014/oct/06/um-er-conversation-english-speakers-socio-linguistics-edinburgh-university)

(Is mildly surprised that "like" and "noworramean" don't merit a mention, like)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 07 October, 2014, 08:05:10 am
erm...  (http://www.theguardian.com/science/shortcuts/2014/oct/06/um-er-conversation-english-speakers-socio-linguistics-edinburgh-university)

The Dr Fruehwald quoted in that report is my boy's personal tutor.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 08 October, 2014, 01:50:04 pm
Definitely sic headline.

Quote
Emergancy serviced were called to Honiton yesterday evening after a car collided into a building on the Hight Street.
Read more at http://www.exeterexpressandecho.co.uk/Car-crashes-building-Honiton-Hight-Street/story-23056923-detail/story.html#C4TqokXbHzHvzxuu.99
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 08 October, 2014, 03:31:11 pm
Can we have this in the Spelling that etc etc.?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 09 October, 2014, 11:17:34 pm
I gather that the Pedants' Revolt is doing the rounds on Twitter (http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2014/02/27/the-pedants-revolt/):

(http://blogs.independent.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/pedants-revolt.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 10 October, 2014, 08:46:27 am
That'll be the Pedant's Revolt, as led by Which Tyler, I guess.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 10 October, 2014, 09:20:25 am
^--- There may have been fewer than expected, but there was more than one.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 10 October, 2014, 10:25:32 am
Can we have this in the Spelling that etc etc.?

In both places perhaps. I put it here because of "collided into".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 10 October, 2014, 10:39:37 am
^--- There may have been fewer than expected, but there was more than one.

Arse. The regimental revolver and a bottle of whisky if you please.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 October, 2014, 10:56:42 am
Quote from: komsomolskaya gazeta
However Johnson – who aides say is “instinctively libertarian and not temporarily inclined to ban things” – hinted that he thought the plan was too interventionist.
Not exactly grammar - maybe we need a "copy editing that makes you cringe" thread!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 17 October, 2014, 10:13:01 am
From another forum not too far from here:

Quote
touring book storie's..

Unread postby ####### » Fri Oct 17, 2014 11:07 am
What's good book's are out there about people's touring adventures ?
I'm looking at cycling home from syberia. . is there any other good reads.
thanks in advance.

If was instead of were merits the regimental revolver, this one gets the full Danny Deever.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 17 October, 2014, 10:43:12 am
From another forum not too far from here:

Quote
touring book storie's..

Unread postby ####### » Fri Oct 17, 2014 11:07 am
What's good book's are out there about people's touring adventures ?
I'm looking at cycling home from syberia. . is there any other good reads.
thanks in advance.

If was instead of were merits the regimental revolver, this one gets the full Danny Deever.

Celebrate the positive - two of the apostrophe's are in appropriate place's.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 17 October, 2014, 01:02:54 pm
^^^so subtract one drummer and shorten the rope.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 23 October, 2014, 01:26:23 am
(http://www.alfiecat.co.uk/yetacf/grammarrrr.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 24 October, 2014, 06:39:18 am
Elvis Costello: it's "one fewer white nigger", not "one less white nigger". 

Always amusing how that word is considered absolutely taboo* yet you hear the song on AOR radio about twice a day.  I suppose "white" makes all the difference.

*unless you're black yourself, and you spell it "nigga".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 24 October, 2014, 08:25:56 am
Funny how infrequently one hears Patti Smith's "Rock'n'Roll Nigger" on the wireless, too.  I can't remember the last time it was played by either Radio 4 or Classic FM.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 24 October, 2014, 12:43:09 pm
On the Stena Ferry last month. I spot the Dutch influence.

(https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/10612547_10152332674071786_8640892691451660246_n.jpg?oh=c3cab7efcc887fcdc9e47e01dbb59d95&oe=54E73B9E&__gda__=1424598779_f09b1e1a7d2b04130c0216c3de945136)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 October, 2014, 01:00:40 pm
Dutch influence?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 24 October, 2014, 01:31:05 pm
Dutch influence?

I thought Dutch allows/must have an apostrophe in a plural if the singular ends in a vowel.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 October, 2014, 01:40:47 pm
Didn't know that, thanks!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 13 November, 2014, 06:33:51 pm
If something can be "made all the more worse" then I'm entering a Trappist monastery forthwith.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 13 November, 2014, 07:13:20 pm
From a generally fascinating local history - well, fascinating if you live here :-
"One of only several... "
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 18 November, 2014, 11:38:57 pm
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B2wt0x7IgAAm43N.jpg)

From the dining hall, Blenheim School, Southend.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 19 November, 2014, 12:03:07 am
I saw 'Eat fresh' on a van yesterday. I think it was  from one of the big supermarkets.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 19 November, 2014, 08:11:58 am
The adverb is an endangered species. I blame the Germans.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 24 November, 2014, 06:12:06 pm
I feel a bit mean posting this, given that it's from a generally well-written local history.

Quote
The Temperance Hotel: One of Honiton's only lodging establishments where alcohol was definitely not sold.

From the list of hotels, taverns and inns.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 29 November, 2014, 12:15:35 pm
The use of hanging and hanged could be improved.

I didn't know whether the unfortunate was dangling from his fingertips or had made a noose.

http://www.harrowtimes.co.uk/news/11633987.Man_found_hanging_from_balcony/?ref=eb (http://www.harrowtimes.co.uk/news/11633987.Man_found_hanging_from_balcony/?ref=eb)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wobbly John on 02 December, 2014, 10:07:35 pm
An exam board leaflet on the staff-room noticeboard, at work (a school), contained grammar that made someone cringe:

(http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y252/wobblyjohn/Feelslikebadgrammar_zps62ae50ed.jpg)

 ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Steph on 05 December, 2014, 08:03:34 pm
Today's Grauniad has Putin's speech receiving a mooted reception.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 05 December, 2014, 09:08:07 pm
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B2wt0x7IgAAm43N.jpg)

From the dining hall, Blenheim School, Southend.

Our dogs were castrated on Wednesday. Though not in a dining hall.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 06 December, 2014, 09:17:44 am
"I could care less"

It's cropped up in two books I have been reading recently and for some reason it particularly annoys me. It just doesn't make sense. I have no idea why our American cousins insist on using it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: andyoxon on 06 December, 2014, 10:07:03 am
Is 'It tastes wonderful' grammatically correct?  It seems to irritate a tad, as I prefer 'it has a wonderful taste'. 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: LittleWheelsandBig on 06 December, 2014, 10:12:16 am
"I could care less"

It's cropped up in two books I have been reading recently and for some reason it particularly annoys me. It just doesn't make sense. I have no idea why our American cousins insist on using it.

Because logical links between speech and intent are not relevant to them? Refer Presidential promises.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 06 December, 2014, 10:20:43 am
Is 'It tastes wonderful' grammatically correct?  It seems to irritate a tad, as I prefer 'it has a wonderful taste'.
I think this is a lost battle,  because there are too many acceptable grey areas.
I saw a nice T-shirt slogan yesterday,  something like:

It's nice to do well in life,

but it's even better to do good.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Steph on 07 December, 2014, 11:19:58 am
"I could care less"

It's cropped up in two books I have been reading recently and for some reason it particularly annoys me. It just doesn't make sense. I have no idea why our American cousins insist on using it.

I have had this discussion online with a number of USAnians. The most common response is a suggestion that I learn to spell properly/find dog/etc, but the usual sensible explanation is that it originated in its use as a sarcastic question: "I could care less?", with the unspoken rider "I don't think I could".

Unfortunately, it has lost that edge and is now just utter nonsense in its normal use.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: JonJo on 07 December, 2014, 05:00:53 pm
Sign on the Christmas biscuits in Tesco, 'Ideal for gifting'. Grrrrrrrrr.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 07 December, 2014, 05:12:58 pm
Is 'It tastes wonderful' grammatically correct?  It seems to irritate a tad, as I prefer 'it has a wonderful taste'.

Nothing wrong with in.  "It tastes of soap" is legitimate, so why not wonderful?

"Smell" works the same way, so do "sound", "look" and "feel".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 07 December, 2014, 08:08:33 pm
"I could care less"

It's cropped up in two books I have been reading recently and for some reason it particularly annoys me. It just doesn't make sense. I have no idea why our American cousins insist on using it.

I have had this discussion online with a number of USAnians. The most common response is a suggestion that I learn to spell properly/find dog/etc, but the usual sensible explanation is that it originated in its use as a sarcastic question: "I could care less?", with the unspoken rider "I don't think I could".

Unfortunately, it has lost that edge and is now just utter nonsense in its normal use.

That makes sense up to the point where Americans are using sarcasm...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 07 December, 2014, 08:49:24 pm
"I could care less"

It's cropped up in two books I have been reading recently and for some reason it particularly annoys me. It just doesn't make sense. I have no idea why our American cousins insist on using it.

I have had this discussion online with a number of USAnians. The most common response is a suggestion that I learn to spell properly/find dog/etc, but the usual sensible explanation is that it originated in its use as a sarcastic question: "I could care less?", with the unspoken rider "I don't think I could".

Unfortunately, it has lost that edge and is now just utter nonsense in its normal use.
Dammit! I hate it when someone beats me to an answer!

Exactly my understanding. I have a mental image of some USian (probably a Jewish New Yorker) in an old film saying it in the manner you describe, with some stress on the "I". The intonation fits the pattern of Yiddish-derived sarcastic & self-deprecatory phrases in US (& especially NY Jewish) speech, though apparently there's no suggestion by anyone who's researched it that it's of Yiddish origin.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Torslanda on 07 December, 2014, 11:38:21 pm
Have we covered 'spin', 'spun' & 'span'?

A top can be made to spin, it may be said to have spun but the one that makes me heave is news readers and commentators saying 'the car span out of control' or 'the ball span off the goalpost' . . .

Span is the distance between the tip of your thumb and little finger when spread or the part of a bridge between its supports.

RRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 08 December, 2014, 12:10:06 pm
Absolutely nothing wrong with span as the past tense of spin. It's a survival of an older form, that has mostly but not completely been replaced by spun, & as is the way with such survivals, is mostly used in a few conventional phrases. It's in my 1978 Concise Oxford.

Personally, I don't hold with this new-fangled 'spun'.  ;D

Quote
When Adam dalve, and Eve span, Who was than a gentle~man?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 08 December, 2014, 12:31:09 pm
"Span" is perfectly acceptable as the past tense, as Bledlow says.

I was reminded of the annoying Northern (or is it especially Lancashire?) habit of using the word "chill" as an adjective. There's an acquaintance of ours, originally from Oldham, who walks his dog in the park and remarked that it was "a bit on the chill side" this morning.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 08 December, 2014, 01:44:17 pm
Run - ran - run
Ring - rang - rung
Sing -sang - sung
Spin - ? - spun

'Strong' verbs innit?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 December, 2014, 01:46:08 pm
NSFW verbs:
rim - ram - rum
quim - quam - cum
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 08 December, 2014, 03:36:54 pm
Wreak wrought wrought.

I wish the media would get that one wright.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 08 December, 2014, 04:43:46 pm
wreckless = without broken ship etc
reckless = criminally careless
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 08 December, 2014, 04:47:27 pm
Glide.

If it's like slide, then it's slid.

If it's like ride, then it's glode.

If it's like bide, it's glided.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 December, 2014, 06:44:35 pm
Wreak wrought wrought.

I wish the media would get that one wright.

This ^^^^.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wobbly John on 08 December, 2014, 07:04:40 pm
Glide.

If it's like slide, then it's slid.

If it's like ride, then it's glode.

If it's like bide, it's glided.

What if it's like flied?  :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Blazer on 08 December, 2014, 09:09:28 pm
I wish I knew what you were all going on about.  Any decent books you would recommend to help me out?

Serious question.

Cheers
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 08 December, 2014, 10:02:05 pm
Good old Mr. Fowler.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 09 December, 2014, 02:17:58 am
Less cryptically, that's Fowler's Modern English Usage.

NB that "Modern" was originally 1926. It's been revised a couple of times and I find it reasonably interesting, but although it probably is the nearest thing to an authoritative text, it's not really a coursebook. Might also be worth looking at the Guardian and the Economist style guides, which are quite good in identifying tricky situations and giving consistent answers.

In some ways, the best way of getting this stuff ingrained is simply to read lots of conventionally well-written text. Broadsheet newspapers, literary fiction, periodicals like the Economist or Spectator or Prospect or New Statesman, some (relatively few) long-form blogs (I quite like Jack of Kent, and Charlie Stross's one at antipope.org). Read lots, and the good stuff gets ingrained while poor and ungrammatical writing just begins to feel unnatural.

(The other issue, of course, is letting go of an obsession with grammatical pedantry. It only actually matters where it starts to interfere with understanding.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 09 December, 2014, 07:46:12 am
Wreak wrought wrought.

I wish the media would get that one wright.

This ^^^^.

What's rong with that?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 09 December, 2014, 07:50:51 am
(The other issue, of course, is letting go of an obsession with grammatical pedantry. It only actually matters where it starts to interfere with understanding.)
There's truth in that, of course. However, if the writer were well-placed to spot potential misunderstandings, there would never be any. The rules of grammar also help us to avoid the misunderstandings that we do not anticipate.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Blazer on 09 December, 2014, 08:23:22 am
Thanks for your replies.

 I tracked down the Fowler book or should that be I tracked the Fowler book down, or are both correct as you know what I mean.

One website then referred me to a Bill Bryson book that (which?) received good reviews.

This has been highlighted for me (and by me) in my relatively new role where (in which?) I fall short when compared to the ability of my new boss to write concisely and correctly.

Cheers
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 09 December, 2014, 08:29:53 am
(The other issue, of course, is letting go of an obsession with grammatical pedantry. It only actually matters where it starts to interfere with understanding.)
There's truth in that, of course. However, if the writer were well-placed to spot potential misunderstandings, there would never be any. The rules of grammar also help us to avoid the misunderstandings that we do not anticipate.

I meant as a reader.

I strive for clarity in what I write (not that I always achieve it) unless I'm deliberately setting up a possible double meaning: I strive not to get wound up by errors and inconsistencies in what I read, even though grocers apostrophe's make me slightly physically uncomfortable ...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 09 December, 2014, 08:34:44 am
Take a look at George Orwell's essay "Politics and the English language". It has lots of useful things to say about clear and concise writing.

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 09 December, 2014, 08:37:43 am
Good call. I've not read that in ages, though it's more about style and clarity in general than about strict grammar.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 09 December, 2014, 08:43:41 am
Good call. I've not read that in ages, though it's more about style and clarity in general than about strict grammar.

I know but I thought it might help Blazer in his struggles to write concisely and clearly. I am not sure I hold with Orwell when it comes to literary writing but for technical or business writing I do.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 09 December, 2014, 08:59:52 am
I agree about Orwell. I think he is the greatest writer of the 20th century but purely on subject matter, output and clarity. He didn't write "beautifully".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 09 December, 2014, 09:54:04 am
(The other issue, of course, is letting go of an obsession with grammatical pedantry. It only actually matters where it starts to interfere with understanding.)
There's truth in that, of course. However, if the writer were well-placed to spot potential misunderstandings, there would never be any. The rules of grammar also help us to avoid the misunderstandings that we do not anticipate.

They also create plenty of misunderstanding in the pursuit of perfection as authors contort sentences to avoid the swishing cane of Victorian grammar. Pedantry in such matters is also the main source of precariously elevated petardary. I'll start sentences with and, split infinitives wide enough to drive a bus through, and end on a deliciously dangling preposition. Write to be natural and clear and write for your audience. You wouldn't write a business process manual in the same way as a note to your girlfriend (though that has given me an idea).

Despite the petardary risk, grammar pedantry is also used a linguistic cosh seemingly to impress others. Ha, look, he missed an apostrophe. Used the wrong irregular verb form. It's neither endearing nor erudite.

I'd forget grammar. Read a sentence out loud. How does it sound? Understandable? Clear?

I always recommend Strunk and White's Elements of Style.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 December, 2014, 12:31:49 pm
Omit needless words
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: billplumtree on 09 December, 2014, 12:53:58 pm
Eschew obfuscation.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 December, 2014, 01:03:17 pm
Likewise gratuitous philological exhibitionism.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: JonJo on 10 December, 2014, 09:51:24 am
Daughter, who is at a (supposedly) good university has been given an essay in which she is asked to describe how a situation has been 'problematized'. WTF does that mean?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 December, 2014, 09:54:16 am
It means to see something as being a problem needing solving.
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/problematize
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 10 December, 2014, 09:59:49 am
Presumably, as in: how has this situation become a problem?  That always used to work.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 10 December, 2014, 10:17:52 am
(The other issue, of course, is letting go of an obsession with grammatical pedantry. It only actually matters where it starts to interfere with understanding.)
There's truth in that, of course. However, if the writer were well-placed to spot potential misunderstandings, there would never be any. The rules of grammar also help us to avoid the misunderstandings that we do not anticipate.

They also create plenty of misunderstanding in the pursuit of perfection as authors contort sentences to avoid the swishing cane of Victorian grammar. Pedantry in such matters is also the main source of precariously elevated petardary. I'll start sentences with and, split infinitives wide enough to drive a bus through, and end on a deliciously dangling preposition.
Good for you!

American grammar nazis seem to be the worst, contorting sentences awfully to avoid the horror of a split infinitive. What do Strunk & White say on that?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 10 December, 2014, 10:19:11 am
Less cryptically, that's Fowler's Modern English Usage.

NB that "Modern" was originally 1926. It's been revised a couple of times and I find it reasonably interesting, but although it probably is the nearest thing to an authoritative text, it's not really a coursebook. Might also be worth looking at the Guardian and the Economist style guides, which are quite good in identifying tricky situations and giving consistent answers.

In some ways, the best way of getting this stuff ingrained is simply to read lots of conventionally well-written text. Broadsheet newspapers, literary fiction, periodicals like the Economist or Spectator or Prospect or New Statesman, some (relatively few) long-form blogs (I quite like Jack of Kent, and Charlie Stross's one at antipope.org). Read lots, and the good stuff gets ingrained while poor and ungrammatical writing just begins to feel unnatural.

(The other issue, of course, is letting go of an obsession with grammatical pedantry. It only actually matters where it starts to interfere with understanding.)
+1
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 10 December, 2014, 10:33:13 am
Hmm. I am currently proofreading an article on issues in media culture for a professional journal on studies in journalism & mass communication, written by a professor at an Australian university.

"It would not be an over-exaggeration to say ".  :facepalm:


"Re-essentialization", "problematize" (yes!), "overdetermined", "(re)constitution",  "re)conceptualize", "(cyber)nationalism",

Oh, I wish I could slash & burn! But I must confine myself to typos & the like. Professor X would not be happy to have his obscure jargon turned into clear English. It may not be the professor's first language, but the mastery of jargon-riddled bollocks displayed is impressive, in a depressing way.

What really pisses me off is that underneath the bollocks I think he's making some good points about what's really happening in East Asian popular culture & western perceptions of it, but the only people who'll notice are the few who can be bothered to wade through the language of academic sociology/media & cultural studies.

The historicity of K-pop & J-pop.  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 December, 2014, 10:36:43 am
Daughter, who is at a (supposedly) good university has been given an essay in which she is asked to describe how a situation has been 'problematized'. WTF does that mean?

The "more insane management speak..." thread is down there VVVV
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 10 December, 2014, 11:03:29 am
(The other issue, of course, is letting go of an obsession with grammatical pedantry. It only actually matters where it starts to interfere with understanding.)
There's truth in that, of course. However, if the writer were well-placed to spot potential misunderstandings, there would never be any. The rules of grammar also help us to avoid the misunderstandings that we do not anticipate.

They also create plenty of misunderstanding in the pursuit of perfection as authors contort sentences to avoid the swishing cane of Victorian grammar. Pedantry in such matters is also the main source of precariously elevated petardary. I'll start sentences with and, split infinitives wide enough to drive a bus through, and end on a deliciously dangling preposition.
Good for you!

American grammar nazis seem to be the worst, contorting sentences awfully to avoid the horror of a split infinitive. What do Strunk & White say on that?

Go with the ear.

The split infinitive is another trick of rhetoric in which the ear must be quicker than the handbook. Some infinitives seem to improve on being split, just as a stick of round stovewood does. "I cannot bring myself to fully like the fellow." The sentence is relaxed, the meaning is clear, the violation is harmless and scarcely perceptible. Put the other way the sentence becomes stiff, needlessly formal. A matter of ear. (p78)

I'd dispense with all 'rules' of grammar and go with naturalistic sentences that sound good to the ear and mind. I'm not sure American grammar nazis are any worse than British ones, at least they tend not to get their jackboots in a twist over 'crude Americanisms' and the like.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 10 December, 2014, 11:51:07 am
Go with the ear. Yes!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 10 December, 2014, 11:58:38 am


American grammar nazis seem to be the worst, contorting sentences awfully to avoid the horror of a split infinitive. What do Strunk & White say on that?

This reminded me of something: Timespeak: Backward ran sentences until reeled the mind (http://shreevatsa.wordpress.com/2010/05/24/timespeak-backward-ran-sentences-until-reeled-the-mind/).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 10 December, 2014, 12:32:57 pm


American grammar nazis seem to be the worst, contorting sentences awfully to avoid the horror of a split infinitive. What do Strunk & White say on that?

This reminded me of something: Timespeak: Backward ran sentences until reeled the mind (http://shreevatsa.wordpress.com/2010/05/24/timespeak-backward-ran-sentences-until-reeled-the-mind/).

Wolcott Gibbs is sorely under-read if you like that flavour of acerbic prose that glittered so much in the pre-war New Yorker (à la Thurber, EB White, Parker).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 10 December, 2014, 02:38:40 pm
....I'm not sure American grammar nazis are any worse than British ones, at least they tend not to get their jackboots in a twist over 'crude Americanisms' and the like.
P.S. "Problematize" is, of course, a crude Americanism, unlike our own dear 'problematise'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 10 December, 2014, 03:21:13 pm
Daughter, who is at a (supposedly) good university has been given an essay in which she is asked to describe how a situation has been 'problematized'. WTF does that mean?
Presumably, as in: how has this situation become a problem?  That always used to work.

No.  Problematise has a specific meaning, so the question is 'Why has the situation been perceived to be a problem?'
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 10 December, 2014, 03:30:50 pm
....I'm not sure American grammar nazis are any worse than British ones, at least they tend not to get their jackboots in a twist over 'crude Americanisms' and the like.
P.S. "Problematize" is, of course, a crude Americanism, unlike our own dear 'problematise'.

Unless, of course, you're of the Oxford persuasion, in which case -ize away.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 10 December, 2014, 03:31:52 pm
Daughter, who is at a (supposedly) good university has been given an essay in which she is asked to describe how a situation has been 'problematized'. WTF does that mean?
Presumably, as in: how has this situation become a problem?  That always used to work.

No.  Problematise has a specific meaning, so the question is 'Why has the situation been perceived to be a problem?'

Perceived to be a problem or made into a problem?

I'd have assumed the latter.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 10 December, 2014, 06:29:24 pm
....I'm not sure American grammar nazis are any worse than British ones, at least they tend not to get their jackboots in a twist over 'crude Americanisms' and the like.
P.S. "Problematize" is, of course, a crude Americanism, unlike our own dear 'problematise'.

Unless, of course, you're of the Oxford persuasion, in which case -ize away.
Bah! They're inconsistent! You'll never find one writing 'cruizer', or 'cruizing'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 December, 2014, 11:02:56 pm
Or Beatrix Potter or, I think, Penguin. At any rate ISTR -ize spellings in the books I read as a kid and most of them were Puffins.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 11 December, 2014, 11:15:30 am
....I'm not sure American grammar nazis are any worse than British ones, at least they tend not to get their jackboots in a twist over 'crude Americanisms' and the like.
P.S. "Problematize" is, of course, a crude Americanism, unlike our own dear 'problematise'.

Unless, of course, you're of the Oxford persuasion, in which case -ize away.
Bah! They're inconsistent! You'll never find one writing 'cruizer', or 'cruizing'.

I'm sure Webster would have gone with 'cruzer'. Be gone, pesky excess vowels.

I have to alternate between American and British English. Oddly, I use to -ize in British English, but I know -ise for distinctiveness.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 11 December, 2014, 11:25:16 am
It's a common misconception among our translation clients that -ise is English and  -ize American.  Not true: both are UK English. Dr. Johnson clouded the issue with his dictionary because he had the idea that all words ending in -ize were derived from French and so should be spelt the French way, with -ise.  In the end, he was as bad as Webster.  And had weapons-grade halitosis to boot.

Anyway, our clients often ask for translation into UK or US English, and get all hissy if we put an -ize in what they think is the wrong place.

Tiresome bugger, Johnson.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 11 December, 2014, 01:37:33 pm
Keep up everyone.  We settled the -ize -ise debate a mere 4-and-a-half years and 110 pages ago.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 11 December, 2014, 02:08:23 pm
Before my time.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 11 December, 2014, 03:18:08 pm
Contrafibularities
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: a lower gear on 11 December, 2014, 09:59:12 pm
Contrafibularities

Sir, I apprehend, nay fear that you may have caused a degree of pericombobulation, risking even frasmotic siezures.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Dez on 20 December, 2014, 07:48:04 pm
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B5UrZUJCIAAHLWo.jpg:large)

 :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 December, 2014, 02:24:53 pm
It's not wrong though. Well, it might be "wrong" but it's not grammatically incorrect. Many is the subject, so the verb is plural.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 December, 2014, 02:27:49 pm
Meanwhile, this is from the bumf for a children's paintballing event:
Quote
I understand that I am leaving my child in the care of the responsible adult named above, whom will remain on the premises to ensure the above conditions are adhered to throughout the session.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 03 January, 2015, 07:25:01 am
"Anyways".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Steph on 03 January, 2015, 08:23:47 am
I have already mentioned the trains that are "arriving into" stations. The other day I had both "When you alight the train" and "When you alight the station", both of which meant "When you alight from the train and get off at the station"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 03 January, 2015, 08:55:47 am
The one I loved was "Passengers are requested to adhere to platform staff".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 03 January, 2015, 11:43:45 am
The one I loved was "Passengers are requested to adhere to platform staff".

 ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 January, 2015, 11:08:44 pm
"Anyways".
I like that one. I use it from time to time, though only for forum posts and similar, rather than in speech or actual writing. In my mind, I hear it in a Yorkshire-ish accent with a cross between a laugh and a sigh, to indicate that the topic has changed but it is just as inconsequential as before.

Bad grammar? Yes, because it's not 'correct', but no, because it's not meant to be 'correct'. Bad style? Almost certainly! Sorry if it makes you cringe.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 05 January, 2015, 07:46:27 am
"Anyways" rings on my ear as American Illiterate: one of those errors born of ignorance that have come to dominate Murkin and gradually diffused into English, such as using "would of" instead of "would have", "lay" instead of "lie", or "way" instead of "away".  Borderline OK in speech if you're being wantonly droll but bloody 'orrible in print.

I know a Floridian who affects surprise with "Egads".  Jeez (saving your presence).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 January, 2015, 09:33:21 am
Pythonesque cod-Yorkshire to me. I think "would of" is born of universal ignorance rather than being specifically American, though lay for lie might well have drifted across the pond. I'm not sure I've come across way for away.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Exit Stage Left on 05 January, 2015, 10:19:20 am
Daughter, who is at a (supposedly) good university has been given an essay in which she is asked to describe how a situation has been 'problematized'. WTF does that mean?

I suppose an example would be where language conveys meaning to the reader, but a caste of 'experts' attempts to occupy the space between the writer and the reader, by identifying 'problems', which only they can solve.

Once a problem has been created, there's a market for a solution. I believe universities would term this 'the dialectic', and it's a con-job that's been running for a while.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 05 January, 2015, 02:06:53 pm
Pythonesque cod-Yorkshire to me. I think "would of" is born of universal ignorance rather than being specifically American, though lay for lie might well have drifted across the pond. I'm not sure I've come across way for away.

I first noticed these on US sites, although "would of" does look like something a vocal recognition prog might come up with.  I used one when I broke my collar-bone and spent more time correcting than dictating.

Way for away has a long history - think "Old Folks at Home".  Although it used to be written with a preceding apostrophe.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 05 January, 2015, 02:10:17 pm
I've said before - probably in this thread - that I only discovered "would of" was wrong after I learned to read/write.  In some accents the difference is undetectable.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 05 January, 2015, 02:42:07 pm
Daughter, who is at a (supposedly) good university has been given an essay in which she is asked to describe how a situation has been 'problematized'. WTF does that mean?

I suppose an example would be where language conveys meaning to the reader, but a caste of 'experts' attempts to occupy the space between the writer and the reader, by identifying 'problems', which only they can solve.

Once a problem has been created, there's a market for a solution. I believe universities would term this 'the dialectic', and it's a con-job that's been running for a while.


Some years ago Carrefour came up with an ad in which a woman proclaimed "Avec Carrefour, je positive" - meaning, supposedly, "with Carrefour I benefit". It was a feeble message but the Académie Française burst a few arteries and several members died of shock (although in their case it was some time before any difference was noticed).  After that it had to pass into everyday use.  Nowadays you hear people saying "il faut positiver", meaning make the best of it.

I could imagine "positivize" making into everyday English.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 05 January, 2015, 07:11:15 pm
It was a feeble message but the Académie Française burst a few arteries and several members died of shock (although in their case it was some time before any difference was noticed).  After that it had to pass into everyday use.  Nowadays you hear people saying "il faut positiver", meaning make the best of it.

Proof that advertising does what it says on the tin. Does anyone in France still use "vachement" as in "vachement bon"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Exit Stage Left on 05 January, 2015, 09:18:48 pm
Daughter, who is at a (supposedly) good university has been given an essay in which she is asked to describe how a situation has been 'problematized'. WTF does that mean?

I suppose an example would be where language conveys meaning to the reader, but a caste of 'experts' attempts to occupy the space between the writer and the reader, by identifying 'problems', which only they can solve.

Once a problem has been created, there's a market for a solution. I believe universities would term this 'the dialectic', and it's a con-job that's been running for a while.


Some years ago Carrefour came up with an ad in which a woman proclaimed "Avec Carrefour, je positive" - meaning, supposedly, "with Carrefour I benefit". It was a feeble message but the Académie Française burst a few arteries and several members died of shock (although in their case it was some time before any difference was noticed).  After that it had to pass into everyday use.  Nowadays you hear people saying "il faut positiver", meaning make the best of it.

I could imagine "positivize" making into everyday English.

For 35 years that sentiment has been expressed in song. 'Always look on the Bright of Life, ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum ba-dum.'
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 05 January, 2015, 09:56:04 pm
Can't remember whether we've covered this, but I'm shuddering at the constant references in the media to "protesting" and "appealing" decisions. You protest and appeal against things (or sometimes for them, which is one of the reasons why the "against" is important).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 05 January, 2015, 10:00:50 pm
It was a feeble message but the Académie Française burst a few arteries and several members died of shock (although in their case it was some time before any difference was noticed).  After that it had to pass into everyday use.  Nowadays you hear people saying "il faut positiver", meaning make the best of it.

Proof that advertising does what it says on the tin. Does anyone in France still use "vachement" as in "vachement bon"?

Certainly. Related to saying "c'est vache", i.e. hard-nosed or underhand.  19th century according to some - siege of Paris etc. Nowt to do with advertising.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 05 January, 2015, 11:06:19 pm
To the person responsible for the subtitles1 on an episode of "Ice Road Truckers" - irrespective of how ghastly the weather may be conditions are not libel to get worse.

1: USAnians mumbling over CB radio in noisy lorries during a gale-force blizzard.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 06 January, 2015, 01:22:43 am
Certainly. Related to saying "c'est vache", i.e. hard-nosed or underhand.  19th century according to some - siege of Paris etc. Nowt to do with advertising.

Ah! I was told it came from the "vachement bon" slogan for La Vache Qui Rit in the 60s.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Steph on 06 January, 2015, 03:02:43 am
Certainly. Related to saying "c'est vache", i.e. hard-nosed or underhand.  19th century according to some - siege of Paris etc. Nowt to do with advertising.

Ah! I was told it came from the "vachement bon" slogan for La Vache Qui Rit in the 60s.
That was a reverse-engineered pun. Vachement is indeed still used freely, along with that delightful Frog expletive "Whore!"

One of my books is written as being the work of a French girl who believes she speaks fluent English, so I was able to have fun with the style. I particularly liked inserting unnecessary definite articles (oo-er) and translating the swearies literally.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 06 January, 2015, 08:10:41 am
Death of my life and sacred blue (Harry Flashman).

Re vachement, somewhere we have a reproduction of a Paris Illustré, dating from the last 30 years of the 19th century, which sports the photo of a sway-backed horse with the caption "future saucisse".  Eating horsemeat was promoted during the Siege of Paris: I'm wondering if, given the French penchant for irony, saying "c'est vachement bon" over a fillet of filly wasn't responsible for elevating vachement from meaning hard-nosed to merely meaning extremely.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 06 January, 2015, 08:29:13 am
My own cringe yesterday was afforded by a phrase in an NYT article by Paul Krugman: "wracked by low wages and unemployment".

Wrack is seaweed.  The instrument of torture was the rack.

His Nobel was for economics, after all.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 06 January, 2015, 08:43:04 am
Pythonesque cod-Yorkshire to me.

Not cod-Yorkshire. Anyways is used a lot in North / East Yorkshire at least.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 06 January, 2015, 09:34:23 am
Whereas, being West Riding, I'd use 'Any road', or 'Any road up'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 January, 2015, 11:25:47 am
Funnily enough, I do sometimes imagine it as "anyways up".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 06 January, 2015, 12:02:57 pm
"being because" is a weird one that I had never heard before moving to the Wolds. It might be just a Malton expression but possibly its all over East Yorkshire I don't know. It's used thus:

"being because the car had a flat tyre I was late"

You would never hear it in York only 20 miles away.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 06 January, 2015, 03:12:36 pm
I spent much time in Pocklington as a young Mr Larrington and I don't recall "being because".  Paging Crinkles...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: CrinklyLion on 06 January, 2015, 08:07:25 pm
Nope, not heard that one in Pock.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 08 January, 2015, 05:22:55 pm
There's much more wrong with this than the grammar (and spelling). Enjoy!
(https://scontent-b-lhr.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpf1/v/t1.0-9/10620646_10203697178658047_2388389545505672066_n.jpg?oh=d55733df68fccd4594b68f0a9d245d9d&oe=552A70E8)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 08 January, 2015, 05:40:17 pm
I lost the will to live before I finished the first paragraph.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 09 January, 2015, 01:56:42 am
No compliments to complement their malaprops.

Too many word, insufficient content.

Why do you need so much verbiage for a SIMPLE café?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 09 January, 2015, 07:49:24 am
Pretty good for a non-native speaker.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 January, 2015, 10:36:42 am
You probably won't be using that one as an audax control, then.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 09 January, 2015, 11:14:15 am
You probably won't be using that one as an audax control, then.

Not when my local, just a little further on, is planned to reopen as a 24hr cafe (though closed Friday evening to Sunday morning to avoid the drunks).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 January, 2015, 11:22:45 am
A 24hr cafe! When I am ruler of the whole entire complete total world and universe, I shall make there be 24 hour cafes at Strategic Intervals. They shall have gallons of cake and lashings of strong tea. No, wait, that should lashings of cake and gallons of tea. Hang on, are we allowed to talk about 'lashings' nowadays? Well, they shall also have beans on toast and, oooh, a lot of other stuff.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: billplumtree on 09 January, 2015, 02:19:20 pm
Whereas, being West Riding, I'd use 'Any road', or 'Any road up'.

I've done some of pizzicatooff's audax events in t'West Riding.  It's true, any road is up round there.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 10 January, 2015, 02:40:01 pm
Tell you what annoys me most mightily: seeing a usage that makes me cringe, then going into the dictionary and finding that it's marked [c16] at the bottom of the entry. Case in point: today I saw legitimate used as a verb.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 10 January, 2015, 05:41:37 pm
Dictionaries only record usage, you can still disagree with a certain usage if you don't like it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: orienteer on 10 January, 2015, 08:52:36 pm
Title of a BBC website item: Is The Voice ‘building careers’ and not ‘flash in the pans’?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-30749756 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-30749756)

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 10 January, 2015, 09:58:06 pm
The pub we were in today had leaflets lying around advertising Burn's weekend.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 10 January, 2015, 10:01:12 pm
The pub we were in today had leaflets lying around advertising Burn's weekend.

Who/what do they intend to burn?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 11 January, 2015, 09:01:02 am
Presumably something of Haggi's.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 11 January, 2015, 09:47:15 am
A nation of shopkeepers, and they're all grocer's.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 January, 2015, 01:31:48 pm
Presumably something of Haggi's.
Is he related to Ogri?
Title: Re:the verbal noun that makes you cringe
Post by: meddyg on 23 January, 2015, 03:06:59 pm
 You've been nounin' when youghtta been verbin'
 
It all started with ‘prioritise’ and ‘hospitalise.’ We were shocked by this wanton  use of English last century, however as time passes we’re ready to monetise, deleverage and neologise in a way which has defeated my spellchecker.

The sports commentators were in there early; I guess that sports journalism sexes up a boring old match by writing ‘ Ikram topscored in the second innings, and (pass the sick bag,please) ' Gerry carded 6 on the 9th hole.'  Then footballers were red and yellow carded. But now it's all gone mad, mostly in the sporting world -  remember in Olympics year how the reporters had to be restrained from saying 'he/she  'medalled' in the final. 'Pedalled' being  fine - in the velodrome - if you can spell it!

Meanwhile in my profession a patient tells me her son ‘ vomited and diarrhoea’d (how to spell that ?) all night.' I suppose we’re used to ‘upping the ante’ whatever that might mean. However  ‘can the dose be upped’ is less comfortable somehow than ‘can I increase the dose? My colleagues don’t get my grammar sensitivity (‘just chill Bob’) But 'vomitting'  &  'inflammed' - are popular nurse and  doctor spelling bloopers  ( oh there’s a huge list). Maybe it’s one of those ‘synaesthesia' problems – people seeing colours when tunes are played in different keys? But I feel sick when I hear these neologisms.....  And now from the admindroids  ' GPs will be 'mandated' to refer on dementia patients, whilst civil servants have been 'tasked with' raising diagnosis rates.

 So now ( and this goes back to last century it’s quite possible to spot  in an American paper ‘they were farewelled at the airport and gifted a rose bowl.’ (Oh, spellcheck allows ‘gifted’ and Garrison Keillor spake it on American Public Radio only last week, so maybe it's OK now, Stateside).’
 
There's been a historic mix up over nouns-as-verbs - consider the use
 of 'summonsed.'  Being summoned to court is not the same as being 'summonsed' -
 presumably being delivered a summons a with legal implications for not
 complying. Being summoned from the garden for supper usually carries only modest penalties for non-compliance.

 There are plenty of  uncontroversial uses of nouns-as-verbs : axing services / braking at  stop signs. And although 'he pedalled to victory' is OK he 'topscored'  is just lazy and innovation for its own sake - and to lend the writer some apparently superior skill in his area.

 He penned a poem – is in common use  ‘she  authored a novel’ - is transatlantic newspeak. And where did ‘redacted’ come from might I ask?   And in the world   of the arts films now ‘première’  in London and then show in the provinces - I think we're getting lost in the distinction between  transitive and intransitive verbs, aren’t we ? I mean  the usherette shows you into the cinema, the projectionist shows the film 

 And where has this craziness come from ? - Across the pond of course! Course we can blame the Americans who not only tolerate but incentivise and now, er, showcase  these (bad) practices.

 So  step foward , Miss Nancy Sinatra who got us all off on the wrong foot in 1969 with ‘These boots were made for walking ‘

You been lying, when you oughtta been truthing !

 
 
 
 

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 23 January, 2015, 03:33:03 pm
You left out the nastiest -ise of all, Maggie's "privatise".

But let Nancy off the hook: she was being poetically licentious, and the modest shock her grammar inflicted was rather pleasant.  I've never heard it since, either, so I don't think it did any damage.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 23 January, 2015, 04:59:51 pm
There is no noun that cannot be verbed.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 23 January, 2015, 05:18:24 pm
Verbing weirds words.
Title: Re:the verbal noun that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 23 January, 2015, 06:07:01 pm
We were shocked by this wanton  use of English last century,

How long before someone comes along with proof that every one of those words has been in use since 1653?  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 23 January, 2015, 07:31:30 pm
Paging* Gareth...


*see what I did there?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 January, 2015, 11:34:33 am
And nouning verbs. "I've got an invite to a party." I rather like nouning verbs and verbing nouns, where it expresses a distinct meaning, so I don't object to "medalled", for instance, because - although it's a bit ugly - there was no previous single word meaning to win a medal. I don't like "an invite" because it means exactly the same as "an invitation", but it seems to be the norm now, so I accept it.

' GPs will be 'mandated' to refer on dementia patients,
This is one I think is bad, because it's not clear what it means. Have GPs been given the authority to refer on dementia patients or told it's mandatory? Even this I expect is clear in the context in which it needs to be understood, ie to GPs, who already know what they are allowed to do and have to do. I hope. (And without that context, "refer on" isn't clear either; does the on mean "refer them to the next person in the chain" or does it mean refer "on the subject of" the patients?) But jargon is like that - clear in the context to those who need to know, not to others.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 January, 2015, 11:36:47 am
Kind of related, I see Yiddish (and presumably German) has one word for "l'esprit d'escalier".
http://www.theguardian.com/education/gallery/2015/jan/12/from-mangata-to-kilig-10-untranslatable-words-in-pictures
Number 8.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: meddyg on 26 January, 2015, 10:03:48 pm
and some overpaid journalist said (nursing his hangover)
'we're always being guilted into diets and not drinking at the start of a New Year.

these goody two-shoes who midwife us from December into January' .... blah blah £££

(it was probably Will Self wot authored it )
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mcshroom on 02 February, 2015, 04:46:47 pm
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/1385422_890770770963217_5636177806519638443_n.jpg?oh=33f2947eedab1573eeb0a4f45ca1dec9&oe=5567BC89&__gda__=1432695058_497c23eaef970ce6042186c4f81af23e)
Title: Re:the verbal noun that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 02 February, 2015, 07:30:59 pm
There are plenty of  uncontroversial uses of nouns-as-verbs : axing services / braking at  stop signs. And although 'he pedalled to victory' is OK he 'topscored'  is just lazy and innovation for its own sake - and to lend the writer some apparently superior skill in his area.

 He penned a poem – is in common use 
<sznip>
 So  step foward , Miss Nancy Sinatra who got us all off on the wrong foot in 1969 with ‘These boots were made for walking ‘

You been lying, when you oughtta been truthing !
:)


I've been trying to justify why "medalling" is a poor piece of verbing, whilst axing etc are good. My best attempt is that some nouns relate more directly to an action; e.g. pen, axe and (bi)cycle.

But medal is a passive object. You dont very often do anything WITH it;  you can award one, make one, collect some. (that ambiguity may also be a mark against "medalling".)

No doubt there are exceptions which prove my "rule" !
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 02 February, 2015, 08:10:21 pm
You could meddle with one.

(http://legslarry.org.uk/BikeStull/coat_48.png)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 February, 2015, 08:22:23 pm
Medalling is what kids (and a dog) have been doing since (according to wikipedia and imdb) 1969, mostly with criminals dressed up as monsters. I thought you drove a scooby, Matt?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 02 February, 2015, 10:33:33 pm
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/1385422_890770770963217_5636177806519638443_n.jpg?oh=33f2947eedab1573eeb0a4f45ca1dec9&oe=5567BC89&__gda__=1432695058_497c23eaef970ce6042186c4f81af23e)

 :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 02 February, 2015, 10:37:52 pm
(https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/1385422_890770770963217_5636177806519638443_n.jpg?oh=33f2947eedab1573eeb0a4f45ca1dec9&oe=5567BC89&__gda__=1432695058_497c23eaef970ce6042186c4f81af23e)

 :facepalm:

They haven't quite got that off to a 'T'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: billplumtree on 05 February, 2015, 10:32:40 am
Peter May, The Blackhouse, set on the Isle of Lewis:
Quote
Hats, like the burka, were obligatory headwear on Lewis for churchgoing women.

I suspect that doesn't mean quite what you intended it to mean, Mr May.  Either that or Lewis has changed a lot in the last couple of years.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 05 February, 2015, 10:52:03 am
Bloody immigrunts [cont. p94 of UKIP's manifesto]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 05 February, 2015, 12:00:09 pm
Peter May, The Blackhouse, set on the Isle of Lewis:
Quote
Hats, like the burka, were obligatory headwear on Lewis for churchgoing women.

I suspect that doesn't mean quite what you intended it to mean, Mr May.  Either that or Lewis has changed a lot in the last couple of years.

 ;D ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 05 February, 2015, 05:57:27 pm
Poached from the WikipediaFinds thread:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Giraffedata/comprised_of

I think I love this man. Perhaps the key passage:
"
The prevalence argument does very little for me -- I don't see grammar as a majority rule thing. The prevalence would have to be about 99% for me to accept it as valid (though still unfortunate) usage. Bear in mind that a great many people write "could of", yet few people who study the issue argue this is a Wikipedia-worthy way to say "could have".

The dictionary argument also fails to hit the mark, because the function of a dictionary isn't to tell you what is OK to use in any particular writing. It merely tells you what people mean when they do use a word.
"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 05 February, 2015, 09:33:33 pm
Gawd. "Comprised of " stems from ignorance, just as "could of" takes its origin in people writing what they think they hear without ever having learnt basic English.  Both are simply wrong.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Voyager on 06 February, 2015, 08:26:12 pm
I could commit murder when I see or hear 'could of' instead of 'could have' ! >:(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Voyager on 06 February, 2015, 08:29:13 pm
I could commit murder when I see or hear 'could of' instead of 'could have' ! >:(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Steph on 07 February, 2015, 05:18:21 am
Arithmetic this time.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-31152569

Five out of twenty does not equal "One third"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 08 February, 2015, 11:26:32 pm
This is more usage than grammar,  combined with my dirty mind, from a ride report on a local CTC Facebook page today.

<<...her blond hair gleaming in the morning sun as she bent over her bike examining her front wheel, which had punctured - just in time to have a trio of male members to fix it.>>

I keep thinking of three willies wielding tyre levers...

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 12 February, 2015, 09:42:05 pm
King Dick tyre levers, of course.

Oh, and in the normal way of things wheels do not puncture anything, but tyres are regularly punctured.

Ah well.

Meanwhile, in a galaxy not far from here I just read an entire thread wherein every single post discussed the problem of nether garments "chaffing". Nobody suggested telling the buggers to shut up.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 12 February, 2015, 10:21:29 pm
I could commit murder when I see or hear 'could of' instead of 'could have' ! >:(
I could commit murder when I see or hear 'could of' instead of 'could have' ! >:(
You were 4 days late.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 13 March, 2015, 11:09:36 pm
Things are either feasible, or unfeasible.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 14 March, 2015, 08:37:48 am
Never seen or heard unfeasible. "Not feasible", yes.  Had to check Chambers, though (I have it on the computer): years of talking furrin muddies the waters.

Anyway, I came in here to gripe about underway.  It's under way, two words, said of a vessel that has way on her.  Under weigh is similarly crap, but worse crap. Trust me, my father was an inveterate armchair sailor.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 14 March, 2015, 12:08:21 pm
Things are either feasible, or unfeasible.

That's interesting - The Oxford dictionary defines unfeasible differently to infeasible: the difference between impractical and impracticable.

Presumably something that was feasible can later be described as feased?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Steph on 14 March, 2015, 11:57:33 pm
Don't fease the Reaper?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 16 March, 2015, 10:44:59 pm
I would have said infeasible. I don't suppose there's much call for "unfeasible". Strictly, there isn't that much call for "impractical" either, except that people keep using it when they mean "impracticable". You don't tend to need to be told that something is impractical.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wombat on 17 March, 2015, 08:30:02 am
Never seen or heard unfeasible. "Not feasible", yes.  Had to check Chambers, though (I have it on the computer): years of talking furrin muddies the waters.

Anyway, I came in here to gripe about underway.  It's under way, two words, said of a vessel that has way on her.  Under weigh is similarly crap, but worse crap. Trust me, my father was an inveterate armchair sailor.

Didn't he find that the upholstery tended to get wet?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 17 March, 2015, 08:33:04 am
Never seen or heard unfeasible. "Not feasible", yes.  Had to check Chambers, though (I have it on the computer): years of talking furrin muddies the waters.

Good god man have you never read Viz? "Buster Gonad - the boy with the unfeasibly large testicles" that was a classic comic strip.

And here he is gracing the nose of an RAF Jaguar bomber during Gulf War I
(http://images.military.com/pics/SA_art_040612_9m.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 17 March, 2015, 09:25:40 am
Viz? Never even heard of it.  Eagle and Hotspur, that was my youthful reading-matter.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 17 March, 2015, 10:33:42 am
When some outfit launched a weekly rag aimed at Babbage-Engine Operations types the advertised it not in "Computer Weekly" but in "Viz" as they reckoned it to be the one publication guaranteed to be read in every computer room in the country.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 18 March, 2015, 02:07:04 pm
Not really grammar . . . .

but I get pissed off when English-speakers who don't properly understand foreign words use them in English, especially when the distorted English usage then becomes widely adopted.

'Chai' is just TEA! And 'garam' just means HOT! And 'garam chai' is nice simple hot tea! If you're selling a spicy tea mixture, there's another word for it, one you've seen in every Indian restaurant in the bloody country, & you may even have on a label on your shelves at home, usually preceded by 'garam'.

How'd you like to order a pint of nice refreshing beer & find that it's served hot, with spices, by someone who thinks that what 'beer' means?

There are other examples, but this is the most recent to have provoked me.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 March, 2015, 02:49:38 pm
Yebbut, tea in India is usually served in a way that's quite different from typical British tea. Small cup, very sweet, with cardamom - and other spices, but that's predominant. So it makes sense, in a British context, to call that 'chai'.

As for masala, which I presume is the other word you're referring to, it might translate as 'spice' but in use it's more like 'mixture of spices or herbs'. It doesn't have to be spicy in the chilli, peppery sense. Garam, of course, means hot in both senses. If you consider 'garam chai' as an English phrase with Hindi origins, it kind of makes sense. If you think it's Hindi, it's a bit silly. Pretty much every language borrows words from others and distorts them from their original meanings.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 23 March, 2015, 10:43:05 pm
Can't find the foreign menu thread. If there is one.

(http://www.alfiecat.co.uk/yetacf/mole_sauce.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 24 March, 2015, 07:52:30 am
^^^ reminiscent of a bilingual menu we once saw where escalope de volaille was translated as fowl collop.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: The French Tandem on 24 March, 2015, 09:16:06 am
Poor translation, he said?

(click to show/hide)

Warning!!! NSFW image.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 24 March, 2015, 09:32:34 am
Ever bought a box of Crapsy Fruit cereal?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 24 March, 2015, 12:04:59 pm
Yebbut, tea in India is usually served in a way that's quite different from typical British tea. Small cup, very sweet, with cardamom - and other spices, but that's predominant. So it makes sense, in a British context, to call that 'chai'.
Except that we've already borrowed it from Hindi/Urdu, as another word for plain ordinary tea, many years ago. "A cuppa char" was still in common use in the 1960s.

I'm pretty sure that 'chai' for spiced tea in English isn't even from any Indian language, directly, but an Americanism, introduced into the USA by a certain Seattle-based purveyor of beverages which used it as a marketing term, I believe, & from there to here. That's a damn good reason to abhor it.

BTW, in my experience, Indian tea sold in places where the customers were almost all ordinary Indians (non-tourist locations such as roadside halts & railway stations away from the main tourist routes) & was generally very lightly or even un-spiced 30 years ago. Hippy cafes for foreigners sold much spicier tea (& the worse for it) than I ever bought from anyone who was selling to Indians.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 March, 2015, 12:48:03 pm
But if you're going to say that chai and char are the same word, then so is tea. And thé, Tee, herbata and so on, which will all likely be served in a slightly different way as a matter of course.

However it reached us in its present incarnation, it's clearly a marketing term, though not one I'd associate with any particular company. Not sure I ever drank any tourist tea in India, except maybe in Yercaud. (Maybe it's time to launch a marketing campaign for badam milk.  ;) :o :sick:)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 24 March, 2015, 01:10:14 pm
You're saying that assorted variants of thé, tea etc. from numerous languages exist as words in everyday English with generally understood different meanings, not terms used only by a few pretentious retailers & their customers? And ditto for variants of cha, chaa, chai, etc? Really?

I think you don't associate it with any particular firm because by the time it got here it had spread beyond the first one, but it looks very much as if it started on the US west coast in one chain.

Fashions change, in India as everywhere else. Tea may have become spicier. Also, there were marked regional differences in many things when I went there, including food & drink (in many ways travelling between parts of India was like travelling between European countries, back then), & I wouldn't be surprised if that's still true. Coffee that was common in Kerala was almost unobtainable in Delhi, for example, & IIRC tea tasted different.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 March, 2015, 01:13:18 pm
I'm saying that char and chai are not the same word.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 24 March, 2015, 01:26:16 pm
From what I remember, the variations were:

Tea (1 rupee chai, boiled in the pot with the milk)
Special Tea (2 rupee chai, boiled in the pot with milk and spices)
Tray Tea (also known as English Tea, served in a small pot with a strainer and separate milk)

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 24 March, 2015, 01:34:59 pm
I'm saying that char and chai are not the same word.
Although they used to be used interchangeably in English, for far longer than the current fashionista usage of 'chai'?

'Tcha' or 'chaa' was the first word used in English for tea, BTW, from Portuguese. 'Tea' is anglicised Dutch, but they all (including Hindi) got their words from China, the big split reflecting Chinese dialectical differences, & both having remained pretty well within the degree of variation in the Chinese originals. You want two different versions within one subset of Chinese dialectical variants to be classed as different words?

I think 'hat' is the same word in different English & USian dialectical pronunciations, though I reckon there's as much difference there as between char (the 'r' indicates long 'a', & is not itself pronounced) & chai.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 March, 2015, 01:58:00 pm
Right, they used to be used interchangeably, but they're not now. In Britain now, asking for tea and chai will get you two slightly different things. In India, it would most likely get you the same thing. And probably something different again in China, etc. Of course all these words have the same origin. At what point you consider them to have become separate words is more lexicography than anything else.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 24 March, 2015, 02:03:16 pm
Weeelll. . . . I think in much of Britain, asking for chai will get you a blank look.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 March, 2015, 04:54:51 pm
Probably so. And I'm not quite sure what kind of look you'd get asking for 'lesbian tea'. Actually, I've a mind now to try asking in Starbucks or Costa for 'a venti of lesbian chai with badam milk'!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 March, 2015, 06:56:06 pm
Quote
Meads Reach Bridge get’s cycle friendly coating
http://www.betterbybike.info/News/meads-reach-bridge/
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 04 April, 2015, 09:07:54 am
Here's a little something for grammar pedants to get their teeth into into which grammar pedants can get their teeth.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/03/bad-language-bugs-me#comment-49912876
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 04 April, 2015, 11:25:38 am
While he is right to draw attention to the hateful use of "leverage" as a verb there is nothing at all wrong with the example he quotes.  Assuming Mr Sells-Fridges does not pronounce it "levveridge"; if he does then both he and the scriptwriter want badly to be shot in the face with square bullets.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 04 April, 2015, 02:13:18 pm
I reckon 'leverage' as a verb is permitted as long as you're using it in the financial sense.  If nothing else, that serves as a handy warning sign.  Wikipedia informs me that the en_GB pronunciation is "gearing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leverage_%28finance%29)".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 April, 2015, 11:07:51 am
Sticking with every Yacfer's favourite source of smug news, here's a grammar comment that made me cringe:
Quote
"Caring people into change" is not grammatically correct, because the word "caring" is an adjective, when a verb is required. The word "coaxing" would be better employed in this context, or is this just a little too old-fashioned for the VRU?
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/apr/06/glasgow-murder-rate-knife-gang-crime-police
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 07 April, 2015, 03:41:23 pm
Sticking with every Yacfer's favourite source of smug news, here's a grammar comment that made me cringe:
Quote
"Caring people into change" is not grammatically correct, because the word "caring" is an adjective, when a verb is required. The word "coaxing" would be better employed in this context, or is this just a little too old-fashioned for the VRU?
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/apr/06/glasgow-murder-rate-knife-gang-crime-police

Proof that stuff can be grammatically correct and still make you wince.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 April, 2015, 04:49:52 pm
I'm with the Graun in this, I'm afraid.  The person who thought up "Caring people into change" needs to be cared into the Clyde wearing depleted uranium wellies.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 April, 2015, 05:10:26 pm
The headline didn't make me wince at all. It made perfect sense to me and I can't think of a clearer or more precise way of expressing it. It was the comment quibbling about a pedantic irrelevance that made me wince.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 07 April, 2015, 05:21:07 pm
I'm with the Graun in this, I'm afraid.  The person who thought up "Caring people into change" needs to be cared into the Clyde wearing depleted uranium wellies.

It's no different from "Bludgeoning people into change".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 07 April, 2015, 05:28:01 pm
I'm with the Graun in this, I'm afraid.  The person who thought up "Caring people into change" needs to be cared into the Clyde wearing depleted uranium wellies.

It's no different from "Bludgeoning people into change".

Yes it is caring is an adjective and bludgeoning is a verb.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 April, 2015, 05:31:44 pm
Caring, like many (probably most) words ending in -ing, can be an adjective, a participle of a verb or a noun.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 07 April, 2015, 05:45:24 pm
The ing's the thing:

-ing1
suffix, forming nouns
1 formed from a verb: usually expressing the action of that verb, its result, product or something relating to it, etc o building o driving o lining o washing.
2 formed from a noun: describing something made of, used in, etc the specified thing o guttering o roofing o bedding.
3 formed from an adverb: o offing o outing.
[Anglo-Saxon -ing or -ung.]
-ing2
suffix used to form
1 the present participle of verbs, as in I was only asking and saw you walking in the park.
2 adjectives derived from present participles, eg charming, terrifying.
[Anglo-Saxon as -ende.]
-ing3
suffix (no longer productive), forming nouns, signifying one belonging to a specified kind, etc or one of the same kind of quality, character, etc o gelding o whiting. Also used formerly as a diminutive, etc (compare -ling) o farthing.
[Anglo-Saxon.]

Thank-you Mr. Chambers.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 07 April, 2015, 06:18:09 pm
In that sentence, caring is the participle of the verb to care.

If you want to quibble, caring is usually intransitive (whereas bludgeoning is transitive). But I'm with Cudzo - it's a snappy usage. The commenter is a muddle-headed pendant.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 April, 2015, 06:22:54 pm
In that sentence, caring is the participle of the verb to care.

If you want to quibble, caring is usually intransitive (whereas bludgeoning is transitive).

This, only no-one ever learninged me what the proper terms to describing it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 10 April, 2015, 01:55:51 pm
In that sentence, caring is the participle of the verb to care.

If you want to quibble, caring is usually intransitive (whereas bludgeoning is transitive). But I'm with Cudzo - it's a snappy usage. The commenter is a muddle-headed pendant.
That may well be the case but I read it as "people who care like (are into) change". So which is best, snappiness or clarity?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 10 April, 2015, 02:04:03 pm
The lack of clarity makes your attention linger, which is one of the objects of a headline.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 10 April, 2015, 02:51:06 pm
In my experience (many years of writing headlines) the intention is usually to be as clear as possible. You don't want the reader to linger on the headline, you want to catch their attention and make them want to read the story.

I see nicknack's point - yes, it's a bit of a crash blossom, although I didn't read it that way myself...
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1693

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 April, 2015, 08:28:17 pm
Similar to this one, (also from the Guardian) which only caught my eye because I'd already read about it locally:
Quote
Bristol tenants plan demo after letting agents push for rent rise
It's really pretty obvious that it refers to 'letting agents', but for some reason I immediately thought 'why did they let the agents do that?' Which just goes to show that even prior knowledge and common usage is no proof against the reader's brain creating a crash blossom.  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 10 April, 2015, 09:42:19 pm
My favourite was in the IHT years ago. Can't remember all of it but it began "Sexual harassment suits..."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 May, 2015, 10:04:17 am
Quote
Beware sentences – such as this one – that dash about all over the place – it makes them look like a poem by Emily Dickinson.
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/sep/30/10-grammar-rules-you-can-forget

If dashes - like this - are all it takes - or the only thing required - to make my posts - and other writing - look like - perhaps that should be read like? - a poem by Emily Dickinson - or any other poet - then I'm going to use more of them. Here's one to start with -
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 01 May, 2015, 10:48:35 am
I think you hyper-hyphenated there. Here's a hyphen:  - , and here's a dash: — .
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 May, 2015, 11:00:52 am
True - but I only have a dash - on my keyboard - at least as far as I'm aware - it's an n-dash, to be precise - and I can't be bothered to cut and paste from Word.

(Does that look like poetry?  ::-))
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 01 May, 2015, 11:08:53 am
A keyboard generally only has a hyphen doubling as a minus sign. I use alt 0150 and 0151 for – and — , which are noticeably different from a hyphen - .
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 May, 2015, 11:15:56 am
Can't get those alt combos to work for me.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 May, 2015, 11:26:37 am
certainly don't have the option on a fondleslab and I suspect most mobile devices' keyboards are similarly afflicted.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 01 May, 2015, 11:33:25 am
The conjugation of "fit" as in can go in a particular space. These days it seems "fit" is all there is. What happened to "fits", "fitting" and "fitted" ?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 May, 2015, 11:43:25 am
"It fits" is supposed to have been Carey Grant's answer as to why he had married his wife.


(It wasn't Carey Grant but some other movie star of that era - his name will do!)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 01 May, 2015, 11:51:47 am
"It fits" is supposed to have been Carey Grant's answer as to why he had married his wife.


(It wasn't Carey Grant but some other movie star of that era - his name will do!)

Well given his reputation if it was Errol Flynn that might have been a good enough reason.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 01 May, 2015, 12:05:24 pm
certainly don't have the option on a fondleslab and I suspect most mobile devices' keyboards are similarly afflicted.

Hold down the hyphen - – — to get en and em dashery.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 May, 2015, 02:34:47 pm
Doesn't it work on my laptop. Dash it!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 01 May, 2015, 05:14:11 pm
certainly don't have the option on a fondleslab and I suspect most mobile devices' keyboards are similarly afflicted.

Hold down the hyphen - – — to get en and em dashery.
-   -----------------  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 01 May, 2015, 05:33:39 pm
On a fruit-based fondleslab, you can hold down the hyphen to bring up the following alt characters:
- hyphen
– en dash
— em dash
• bullet point

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 May, 2015, 10:37:10 pm
• They keep quiet – about that, I mean — don't they?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 02 May, 2015, 11:30:09 am
Just realised I repeated Ian H's post. For some reason I didn't notice it before writing mine.

Anyway, yes, discovering the alt keys on the iPhone was a revelation for me. It's worth experimenting to discover what else they've hidden away…
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 May, 2015, 11:49:26 am
• They keep quiet – about that, I mean — don't they?
:)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 03 May, 2015, 09:46:12 am
Doesn't it work on my laptop. Dash it!

- hyphen
– ALT+hyphen  
— ALT+SHIFT+hyphen

( only)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 03 May, 2015, 05:30:30 pm
Just realised I repeated Ian H's post. For some reason I didn't notice it before writing mine.

Mine was just quoting
Anyway, yes, discovering the alt keys on the iPhone was a revelation for me. It's worth experimenting to discover what else they've hidden away…

I do think direct keyboard access as with Apple is more civilised than Windows unintuitive system. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt_code)

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 May, 2015, 10:14:22 pm


˜

Ah, it works with those numbers in the square on the right like a calculator. I never use those.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: orienteer on 04 May, 2015, 03:47:22 pm
Crossword clue: factotum. Answer: Person Friday  :facepalm:

Maybe it should be Person Weekday to avoid offending the other working days.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Steph on 09 May, 2015, 04:08:32 pm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-32672094

105mm 'canons'.

FFS.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 May, 2015, 04:38:34 pm
The 105 mm calibre is canonical?

(http://legslarry.org.uk/BikeStull/coat_48.png)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 09 May, 2015, 04:42:26 pm
Not far from here is Cannons Park, or is it Canons Park?

Cannons: causing confusion since Händel.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 May, 2015, 05:11:19 pm
And that's before you start to consider the apostrophe's.

Earls Court, Shepherds Bush, Shatner's Bassoon etc. etc.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Steph on 09 May, 2015, 05:25:00 pm
The 105 mm calibre is canonical?

(http://legslarry.org.uk/BikeStull/coat_48.png)
No, but it IS a round...


also (http://legslarry.org.uk/BikeStull/coat_48.png)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SandyV on 09 May, 2015, 10:31:58 pm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-32672094

105mm 'canons'.

FFS.

Perhaps they use unexploded ordinance
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 11 May, 2015, 09:44:34 am
Just realised I repeated Ian H's post. For some reason I didn't notice it before writing mine.

Mine was just quoting
Anyway, yes, discovering the alt keys on the iPhone was a revelation for me. It's worth experimenting to discover what else they've hidden away…

I do think direct keyboard access as with Apple is more civilised than Windows unintuitive system. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt_code)

Hold down any key on a iPad, iPhone, or Mac, and you get all the accented variants rather than having to remember cryptic codes. Makes more sense than auto-repeat to my mind. Who needs auto-repeat unless you type aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh a lot.

There's a switch somewhere between the two behaviours.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 11 May, 2015, 10:14:07 am
Åłł thèšé âčçęñtēd ćhãräčtėrš årë jûßt â śïłłŷ FOREIGN æffēçtātįøń ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Steph on 12 May, 2015, 05:51:26 pm
From today's Metro

"A wild boar caused mayhem.... The 55lb female intruder..."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 12 May, 2015, 11:56:18 pm
From today's Metro

"A wild boar caused mayhem.... The 55lb female intruder..."
Annoyingly, AIUI, wild boar covers both the male and female of the species. I don't know which is the more deadly.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 13 May, 2015, 12:06:44 am
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-32672094

105mm 'canons'.

FFS.

Perhaps they use unexploded ordinance

 ;D :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 13 May, 2015, 12:16:02 am
From today's Metro

"A wild boar caused mayhem.... The 55lb female intruder..."
Annoyingly, AIUI, wild boar covers both the male and female of the species. I don't know which is the more deadly.
55lb seems to me to be only a piglet. Now a 30 stone wold boar, that would be like a bull in a china shop.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 13 May, 2015, 02:21:12 am
From today's Metro

"A wild boar caused mayhem.... The 55lb female intruder..."
Annoyingly, AIUI, wild boar covers both the male and female of the species. I don't know which is the more deadly.

We know a song about that...

https://youtu.be/N-wIvsZBFhQ (https://youtu.be/N-wIvsZBFhQ)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 13 May, 2015, 08:05:39 am
From today's Metro

"A wild boar caused mayhem.... The 55lb female intruder..."
Annoyingly, AIUI, wild boar covers both the male and female of the species. I don't know which is the more deadly.
55lb seems to me to be only a piglet. Now a 30 stone wold boar, that would be like a bull in a china shop.
Indeed. Even 55kg isn't fully grown in domesticated pigs,  baconers are slaughtered at about 100kg liveweight and breeding sows get much bigger than that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 13 May, 2015, 08:20:41 am
From today's Metro

"A wild boar caused mayhem.... The 55lb female intruder..."
Annoyingly, AIUI, wild boar covers both the male and female of the species. I don't know which is the more deadly.

As usual it's the female, when she has young.  Either sex will go rooting for food wherever they like - in the forest we often see stretches of trailside grass ripped up by them.  I could imagine that if one wandered into a camp and people started panicking life would get interesting.

Years ago the missus was up in the forest here with Gus, our 65-kilo Leonberger, when a boar with a string of piglets crossed the trail up ahead. They don't see you if you don't move so she stood stock still: the big, courageous dog moved slowly in behind her and did likewise. Leonbergers are wimps.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 May, 2015, 10:35:02 am
I came across a family of them in the forest one evening. We all stopped and stared at each other until they decided I was neither edible nor hungry. They love to dig up potatoes from the fields and are fond of maize too.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 13 May, 2015, 11:01:43 am
They've thriven so much on maize over the last 20 years that they've achieved pest status and can now be hunted all year round.  I was once on an organized walk with a control in the forest: some hunter or other had considerately gutted a boar about five yards away, and the pong was heroic.  Went down very well with the cake.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 13 May, 2015, 10:47:47 pm
Quote
Will you please ensure that you let either Malcolm or I know of any chess achievements of children who you tutor.

Have I won?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 14 May, 2015, 03:52:25 pm
Quote
Will you please ensure that you let either Malcolm or I know of any chess achievements of children who you tutor.

Have I won?

Nah, there can't be more than four grammatical errors in that sentence, and there's definitely scope for more.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 14 May, 2015, 04:50:46 pm
Aren't there points for sheer inelegance?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 May, 2015, 10:52:33 am
It's bad form indeed to quote forumites here, especially if their cringe-inducing posts are probably no more than careless slips, but this one's Wow, who not only knows I love him to the tip of his fluffy white beard, but is a fairly regular poster in this thread:
"The Young Ones" with the incomparable Cliff Richard. This could explain the fact that I doubt that my lifelong cinema attendance has probably not exceeded an average of one attendance every four years.
Now I be like, probably not doubt that he will no doubt in all probability not fail to miss the opportunity for some revenge.
 :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 19 May, 2015, 10:57:16 am
It was on an Ipad, and therefore mostly invisible to me. Also, I was in bed.

TBH utter befuddlement at present is causing my total failure to comprehend that wot I just rote.

Edit: actually looking at the time of that post, I wasn't in bed, but I certainly hadn't had my medication.  :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 07 June, 2015, 09:42:24 pm
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CG7NGyxXEAA617R.jpg)

A crap photo taken from my phone. "TOUR DE' ESSEX"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 07 June, 2015, 10:30:19 pm
Seems about right...for Essex.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 16 June, 2015, 10:33:43 am
You need a newer dictionary - it's in the latest OED.

Still not in Collins, though, and that's the one I use at work, but I would accept it if a contributor used it in their copy - few readers would have trouble understanding the term in the appropriate context, and the alternative would be to render your sentence clunky and inelegant, which to my mind would be a far more grievous solecism (the kind of thing up with which I will not put).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 16 June, 2015, 10:37:18 am
In my view, a sentence using "favorite" as a verb is already clunky and inelegant - and American.  However, I can see you are in a difficult editorial position if you are going to use articles which contain internet-speak.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Vince on 16 June, 2015, 10:42:32 am
Wouldn't 'bookmark' be a more appropriate verb for the context?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 16 June, 2015, 11:12:15 am
In my view, a sentence using "favorite" as a verb is already clunky and inelegant - and American.  However, I can see you are in a difficult editorial position if you are going to use articles which contain internet-speak.

I don't see it as a difficulty. Many nouns become verbs through common use and eventually take hold in more formal language despite resistance.

Ask yourself this: are you resisting the usage on strong grammatical grounds, or simply because it's a neologism?

Wouldn't 'bookmark' be a more appropriate verb for the context?

QED. Once upon a time, using bookmark as a verb would have been similarly reviled.

(And the answer is no anyway: bookmarking applies to web pages, while favouriting applies to individual posts on social media sites.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 16 June, 2015, 01:23:58 pm
I've said it before and I am sure I will say it again...

I can verb any noun.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 16 June, 2015, 01:39:27 pm
Verbings weirds nouns.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 16 June, 2015, 02:04:29 pm
I can verb any noun.

The real challenge is verbing adjectives. If you can master that, a career in writing advertising slogans is yours.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 16 June, 2015, 02:29:21 pm
What about verbing nouns that have been adjectived?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 16 June, 2015, 04:28:00 pm
In my view, a sentence using "favorite" as a verb is already clunky and inelegant - and American.  However, I can see you are in a difficult editorial position if you are going to use articles which contain internet-speak.

I don't see it as a difficulty. Many nouns become verbs through common use and eventually take hold in more formal language despite resistance.

Ask yourself this: are you resisting the usage on strong grammatical grounds, or simply because it's a neologism?

Wouldn't 'bookmark' be a more appropriate verb for the context?

QED. Once upon a time, using bookmark as a verb would have been similarly reviled.

(And the answer is no anyway: bookmarking applies to web pages, while favouriting applies to individual posts on social media sites.)

Top post. I think you just medalled.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 June, 2015, 04:44:37 pm
Bronzed, anyway.

(And I think that might just technically be a noun turned into an adjective turned into a verb – in letter if not in spirit.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 16 June, 2015, 04:59:51 pm
In my view, a sentence using "favorite" as a verb is already clunky and inelegant - and American.  However, I can see you are in a difficult editorial position if you are going to use articles which contain internet-speak.

I don't see it as a difficulty. Many nouns become verbs through common use and eventually take hold in more formal language despite resistance.

Ask yourself this: are you resisting the usage on strong grammatical grounds, or simply because it's a neologism?


Neologisms are inevitable in a developing language, which English is.  However, I don't think that means that because a neologism exists that I am required to approve of it.  And that is not Luddite but love of a language I feel is usually perfectly adequate already for most purposes; not only adequate but beautiful.  "Favorite" isn't even English, but even if it was, its use is a distortion: how can you have any number of favo(u)rites?  (I must confess I'm only making an assumption about how it is used, as I don't use FB, twitter and so on.)

But my original post just said I find it clunky and inelegant.  I'm perfectly happy with that!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 16 June, 2015, 05:18:12 pm
Neologisms are inevitable in a developing language, which English is.  However, I don't think that means that because a neologism exists that I am required to approve of it.

Well, no - our approval or disapproval is strictly irrelevant. I'm interested in the reasons for disapproval though, as it may affect my opinion of the person doing the disapproving. ;)

Quote
how can you have any number of favo(u)rites?

OK, if you're bothered by the use of a superlative when a comparative would be more appropriate, rather than the verbing of a noun, that's another matter. I hadn't considered that objection, probably because I do use social media and have thus become oblivious to it.

Reminds me - I saw an ad on the underground the other day for a personalised gift service with the slogan, "For a gift as unique as he is."

 :sick: :sick: :sick:

Quote
But my original post just said I find it clunky and inelegant.  I'm perfectly happy with that!

Fair enough!

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 16 June, 2015, 05:41:49 pm
All good stuff!  Talk about language is usually fascinating.

Verbing of nouns (to use the shorthand completely understandable and totally inelegant phrase!) exists and communicates in its way.  I wonder how much of it is an improvement on what went before.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 16 June, 2015, 10:24:34 pm
However, I don't think that means that because a neologism exists that I am required to approve of it.

For me, approval/disapproval (probably too strong a sentiment, but you know what I mean) depends on whether a new use of language tends to add precision and richness or whether it introduces ambiguity and diminishes its descriptive power:

:thumbsup: 'favourite' as a verb because it relates an activity not easily described in so few words.

:hand: 'literally' for emphasis because it removes the ability to specify 'not metaphorically' so precisely.

:thumbsup: 'friend' as a verb in a social media context rather than reusing the more grammatically conventional 'befriend'

:hand: 'phenomena' singular because it removes the ability to distinguish one from many alien visitations.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 16 June, 2015, 10:59:21 pm
:hand: 'phenomena' singular because it removes the ability to distinguish one from many alien visitations.

I *think* I have been fortunate enough to have avoided seeing "phenomena" singular: "criteria," on the other hand ...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 16 June, 2015, 11:03:12 pm
I came across "medias" recently ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 16 June, 2015, 11:15:51 pm
I came across "medias" recently ::-)

Did everything turn to gold?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 16 June, 2015, 11:16:45 pm
I came across "medias" recently ::-)

Can't be any worse than 'children'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 16 June, 2015, 11:34:40 pm
I came across "medias" recently ::-)

Can't be any worse than 'children'.

Uh?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 16 June, 2015, 11:37:56 pm
I came across "medias" recently ::-)

Can't be any worse than 'children'.

Uh?

Technically "children" is a double plural as originally "child" was one or more small peeps. The same as "sheep" where the singular an plural are the same.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 16 June, 2015, 11:51:06 pm
I came across "medias" recently ::-)

Can't be any worse than 'children'.

Uh?
Coming across children is very much frowned upon nowadays.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 17 June, 2015, 10:16:10 am
I came across "medias" recently ::-)

Can't be any worse than 'children'.

Uh?

Technically "children" is a double plural as originally "child" was one or more small peeps. The same as "sheep" where the singular an plural are the same.
Isn't it more that the plural of child is childer, and children pluralises the plural?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 June, 2015, 10:36:39 am
Wot Clarion sed. Child, childer, childeren. I wonder if this came about in a joke way, like saying "eggses", or maybe at some time in the past we had a distinction between a small number of childer and a larger number of childeren? Sort of like dual number. Or maybe childer in a family, childeren in general. Or maybe not.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 17 June, 2015, 10:40:46 am
I came across "medias" recently ::-)

Can't be any worse than 'children'.

Uh?

Technically "children" is a double plural as originally "child" was one or more small peeps. The same as "sheep" where the singular an plural are the same.
Isn't it more that the plural of child is childer, and children pluralises the plural?

Your right childer is a survivor of a middle English plural (cildru) in Northern dialect

cild = singular and nominative plural (old english)
cildru = plural (someone wanted to make the plural form clearer about 975, drifts to cildre in Middle English)
children = re plural (1200s the plural gets re pluralised)

So is this a double plural or triple plural ?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 17 June, 2015, 11:48:44 am
That is an interesting question, as, in checking this out, I find that childer is also recorded as being used as a singular ???

I expect it comes up the same way Torpenhow Hill or the River Ouseburn got their names.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 17 June, 2015, 11:50:34 am
Torpenhow - pronounced Trapenna!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 17 June, 2015, 12:10:15 pm
And Pendle Hill.

A slight shift sideways but when learning basic Welsh it always threw me that

plant = children
plentyn = child

To my English-speaking mind it seemed as if they should be the other way round.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 17 June, 2015, 05:24:10 pm
Lake Windermere, etc.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 17 June, 2015, 05:32:52 pm
Is it true that there is only one lake in the Lake District?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 17 June, 2015, 05:34:45 pm
Pretty much!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 17 June, 2015, 05:44:56 pm
I had no idea childer was a real word. I thought it was just fboab family lore that the loinfruit of my parents are collectively known as childers.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Deano on 17 June, 2015, 05:48:14 pm
Not really grammar, but the discussion reminded me of the GDS Style guide (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/style-guide/a-to-z-of-gov-uk-style), especially the "Words to Avoid" section:

Quote
Plain English is mandatory for all of GOV.UK so please avoid using these words:

agenda (unless it’s for a meeting)
advancing
collaborate (use ‘working with’)
combating
commit/pledge (we need to be more specific – we’re either doing something or we’re not)
countering
deliver (pizzas, post and services are delivered – not abstract concepts like ‘improvements’ or ‘priorities’)
deploy (unless it’s military or software)
dialogue (we speak to people)
disincentivise (and incentivise)
empower
facilitate (instead, say something specific about how you’re helping)
focusing
foster (unless it’s children)
impact (don’t use this as a synonym for ‘have an effect on’, or ‘influence’)
initiate
key (unless it unlocks something. A subject/thing isn’t ‘key’ – it’s probably ‘important’)
land (as a verb only use if you’re talking about aircraft)
leverage (unless in the financial sense)
liaise
overarching
progress (as a verb – what are you actually doing?)
promote (unless you’re talking about an ad campaign or some other marketing promotion)
robust
slimming down (processes don’t diet – we are probably removing x amount of paperwork etc)
streamline
strengthening (unless it’s strengthening bridges or other structures)
tackling (unless it’s rugby, football or some other sport)
transforming (what are you actually doing to change it?)
utilise
Avoid using metaphors – they don’t say what you actually mean and lead to slower comprehension of your content. For example:

drive (you can only drive vehicles; not schemes or people)
drive out (unless it’s cattle)
going forward (it’s unlikely we are giving travel directions)
in order to (superfluous – don’t use it)
one-stop shop (we are government, not a retail outlet)
ring fencing
With all of these words you can generally replace them by breaking the term into what you’re actually doing. Be open and specific.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 17 June, 2015, 06:04:10 pm
Not really grammar, but the discussion reminded me of the GDS Style guide (https://www.gov.uk/guidance/style-guide/a-to-z-of-gov-uk-style), especially the "Words to Avoid" section:
Quote
[...]
Avoid using metaphors – they don’t say what you actually mean and lead to slower comprehension of your content.
[...]

Quote from: Ogden Nash
One thing that literature would be greatly the better for
Would be a more restricted employment by the authors of simile and metaphor.
Authors of all races, be they Greeks, Romans, Teutons or Celts,
Can't seem just to say that anything is the thing it is but have to go out of their way to say that it is like something else.
What does it mean when we are told
That that Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold?
In the first place, George Gordon Byron had enough experience
To know that it probably wasn't just one Assyrian, it was a lot of Assyrians.
However, as too many arguments are apt to induce apoplexy and thus hinder longevity.
We'll let it pass as one Assyrian for the sake of brevity.
Now then, this particular Assyrian, the one whose cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold,
Just what does the poet mean when he says he came down like a wolf on the fold?
In heaven and earth more than is dreamed of in our philosophy there are great many things.
But I don't imagine that among them there is a wolf with purple and gold cohorts or purple and gold anythings.
No, no, Lord Byron, before I'll believe that this Assyrian was actually like a wolf I must have some kind of proof;
Did he run on all fours and did he have a hairy tail and a big red mouth and big white teeth and did he say Woof Woof?
Frankly I think it is very unlikely, and all you were entitled to say, at the very most,
Was that the Assyrian cohorts came down like a lot of Assyrian cohorts about to destroy the Hebrew host.
But that wasn't fancy enough for Lord Byron, oh dear me no, he had to invent a lot of figures of speech and then interpolate them,
With the result that whenever you mention Old Testament soldiers to people they say Oh yes, they're the ones that a lot of wolves dressed up in gold and purple ate them.
That's the kind of thing that's being done all the time by poets, from Homer to Tennyson;
They're always comparing ladies to lilies and veal to venison,
And they always say things like that the snow is a white blanket after a winter storm.
Oh it is, is it, all right then, you sleep under a six-inch blanket of snow and I'll sleep under a half-inch blanket of unpoetical blanket material and we'll see which one keeps warm,
And after that maybe you'll begin to comprehend dimly
What I mean by too much metaphor and simile.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 17 June, 2015, 06:06:39 pm
From a notice in a school lavatory:-

"The cost of blockages are very expensive to clear."

Where do you start with that one?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 17 June, 2015, 06:22:47 pm
I had no idea childer was a real word. I thought it was just fboab family lore that the loinfruit of my parents are collectively known as childers.

'And slew the little childer' features in a well-known Christmas carol, I thought.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 June, 2015, 06:23:49 pm
From a notice in a school lavatory:-

"The cost of blockages are very expensive to clear."

Where do you start with that one?
A flush.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 17 June, 2015, 06:47:06 pm
From a notice in a school lavatory:-

"The cost of blockages are very expensive to clear."

Where do you start with that one?
A flush.

Just chop out 'The cost of'. Nothing lost. Easier when you are too dyspraxic to write quickly.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 17 June, 2015, 06:53:55 pm
Is it true that there is only one lake in the Lake District?
That's OK. It's not the Lakes District ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 17 June, 2015, 09:25:32 pm
I had no idea childer was a real word. I thought it was just fboab family lore that the loinfruit of my parents are collectively known as childers.

'And slew the little childer' features in a well-known Christmas carol, I thought.

Sounds real Christian. Let God sort 'em out.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 17 June, 2015, 09:32:43 pm
I had no idea childer was a real word. I thought it was just fboab family lore that the loinfruit of my parents are collectively known as childers.

'And slew the little childer' features in a well-known Christmas carol, I thought.

Sounds real Christian. Let God sort 'em out.

 ::-)

Quote
From the Christmas Carol, “Unto us is born a Son”. “...This did Herod sore affray, / And grievously bewilder, / So he sent the word to slay / And slew the little childer.”
source (http://www.lewisiana.nl/abolquotes/)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 17 June, 2015, 11:04:16 pm
Oo and aargh and aargh and oo
Cantibus in choro!

Archers version.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 18 June, 2015, 07:31:52 am
The Archers went to Porterhouse?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: CrinklyLion on 19 June, 2015, 09:26:16 am
Quote from: Ogden Nash


That's one of my two absolute favourite poems.  I even used it in an observed year 5 lesson when I was on placement during teacher training!


(The other one is "The Flying Bum", by the way)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jenhunt on 19 June, 2015, 09:40:58 am
when people use Been instead of Being... and even worse, on a public notice! That, and inappropriate apostrophe use/misuse/lack of use.

where my regular running route crosses the car park for the local racecourse (which is open for dog walkers to use) there is a sign which reads:
"Failure to pick up your dogs mess will result in the gate been locked"   

this makes me quite cross :demon: :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 19 June, 2015, 09:48:18 am
Quote from: Ogden Nash


That's one of my two absolute favourite poems.  I even used it in an observed year 5 lesson when I was on placement during teacher training!


(The other one is "The Flying Bum", by the way)

Fly Bum excellent, ta. Shall pass it on to vegetarian missus. Please contact CID if I do not post tomorrow.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 19 June, 2015, 09:53:02 am
PM bod was interviewing some African-USAnian fellow about the church mass shooting yesterday.  The interviewee allowed as how he was familiar with said church because one of his relatives had been funeralized there.

I was on yhe M25 at the time and thus unable to throw anything at the motor-car radio.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 19 June, 2015, 10:39:34 am
PM bod was interviewing some African-USAnian fellow about the church mass shooting yesterday.  The interviewee allowed as how he was familiar with said church because one of his relatives had been funeralized there.

I was on yhe M25 at the time and thus unable to throw anything at the motor-car radio.

Now if you'd had a handy bowl of cereal...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 19 June, 2015, 11:10:53 am
when people use Been instead of Being... and even worse, on a public notice! That, and inappropriate apostrophe use/misuse/lack of use.

where my regular running route crosses the car park for the local racecourse (which is open for dog walkers to use) there is a sign which reads:
"Failure to pick up your dogs mess will result in the gate been locked"   

this makes me quite cross :demon: :demon:

How do you feel about starting sentences with a capital letter and ending them with a punctuation mark?

 ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jenhunt on 19 June, 2015, 12:48:55 pm
when people use Been instead of Being... and even worse, on a public notice! That, and inappropriate apostrophe use/misuse/lack of use.

where my regular running route crosses the car park for the local racecourse (which is open for dog walkers to use) there is a sign which reads:
"Failure to pick up your dogs mess will result in the gate been locked"   

this makes me quite cross :demon: :demon:

How do you feel about starting sentences with a capital letter and ending them with a punctuation mark?
Fair point there - I'm afraid that my ire got the better of me. It had nothing to do with secretly typing on my mobile during a meeting, at all, I promise! ;)

 ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Paul on 19 June, 2015, 11:29:01 pm
In my view, a sentence using "favorite" as a verb is already clunky and inelegant - and American.  However, I can see you are in a difficult editorial position if you are going to use articles which contain internet-speak.

I don't see it as a difficulty. Many nouns become verbs through common use and eventually take hold in more formal language despite resistance.

Ask yourself this: are you resisting the usage on strong grammatical grounds, or simply because it's a neologism?

For reasons I can't explain I was disturbed last night by the verb to trouser (as in "Karl trousered a massive wedge before the bubble burst"*). I was trying to think of the correct verb and could only come up with 'pocketed' which verb, I speculate, someone wrote a similar complaint about 20 or so years ago.

(*I say "as in" as if this is a well known expression. Really, I just made it up for this post, but that's not to say that no one has ever said/written it before. Please feel free to google type it into a search engine to check if you wish.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 20 June, 2015, 08:10:15 am
I reckon you can use any word you like as a verb as long as it's comprehensible, not excruciating, and not pompously overblown (as in "gifted").  I could imagine Karl trousering a massive something or other before opening the front door to the vicar, like that passage in "I want it now" when the bloke has to pay a taxi-driver over his shoulder.

To pocket has been around for centuries. Click (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=to+pocket&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1700&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Cto%20pocket%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bto%20pocket%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bto%20Pocket%3B%2Cc0).

...And for once we win one over the UShaveA*: Karl panted a massive... doesn't work.

* since they continually use of instead of have in I'd have.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 20 June, 2015, 08:15:26 am
That use of gifted fails the comprehensibility test, however. A gift, by definition, comes to the recipient with no personal cost. To gift yourself a piece of technology is to admit having stolen it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 20 June, 2015, 09:15:25 am
I'd say treat myself.
As in, I've treated myself to a shiny new wheelset.
There's a significant difference between just buying something and it being a present to yourself.
Gifted is just awful.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 20 June, 2015, 02:05:25 pm
Seen by a friend at the Nike 10k in 'Ackney today...

(http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k170/smutchin/224BDBA9-FCE3-4A30-B8DA-EA1CF13E8766_zpsnhgkdw09.jpg)

Tbh, I'm more offended by the vacuousness of the slogan itself than the grammar error. Your limits are things you can't pass. That's what makes them limits. Idiots.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 20 June, 2015, 02:11:01 pm
NYT on Francis's late encyclical reported him as saying that global warming results in people being dislocated. Makes a change from the old method with a horse at each corner.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 20 June, 2015, 04:53:38 pm
I reckon you can use any word you like as a verb as long as it's comprehensible, not excruciating, and not pompously overblown (as in "gifted").

Once you removed words that fall into one of these categories, though, that doesn't leave many ;D  Albeit that the overblownity or excruciatitude is entirely subjective.

"Gifted" might work in a discussion between Alan Shearer and Gary Lineker about a particularly feeble piece of defending resulting in the simplest of tap-in goals, but not in most circumstances descibed in this thread.  Trousering has been around for yonks and to me has conveyed the meaning than the sum of money trousered is rather more than just small change, which would be pocketed instead.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 20 June, 2015, 05:12:52 pm
NYT on Francis's late encyclical reported him as saying that global warming results in people being dislocated. Makes a change from the old method with a horse at each corner.

As the encyclical would have been initially promulgated in Latin, is the NYT quoting from an official English translation?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 20 June, 2015, 11:13:02 pm
Gifted is horrible and confusing. Consider:

The girl was gifted.

Does this mean the girl had a special talent or someone gave her away? Are we talking about slavery or a concert pianist?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 21 June, 2015, 12:49:59 am
The trail for some programme coming up on the BBC Radio 4

Some scientist, in awe-struck voice

 "Chimpanzees and human beings are ten times more similar than a mouse is from a rat." 

No, she was not using English as a second language.  I'll give her the benefit of nerves, otherwise marking her thesis becomes unimaginable.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 21 June, 2015, 08:27:13 am
"To gift" has become overused recently, and it often sounds a bit silly or unnecessary. However, it's very useful if you need to show that something was given permanently and without recompense. If you just "give" something to someone, you might just be passing it to them.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 21 June, 2015, 08:31:15 am
I vote for using a more English alternative to "to gift". How about "to present", with the stress on the first syllable. That should clear things up.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 21 June, 2015, 09:49:10 am
I reckon you can use any word you like as a verb as long as it's comprehensible, not excruciating, and not pompously overblown (as in "gifted").

Once you removed words that fall into one of these categories, though, that doesn't leave many ;D  Albeit that the overblownity or excruciatitude is entirely subjective.

"Gifted" might work in a discussion between Alan Shearer and Gary Lineker about a particularly feeble piece of defending resulting in the simplest of tap-in goals, but not in most circumstances descibed in this thread.  Trousering has been around for yonks and to me has conveyed the meaning than the sum of money trousered is rather more than just small change, which would be pocketed instead.

I have visions of a poacher hiding a salmon or two, as in that lovely poem "Poaching in Excelsis".

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 June, 2015, 10:02:42 am
I vote for using a more English alternative to "to gift". How about "to present", with the stress on the first syllable. That should clear things up.
Excellent! To receive a present then becomes "to absent". The people involved are then the "presenter" and the "absenter". Alternatively, the person who has something "presented" to them becomes the "presentee" with the one who no longer has it being the "absentee". People who object to this are "dissenters".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 21 June, 2015, 10:19:08 am
Presently = like a present.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 June, 2015, 10:51:41 am
Absently = like absinthe. Barman, over here please! (Da-na-na-na-na Barman! The coked crusader!)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 21 June, 2015, 05:37:28 pm
Absently = like absinthe. Barman, over here please! (Da-na-na-na-na Barman! The coked crusader!)

Makes the heart grow fonder.

(dies)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mcshroom on 21 June, 2015, 07:03:02 pm
Is it true that there is only one lake in the Lake District?

Yep, Bassenthwaite Lake. There's also one Moss. All the others are Meres, Waters or Tarns :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Zipperhead on 21 June, 2015, 09:57:09 pm

Makes the heart grow fonder.

(dies)

I heard the punchline as  "makes the farts go Honda"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 21 June, 2015, 10:58:01 pm
That's not a nice thing to call Ron Dennis!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 22 June, 2015, 07:56:11 am
Makes the tart grow fonder (Dowson).

Me own outing of offgepissedness this unfair morn is with ignorami who use velocity and speed interchangeably.  "It's growing at an incredible velocity" of a quasi-spherical object is a load of Beaux Locks.


BTW, what pisses me off about living abroad is that if I make an error in French I'm an ignorant furriner whereas if they make an error it's a typo.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 22 June, 2015, 08:01:51 am
Whereas here on YACF we make allowances for you in both respects.  :-*
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 22 June, 2015, 11:40:36 am
I saw a temporary  sign in a supermarket yesterday, explaining that due to a technical fault "sandwiche's, toastie's and panini's" were not available. This had been hand corrected by biro, scribbling out the offending apostrophes, as is often the case. As a bonus, the terminal "s" on "panini's " was also obliterated, as panini is already a plural. Waitrose customers FTW.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 June, 2015, 12:26:50 pm
Panini as a plural sounds fine, but then what's the singular? Panino? That sounds odd in English.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 22 June, 2015, 12:54:32 pm
Panini as a plural sounds fine, but then what's the singular? Panino? That sounds odd in English.

Si. Italian innit.  Of course there's a whole other argument that if one is speaking English then English plural forms should be used, so perhaps it should be panino and paninos.  See also stadium and stadia.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 22 June, 2015, 01:05:14 pm
I vote for using a more English alternative to "to gift". How about "to present", with the stress on the first syllable. That should clear things up.
You mean "to give", don't you?  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 22 June, 2015, 01:10:48 pm
In my view, a sentence using "favorite" as a verb is already clunky and inelegant - and American.  However, I can see you are in a difficult editorial position if you are going to use articles which contain internet-speak.

I don't see it as a difficulty. Many nouns become verbs through common use and eventually take hold in more formal language despite resistance.

Ask yourself this: are you resisting the usage on strong grammatical grounds, or simply because it's a neologism?


Neologisms are inevitable in a developing language, which English is.  However, I don't think that means that because a neologism exists that I am required to approve of it.  And that is not Luddite but love of a language I feel is usually perfectly adequate already for most purposes; not only adequate but beautiful.  "Favorite" isn't even English, but even if it was, its use is a distortion: how can you have any number of favo(u)rites?  (I must confess I'm only making an assumption about how it is used, as I don't use FB, twitter and so on.)

But my original post just said I find it clunky and inelegant.  I'm perfectly happy with that!
+1  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 22 June, 2015, 02:26:41 pm
You lot are as bad as Michael Gove...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33223503
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 June, 2015, 02:29:04 pm
Gove is a rank amateur. We wouldn't even let him on the forum.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 22 June, 2015, 02:32:20 pm
I should hope not.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 June, 2015, 02:32:41 pm
Panini as a plural sounds fine, but then what's the singular? Panino? That sounds odd in English.

Si. Italian innit.  Of course there's a whole other argument that if one is speaking English then English plural forms should be used, so perhaps it should be panino and paninos.  See also stadium and stadia.
Perhaps it "should" be paninos but it isn't. There's quite a tradition in English of borrowing foreign plurals and using them as either singular or uncountable. Quite a lot of them are Italian food items, in fact: spaghetti, macaroni. Russian seems to be another good source. At a guess it's because the formation of plurals in those languages is so different from the way we do it in English.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 June, 2015, 02:34:46 pm
Anyway, here's one my son brought home from his not-yet secondary school:
Quote
Students will be ready to leave at 12:00pm, please make sure your son / daughter are being collected from [street].
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 22 June, 2015, 03:20:34 pm
"Overviewed" as a verb.

In a paper on Japanese education policy that I'm proofreading, from the National Institute of Educational Policy Research, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science & Technology.


It also has 'Aplil' & 'Februrary' on its home page. Should I say?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 22 June, 2015, 03:59:04 pm
Whereas here on YACF we make allowances for you in both respects.  :-*

Most gracious, Patron.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 June, 2015, 06:23:31 pm
Some goon on the news says that nurses from outside the EU are mostly working in "underpressurised situations".  I do not think he thought this through.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 22 June, 2015, 07:04:28 pm
One World Cup sticker album. Two Panini.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 22 June, 2015, 07:19:10 pm
Partner is having a meal in the 'Warwick Castle' hostelry tonight, so I thought I'd look at their website for information.

Quote
The Warwick Castle is a lovely local’s haunt set in the heart of Little Venice, welcoming visitors and neighbours to the area since 1867. Although updated the changes have been faithful to the original  décor and charm of the building .The pub was beautifully captured in the painting by Eduardo Arizzone in 1927 and our marble fireplace is mentioned in treasures of Maida Vale.

I'd love to go through this with a red pen!
Edward Ardizzone http://www.edwardardizzone.org.uk (http://www.edwardardizzone.org.uk) has been one of my favourite artists since I was about 10 years old and they can't even get his name right!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 June, 2015, 03:23:37 pm
Or they deliberately made it sound more Italian for 'atmosphere'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 June, 2015, 03:25:08 pm
One World Cup sticker album. Two Panini.
One Match Attax. Two Match Attaxes.

 :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 23 June, 2015, 04:51:57 pm
Partner is having a meal in the 'Warwick Castle' hostelry tonight, so I thought I'd look at their website for information.

Quote
The Warwick Castle is a lovely local’s haunt set in the heart of Little Venice, welcoming visitors and neighbours to the area since 1867. Although updated the changes have been faithful to the original  décor and charm of the building .The pub was beautifully captured in the painting by Eduardo Arizzone in 1927 and our marble fireplace is mentioned in treasures of Maida Vale.

I'd love to go through this with a red pen!
Edward Ardizzone http://www.edwardardizzone.org.uk (http://www.edwardardizzone.org.uk) has been one of my favourite artists since I was about 10 years old and they can't even get his name right!

That's because they think nobody else will ever have heard of him and they don't give a shit anyway.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 23 June, 2015, 07:09:11 pm
Partner is having a meal in the 'Warwick Castle' hostelry tonight, so I thought I'd look at their website for information.

Quote
The Warwick Castle is a lovely local’s haunt set in the heart of Little Venice, welcoming visitors and neighbours to the area since 1867. Although updated the changes have been faithful to the original  décor and charm of the building .The pub was beautifully captured in the painting by Eduardo Arizzone in 1927 and our marble fireplace is mentioned in treasures of Maida Vale.

I'd love to go through this with a red pen!
Edward Ardizzone http://www.edwardardizzone.org.uk (http://www.edwardardizzone.org.uk) has been one of my favourite artists since I was about 10 years old and they can't even get his name right!

That's because they think nobody else will ever have heard of him and they don't give a shit anyway.

That's a bit stupid as the Hampstead Intelligentsia are likely to feature in the clientèle of an establishment in Maida Vale.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 June, 2015, 10:04:01 am
Caption to a photo:
Quote
Born into rural poverty in 1898, Arkady Shaikhet was just 19 years old when the Russian Revolution shook the world. After serving in the war, he honed his technique of ‘artistic reportage’ to document the building of the USSR, and founded the magazine Soviet Photo in 1927
But which war? There were, after all, several happening at much the same time and place.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 24 June, 2015, 10:35:14 am
Partner is having a meal in the 'Warwick Castle' hostelry tonight, so I thought I'd look at their website for information.

Quote
The Warwick Castle is a lovely local’s haunt set in the heart of Little Venice, welcoming visitors and neighbours to the area since 1867. Although updated the changes have been faithful to the original  décor and charm of the building .The pub was beautifully captured in the painting by Eduardo Arizzone in 1927 and our marble fireplace is mentioned in treasures of Maida Vale.

I'd love to go through this with a red pen!
Edward Ardizzone http://www.edwardardizzone.org.uk (http://www.edwardardizzone.org.uk) has been one of my favourite artists since I was about 10 years old and they can't even get his name right!

That's because they think nobody else will ever have heard of him and they don't give a shit anyway.

That's a bit stupid as the Hampstead Intelligentsia are likely to feature in the clientèle of an establishment in Maida Vale.

Website's Metropolitan Pub C°, data bashed in by low-grade labourer bored to tears.  I wouldn't blame him for putting in Rossini.

A propos of the sins of low-grade labourers, I have a lovely tri-lingual brochure somewhere for an Italian hotel where the word effluvio, meaning scent & referring to the flowers is translated into English as, of course, effluvium.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 24 June, 2015, 12:56:43 pm
Grammar that makes you smirk:
http://www.dailyedge.ie/grammar-fail-photos-2169136-Jun2015/ (http://www.dailyedge.ie/grammar-fail-photos-2169136-Jun2015/)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 24 June, 2015, 01:06:53 pm
Grammar that makes you smirk:
http://www.dailyedge.ie/grammar-fail-photos-2169136-Jun2015/ (http://www.dailyedge.ie/grammar-fail-photos-2169136-Jun2015/)

It's funny, though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 24 June, 2015, 01:17:27 pm
From this (http://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/13348707.Cyclist_jailed_following_death_of_pensioner_he_hit_on_busy_shopping_street/?ref=mr&lp=1)

"Gittoes had been intending to repair the bike but did not have enough money to fix the brakes as his jobseeker's allowance had been sanctioned."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 24 June, 2015, 01:26:13 pm
Caption to a photo:
Quote
Born into rural poverty in 1898, Arkady Shaikhet was just 19 years old when the Russian Revolution shook the world. After serving in the war, he honed his technique of ‘artistic reportage’ to document the building of the USSR, and founded the magazine Soviet Photo in 1927
But which war? There were, after all, several happening at much the same time and place.
Depending on the context of where it was published, I'd guess the Civil War (1917-22).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 24 June, 2015, 01:28:24 pm
Caption to a photo:
Quote
Born into rural poverty in 1898, Arkady Shaikhet was just 19 years old when the Russian Revolution shook the world. After serving in the war, he honed his technique of ‘artistic reportage’ to document the building of the USSR, and founded the magazine Soviet Photo in 1927
But which war? There were, after all, several happening at much the same time and place.
Depending on the context of where it was published, I'd guess the Civil War (1917-22).

Possibly WW1 & Civil.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 June, 2015, 01:44:48 pm
Civil War would be my guess too, but it could be WWI – or possibly even one of the wars of independence and secession that were taking place in various parts of the post-Tsarist empire. It's just slightly annoying they don't say. But only slightly, cos the photo's got nothing to do with any war.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 24 June, 2015, 03:30:33 pm
Grammar seemed to be fine.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 June, 2015, 04:16:19 pm
The grammar itself is fine, it's just unclear.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: PhilO on 26 June, 2015, 10:12:37 am
Woman rescued 'having fell asleep' (http://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/13355534.Woman_rescued_at_4am_having_fell_asleep_after_turning_chip_pan_on/)

 :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 26 June, 2015, 12:03:45 pm
Civil War would be my guess too, but it could be WWI – or possibly even one of the wars of independence and secession that were taking place in various parts of the post-Tsarist empire. It's just slightly annoying they don't say. But only slightly, cos the photo's got nothing to do with any war.
They all merged into each other, didn't they? And I would think it pretty normal to have served in more than one narrowly defined war of that set, without necessarily perceiving them as separate.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Paul on 28 June, 2015, 12:30:00 pm
To pocket has been around for centuries. Click (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=to+pocket&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1700&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Cto%20pocket%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bto%20pocket%3B%2Cc0%3B%3Bto%20Pocket%3B%2Cc0).
As in "to put money (etc) in one's pocket"? Or some other version of the verb (say, "to pocket the snooker ball")? I can't see that the linked graph distinguishes.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 28 June, 2015, 03:02:22 pm
Rob Collard, you may be a bit miffed about having a qualifying lap disallowed for exceeding track limits, but I don't think you can be "begrieved" about it.  It is little wonder that I always feel the urge to shout "pikey!" whenevr you appear on-screen.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 28 June, 2015, 03:33:25 pm
Rob Collard, you may be a bit miffed about having a qualifying lap disallowed for exceeding track limits, but I don't think you can be "begrieved" about it.  It is little wonder that I always feel the urge to shout "pikey!" whenevr you appear on-screen.

Is begrieved to be slightly more annoyed about the decision than aggrieved ?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 June, 2015, 05:48:23 pm
Civil War would be my guess too, but it could be WWI – or possibly even one of the wars of independence and secession that were taking place in various parts of the post-Tsarist empire. It's just slightly annoying they don't say. But only slightly, cos the photo's got nothing to do with any war.
They all merged into each other, didn't they? And I would think it pretty normal to have served in more than one narrowly defined war of that set, without necessarily perceiving them as separate.
Yes, I guess so. It does depend on your perspective though. From the Bolshevik/Soviet point of view, it must have been one long war against various Enemies of the Revolution. Or even one Enemy in various guises. And that's obviously the Pov he would have taken. It's really the name Civil War that's inappropiate – it's a bit misleading to call something a civil war when it involves invading internationally recognised independent states. However, the History That Makes You Cringe thread is other there! <^>
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 June, 2015, 06:27:31 pm
This one isn't strictly grammar either, but it's something that comes up from time to time in various threads: masculine and feminine equivalents of nouns. Perhaps we need a Vocabulary That Makes You Cringe thread? Except, of course, it doesn't really make me cringe, it's just post-worthy (YMMV*). Then again, as it involves gender of nouns and diacritics, I guess it is grammar. What's the female equivalent of compere? Errmm...  ??? Ok, what's the female equivalent of compère? Oh! Would anyone use it now? Not that 'now' matters, as this author was reporting a conversation from 1946. Curiously, the OED marks them both as "British". But then, it is quite British to give things French names! The same author goes on to use couturière, directrice – but those two are referring to people in France (the commère was in Sheffield) – and sangues melées, extrême-orient and even esquimaux, so I guess he just likes French spellings! Oh, and editress.

*Edit: not only might but should!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 28 June, 2015, 08:28:11 pm
It was noticeable that we had 'clerkess' when I worked in Glasgow.
The term 'actress' is used in England but AIUI many women who act describe themselves as actors...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: tiermat on 02 July, 2015, 01:26:58 pm
One that is really really starting to get on my thrupenny bits.

You receive an email.

It starts with:

Hope you are well?

Since when did just sticking a question mark on the end of statement make it a question?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 02 July, 2015, 03:13:58 pm
One that is really really starting to get on my thrupenny bits.

You receive an email.

It starts with:

Hope you are well?

Since when did just sticking a question mark on the end of statement make it a question?
I wonder when that happened?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 02 July, 2015, 03:29:42 pm
When valley girl uptalk was first committed to paper? If that makes sense?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 02 July, 2015, 03:41:39 pm
When the US discovered Oz?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: meddyg on 05 July, 2015, 06:02:33 pm
I was just going to whine about 'curated' everybody's 'curating' radio shows these days, however forumites seem to have espoused this monstrosity...

So I'll just rant about the verbal noun (again!*)

Whatsisname, Gary Imlach just naughtily said that 'three Frenchmen podiumed last week.
I wept.  Y'know back in Olympic year with athletes who medalled and spoilt my summer

I was alone at home with no one to console me; I'm feeling better as time passes, but I can't watch the repeat at 7pm.


* https://drastrov.wordpress.com
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 05 July, 2015, 06:09:32 pm
I think this whole curating nonse started with Famous Types being brought in to decide the line-up of All Tomorrow's Parties, and should have been left there.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: meddyg on 05 July, 2015, 09:25:25 pm
I'm glad my fellow format fossils and grammar luddites hate 'gifted' (it's already the sodding past participle !)

My in laws were working in Texas; at the end of their stay a newspaper clipping the were sent related that
'they were farewelled at the airport and gifted a rose bowl.'       :sick:

I suggested the Yankee Grammarians should get with the beat and  just 'rosebowl' folk.
'They were airported and rosebowled.'
- Why, in the UK we could 'goldclock' our (ahem!) retirees.


Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 05 July, 2015, 09:42:06 pm
- Why, in the UK we could 'goldclock' our (ahem!) retirees.

Doubleplusgood

Talking of 'since when', when did we start forming agent nouns by sticking 'ee' on the end? Attendee seems to have gained a foothold, and I've seen retiree a few times but they still grate.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 05 July, 2015, 09:44:29 pm
- Why, in the UK we could 'goldclock' our (ahem!) retirees.

Doubleplusgood

Talking of 'since when', when did we start forming agent nouns by sticking 'ee' on the end? Attendee seems to have gained a foothold, and I've seen retiree a few times but they still grate.

In the Southwest, 'er' and 'ee' have entirely different meanings.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 05 July, 2015, 11:09:04 pm
- Why, in the UK we could 'goldclock' our (ahem!) retirees.

Doubleplusgood

Talking of 'since when', when did we start forming agent nouns by sticking 'ee' on the end? Attendee seems to have gained a foothold, and I've seen retiree a few times but they still grate.

Shouldn't that be "they're still grate"?

Grate, as part of the verb "to dun-grate".

I dun grate
You dun grate
The boy Lineker1 dun grate

etc.

1. I feel that this rather dates the use of the verb to dun-grate.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 July, 2015, 01:00:45 pm
- Why, in the UK we could 'goldclock' our (ahem!) retirees.

Doubleplusgood

Talking of 'since when', when did we start forming agent nouns by sticking 'ee' on the end? Attendee seems to have gained a foothold, and I've seen retiree a few times but they still grate.

In the Southwest, 'er' and 'ee' have entirely different meanings.
As in "Er's a boy, ee be."  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 July, 2015, 01:11:06 pm
- Why, in the UK we could 'goldclock' our (ahem!) retirees.

Doubleplusgood

Talking of 'since when', when did we start forming agent nouns by sticking 'ee' on the end? Attendee seems to have gained a foothold, and I've seen retiree a few times but they still grate.
Perhaps it comes from certain cases which could be seen as both agent and object. For instance, back when I was working in the outer reaches of Hollywood, a company big wig came to waste our time by telling us how well other parts of the business were doing. He was particularly keen on a new venture making 'standees'. These are the cardboard cut outs used in cinema lobbies to advertise new films. Clearly, they stand but they are also made to stand. Similarly, a retiree has retired but has also been retired. Perhaps a 'retirer' could be someone in charge of retirement policy!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 06 July, 2015, 09:38:09 pm
Pickpocketing.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 07 July, 2015, 07:53:39 am

The boy Lineker1 dun grate

etc.

1. I feel that this rather dates the use of the verb to dun-grate.

I can't read that without doing a Mick Channon impression. Was he particularly associated with that usage or is it just me?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 07 July, 2015, 09:13:36 am
"Tennis 2Day"

GAAAAH!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 07 July, 2015, 12:12:12 pm
I can't read that without doing a Mick Channon impression. Was he particularly associated with that usage or is it just me?

It's not just you.

I suspect he coined both the verb to dun-grate and the sobriquet 'the boy Lineker'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 07 July, 2015, 01:04:25 pm
I always associated the verb to dun-grate and the expression "the boy Lineker" with the thoroughly objectionable Ron Atkinson. I suspect that there are more culprits than just the one.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 July, 2015, 04:43:07 pm
Quote
Already, there are warning signs of a slowdown, similar to those that front-ran the 1929 crash – depressed commodity prices and a virtual hiatus in global trade growth.
Preceded? Were harbingers of? Foretold? Foreran, even? But actually, front-ran does create a nice picture of running at the front of a great wave while unaware of its existence.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 08 July, 2015, 05:22:03 pm
Presaged? Foreshadowed?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 10 July, 2015, 10:36:58 pm
Quote

 This is an automated message by PayPal Security Department

Starting from July, 2015. PayPal introduce 3D Secure verification to prevent our account holders from fraud by unauthorised user.
Please note that accounts that are not restore for this new security method will be permanently remove.

To avoid service interruption you are advised to login into your account by the activation link below and complete all the require field to restore your account.
Account activation
Yours sincerely,
PayPal

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 11 July, 2015, 10:14:43 am
Yup.  Anyone who spells login as one word must be a crook.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 11 July, 2015, 11:39:45 am
Yup.  Anyone who spells login as one word must be a crook.
Marginally better than logon, which always looks to me like it should be pronounced like Logan, as in Logan's Run.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 11 July, 2015, 11:48:10 am
Actually, Helly, with emails like that I appreciate the lousy grammar as it makes spam even easier to spot. That one makes me laugh more than cringe.

I can't remember whether it was here or elsewhere, but I've read that the poor grammar in some phishing spam is deliberate as it filters out those who might be more sceptical about the content.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 11 July, 2015, 01:40:00 pm
Yup.  Anyone who spells login as one word must be a crook.
Marginally better than logon, which always looks to me like it should be pronounced like Logan, as in Logan's Run.

One step from a Vogon.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 July, 2015, 09:38:32 pm
Actually, Helly, with emails like that I appreciate the lousy grammar as it makes spam even easier to spot. That one makes me laugh more than cringe.

I can't remember whether it was here or elsewhere, but I've read that the poor grammar in some phishing spam is deliberate as it filters out those who might be more sceptical about the content.
Yes, and also the clear identification of the source as being Nigerian. I can't remember where I read it either, though!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: billplumtree on 16 July, 2015, 08:19:57 am
BBC news just now:

Quote
Prisoners are disproportionately black
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 16 July, 2015, 11:41:42 am
BBC news just now:

Quote
Prisoners are disproportionately black

That shouldn't be as funny as it is.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: billplumtree on 07 August, 2015, 09:48:16 pm
Quote
Pomicide

If it were to mean anything at all, it would mean the opposite of what you'd like it to mean.  Just stop it.  Go and do some cricket practice instead  :P
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 07 August, 2015, 10:16:40 pm
Quote
Pomicide

If it were to mean anything at all, it would mean the opposite of what you'd like it to mean.  Just stop it.  Go and do some cricket practice instead  :P

The killing of apples?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: toontra on 11 August, 2015, 05:55:05 pm
Just been reminded of one of my current pet hates on R4 this morning.  Scientists, mathematicians and IT people, often campus based, who start sentences, and often whole conversations, with the word "so". 

It's as if they are picking up mid-conversation discussing proofs with a colleague, whilst also trying to convince you, in a patronising kind of way, that you have embarked on a level of dialogue of which they are master.

It's just plain irritating when such grammatical absurdities gain widespread use and are thought by the user to signify smartness.  Quite the opposite IMO.

Only a few years later this has become common currency.  It has spread like a virus and can be heard on every other media interview, not restricted to "experts" but almost anyone trying to explain something.  It is now the thinking person's equivalent of the youth "like".

If you find yourself doing this, please try and desist!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 11 August, 2015, 06:08:11 pm
Quote
Pomicide

If it were to mean anything at all, it would mean the opposite of what you'd like it to mean.  Just stop it.  Go and do some cricket practice instead  :P

I thought that as well.

I can't say I am familiar with Australian tabloids but I doubt that they aim higher than our own.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 12 August, 2015, 07:37:09 am
Just been reminded of one of my current pet hates on R4 this morning.  Scientists, mathematicians and IT people, often campus based, who start sentences, and often whole conversations, with the word "so". 

It's as if they are picking up mid-conversation discussing proofs with a colleague, whilst also trying to convince you, in a patronising kind of way, that you have embarked on a level of dialogue of which they are master.

It's just plain irritating when such grammatical absurdities gain widespread use and are thought by the user to signify smartness.  Quite the opposite IMO.

Only a few years later this has become common currency.  It has spread like a virus and can be heard on every other media interview, not restricted to "experts" but almost anyone trying to explain something.  It is now the thinking person's equivalent of the youth "like".

If you find yourself doing this, please try and desist!

Having lived & worked in Germany for years, I've had the "so" habit since the 80s. Germans arrive somewhere and get out of the car: "So!" Germans sit down to lunch: "So!"  Very like the Edinburgh "now" habit - which might have died out since I lived there.  Nothing patronising about either, though, they're just meaningless sonic interjections, a means of announcing the imminent arrival of a sentence more significant.

What I find much more annoying is when something I have been in the habit of doing for decades suddenly "goes viral" and one is seen as a slavish adopter of everything modish.  E.g. green wellies: I had had a pair in the car for untold years before C&D were seen wearing them. Living in Germany at the time I had no idea that green wellie syndrome was sweeping the UK until a chum & spouse arrived on a visit and chortled merrily at seeing mine. Twat.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 12 August, 2015, 08:27:35 am
Having lived & worked in Germany for years, I've had the "so" habit since the 80s. Germans arrive somewhere and get out of the car: "So!" Germans sit down to lunch: "So!"  Very like the Edinburgh "now" habit - which might have died out since I lived there.  Nothing patronising about either, though, they're just meaningless sonic interjections, a means of announcing the imminent arrival of a sentence more significant.

I know a few people who use 'so' or similar in that fashion. I don't find it patronising, but perhaps mildly irritating. It acts as way of reserving the next few seconds of conversation without actually, at that point, having anything to say. The longer the pause between the 'so' and what follows, the less mild the irritation. It is akin, dare I say it, to leaving a towel on a deckchair at 6am.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Deano on 12 August, 2015, 11:45:06 pm
"Furthered".

As in "So-and-so furthered that he..." (after a list of things which So-and-so has listed)

OK, repetition of said may not be ideal, but's certainly preferable to fucking furthered.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 15 August, 2015, 04:30:22 pm
Local family butcher...

(http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k170/smutchin/8423FB12-54C1-4E1A-B433-3F5BCE055C28_zpsjtmd5o28.jpg)

...every time I pass, I want to yell out, 'No, Alan IS Long!'
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 15 August, 2015, 05:07:16 pm
Keeping with the style, shouldn't that read "Alan B Long"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 15 August, 2015, 05:42:50 pm
I R Baboon?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Weasel
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 15 August, 2015, 07:19:21 pm
"Furthered".

As in "So-and-so furthered that he..." (after a list of things which So-and-so has listed)

OK, repetition of said may not be ideal, but's certainly preferable to fucking furthered.
Truly awful.

I dont care how many other citations anyone comes up with, there's no defence!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 15 August, 2015, 07:26:35 pm
Multiple citations could just be proof of lots of people being WRONG.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 15 August, 2015, 07:29:37 pm
Multiple citations could just be proof of lots of people being WRONG.
Amen to that!

But is it too late for a campaign against "cover off"? I fear the ship may have sailed on that one ...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 15 August, 2015, 07:33:35 pm
Cover off? What's wrong with that?

"The rain has stopped and they are taking the covers off."

OK, Aggers always uses it in the plural. I don't recall hearing anyone use it as a singular, if that's what you mean.

Or, "Mr. Brearley has moved Extra Cover off to the right and made a gesture that seems to indicate that he would like the sun to move a little squarer... Who is this man?"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 15 August, 2015, 07:47:26 pm
 ;D

Oh, if only that was the context I hear it in! The world would be a better place (especially meetings). :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 25 August, 2015, 05:01:57 pm
parked up
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 27 August, 2015, 08:02:04 am
parked up
Yes, what's wrong with the perfectly good "stashed the motor"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 27 August, 2015, 09:04:10 am
Sometimes you can't win...

Use, not take.
(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtp1/v/t1.0-9/11889700_1100700856615570_7870083364318931289_n.jpg?oh=d07dcc308c0ea3ec90e76212bd4936f2&oe=566AB52A)

Take, not use.
(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtp1/v/t1.0-9/11909512_10203602820231512_5660550502935005209_n.jpg?oh=10adfeefc5f6505f871a7dd6501af700&oe=5667B671)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 27 August, 2015, 11:25:29 am
;D

Oh, if only that was the context I hear it in! The world would be a better place (especially meetings). :)

The odd thing is that I have absolutely no idea of the context you have in mind.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 27 August, 2015, 12:19:32 pm
Then you are very fortunate.

Google once again saves me some typing: http://bad-pr.blogspot.com/2008/08/bullshit-bingo-5-cover-off.html
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 27 August, 2015, 12:22:48 pm
I haven't been to a meeting of the sort you have in mind since 1995. Have I missed much?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 27 August, 2015, 01:58:43 pm
Not heard it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 28 August, 2015, 09:04:08 am
"Small little..." juxtaposed. I have seen this often enough for it to make me think that "small" and "little" are not precisely synonymous, at least, not in the minds of those who put the two together.

What do others think?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 28 August, 2015, 09:09:08 am
That one goes back at least as far as Aristotle as an example of rhetorical tautology. Nothing wrong with repeating something a couple of times for emphasis.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 28 August, 2015, 09:09:12 am
Sometimes you can't win...

Use, not take.
(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtp1/v/t1.0-9/11889700_1100700856615570_7870083364318931289_n.jpg?oh=d07dcc308c0ea3ec90e76212bd4936f2&oe=566AB52A)

Take, not use.
(https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtp1/v/t1.0-9/11909512_10203602820231512_5660550502935005209_n.jpg?oh=10adfeefc5f6505f871a7dd6501af700&oe=5667B671)

Ah go on.  Take the road, take pride, take the bus...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 28 August, 2015, 01:16:13 pm
"Small little..." juxtaposed. I have seen this often enough for it to make me think that "small" and "little" are not precisely synonymous, at least, not in the minds of those who put the two together.

What do others think?

Absolutely nothing wrong with repeating something for emphasis.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 28 August, 2015, 01:39:05 pm
My apologies if this has been dealt with earlier in the thread, however I felt I had to get it off my chest.  It's not a difficult thing to get right, however lots of people do it.  :demon:

https://www.englishforums.com/English/CommaUsageAfterHowever/kvpw/post.htm (https://www.englishforums.com/English/CommaUsageAfterHowever/kvpw/post.htm)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 28 August, 2015, 06:25:37 pm
"Small little..." juxtaposed. I have seen this often enough for it to make me think that "small" and "little" are not precisely synonymous, at least, not in the minds of those who put the two together.

What do others think?
It's the opposite of "fucking great ... "
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 31 August, 2015, 11:05:25 pm
"Small little..." juxtaposed. I have seen this often enough for it to make me think that "small" and "little" are not precisely synonymous, at least, not in the minds of those who put the two together.

What do others think?
I think you should avoid learning Dutch, to save yourself from constant cringing.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 September, 2015, 12:01:25 am
I don't think I've come across "small little" but "tiny little" is common enough, as are "teeny weeny ickle" and "isty-bitsy teeny-weeny".  The latter two probably shouldn't be, but we do not inhabit a sane Universe.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 01 September, 2015, 01:25:08 pm
There are so many errors in this tragic story that I hardly know where to start...
http://www.kentonline.co.uk/deal/news/mum-speaks-in-emotional-video-41158/ (http://www.kentonline.co.uk/deal/news/mum-speaks-in-emotional-video-41158/)

<<Daniel was killed in a collision with a van in Ringwould in September 2013.
He died the next day from his injuries. Philip Sinden, who was driving a Vauxhall Vivaro,>>
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 September, 2015, 09:25:33 am
That's interesting. New to me, too, but clear in the context. To find a thrill in the detailed understanding of someone else's performance or skilled activity. Quite useful.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 15 September, 2015, 10:27:51 am
On the side of a lorry, the scientifically-illiterate "Working together to reduce CO2"  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 15 September, 2015, 10:37:37 am
I see that geek is now a verb with a meaning similar to thrill. Bold is mine.

Quote
I see a guitar player ... I understand what he's doing and it adds to my experience. That geeks me. Ballet geeks me too. Watching a ballet leaves me breathless -- oh, look what she did there! That extra rush is priceless. That's why we call it "geeking." I'm really lucky, my oldest son is also learning how to play the guitar, so we can geek at each other.

It's been in the dictionary with this definition for some time:

• be or become extremely excited or enthusiastic about a subject, typically one of specialist or minority interest: I am totally geeking out over this upcoming film (OED)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 September, 2015, 10:51:04 am
Geek out has been around a while, since the 90s at least I guess, but this is slightly different. For a start, it's used in an impersonal construction; "That geeks me" rather than "I geek out (over/at/...) that". Secondly, it conveys a sense of admiration of someone else's skill through shared knowledge. The original "geek out" sense doesn't have quite that same admiration, it's more a feeling in the person who is geeking, wherease here it is something or someone else that geeks you.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 15 September, 2015, 11:12:25 am
I like it. Grammatically speaking, it reminds me of this:
https://youtu.be/pX6QlnlMqjE

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 15 September, 2015, 11:13:44 am
Interestingly, the Urban Dictionary's list of words related to geek out goes geek - nerd - dork.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 September, 2015, 11:36:28 am
I like it. Grammatically speaking, it reminds me of this:
https://youtu.be/pX6QlnlMqjE
Or simply it interests/excites/bores/etc me?

Interestingly, the Urban Dictionary's list of words related to geek out goes geek - nerd - dork.
There's a brand of toothpaste (Colgate?) which has a logo it describes as a 'nurdle'. Sounds like a young nerd. Best stop there before I start dorkling out.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Torslanda on 16 September, 2015, 08:59:43 am
Not normally a grammar Nazi but a trailer from the BeebBeebCeeb is really grinding my gears...

'Re-live it all again on the red button...' AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Just to make it worse it's a trailer for 'Hyde Park Festival inna Day' which roughly translates as 'Terry Wogan and a bunch of sycophants go mental fawning over ageing recording artists desperate to get a new record deal'

Stopping now before this becomes the Rant Thread.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ham on 16 September, 2015, 09:39:34 am
(http://41.media.tumblr.com/8805d4e14f32d35e877f473b1f2d26e4/tumblr_mjyo01IXwi1rd83too1_500.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 16 September, 2015, 10:10:06 am
Exelcent!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 16 September, 2015, 10:30:41 am
Quote from: Co-shirker
Is there any further checks that can be put in place that would prevent [this]? Is there any other reasons you can think of that would have stopped this check from working that we can realistically put actions in to prevent?

 :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 16 September, 2015, 05:37:29 pm
It seems that Hillary Clinton has been releasing old family photos to the media in order to make herself "more relatable".  This may mean something to USAnians.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 16 September, 2015, 05:57:27 pm
It seems that Hillary Clinton has been releasing old family photos to the media in order to make herself "more relatable".  This may mean something to USAnians.

For the record, I did not have relations with that woman.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 16 September, 2015, 06:02:25 pm
It seems that Hillary Clinton has been releasing old family photos to the media in order to make herself "more relatable".  This may mean something to USAnians.

For the record, I did not have relations with that woman.

I never suspected you...until now.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 16 September, 2015, 06:08:14 pm
It seems that Hillary Clinton has been releasing old family photos to the media in order to make herself "more relatable".  This may mean something to USAnians.
Is that contrasted to 'Rela-under-the-table', as in Monica Lewinski's case?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 16 September, 2015, 07:42:22 pm
It seems that Hillary Clinton has been releasing old family photos to the media in order to make herself "more relatable".  This may mean something to USAnians.
Is that contrasted to 'Rela-under-the-table', as in Monica Lewinski's case?

Close, but no cigar.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 18 September, 2015, 02:38:08 pm
Source London, a provider of charging points for electric vehicles, has just sent me an email including the following sentence:-

Quote
We are very pleased to announce that we have repaired and replaced a numerous amount of charging points throughout London and this will continue to grow the coming year.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 September, 2015, 05:16:57 pm
That's great!

How many? An amount. Can you be more precise? A numerous amount.

Real weasels in action! (Though I expect it was just someone changing their mind mid-sentence and no one checking it.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: De Sisti on 19 September, 2015, 05:02:50 pm
Not so much grammar, but the use of the word brace, especially in sporting parlance.

".... and in tonight's game Joe Bloggs scored a brace of goals for City against Rovers."


What's wrong with the word couple?

".... and in tonight's game Joe Bloggs scored a couple of goals for City against Rovers."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 19 September, 2015, 05:13:27 pm
Or "two"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: De Sisti on 19 September, 2015, 05:49:20 pm
Or "two"?
Indeed. That's fine too.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 19 September, 2015, 11:02:15 pm
I suppose from hunting/shooting, a brace of pheasants etc, it helps to suggest the two goals were as a result of some skill or effort. Perhaps if they are more likely to generate a prodigious celebration it should be a magnum of goals. And for a big celebration of four goals, a Jeroboam.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: De Sisti on 20 September, 2015, 11:12:08 am
I suppose from hunting/shooting, a brace of pheasants etc, it helps to suggest the two goals were as a result of some skill or effort. Perhaps if they are more likely to generate a prodigious celebration it should be a magnum of goals. And for a big celebration of four goals, a Jeroboam.
???
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 20 September, 2015, 11:20:29 am
I suppose from hunting/shooting, a brace of pheasants etc, it helps to suggest the two goals were as a result of some skill or effort. Perhaps if they are more likely to generate a prodigious celebration it should be a magnum of goals. And for a big celebration of four goals, a Jeroboam.

Careful, jo! People will accuse you of being a champagne socialist!  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: De Sisti on 20 September, 2015, 05:55:11 pm
This is more acceptable:

* Pelle scores twice to give Saints hope
* Martial double & Mata strike give Man Utd lead
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 20 September, 2015, 06:07:49 pm
Why grammar should do more than make us cringe: An interactive guide to ambiguous grammar (http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-interactive-guide-to-ambiguous-grammar) (don't be tempted to skip sections; it's worth a full read).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Chris S on 30 September, 2015, 09:04:56 am
Interesting email exchange between a friend and Cambridge Online Dictionary.

It would seem (by interpretation of what they say) that World English, by virtue of being used by many more people than native British English, is the defining standard for written English, and in World English the ending "ize" is the preferred form, and the British English "ise" is deemed as an "alternative".

It's an outrage!

(Looks at the other screen.)

I'm going to have to change this function to "Initialize" now...  >:(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 30 September, 2015, 11:17:48 am
The usage of -ize predates -ise in British English. My OED gives -ize forms prime billing and lists -ise as alternates.

Why grammar should do more than make us cringe: An interactive guide to ambiguous grammar (http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/an-interactive-guide-to-ambiguous-grammar) (don't be tempted to skip sections; it's worth a full read).

Brilliant and slightly chilling.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 30 September, 2015, 11:18:18 am
^^^It were Dr. Sam'l Johnson what dun it.  He reckoned that -ize words were derived from French and since French uses -ise then that's what it ought to be in English too.  But take your pick, someone will always say you're wrong.

In any case there's what the majority says and what's right, e.g. 95% of people in the world (sez someone, probably looking for safety in numbers) believe in some form of god.

Anyway, the reason I crossed the jolly portal into this particular sinkhole was finding the word "camera" used as a verb in that august** periodical Hiss A Tory History Today:

Quote
Prominent on any given day would likely be ... a piece to camera on the significance of China to the global economy.

For we'll all blench together...

**we had a dog called Augustus
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 September, 2015, 11:22:48 am
Doesn't that just mean "a piece in front of the camera" or, if you like, "speaking to the camera"? I don't think it's actually a verb.

Ian is right about -ize and -ise. But which it's best to use depends on who you're writing for.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 30 September, 2015, 12:32:24 pm
Which is best to use from -ise and -ize depends on whether you want to be:
;)

I note that in Canada the first Monday in September is "Labour Day".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 30 September, 2015, 12:36:23 pm
Canadians broadly use what may be British English, so the u remains in colour and labour. Of course, we all lose the u eventually, it's laborious work clinging onto unnecessary letters.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 30 September, 2015, 12:49:12 pm
Its amusing that we have a thread for grammar pedants and one for spelling pedants ...
and the pedants post in the wrong one.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 30 September, 2015, 12:52:41 pm
Yeahbut I'm not a pedant. I don't believe in grammar other than as an oppressive construct.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 30 September, 2015, 12:58:02 pm
The -ise -ize debate on here predates the spelling one. I'm not sure how that affects the rules.

it's laborious work clinging onto unnecessary letters.

My postman was sacked for that sort of reasoning.

I still -ize, mainly to provoke people into saying it's American.  Then I can smugly show them my (admittedly out-of-date) Fowlers and Collins Gem (which  only gives the -ize for 'organize').
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 30 September, 2015, 01:19:01 pm
Doesn't that just mean "a piece in front of the camera" or, if you like, "speaking to the camera"? I don't think it's actually a verb.

So that "a piece to camera" would be something like "a piece to music"?  Rather wretched, isn't it?  Maybe he meant it should be shut up somewhere.

Re -ise/-ize, I favour the -ize side myself but the excellent Dorothy Sayers used -ise, at least in the title of Murder must Advertise. Duh.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 September, 2015, 02:43:07 pm
Basically, yes, but it's rather more literal than "to music". It could be thought of as a stage direction, I suppose.

Though I'm sure "to camera" as a verb could catch on. "We camera Scene 1 tomorrow but we won't mike the dialogue till later."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 30 September, 2015, 03:42:49 pm
I have never had a problem with the phrase "piece to camera". It is clear, and I unaware of it breaking any rules.

I'm sure someone here can cure the latter ...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 30 September, 2015, 03:52:37 pm
Looked it up. Film/TV jargon.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 30 September, 2015, 03:55:25 pm
Jargon is fine when you're speaking to fellow jargs.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 September, 2015, 04:08:59 pm
That's why you need jargoff too.

Anyway, I'd say that although "to camera" doubtless originated with film and tv jargon, it's fairly mainstream now. This is a reminder for us that even mainstreamized jargon can need explanation.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 30 September, 2015, 04:34:54 pm
The -ise -ize debate on here predates the spelling one. I'm not sure how that affects the rules.
Bah!

blah blah ... predates .. yada yada.

I am quite sure. Wrong is wrong, and spelling is spelling, not grammar.

You people would agree that black is white if shown an old enough citation.

Hrumph ...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 30 September, 2015, 05:18:49 pm
Is "to camera" the opposite of "in camera"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 September, 2015, 06:52:43 pm
Is "to camera" the opposite of "in camera"?
:D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 30 September, 2015, 09:22:19 pm
And is a tattoo artiste an ink-hammerer?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 October, 2015, 02:51:59 am
Jargon is fine when you're speaking to fellow jargs.

But "jarg" is already a well-known1 adjective, meaning "fake" or "counterfeit".

1: On Merseyside
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 01 October, 2015, 07:32:36 am
That's why you need jargoff too.

Anyway, I'd say that although "to camera" doubtless originated with film and tv jargon, it's fairly mainstream now. This is a reminder for us that even mainstreamized jargon can need explanation.

Especially for long-term dwellers in furrinitude.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 01 October, 2015, 09:02:13 am
... the excellent Dorothy Sayers ...

All respect lost  ;) Tried reading a Lord Peter Wimsey novel about 10 years ago and it was utter tripe.  I would rather read DLT than any more DLS.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 01 October, 2015, 09:10:39 am
And is a tattoo artiste an ink-hammerer?

Afterthought: or would that be a dot-matrix printer?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 01 October, 2015, 09:20:16 am
... the excellent Dorothy Sayers ...

All respect lost  ;) Tried reading a Lord Peter Wimsey novel about 10 years ago and it was utter tripe.  I would rather read DLT than any more DLS.

Oh, come now. I've dusted off all those old bottles and set them up straight is the most poignant line in English literature.  And her translation of the Inferno gave the word buglebreech to the language.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 October, 2015, 09:24:26 am
That's why you need jargoff too.

Anyway, I'd say that although "to camera" doubtless originated with film and tv jargon, it's fairly mainstream now. This is a reminder for us that even mainstreamized jargon can need explanation.

Especially for long-term dwellers in furrinitude.
True. Been there done that and taken the T-shirt off.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 01 October, 2015, 02:47:13 pm
Basically, yes, but it's rather more literal than "to music". It could be thought of as a stage direction, I suppose.

Though I'm sure "to camera" as a verb could catch on. "We camera Scene 1 tomorrow but we won't mike the dialogue till later."
'Mic', or, if you will, 'mike', is already a verb.  You can mic a drumkit by pointing appropriate microphones at appropriate bits, or mic up a presenter (usually refers to radio mics).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 October, 2015, 02:58:02 pm
Yep, which makes the possibility of "camera" becoming a verb seem more real. However, I can't see what it could mean that isn't already covered by "film" – though perhaps those in the industry could see a use – and it does sound a bit ugly as a verb.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 01 October, 2015, 02:59:07 pm
'camera' as a verb is hardly likely to oust the snappier* 'shoot' or 'film'


*pun intended
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 01 October, 2015, 03:15:23 pm
Basically, yes, but it's rather more literal than "to music". It could be thought of as a stage direction, I suppose.

Though I'm sure "to camera" as a verb could catch on. "We camera Scene 1 tomorrow but we won't mike the dialogue till later."
'Mic', or, if you will, 'mike', is already a verb.  You can mic a drumkit by pointing appropriate microphones at appropriate bits, or mic up a presenter (usually refers to radio mics).

Concerning that presenter at the start of PBP, I could happily have shoved his mike up him.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 October, 2015, 03:31:31 pm
Camera as a verb would probably only make sense where you wanted to emphasise the device over the action: "I've bought a GoPro so I can cam my commute and youtube it every day."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: PhilO on 01 October, 2015, 04:07:28 pm
I believe that 'to helmet-cam' is already in use.  :-\
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 02 October, 2015, 12:04:36 am
I believe that 'to helmet-cam' is already in use.  :-\

Neologisms containing more syllables than the words they purport to replace ought by rights to be taken behind the barn and given the treatment with a sawn-off.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 October, 2015, 05:11:18 pm
Continuing the theme of using other parts of speech as verbs, today I (belatedly) saw this poster:
(http://www.soilassociation.org/Portals/0/Content/main_images/Organic_Sept_2015.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 06 October, 2015, 10:06:12 am
*****C-r-i-n-g-e*****
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 06 October, 2015, 10:16:40 am
That one's horrendous. They could have simply dropped the "your" and it would have made just as much sense, without abusing the english language.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 October, 2015, 10:40:41 am
Or 'Make your September organic' or even just 'Your organic September'. I'm not usually too bothered by nouns, adjectives etc used as verbs and most of the examples here make me laugh rather than cringe, but that one's just ugly. It's appropriate I didn't see it till October!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 06 October, 2015, 12:20:09 pm
Is advertising. English grammar doesn't apply.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 06 October, 2015, 12:58:35 pm
I'm more concerned that the 'Choose' comes after the 'eat' and 'drink'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 06 October, 2015, 01:22:19 pm
What did you expect? They got the rest ass-backwards.

(Funny expression, that, ass-backwards.  Surely the wrong way round would be ass-forwards.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 06 October, 2015, 04:21:29 pm
Or even "Organic: Your September"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 06 October, 2015, 05:39:38 pm
Taking organic as the adjective it is does actually work, in a poetical sort of way: Organic your September, toxic your October, etc.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 06 October, 2015, 05:52:53 pm
Taking organic as the adjective it is does actually work, in a poetical sort of way: Organic your September, toxic your October, etc.
Are you confusing "poetical" (poetic?)
with
sounding like Yoda ?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: PhilO on 07 October, 2015, 01:41:26 pm
What did you expect? They got the rest ass-backwards.

(Funny expression, that, ass-backwards.  Surely the wrong way round would be ass-forwards.)

Can't say I've ever heard that one. Arse-about-face, yes, but never 'ass-backwards'... :-\

And why would a beast of burden be reversing, anyway?  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 07 October, 2015, 01:48:19 pm
What did you expect? They got the rest ass-backwards.

(Funny expression, that, ass-backwards.  Surely the wrong way round would be ass-forwards.)

Can't say I've ever heard that one. Arse-about-face, yes, but never 'ass-backwards'... :-\

And why would a beast of burden be reversing, anyway?  ;)

It's colonial English.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ham on 11 October, 2015, 02:11:15 pm
What did you expect? They got the rest ass-backwards.

(Funny expression, that, ass-backwards.  Surely the wrong way round would be ass-forwards.)

Can't say I've ever heard that one. Arse-about-face, yes, but never 'ass-backwards'... :-\

And why would a beast of burden be reversing, anyway?  ;)

Because he saw a crocodile swimming towards him under water.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 11 October, 2015, 10:45:52 pm
What did you expect? They got the rest ass-backwards.

(Funny expression, that, ass-backwards.  Surely the wrong way round would be ass-forwards.)

Can't say I've ever heard that one. Arse-about-face, yes, but never 'ass-backwards'... :-\

Bass-ackwards is one I've heard.

I believe it was intended as an example of what is known as humour, m'lud.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 12 October, 2015, 09:20:33 am
As was that.  Nice trowel.

Funny, all this pure & applied ignorance, coming from the land that replaced railway station with train station.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 15 October, 2015, 11:51:30 am
From the Mega-Global Fruit Corporation of Cupertino Thurrock:

Quote
Customer has keyboard run marks on the display - spoke to NH who has Agreed to consumer law the display for the customer.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 15 October, 2015, 11:56:19 am
From the Mega-Global Fruit Corporation of Cupertino Thurrock:

Quote
Customer has keyboard run marks on the display - spoke to NH who has Agreed to consumer law the display for the customer.

And now the same thing in Aramaic:

Quote
Customer has keyboard run marks on the display - spoke to NH who has Agreed to consumer law the display for the customer.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 15 October, 2015, 12:05:03 pm
Meanwhile

http://linkis.com/newsthump.com/2015/1/qrBAo

Chelmsford deserves it, if for no other reason than their dreadful 1970s road development.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 16 October, 2015, 02:02:26 pm
From today's Independent online:

<<Researchers at Anglia Ruskin university found a link that suggests people with tattoos are more angrier than those who don't. >>

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/people-who-have-tattoos-are-more-aggressive-than-those-who-dont-a6696651.html (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/people-who-have-tattoos-are-more-aggressive-than-those-who-dont-a6696651.html)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 16 October, 2015, 02:34:58 pm
That reads like one of those one-word-each sentences from ISIHAC.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mcshroom on 16 October, 2015, 03:48:49 pm
Picture taken in Scourie Camp site reception
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-felZHCcxAsc/VhA0NVG-etI/AAAAAAAALOk/kAjgr3QfWF0/s576-Ic42/20150929_193409.jpg)

See point 11 :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 October, 2015, 04:49:56 pm
I rather like the comment to point 15.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 16 October, 2015, 05:40:25 pm
I rather like the comment to point 15.

 ;D

I think that's what they call damning with faint praise.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 17 October, 2015, 01:20:34 pm
See also: Point 13 ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 20 October, 2015, 01:08:31 am
<<Man accused of poisoning four young men found dead in east London graveyard>>

Evening Standard headline.
Ambiguous or what?

The accused is alive...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 20 October, 2015, 12:08:12 pm
(Sings)

Suspected murderer of Tupac murder suspect

MUR-DERED!

(Waits for audience applause not a sossidge)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 20 October, 2015, 12:24:34 pm
Someone could have murdered a murderer.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: billplumtree on 20 October, 2015, 01:36:15 pm
Someone could have murdered a murderer.

Imagine how long it would have taken Taggart to say that
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 20 October, 2015, 01:39:17 pm
Someone could have murdered a murderer.

Imagine how long it would have taken Taggart to say that

That's what killed him.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 20 October, 2015, 03:40:06 pm
(Sings)

Suspected murderer of Tupac murder suspect

MUR-DERED!

(Waits for audience applause not a sossidge)

Oh. He dead?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 20 October, 2015, 11:16:14 pm
(Sings)

Suspected murderer of Tupac murder suspect

MUR-DERED!

(Waits for audience applause not a sossidge)

Oh. He dead?

Very.  Victim of a drive-by shouting shooting in Las Vegas in 1996.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 21 October, 2015, 09:29:50 am
^^^ Not quite in the Queen Anne league, then. Oh well.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 21 October, 2015, 09:30:32 am
Yet despite being dead, his recording output hasn't diminished. If anything he's been more productive.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 October, 2015, 04:37:31 pm
Article about translated subtitles: http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2015/oct/21/the-returned-spiral-the-killing-subtitle
Interesting that they seem to be translating and subtitling in one. We used to create subtitles first and then translate them. This had the disadvantage that you were subtitling something that was already a precis and often without context (Hollywood paranoia meaning translators weren't always allowed access to the video and audio) but did mean the translators only had to translate, the timing and simplification was done for them.

The technical side is not always quite as straightforward as they say. The number of characters and rows and their position on the screen depend on the font, which is chosen by the studio and/or broadcaster, and the purpose of the subs (whether for the hard of hearing, for instance). Also, whether you translate visuals.

As for translating names and words that are in other languages, that's a minefield. Our house policy was to completely ignore words in foreign languages. IMO this was wrong – if it wasn't meant to be understood or at least convey something, it wouldn't be there. So 'bonjour' is worth subbing IMO because it's well understood by most English speakers but not necessarily by others. Also, SDH would need to know that some foreign language was being spoken even if it was incomprehensible. But hey, policy is policy and it can't always make sense!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 21 October, 2015, 05:18:46 pm
Yet despite being dead, his recording output hasn't diminished. If anything he's been more productive.

He share an agent with Buddy Holly?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 21 October, 2015, 06:48:34 pm
Thanks to the efforts of the sub-titlers I now know that the Scandiwegian word "Hallo" means "Hallo".  Or "Hello".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 21 October, 2015, 06:55:12 pm
Thanks to the efforts of the sub-titlers I now know that the Scandiwegian word "Hallo" means "Hallo".  Or "Hello".

Hullo!  I never knew that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 21 October, 2015, 07:37:39 pm
Having a cousin who is a Scandiwegian film director and getting to see many of her films, it seems they often don't bother subbing English speech and assume Danes understand enough Swedish (and vice versa) to switch seamlessly between various Scandiwegian tongues.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 21 October, 2015, 11:21:21 pm
I recall watching Swedish programmes on Danish TV in the 1970s - with English subtitles.

One of my proudest moments back then was spotting a mistake in the Danish subtitles of a British sitcom.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 October, 2015, 09:21:03 am
You thought it was a mistake, the subtitlers might have thought it was the best compromise between conveying the meaning and fitting in with the technical demands of the medium! One of the advantages of dubbing is that it isn't restricted in the same way.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 22 October, 2015, 12:45:23 pm
Saw one recently where every time the word "fils" was said in French the word "wires" appeared in English, e.g. in a sentence such as "your wires got my daughter pregnant".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 22 October, 2015, 01:50:06 pm
You thought it was a mistake, the subtitlers might have thought it was the best compromise between conveying the meaning and fitting in with the technical demands of the medium! One of the advantages of dubbing is that it isn't restricted in the same way.
Nope. Plain & simple mistranslation because the English was misunderstood. Danish doesn't do it the same, & I assume the translator hadn't encountered that particular Englishism. It's the sort of thing lessons probably wouldn't cover. Short phrase, accurate translation of which would have fitted into the subtitles very easily.

Q. "What's the time?"
A. "22".

I think you can work out what it should have been.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 October, 2015, 01:58:43 pm
Saw one recently where every time the word "fils" was said in French the word "wires" appeared in English, e.g. in a sentence such as "your wires got my daughter pregnant".
:facepalm: I think that's gone beyond translation error or any linguistic issue into simply not paying any attention to what you're doing.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 October, 2015, 02:16:32 pm
You thought it was a mistake, the subtitlers might have thought it was the best compromise between conveying the meaning and fitting in with the technical demands of the medium! One of the advantages of dubbing is that it isn't restricted in the same way.
Nope. Plain & simple mistranslation because the English was misunderstood. Danish doesn't do it the same, & I assume the translator hadn't encountered that particular Englishism. It's the sort of thing lessons probably wouldn't cover. Short phrase, accurate translation of which would have fitted into the subtitles very easily.

Q. "What's the time?"
A. "22".

I think you can work out what it should have been.
Ah. At first I though you meant that was a mistake in translating subs from Danish to English, in which case I can see at least two ways it could have occurred (translator proficient in English but unfamiliar with usage beyond railway timetables, or studio/TV channel being tight – some of them are unbelievably so) but in either case, it sounds odd but doesn't change the meaning. But I've realised you mean from English to Danish, which is actually quite a funny mistake (and also probably a result of unfamiliarity with usage as distinct from language).  :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 22 October, 2015, 02:27:23 pm
Yes, I'm sure that was it: unfamiliarity with that particular usage.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 October, 2015, 02:46:29 pm
Could be unfamiliarity with "twenty to" or even with not using the 24-hr clock, but actually lack of context could also be a factor. It would probably be obvious, if you had the video, if it's not 10pm, but not if the translator's not given that visual context. Again, the initial mistake could be nothing to do with the translator but a mishearing (or misunderstanding) by someone creating English subtitles. It all depends on the process used, but someone involved being unfamiliar with that usage does seem a likelihood.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 23 October, 2015, 03:35:47 pm
But surely it's not just unfamiliarity with the usage "twenty-to;" it also implies unfamiliarity with any time-related usage. I've *never* heard an English-speaker say "twenty two" when they mean 10pm. They might say "twenty two hundred" or "twenty two hundred hours," they might have said "twenty two fifteen" if it was quarter of an hour later.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 October, 2015, 04:40:02 pm
That reminds me of a conversation I overheard in Montreal. What I overheard was in English between two Anglophone Canadians but was reporting a misunderstanding one of them had had with a Francophone – whether that was in French or English, I'm not sure, but a meeting had been arranged for "seven", which the Anglophone assumed meant 7 p.m., whereas the Francophone, being used to thinking in 24-hour clock, had meant 7 a.m.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 23 October, 2015, 04:51:45 pm
And the confusing German habit of saying "half seven" when they mean six-thirty.

Working in Germany, I got so used to this that the English meaning now seems strange; so I no longer use it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 23 October, 2015, 06:28:52 pm
You have reminded me of the French fellow who, asked the time (in English), replied (in English) "two to two".  He paused, then said, "it sounds strange does it not, 'two to two'".   One of those odd idiosyncrasies of English usage.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: The French Tandem on 23 October, 2015, 06:38:57 pm
Saw one recently where every time the word "fils" was said in French the word "wires" appeared in English, e.g. in a sentence such as "your wires got my daughter pregnant".

The joys of translation are endless! I once bought a shirt that was made in Turkey. The shirt was properly labeled, in french, "Fabriqué en Dinde".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 23 October, 2015, 08:00:52 pm
And the confusing German habit of saying "half seven" when they mean six-thirty.

Aye - the need to establish whether there's a silent 'before' or a silent 'after' in the phrase ...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 23 October, 2015, 11:33:17 pm
And the confusing German habit of saying "half seven" when they mean six-thirty.
Not only German. Norse, too.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 24 October, 2015, 08:58:51 am
Saw one recently where every time the word "fils" was said in French the word "wires" appeared in English, e.g. in a sentence such as "your wires got my daughter pregnant".

The joys of translation are endless! I once bought a shirt that was made in Turkey. The shirt was properly labeled, in french, "Fabriqué en Dinde".


Magnificent!

Back when my wife was starting her translation business she was sent an already-translated restaurant menu to proof-read.  For "escalope de volaille" the translator had put "fowl collop".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 24 October, 2015, 01:53:49 pm
[OT] Chicken schnitzel, as I described David's Pollo Milanese to our Romanian cleaning lady yesterday.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 24 October, 2015, 03:59:00 pm
Thought Chicken Schnitzel was that place in Mexico with the pyramids.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 24 October, 2015, 06:47:18 pm
Thought Chicken Schnitzel was that place in Mexico with the pyramids.

You're thinking of Chicken Pizza.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Steph on 24 October, 2015, 09:21:12 pm
I remember a café in Les Saintes Maries de la Mer where there are two breakfasts available, a simple breakfast and a suit breakfast.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 25 October, 2015, 07:07:40 am
Giosuè Carducci, Italian poet:

Quiete, poesia, effluvio, incanto fra l'azzurro del cielo e del mare, ecco Cattolica

Englished in the brochure of the Hotel Globus of that parish as

Quiet, poetry, effluvium...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 04 November, 2015, 08:20:46 am
From an advert on both the front and back covers of the latest Campton Parish Magazine

Quote
ROCKIN 'IN THE AISLES
:facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 04 November, 2015, 12:42:03 pm
That's straight outta Campton.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: eck on 05 November, 2015, 06:03:31 pm
Tesco have just sent me an email to tell me that some blinky bike lights I ordered through their click and collect system will be here soon. But I'd better be careful, looks like they might give me a hard time:

"We have just recently been assured that all orders will be delivered by the 9th November so this should defiantly be there by Monday for you."  :o
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 06 November, 2015, 12:35:38 am
And the confusing German habit of saying "half seven" when they mean six-thirty.

Working in Germany, I got so used to this that the English meaning now seems strange; so I no longer use it.

When I was quite young, and heard people saying the time was "half-six" I always thought how illogical it was. Afterwards, when I did a bit of German, I thought their wording was much more sensible.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 07 November, 2015, 06:20:28 pm
Not strictly-speaking a grammar fault but I hate weather presenters being cuddly in their pronouncements.  We've just got a new one on BBC NorthWest who managed to get "morning-time" and evening-time" into the same sentence which, since she was referring to it hoying it down, was both too cuddly and wholly inappropriate.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 November, 2015, 03:42:53 am
Quote from: nb10

Opinionated weather forecasters telling me it’s going to be a miserable day
Miserable to who? I quite like a bit of drizzle, so stick to the facts

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 08 November, 2015, 07:38:31 am
And the confusing German habit of saying "half seven" when they mean six-thirty.

Working in Germany, I got so used to this that the English meaning now seems strange; so I no longer use it.

When I was quite young, and heard people saying the time was "half-six" I always thought how illogical it was. Afterwards, when I did a bit of German, I thought their wording was much more sensible.

I once overheard a phone-call between an English chum & an American

E: I'll meet you at half seven then, Clay

A: whaaaa?

E: Half seven, Clay

A: whaaaa?

E: A half after seven, Clayton.

A. Aaaaoh.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 November, 2015, 10:23:35 am
Time to do "quarter of"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 09 November, 2015, 10:26:13 am
I wouldn't regard a quarter of, say, Stilton, as being remotely cringeworthy.

Possibly insufficient, mind.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 November, 2015, 10:35:25 am
Whereas I know someone who would run out of the room if confronted with even an eighth of Stilton. Odd. So, a quarter of Stilton at a quarter of eight.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Aunt Maud on 09 November, 2015, 10:38:10 am
Time to do "quarter of"?

No, not just yet, we haven't finished half to.

The Danes.......

Halvtreds = fifty

Three twenties minus a half of twenty or "halvtredsindstyve af halvtredje" two and a half times twenty.

Fem og halvtreds = fifty five

five plus three twenties less a half of twenty.   

fem og halvtreds og en halv = fifty five and a half
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 09 November, 2015, 10:45:36 am
And in Cologne a halber Hahn is a slice of industrial cheese on a slice of bread & butter.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 November, 2015, 10:45:46 am
So what does 'tres' mean on its own, if anything?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Aunt Maud on 09 November, 2015, 10:47:51 am
Sixty.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 09 November, 2015, 10:56:47 am
On another forum:

"We gonna take a 2 group + separate hot water boiler yeah."

I crunge.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 09 November, 2015, 12:18:23 pm
So what does 'tres' mean on its own, if anything?

Threescore = sixty

The French also partially count in scores (quatre-vignts = 80); who else?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Aunt Maud on 09 November, 2015, 12:36:44 pm
Færøene and old Norsk.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 November, 2015, 12:50:59 pm
So what does 'tres' mean on its own, if anything?

Threescore = sixty

The French also partially count in scores (quatre-vignts = 80); who else?
I couldn't see where the 'score' came in till AM expanded his post.

I see the Danish also say the units before the tens, like the Germans. Is this a common Scandinavian thing?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 09 November, 2015, 01:07:03 pm
So what does 'tres' mean on its own, if anything?

Threescore = sixty

The French also partially count in scores (quatre-vignts = 80); who else?
Yep. As AM says, it's the first syllable of the archaic word 'tresindstyve',  i.e. 'three times twenty', 'sinds' being an obsolete word for 'times'. Same with 'firs', for 80, & 'halvfems', for 90 - half from five times twenty, although the Danish for hundred is hundred.

I just noticed that my Danish dictionary has gone into hiding.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Aunt Maud on 09 November, 2015, 01:15:13 pm
To muddy things further they also count in snes and halvsnes, but that's old Dansk although it's still used sometimes.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 November, 2015, 02:43:27 pm
Time to do "quarter of"?

Nowt wrong with for e.g. a quarter of wine gums in the days when sweet shops sold sweets from big jars on shelves behind the brown-coated proprietor, in paper bags

(Exit, muttering about jumpers for goalposts)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 November, 2015, 02:46:22 pm
I understand the time right now is a quarter of three, for some Americans.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 November, 2015, 03:12:43 pm
I have not come across that particular foul idiom but should I do so in future I shall not so much cringe as shoot the perpetrator in the face with square bullets.  "Different than" is bad enough.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 November, 2015, 03:51:34 pm
One of my Northamerician colleagues used to use it but I can't remember whether it was the one from WV or BC. It's also mentioned in various comparative dialect type sources.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 09 November, 2015, 04:33:34 pm
I understand the time right now is a quarter of three, for some Americans.

Yebbut do they mean 14:45 or 14:15? 14:15 would be translated German idiom.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 November, 2015, 05:04:22 pm
14:15 would be the way I'd understand it too, but in fact it's 14:45.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 November, 2015, 05:06:32 pm
http://david-crystal.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/on-quarter-of.html
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 November, 2015, 05:13:53 pm
From the comments it's clearly a common East Coast US expression.

The medieval 'half hour to five' is interesting in this context, as is 'back of', which I always think of as an Americanism for 'behind'. But if you think of 'back of beyond' perhaps it remains in use in British English too.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 09 November, 2015, 05:50:30 pm
Yes, but we would say "it's at the back of beyond" rather than "it's back of beyond".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 09 November, 2015, 05:55:39 pm
Stephen King uses 'quarter of' a lot in his books.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 November, 2015, 06:27:38 pm
Stephen King uses 'quarter of' a lot in his books.

Oh dear.  I would appear to have no fewer than fifty-five books by Mr King in The Library.  I may have to shoot myself instead.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Zipperhead on 09 November, 2015, 08:15:14 pm
Time to do "quarter of"?

Nowt wrong with for e.g. a quarter of wine gums in the days when sweet shops sold sweets from big jars on shelves behind the brown-coated proprietor, in paper bags

(Exit, muttering about jumpers for goalposts)

A quarter? I could never afford more than an eighth.

Oh, you really did mean wine gums.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 09 November, 2015, 09:32:58 pm
"Smarts", not being a form of the verb to smart, describing a particular type of pain, but something to do with talents or abilities or intelligence.

Yesterday I discovered that it is now being taught in schools in this country.  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 09 November, 2015, 10:57:29 pm
"Smarts", not being a form of the verb to smart, describing a particular type of pain, but something to do with talents or abilities or intelligence.

Yesterday I discovered that it is now being taught in schools in this country.  :facepalm:

I thought 'smarts' was an undesirable alien Americanism.
I came across it when reading about sporting endurance early in my Audax career.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 09 November, 2015, 11:24:21 pm
From the comments it's clearly a common East Coast US expression.

The medieval 'half hour to five' is interesting in this context, as is 'back of', which I always think of as an Americanism for 'behind'. But if you think of 'back of beyond' perhaps it remains in use in British English too.
'Back of' is not uncommon in Scots for the first quarter past the hour, at least it was when I lived in rural Aberdeenshire.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 09 November, 2015, 11:49:29 pm
From the comments it's clearly a common East Coast US expression.

The medieval 'half hour to five' is interesting in this context, as is 'back of', which I always think of as an Americanism for 'behind'. But if you think of 'back of beyond' perhaps it remains in use in British English too.
'Back of' is not uncommon in Scots for the first quarter past the hour, at least it was when I lived in rural Aberdeenshire.

I'm not sure I'd see it as being even that precise - I'd hear "back o'nine" as "a bit after nine" and see it as pretty much any time up til 9:30, albeit with an emphasis towards the earlier part. That might just reflect my lackadaisical approach to timekeeping though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 November, 2015, 12:30:30 am
Makes sense to me. Back of = behind = after. Not that I'd necessarily have understood it without the explanation, though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 10 November, 2015, 08:50:46 am
Begs the question of which way nine is facing. Are we creeping up on it from behind or is it facing us?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 November, 2015, 08:56:51 am
9 is the right way up, standing on one leg with its head up. 6 is standing on its head.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 10 November, 2015, 10:27:46 am
Gotcha. Thanks for that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 10 November, 2015, 07:25:06 pm
Stephen King uses 'quarter of' a lot in his books.

Oh dear.  I would appear to have no fewer than fifty-five books by Mr King in The Library.  I may have to shoot myself instead.
...but if you were a true Constant Reader, you would have referred to him as Sai King, instead.  Does that absolve you?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 November, 2015, 07:32:52 pm
I thought he played drums for Hawkwind after Terry Ollis left?

Anyway I can't be a true Constant Reader coz I've only read the first book of the Dark Wossname series, which did not inspire me to read any more once they were actually written.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 11 November, 2015, 08:10:26 am
... I've only read the first book of the Dark Wossname series, which did not inspire me to read any more once they were actually written.
I was feeling similarly uninspired by The Gunslinger but will add my voice to the doubtless many who will have told you that it is worth persevering.  The Drawing of the Three is much better (Wizard and Glass is utterly brilliant), and many of the things that seemed weird and disjointed in The Gunslinger will only make sense in the context of the later books. 

And I don't think King uses 'quarter of' very much in any of them.  ;)

(Edit to add: because I'm a sad bastard, I checked this and found 4 'quarter of's, all in The Waste Lands.  Interestingly, King uses 'quarter to' twice in Wolves of the Calla and twice in The Dark Tower.)

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 11 November, 2015, 12:57:13 pm
... I've only read the first book of the Dark Wossname series, which did not inspire me to read any more once they were actually written.
I was feeling similarly uninspired by The Gunslinger but will add my voice to the doubtless many who will have told you that it is worth persevering.

Actually you're the first.  And my "to-read" pile is big enough already without wanting to add another four thousand pages.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 November, 2015, 01:02:44 pm
... I've only read the first book of the Dark Wossname series, which did not inspire me to read any more once they were actually written.
I was feeling similarly uninspired by The Gunslinger but will add my voice to the doubtless many who will have told you that it is worth persevering.  The Drawing of the Three is much better (Wizard and Glass is utterly brilliant), and many of the things that seemed weird and disjointed in The Gunslinger will only make sense in the context of the later books. 

And I don't think King uses 'quarter of' very much in any of them.  ;)

(Edit to add: because I'm a sad bastard, I checked this and found 4 'quarter of's, all in The Waste Lands.  Interestingly, King uses 'quarter to' twice in Wolves of the Calla and twice in The Dark Tower.)
It's possible that some were edited for BritEng readers and some not.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 11 November, 2015, 01:31:18 pm
I thought he played drums for Hawkwind after Terry Ollis left?

And is now a TV chef (and occasional radio disc jockey).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 11 November, 2015, 02:06:05 pm
... I've only read the first book of the Dark Wossname series, which did not inspire me to read any more once they were actually written.
I was feeling similarly uninspired by The Gunslinger but will add my voice to the doubtless many who will have told you that it is worth persevering.
Actually you're the first.  And my "to-read" pile is big enough already without wanting to add another four thousand pages.
Furry muff.

(Edit to add: because I'm a sad bastard, I checked this and found 4 'quarter of's, all in The Waste Lands.  Interestingly, King uses 'quarter to' twice in Wolves of the Calla and twice in The Dark Tower.)
It's possible that some were edited for BritEng readers and some not.
That's quite possible.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 November, 2015, 01:24:00 pm
As the Gneisenau closed on Cape Pembroke, its senior gunnery officer spotted the three-legged tripod masts characteristic of Dreadnoughts.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 16 November, 2015, 02:46:41 pm
You do need to know what sort of tripods you are looking for.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 November, 2015, 02:51:10 pm
The two-legged tripods fall over and the four-legged ones are clumsy, so always insist on a three-legged tripod. Make sure you're not fobbed off with a three-legged bipod though!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 16 November, 2015, 05:01:23 pm
Pentapods are RIGHT out!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 November, 2015, 05:09:17 pm
“I loved you. I was a pentapod monster, but I loved you. I was despicable and brutal, and turpid, and everything, mais je t’aimais, je t’aimais! And there were times when I knew how you felt, and it was hell to know it, my little one. Lolita girl, brave Dolly Schiller.”

You can see why a pentapod is not on.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 17 November, 2015, 01:33:24 am
I posted this in the Badly-named business thread a while back... http://tinyurl.com/q2vbv5v (http://tinyurl.com/q2vbv5v)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 17 November, 2015, 02:44:00 pm
What semi-literate baboon put this in Weekly Routine Orders?
Quote
The link bellows provides and updated version of...
:facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 17 November, 2015, 03:46:07 pm
“I loved you. I was a pentapod monster, but I loved you. I was despicable and brutal, and turpid, and everything, mais je t’aimais, je t’aimais! And there were times when I knew how you felt, and it was hell to know it, my little one. Lolita girl, brave Dolly Schiller.”

You can see why a pentapod is not on.
In reference to Humbert's pentapodishness pentapodiatry pentapod five-leggedness, I keep thinking that he should be declaring himself "despicable and brutal, and turgid..."  :o
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 17 November, 2015, 04:28:17 pm
“I loved you. I was a pentapod monster, but I loved you. I was despicable and brutal, and turpid, and everything, mais je t’aimais, je t’aimais! And there were times when I knew how you felt, and it was hell to know it, my little one. Lolita girl, brave Dolly Schiller.”

You can see why a pentapod is not on.
In reference to Humbert's pentapodishness pentapodiatry pentapod five-leggedness, I keep thinking that he should be declaring himself "despicable and brutal, and turgid..."  :o

I have just spent a Several of minutes trying to work out where that ^^^^ came in "Sir Henry At Rawlinson End"1 before I twigged.

1: Lie.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 18 November, 2015, 01:33:32 pm
Quote
The Chronicles of the League of Gentlemen Cyclists.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 26 November, 2015, 04:45:17 pm
Quote from: BBC
Capt Murakhtin spoke to Russian media outlets, who did not show his face

 :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 26 November, 2015, 10:07:54 pm
How do they manage to run the whole of King's Cross with just one contractor and, given that they do, why do they need a special reception for just one person?
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/21716908/contractor.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 26 November, 2015, 10:53:28 pm
It's been like that for since the reign of the last monarch. He was very angry about it, hence the name of the station.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 November, 2015, 09:34:58 am
An advert for Lapierre bikes:

Merci Thibaut.
Thibaut Pinot, winner of the mythical Tour de France stage at l'Alpe d'Huez on his Xelius SL!



I'm sure in a few years it will seem as fitting as 'legendary' or 'epic' but right now it sounds like a mistake! (Actually, I expect it's a bad translation, in which case it won't seem any different in a few years' time.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 27 November, 2015, 09:48:20 am
Probably. Mythique means the same in French as mythical in English, but the mediums here tend to use it as shorthand for "worthy of myth".  The ad was either translated by someone at Lapierre who speek ze Anglish good, or by an agency that couldn't care less or who farmed it out to a low-grade labourer.  Or it might have been translated competently by an agency and then "corrected" by the aforesaid good Anglish speeker.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 27 November, 2015, 09:51:25 am
An advert for Lapierre bikes:

Merci Thibaut.
Thibaut Pinot, winner of the mythical Tour de France stage at l'Alpe d'Huez on his Xelius SL!



I'm sure in a few years it will seem as fitting as 'legendary' or 'epic' but right now it sounds like a mistake! (Actually, I expect it's a bad translation, in which case it won't seem any different in a few years' time.)

See also 'fantastic'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 November, 2015, 09:53:40 am
And 'terrible'. It's often tempting to go for the cognate, even when it's wrong.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 27 November, 2015, 09:58:16 am
Not to mention "fabulous".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: billplumtree on 27 November, 2015, 11:22:25 am
And 'terrible'.

But see also the famed terrible knitters of Dent...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 27 November, 2015, 12:13:28 pm
Is there a name for those adjectives that gradually lose their specific meaning and become mere intensifiers? 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 November, 2015, 01:10:05 pm
I don't think it's fair to say legendary, epic, boss, or even myth-worthy(!) are mere intensifiers. They have lost their original specific meanings but retain meaning beyond 'very'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 27 November, 2015, 01:17:43 pm
I don't think it's fair to say legendary, epic, boss, or even myth-worthy(!) are mere intensifiers. They have lost their original specific meanings but retain meaning beyond 'very'.

I think many people who use them would be unaware of their specific meanings.

I also thought of 'nice' which does seem to have lost its original meaning, except as preserved in 'nicety'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 November, 2015, 01:21:18 pm
So we're no longer making nice distinctions in our choice of adjectives.

Kids at school are now taught not to use nice, cos it's overused. They're also told to use 'wow words'. Both would seem likely to increase the popularity of legendary etc.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 27 November, 2015, 03:03:58 pm
Quote
N's challenge is to develop a means to process Security Related Agile User Stories by making affinities between the underlying requirements and identify any inter-dependencies in a graphical form in order to develop coherent requirements which aim to satisfy the user needs using a limited set of architectural patterns. The entire process will use ISO Standards as a means to determine a common vocabulary and relationships to make associations so to inform the architectural pattern definitions.

ETA: Under a heading reading "Simpler. Better. Safer".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 27 November, 2015, 03:08:32 pm
My school English teacher told us "'Nice' used to mean 'precise'".


Anyway, I give you:
Wicked
Awful
Awesome.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 27 November, 2015, 03:28:31 pm
Amazing

And in the
And 'terrible'.

But see also the famed terrible knitters of Dent...

Tricoteuses de teeth
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 27 November, 2015, 03:33:12 pm
So we're no longer making nice distinctions in our choice of adjectives.

Kids at school are now taught not to use nice, cos it's overused. They're also told to use 'wow words'. Both would seem likely to increase the popularity of legendary etc.

When I was at primary school over 50 years ago we were taught not to use "nice". When I was in primary teaching, the dep. head. and I used to have a standing joke when we approved of something (eg a weekend away or a big piss-up). "I liked it. It was good."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 27 November, 2015, 05:01:00 pm
Nice and Accurate.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 27 November, 2015, 05:03:38 pm
Nice and Accurate.

Nice redundancy.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 27 November, 2015, 11:41:09 pm
Thank Agnes.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 November, 2015, 11:04:45 am
I've just seen a headline 'Food waste stunts target retailers'. It's not unclear really but I'm afraid my blossom did initially crash.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 30 November, 2015, 12:43:03 pm
Nice and Accurate.

You've been reading 'Good Omens' haven't you. :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 30 November, 2015, 02:54:20 pm
Thread title over on the CTC forum

Quote
sealskinz waterproof socks: does anyone tried it?

 ??? :facepalm: :sick: :hand:




See also numerous references to "peddle" and "curb" wrt pedals and kerbs :hand:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 30 November, 2015, 04:52:48 pm
Nice and Accurate.

You've been reading 'Good Omens' haven't you. :thumbsup:

Listened to the wireless adaption again while on me holibobs...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 December, 2015, 08:30:22 am
People who use the word "horrorshow" to denote a Bad Thing.  Yes you, Lord Coe!  Didn't read A Clockwork Orange at your grubby little secondary modern, I suppose.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 03 December, 2015, 09:20:00 am
People who use the word "horrorshow" to denote a Bad Thing.  Yes you, Lord Coe!  Didn't read A Clockwork Orange at your grubby little secondary modern, I suppose.

Perhaps you could tolchock him around the gulliver, pour encourager les autres.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 December, 2015, 10:00:04 am
O yes, my droogies, and viddy the red red krovvy flow.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 03 December, 2015, 12:01:25 pm
People who use the word "horrorshow" to denote a Bad Thing.  Yes you, Lord Coe!  Didn't read A Clockwork Orange at your grubby little secondary modern, I suppose.
Xорошо!

Stupid thing is that he's the right age to have seen the film when it came out.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: tiermat on 03 December, 2015, 12:27:18 pm
Reviewing CVs, today, I came across this:

Quote
I am task and goal oriented even with sports and hobbies as it make me try harder. I find my enthusiasm to be infectious as everyone tries harder as well.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 03 December, 2015, 02:00:53 pm
^^^ Once had one that went

Languages:
-read: French, German, English
-spoken: French, German, German.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 03 December, 2015, 02:31:49 pm
An email we received a while back

Quote
I am interested in joining the intelligence corps but would like to know more before i go any further is there any oppurtunties to meet someone who is in the int corp's to find out more about the role and future prospects i.e job's after the army is there any upcoming career exhibitions or open days
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ham on 03 December, 2015, 02:35:05 pm
^^^ Once had one that went

Languages:
-read: French, German, English
-spoken: French, German, German.

That's double deutch
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 06 December, 2015, 12:10:12 am
"Free reign" for "free rein". Doesn't anyone know the difference any more between a horse being given its head, & some unexplained notion relating to a monarch?

OK, could be spelling - but it still annoys me.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 06 December, 2015, 06:51:06 am
Free rain is what they're having in Cumbria at the moment.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: DDCyclist on 06 December, 2015, 09:00:13 am
While in Indonesia I noticed that Chinese people, when describing things in English, often said things like "it's the colour green" or "it's red in colour."

I don't need to be told red, green or whatever is a colour. I never noticed you saying something was "square/round/triangular in shape." Why do you feel the need to tell me you're talking about a colour when you have given me the name of a colour and that name can't be confused with anything other than a colour?  If you don't tell me you're talking about a colour I'm not likely to think you mean "it's purple in taste" am I?

Possibly it's something that comes from Chinese words or language. I don't know. If that's the case I have to live with it. I do know that, for me, it's cringe-worthy.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 06 December, 2015, 09:17:17 am
Wouldn't it be "it's chickeny in taste"?

Taxi!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: eck on 06 December, 2015, 09:24:36 am
Similarly, why do some warehouses etc, have big notices proclaiming, for instance "Door No 2".
It's a door. 2 is a number,  ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: DDCyclist on 06 December, 2015, 09:31:01 am
Warehouse staff like very clear labelling and no chance they might get confused when they're in a hurry.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Marco Stefano on 06 December, 2015, 04:49:40 pm
Following an audit at work, apparently there are 'some documents out of sink...'.   ::-)

At least they will be dry.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 06 December, 2015, 06:14:22 pm
While in Indonesia I noticed that Chinese people, when describing things in English, often said things like "it's the colour green" or "it's red in colour."

I don't need to be told red, green or whatever is a colour. I never noticed you saying something was "square/round/triangular in shape." Why do you feel the need to tell me you're talking about a colour when you have given me the name of a colour and that name can't be confused with anything other than a colour?  If you don't tell me you're talking about a colour I'm not likely to think you mean "it's purple in taste" am I?

Possibly it's something that comes from Chinese words or language. I don't know. If that's the case I have to live with it. I do know that, for me, it's cringe-worthy.
Thats a long-standing english usage. possibly fallen out of fashion in casual usage recently (due to nd 4 brvty?), but still around
e.g. in R4/BBC4 doccos.

You cant blame the Chinese for that one! 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: DDCyclist on 06 December, 2015, 07:11:40 pm
I'd never heard it until I came across it in Indonesia in the Chinese community. Perhaps they'd been listening to the BBC World Service. Nevertheless I do blame them. Who they blame is their problem. 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 06 December, 2015, 07:14:35 pm
I much prefer foreigners who learn their english from the World Service than from USian TV/movies.

For sure.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 06 December, 2015, 07:35:17 pm
While in Indonesia I noticed that Chinese people, when describing things in English, often said things like "it's the colour green" or "it's red in colour."

I don't need to be told red, green or whatever is a colour. I never noticed you saying something was "square/round/triangular in shape." Why do you feel the need to tell me you're talking about a colour when you have given me the name of a colour and that name can't be confused with anything other than a colour?  If you don't tell me you're talking about a colour I'm not likely to think you mean "it's purple in taste" am I?

Possibly it's something that comes from Chinese words or language. I don't know. If that's the case I have to live with it. I do know that, for me, it's cringe-worthy.

I've removed the redundancy from your post in the hope you will be able to cringe a little less when you re-read it. HTH.


BTW, you can blame that particular idiom entirely on Paul Sherwen and Phil Liggett.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 06 December, 2015, 10:41:08 pm
Following an audit at work, apparently there are 'some documents out of sink...'.   ::-)

At least they will be dry.

 ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 December, 2015, 07:48:53 am
SHERWEN!!1!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: offcumden on 07 December, 2015, 08:13:01 am
SHERWEN!!1!

OK, Sherwen it is, but isn't  there something just a tad ironic about defending the correct spelling of his name, when his English grammar (don't know about his spelling) is way off the cringe scale?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 December, 2015, 08:33:11 am
That's why we have the annual threads at TdF time to give Pinky and Perky a righteous verbal drubbing ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: offcumden on 07 December, 2015, 08:42:57 am
That's why we have the annual threads at TdF time to give Pinky and Perky a righteous verbal drubbing ;D

Right, haven't seen those; must remember to log in - always assuming the dynamic duo haven't finally been put out to grass.  Although, considering how long it took the BBC to pension off that other word-mangler, Hugh Porter (has he actually gone?), we may have a few more years yet to endure. Admittedly, it might almost be a pity when they go, depriving us of a chance to mock.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 December, 2015, 09:13:15 am
Criticising Chinese people in Indonesia for their stylistically imperfect English seems rather grumpy.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 December, 2015, 09:32:45 am
Last time I watched any track racing on the Beeb Hugh Porter was still extant.  ITV need to get David Millar up to speed so they can have him and Chris Boardman full-time and send cycling's equivalent of the Chuckle Brothers to the Alpe d'Huez Home For The Terminally Bewildered :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Vince on 07 December, 2015, 09:38:47 am
I thought the Beeb moved Hugh Porter to swimming. I assume something as a cyclist he is qualified to talk about.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 07 December, 2015, 09:55:10 am
Criticising Chinese people in Indonesia for their stylistically imperfect English seems rather grumpy.

Hold on, isn't this entire thread dedicated to grumpy curmudgeons' attempts demonstrate their intellectual supremacy through criticising the perceived mistakes of others?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 07 December, 2015, 09:59:49 am
Criticising Chinese people in Indonesia for their stylistically imperfect English seems rather grumpy.

Hold on, isn't this entire thread dedicated to grumpy curmudgeons' attempts to demonstrate their intellectual supremacy through criticising the perceived mistakes of others?
Indeed.

We criticise the brits, yanks and chinese here - noone gets a free pass. And there are double points for intellectual supremacy in areas beyond grammar. Because we can.

(although I stand by my criticism of the "Indonesia" post :) )
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 07 December, 2015, 10:00:55 am
I did that purpose.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: DDCyclist on 07 December, 2015, 10:11:39 am
While in Indonesia I noticed that Chinese people, when describing things in English, often said things like "it's the colour green" or "it's red in colour."

I don't need to be told red, green or whatever is a colour. I never noticed you saying something was "square/round/triangular in shape." Why do you feel the need to tell me you're talking about a colour when you have given me the name of a colour and that name can't be confused with anything other than a colour?  If you don't tell me you're talking about a colour I'm not likely to think you mean "it's purple in taste" am I?

Possibly it's something that comes from Chinese words or language. I don't know. If that's the case I have to live with it. I do know that, for me, it's cringe-worthy.

I've removed the redundancy from your post in the hope you will be able to cringe a little less when you re-read it. HTH.


BTW, you can blame that particular idiom entirely on Paul Sherwen and Phil Liggett.
So much subtlety missed by you, not understood and, therefore, deleted.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 07 December, 2015, 10:17:39 am
Should "handbags" be hyphenated?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: offcumden on 07 December, 2015, 10:19:51 am
Should "handbags" be hyphenated?

Scumbags usually isn't. If that's any help :-\
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 December, 2015, 10:34:42 am
Criticising Chinese people in Indonesia for their stylistically imperfect English seems rather grumpy.

Hold on, isn't this entire thread dedicated to grumpy curmudgeons' attempts to demonstrate their intellectual supremacy through criticising the perceived mistakes of others?
Indeed.

We criticise the brits, yanks and chinese here - noone gets a free pass. And there are double points for intellectual supremacy in areas beyond grammar. Because we can.

(although I stand by my criticism of the "Indonesia" post :) )
And I second you on that.

You're still wrong about something though. I'm just not sure what, but I'm going to prove it using my intellectual, moral and grammatical supremacy, because in those matters I am a supreme suprematist.

Or something.

Yours, with love,
A Curmudgeon
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 07 December, 2015, 11:55:27 am
I really cringe at:
"over-top" v.
[I'm assuming its hyphenated; I've only heard it on the radio news in flood reports]

It does seem to be a useful specific term, but by eck it's ugly!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 07 December, 2015, 11:57:59 am
I really cringe at:
"over-top" v.
[I'm assuming its hyphenated; I've only heard it on the radio news in flood reports]

It does seem to be a useful specific term, but by eck it's ugly!
It's  civil engineering jargon. Overtop, I think, no hyphen.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 08 December, 2015, 02:14:20 pm
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CVtWD9_WcAAFYpx.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 08 December, 2015, 05:11:23 pm
^^^ looks like a cut'n'pastry error - a notice in future tense sloppily transposed into the past tense after the meeting was over.

I really cringe at:
"over-top" v.
[I'm assuming its hyphenated; I've only heard it on the radio news in flood reports]

It does seem to be a useful specific term, but by eck it's ugly!

I'm sure I've seen it as o'ertop in a poem somewhere. Doesn't worry me, as a verb.  As a noun, WTF?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 08 December, 2015, 05:21:15 pm
"A fantastic £80 value." This sentence crops up loads on QVC and the like (which I find myself watching at 2:00am if I can't get to sleep).
I know value can be a noun but it just feels wrong in this construction.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 08 December, 2015, 07:30:16 pm
Is this a new variation on
"... $80 in value"
???
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: orienteer on 08 December, 2015, 08:51:47 pm
Getting really irritated by people being interviewed on TV and radio starting every answer with "So". Where the hell has this come from?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 09 December, 2015, 12:58:14 am
Getting really irritated by people being interviewed on TV and radio starting every answer with "So". Where the hell has this come from?

Suspect that's a way of playing for time.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 December, 2015, 10:10:31 am
Getting really irritated by people being interviewed on TV and radio starting every answer with "So". Where the hell has this come from?

I am mortified to confess that Dr Larrington was guilty of this on her wireless series back in September.  I shall Have Words.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 09 December, 2015, 10:21:39 am
I am guilty of starting with, "So," because it is one way of saying, "Pay attention." So often I would say something and the response would be, "Pardon," and I'd have to repeat myself. Using a quick short attention getter: a cough, so, ey-up, or something means people listen first time.

Indeed, it's not sin, it's a technique, gives the speaker a moment to collect their thoughts, and the audience time to assemble their attention.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: billplumtree on 09 December, 2015, 01:05:01 pm
I am guilty of starting with, "So," because it is one way of saying, "Pay attention."

Indeed, it's not sin, it's a technique, gives the speaker a moment to collect their thoughts, and the audience time to assemble their attention.

Well, yeah, but what was wrong with "Well", which served that porpoise perfectly, er, well?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 09 December, 2015, 01:31:48 pm
Look, it's at least the 4th time 'So-at-the-beginning-of-a-sentence' has come up in this thread. It only jars with me (now) when it's the start of an answer to a direct question. It just sounds rude and/or evasive.  cf 'Look' at the beginning of a sentence.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 09 December, 2015, 02:53:43 pm
Indeed, it's not sin, it's a technique, gives the speaker a moment to collect their thoughts, and the audience time to assemble their attention.

Whether or not this is true, it doesn't explain where it has come from - or why. I don't recall it being so prevalent five years ago.

Language fashions are strange indeed.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 09 December, 2015, 03:20:34 pm
Language fashions are, like, strange, like.
FTFY
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 09 December, 2015, 03:33:47 pm
I am guilty of starting with, "So," because it is one way of saying, "Pay attention." So often I would say something and the response would be, "Pardon," and I'd have to repeat myself. Using a quick short attention getter: a cough, so, ey-up, or something means people listen first time.
My ex B-in-law used to use "I say!" in that way. It seemed to work.

It was rather odd - it didn't fit the rest of his vocab/mannerisms at all.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 09 December, 2015, 03:57:53 pm
Language fashions are, like, strange, like.
FTFY

 ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 December, 2015, 05:28:59 pm
The "So" thing probably works if you're making like a sneersome Paxman interviewing a particularly odious politician:  "So, Mr Green Shapps, are you seriously suggesting that jam can come in big pots?" with the unspoken subtext that anyone thinking such a thing must be a really special kind of idiot.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jakob W on 09 December, 2015, 05:46:27 pm
ISTR Beowulf starts with a 'So.' (Or at least that's how Seamus Heaney rendered 'hwaet'.)

So it's been in and out of fashion for quite some time...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 09 December, 2015, 06:00:05 pm
I find if I begin with "Hark!" while pointing my finger in the air, the ensuing silence gives me some thinking time. If I need a bit more, "Hark! I hear horses." works well.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 09 December, 2015, 06:44:11 pm
Sainsbury's has a big sign above one aisle reading

MEN'S CLOTHING
KID'S CLOTHING

I know the latter isn't wrong in isolation but it's not what they meant, and it really jars next to MEN'S.

Still, neither is as awful as AMBIENT CAKE, which is the most cack-handed way to describe a  normal cake that I can imagine.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 09 December, 2015, 06:47:14 pm
Indeed, it's not sin, it's a technique, gives the speaker a moment to collect their thoughts, and the audience time to assemble their attention.

Whether or not this is true, it doesn't explain where it has come from - or why. I don't recall it being so prevalent five years ago.

Language fashions are strange indeed.
At our place it started with the onetime head of IT Architecture and spread like widfire.  It is indeed a way of barging into a conversation and it works because it implies that what is about to be said somehow logically follows from what has been said before.  In fact, they were probably not listening at all, just waiting for a chance to speak.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 December, 2015, 07:16:42 pm
Ambient cake?  :o It suggests, to me, cake which is somehow generally pervasive making its presence felt.
So, you see, there's this cake, and it's like everywhere but, thing is, well, I mean it's like everywhere but you don't basically know where it is. So that's the basic thing about, well, about, like, ambient cake. It's ambient like. Safe!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 09 December, 2015, 07:34:18 pm
Indeed, it's not sin, it's a technique, gives the speaker a moment to collect their thoughts, and the audience time to assemble their attention.

Whether or not this is true, it doesn't explain where it has come from - or why. I don't recall it being so prevalent five years ago.

Language fashions are strange indeed.

I think people got bored of 'well' and 'look'. I always begin in silence, merely waving my large calibre handgun until I have the audience's full and undivided attention.

That, btw, isn't a euphemism.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 09 December, 2015, 07:38:11 pm
Ambient cake... truly awful management jargon.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 09 December, 2015, 07:44:01 pm
Ambient cake... truly awful management jargon.

But I suppose the shelfdroids have to differentiate ambient cake from cake which must be refrigerated.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SteveC on 09 December, 2015, 08:21:28 pm
...or frozen
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SteveC on 09 December, 2015, 08:24:33 pm
MrsC has worked in the food industry.
They categorise foods into 'ambient', 'chilled' and 'frozen'.
Different procedures needed when handling and storing.
It makes sense but is another example of specific trade jargon escaping into the outside world where in sounds pretentious or silly.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 09 December, 2015, 08:25:58 pm
...or kept frozen

FTFY...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SteveC on 09 December, 2015, 08:29:49 pm
...or kept frozen

FTFY...
Touché
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 09 December, 2015, 09:30:32 pm

It makes sense but is another example of specific trade jargon escaping into the outside world where in sounds pretentious or silly.

Exactly. It shouldn't be used in a 'customer facing' context.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 December, 2015, 11:17:29 pm
I would never have known that was what it meant. I guessed it was something along the lines of "not categorisable under any specific category"; cake which isn't for a particular season or event. I don't think I've ever seen or heard the phrase before, but next time I visit Mr Painsbusy's Emporium of Toothy Combustibles, I shall keep a look out for it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 09 December, 2015, 11:41:53 pm

It makes sense but is another example of specific trade jargon escaping into the outside world where in sounds pretentious or silly.

Exactly. It shouldn't be used in a 'customer facing' context.

!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 09 December, 2015, 11:46:21 pm
Sainsbury's pack their toothy comestibles into separate bags for ambient, produce, chilled and frozen.
I think they're supposed to pack narsty cleaning things separate from foods but that doesn't always seem to happen.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 09 December, 2015, 11:52:11 pm
I didn't know that Sainsburies stocked cleaning products specifically for one's narsty.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 09 December, 2015, 11:59:27 pm
I didn't know that Sainsburies stocked cleaning products specifically for one's narsty.

This is from a one time English teacher in a grammar pedants' thread.
(mutter grumble)

 ;) ;) ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 10 December, 2015, 08:25:14 am

!

;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 December, 2015, 09:06:27 am
"Customer facing" should require CNC machine tools, just like facing an engine block :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: offcumden on 11 December, 2015, 05:25:29 pm
If 'ambient temperature' is that which surrounds us, then 'ambient cake' is clearly a seasonal phenomenon. 

There's no wonder so many subsequently resolve to go on New Year diets, given the ambient cake and mince pies. Certainly gets me that way.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 11 December, 2015, 07:09:03 pm
I didn't know that Sainsburies stocked cleaning products specifically for one's narsty.

This is from a one time English teacher in a grammar pedants' thread.
(mutter grumble)

 ;) ;) ;D

Put it down to eyesight and decrepitude.

I was not an English teacher. I taught music. This is why I know so much about popular beat combo(e)s.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 11 December, 2015, 07:16:20 pm
Name all five members of One Direction, then!

(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 11 December, 2015, 07:17:52 pm
Are you USAnian, Roger?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 12 December, 2015, 12:39:16 am
Name all five members of One Direction, then!

(click to show/hide)

Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich

It's ok, I got the trick - there's the one with the hair who left so there are only four of them now. But was it Beaky or Tich? Who knows...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 12 December, 2015, 02:05:00 pm
"Who's".

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 12 December, 2015, 02:09:16 pm
Short for "who is", innit?!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 12 December, 2015, 02:15:12 pm
I notice the word "on" is getting dropped or is used instead of "in".

Eg: "Will be released next Monday",

"The new series of Doctor Who starts Thursday 19th November".

"The supermarket on/in City Road".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 12 December, 2015, 02:27:30 pm
I have noticed a regional difference appertaining to the use of "on" or "in" for locations. Mrs. Wow, or example, who is from oop noorth, refers to something being "on" Lord Street, or Stanley Square, or Oswaldtwistle Terrace. I refer to buildings being "in" Acacia Gardens, Fotheringham Lane, or Frinton Boulevard.

Edit: I just checked the lyrics of the Muffin Man song. When I were a lad he always lived in Drury Lane. The website I found had him living on DL.

http://www.scoutsongs.com/lyrics/muffinman.html refers. But https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Muffin_Man.

Second edit: just checked with Mrs. Wow, who thought the MM lived down Drury Lane. With hindsight this could be correct and my memory might be failing me. However, she agreed that we live in East Street, but that her mother always referred to people living on such-and-such a street.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 12 December, 2015, 02:35:29 pm
I have noticed a regional difference appertaining to the use of "on" or "in" for locations. Mrs. Wow, or example, who is from oop noorth, refers to something being "on" Lord Street, or Stanley Square, or Oswaldtwistle Terrace. I refer to buildings being "in" Acacia Gardens, Fotheringham Lane, or Frinton Boulevard.

Edit: I just checked the lyrics of the Muffin Man song. When I were a lad he always lived in Drury Lane. The website I found had him living on DL.
I think he lived down Dury Lane in my childhood.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 12 December, 2015, 03:20:07 pm
AS a matter of interest, Tim, are you a young enough whippersnapper to have missed Listen with Mother on the Home Service?  That was the source of me hearing that song, and I agree, down it was.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 12 December, 2015, 03:27:09 pm
I notice the word "on" is getting dropped or is used instead of "in".

Eg: "Will be released next Monday",

"The new series of Doctor Who starts Thursday 19th November".

I think I've absorbed a non-existent grammar rule here...

"Will be released on Monday" and "Will be released next Monday" are both grammatically correct to me (but refer to different weeks[1]).  "Will be released on next Monday" is, for some illogical reason, superfluous waffle.  I don't see why the 'next' (or a 'this') should preclude the need for 'on', but that's how I do it.

"Will be released Monday" is a abhorrent leftpondian version of "Will be released on Monday".


Quote
"The supermarket on/in City Road".

The supermarket is on (or perhaps off) the road.  If it were in the road, it would be blocking traffic[2].  'On' meaning 'adjoining', I suppose.  And for completeness, I'd probably use 'next to' for a supermarket that was adjoining, but not accessible from, a given road.

I'd use 'in' for "The cafe in the park" or similar situations of genuine geographical enclosure.

Therefore "The cafe in Foobar Square" and "The cafe on Foobar Square" imply different physical things. (The former's in the middle, the latter around the edge.)


[1] We must have discussed the meaning of 'next' vs 'this' already.
[2] Double standard for buildings and vehicles here.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 12 December, 2015, 04:06:03 pm
"Who's".
Short for "who is", innit?!

Certainly, as in "the man who is conk was bigger than his Henry Watson".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 12 December, 2015, 04:31:44 pm
How many Dr Whos are in Who's Who?

Or should that be 'Drs Who'?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 12 December, 2015, 06:23:08 pm
AS a matter of interest, Tim, are you a young enough whippersnapper to have missed Listen with Mother on the Home Service?  That was the source of me hearing that song, and I agree, down it was.
Despite my boyish good looks, I'm only a few years youger than you, so, yes, I remember clambering up on the dresser at a quarter to two to listen to the wireless. Mind you, wiki tells me the last episode of LWM was in 1982.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 13 December, 2015, 12:10:12 am
AS a matter of interest, Tim, are you a young enough whippersnapper to have missed Listen with Mother on the Home Service?  That was the source of me hearing that song, and I agree, down it was.
Despite my boyish good looks, I'm only a few years youger than you, so, yes, I remember clambering up on the dresser at a quarter to two to listen to the wireless. Mind you, wiki tells me the last episode of LWM was in 1982.

I remember episodes of LWM, and I believe I am *considerably* younger than yow (well, than Wow anyway).

1982 fits, as we moved out of the house I associate with sitting comfortably (or not, as I was generally playing on the floor in the kitchen when it started) in 1980.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 13 December, 2015, 12:12:13 am
I notice the word "on" is getting dropped or is used instead of "in".

Eg: "Will be released next Monday",

"The new series of Doctor Who starts Thursday 19th November".

I think I've absorbed a non-existent grammar rule here...

"Will be released on Monday" and "Will be released next Monday" are both grammatically correct to me (but refer to different weeks[1]).  "Will be released on next Monday" is, for some illogical reason, superfluous waffle.  I don't see why the 'next' (or a 'this') should preclude the need for 'on', but that's how I do it.

"Will be released Monday" is a abhorrent leftpondian version of "Will be released on Monday".


Quote
"The supermarket on/in City Road".

The supermarket is on (or perhaps off) the road.  If it were in the road, it would be blocking traffic[2].  'On' meaning 'adjoining', I suppose.  And for completeness, I'd probably use 'next to' for a supermarket that was adjoining, but not accessible from, a given road.

I'd use 'in' for "The cafe in the park" or similar situations of genuine geographical enclosure.

Therefore "The cafe in Foobar Square" and "The cafe on Foobar Square" imply different physical things. (The former's in the middle, the latter around the edge.)

Um, what Kim said.

She's said what I was going to, only done it more elegantly, and covered edge case examples that, though I hadn't thought of them, I completely agree with.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 13 December, 2015, 01:32:04 am
AS a matter of interest, Tim, are you a young enough whippersnapper to have missed Listen with Mother on the Home Service?  That was the source of me hearing that song, and I agree, down it was.
Despite my boyish good looks, I'm only a few years youger than you, so, yes, I remember clambering up on the dresser at a quarter to two to listen to the wireless. Mind you, wiki tells me the last episode of LWM was in 1982.

I remember episodes of LWM, and I believe I am *considerably* younger than yow (well, than Wow anyway).

1982 fits, as we moved out of the house I associate with sitting comfortably (or not, as I was generally playing on the floor in the kitchen when it started) in 1980.

Veering OT...
I have suggested to David's piano-playing friends that they really ought to play the Berceuse from Fauré's Dolly Suite for their forthcoming pre-Christmas do.
The lady who runs this outfit is a local piano teacher who was born in Poland, so missed LWM.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 13 December, 2015, 01:57:34 am
When I was a small Mr Larrington the Muffin Man just lived down the lane.  No name was specified.

Regarding the on/in business, for many years racing motor-ists were often said to be "on" their vehicles rather than "in" them.  I think this finally dies out with the anti-social measure introduced by Colin Chapman and slavishly copied by all the other constructors viz. Drivers Lying Down On The Job.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 13 December, 2015, 07:44:36 am
AS a matter of interest, Tim, are you a young enough whippersnapper to have missed Listen with Mother on the Home Service?  That was the source of me hearing that song, and I agree, down it was.
Despite my boyish good looks, I'm only a few years youger than you, so, yes, I remember clambering up on the dresser at a quarter to two to listen to the wireless. Mind you, wiki tells me the last episode of LWM was in 1982.

I remember episodes of LWM, and I believe I am *considerably* younger than yow (well, than Wow anyway).

1982 fits, as we moved out of the house I associate with sitting comfortably (or not, as I was generally playing on the floor in the kitchen when it started) in 1980.

When the music stops, Daphne Oxenford will be here to tell you a story.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 13 December, 2015, 08:42:15 am
Regarding the on/in business...
When I started racing, our time-trialling, and in particular our courses, were "on" Cheshire. Just a shared idiom, I think.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 13 December, 2015, 10:17:21 am
Regarding the on/in business...
When I started racing, our time-trialling, and in particular our courses, were "on" Cheshire. Just a shared idiom, I think.

"I did a long oh."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 13 December, 2015, 12:09:45 pm
Meanwhile, Facebook tells me <<Steve slept on a church porch on Saturday night (an unscheduled pitstop due to a stomach bug).>>

I would definitely have use 'in' there...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 13 December, 2015, 12:17:15 pm
When I was a small Mr Larrington the Muffin Man just lived down the lane.  No name was specified.

Are you sure you are not confusing him with his neighbour, the Little Boy, recipient of the Third Bag?

AS a matter of interest, Tim, are you a young enough whippersnapper to have missed Listen with Mother on the Home Service?  That was the source of me hearing that song, and I agree, down it was.
Despite my boyish good looks, I'm only a few years youger than you, so, yes, I remember clambering up on the dresser at a quarter to two to listen to the wireless. Mind you, wiki tells me the last episode of LWM was in 1982.

It had been dumbed down by then.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 13 December, 2015, 12:19:53 pm
I have noticed a regional difference appertaining to the use of "on" or "in" for locations. Mrs. Wow, or example, who is from oop noorth, refers to something being "on" Lord Street, or Stanley Square, or Oswaldtwistle Terrace. I refer to buildings being "in" Acacia Gardens, Fotheringham Lane, or Frinton Boulevard.

So Southport isn't Southend??!!
Who would have thunk it  ;) ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 13 December, 2015, 12:57:34 pm
Meanwhile, Facebook tells me <<Steve slept on a church porch on Saturday night (an unscheduled pitstop due to a stomach bug).>>

I would definitely have use 'in' there...

Depends on whether it was a 1-star (using the same rating system as bus shelters) church porch or not.  Sleeping on some steps vs in something with a roof.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 December, 2015, 01:55:09 pm
If it doesn't have a roof, it's not a porch by my use of the word.

I remember LWM but not the Muffin Man. I have no particular opinion on the use of in vs on for streets. I do note that for vehicles, we still say on a train.

How many Dr Whos are in Who's Who?

Or should that be 'Drs Who'?
I don't know, but I did pee in a tardis yesterday. In, not on.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 13 December, 2015, 02:11:58 pm
If it doesn't have a roof, it's not a porch by my use of the word.

I remember LWM but not the Muffin Man. I have no particular opinion on the use of in vs on for streets. I do note that for vehicles, we still say on a train.

On a bus, too. And porches definitely need roofs - a set of steps without a roof is a set of steps.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 13 December, 2015, 03:06:08 pm
If it doesn't have a roof, it's not a porch by my use of the word.

I remember LWM but not the Muffin Man. I have no particular opinion on the use of in vs on for streets. I do note that for vehicles, we still say on a train.


But in a carriage.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 13 December, 2015, 03:09:08 pm
...

I have no particular opinion on the use of in vs on for streets. I do note that for vehicles, we still say on a train.


But in a carriage.
Well yeah, but hardly anyone travels by carriage anymore. can we please stick with the 21stC, hmm?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 13 December, 2015, 03:19:18 pm
...

I have no particular opinion on the use of in vs on for streets. I do note that for vehicles, we still say on a train.

           railway
But in a carriage.
          ^
   
Well yeah, but hardly anyone travels by carriage anymore. can we please stick with the 21stC, hmm?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 13 December, 2015, 03:32:19 pm
oh, I see. With you now, thanks.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 13 December, 2015, 03:34:16 pm
oh, I see. With you now, thanks.

Sarcastic bugger.  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 13 December, 2015, 03:43:53 pm
When I was a small Mr Larrington the Muffin Man just lived down the lane.  No name was specified.

Are you sure you are not confusing him with his neighbour, the Little Boy, recipient of the Third Bag?


Quite sure, thank you.  I often wondered whether:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 13 December, 2015, 04:29:46 pm
<OT>Penny Pot Lane! Wow, that brings back memories of racing at the Harrogate Festival of Cycling, around 1980. Although,</OT> judging by my results, I'd probably eaten too many muffins and things.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 13 December, 2015, 09:01:39 pm
And porches definitely need roofs
Not if they have a Targa top.

IGMC
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 13 December, 2015, 11:14:17 pm
<OT>Penny Pot Lane! Wow, that brings back memories of racing at the Harrogate Festival of Cycling, around 1980. Although,</OT> judging by my results, I'd probably eaten too many muffins and things.

We moved away from the neighbourhood around Easter 1968.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 December, 2015, 04:22:08 pm
It's the Guardian, again, writing the opposite of what they mean:
Quote
Manufacturers are revealed to be exploiting a loophole in European tests to exaggerate the brightness and energy use of their products
::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: runsoncake on 17 December, 2015, 04:51:59 pm
This has probably been mentioned before but it still makes my teeth itch, writers using "fit" instead of "fitted".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 17 December, 2015, 05:33:12 pm
American, that. If a Brit uses it it's perfectly legal to kick him/her/etc. in the tender bits.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: meddyg on 20 December, 2015, 05:54:02 pm
I've just listened to John Meagher  (I assume he's an American music journalist)  in 'The Selling of Sinatra' on Radio 4,he said,

"The new sound augured a new era  ... the Vietnam war was seeping into the American culture,  a cynicism, a sense of betrayal and loss of goodness and you know, what Sinatra did was to try to transition by co-opting a lot of the younger talent; he did duets, he did all sorts of things to help somehow segway/acknowledge the new audience and find a way for himself to live successfully within it "

He means 'transit' and possibly 'segue' though there is no reason to use the latter either.
I'm fed up of the verbal nouns 'he deeded the house to his kids' 'they were farewelled at the airport and gifted a rosebowl.'

Now seasonal 'gifting ideas' in the shops!

Make it stop........
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 December, 2015, 12:44:31 pm
I used to pronounce segue "seeg" until a few years ago but according to OED it is "segway". Quite likely most people do say "seeg", which arguably makes it right. Or doesn't.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 21 December, 2015, 01:19:15 pm
I never pronounce it.  And I derive "to gift" from the German verb "vergiften".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: offcumden on 21 December, 2015, 01:22:19 pm
Never knew that - interesting.  I'd assumed the name 'segway' for the two-wheeled device was a neologism of unspecific origin.  Tha learns summat every day!

segue |ˈsɛɡweɪ|
verb (segues, segueing, segued) [ no obj., with adverbial ]
(in music and film) move without interruption from one piece of music or scene to another: allowing one song to segue into the next.
noun
an uninterrupted transition from one piece of music or film scene to another.


and from Wikipedia

Segue

Segue est un terme d'origine italienne qui signifie « suit », et qui se prononce « sé-goué ». On l'emploie sur les partitions, pour indiquer que l'on doit enchaîner le morceau suivant sans s'arrêter. Au sens figuré, dans le discours, on peut exprimer ainsi l'art de faire des transitions d'un sujet à un autre. Le terme correspond aussi au fondu-enchaîné du cinéma.



I think I'll continue to pronounce it 'seeg', though!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 December, 2015, 01:23:48 pm
TBH, if I had to pronounce it I would probably say "seeg" even knowing it's wrong. At least it doesn't sound like a lazy way to walk.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 21 December, 2015, 01:24:45 pm
OK unless you follow it with heil.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 23 December, 2015, 05:16:36 pm
Advert from some bunch hight vpncompare.co.uk: "A simple solution on how to watch British TV in France".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 23 December, 2015, 06:18:41 pm
On the fewer/less, whilst I u derstand the countable/continuously measurable quantity thing, I've always wondered if I could say fewer gallons of petrol? The gallons are individually countable, but the petrol is not.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 December, 2015, 08:07:31 pm
Fewer gallons, less petrol. Or for Wowbagger and Pancho, fewer voles, less currants. Oh, hang on...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 23 December, 2015, 10:19:15 pm
There is barely a noun that cannot be verbed, but the conductor has just informed us that the train is platforming on the other side.
It hurts my sensibilities.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 23 December, 2015, 10:53:25 pm
Sympathies fboab.
Just had an email from Wiggle 'Gift the goodstuff'.
 :sick:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: orienteer on 24 December, 2015, 10:54:55 am
Notice in local M&S today:

Christmas food collection is on ladies wear

Suspenders? Negligees?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 24 December, 2015, 10:59:53 am
There is barely a noun that cannot be verbed, but the conductor has just informed us that the train is platforming on the other side.
It hurts my sensibilities.

Sounds like a belly-flop.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: meddyg on 07 January, 2016, 07:20:06 pm
"The rocket lofted a capsule that is to eventually carry paying passengers"

Pardon ? That'll learn me for looking at rocket science links on YACF
(Blue Origin Launches Bezos’s Space Dreams and Lands a Rocket)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 January, 2016, 08:47:54 pm
Loft is a perfectly cromulent verb when applied to the process of designing streamlined objects for e.g. yahtc yathc yacth boat hulls but using it as a synonym for "lift" is Suspect.  My grate frend Mr Woolrich used a program yclept "Loftsman" to do the shape of his recumbent streamliner Oscar The Egg.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: TheLurker on 09 January, 2016, 09:42:28 am
"The rocket lofted a capsule that is to eventually carry paying passengers"
That doesn't strike me as the least bit odd. I'm (reasonably) sure the use of loft to mean hitting, throwing or launching something skywards goes back a very long way.  It's commonly used in cricket and football reports.

From , http://www.bluecorrespondent.co.uk/1953-54/august1953.html, "Fielding did the right thing when he lofted the ball over to Eglington..." There may be earlier examples of the usage.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 09 January, 2016, 03:46:48 pm
"The rocket lofted a capsule that is to eventually carry paying passengers"
That doesn't strike me as the least bit odd. I'm (reasonably) sure the use of loft to mean hitting, throwing or launching something skywards goes back a very long way.  It's commonly used in cricket and football reports.

From , http://www.bluecorrespondent.co.uk/1953-54/august1953.html, "Fielding did the right thing when he lofted the ball over to Eglington..." There may be earlier examples of the usage.

Indeed, I reckon it's legitimate - if a bit archaic in a rocket science context - when referring to the chucking of something into the air.  Since the capsule separated from the rocket at apogee, I'll accept it this instance.

If the capsule had remained attached to the rocket for the landing, the word would be 'lift'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 09 January, 2016, 04:16:51 pm
In a trailer for a film called "London has fallen" (looks like rubbish) the wondrous line "London has been decimated".  Er... devastated?

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 09 January, 2016, 04:49:45 pm
Most people do not appreciate that if something is decimated 90% will remain, do they?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 09 January, 2016, 05:43:59 pm
Most people do not appreciate that if something is decimated 90% will remain, do they?

Probably only about 10% of them.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 09 January, 2016, 07:01:50 pm
I'm sure that the Roman legionnaries appreciated it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 January, 2016, 07:05:22 pm
Learned today that the puszta in Hungarian Puszta means the same as the Polish world pusta (empty). Possibly a borrowing, possibly chance, don't know.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 13 January, 2016, 06:43:48 pm
No, TV's Riz Lateef, London does not "have the higher rate of TB than any capital in Europe".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 13 January, 2016, 08:02:16 pm
In a trailer for a film called "London has fallen" (looks like rubbish) the wondrous line "London has been decimated".  Er... devastated?

The OED says:

Quote from: OED
decimate, v. 1. c. to reduce drastically or severely; to destroy, ruin, devastate. ... now the most usual sense in standard English.

with citations from 1660 onwards.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 13 January, 2016, 08:11:22 pm
In a trailer for a film called "London has fallen" (looks like rubbish) the wondrous line "London has been decimated".  Er... devastated?

The OED says:

Quote from: OED
decimate, v. 1. c. to reduce drastically or severely; to destroy, ruin, devastate. ... now the most usual sense in standard English.

with citations from 1660 onwards.
I believe Helly started criticising this usage in around 1665.

<runs>
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 13 January, 2016, 08:13:39 pm
 ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Gareth Rees on 13 January, 2016, 08:25:09 pm
I've just listened to John Meagher  (I assume he's an American music journalist)  in 'The Selling of Sinatra' on Radio 4,he said,

"The new sound augured a new era  ... the Vietnam war was seeping into the American culture,  a cynicism, a sense of betrayal and loss of goodness and you know, what Sinatra did was to try to transition by co-opting a lot of the younger talent"

He means 'transit'

Does he? The OED says:

Quote from: OED
transition, v. intr. To make or undergo a transition (from one state, system, etc. to or into another); to change over or switch.

which makes sense in context: that is, Sinatra changed or switched his style to better suit the zeitgeist. Whereas:

Quote from: OED
transit, v. 1. intr. To pass through or over; to pass away.
2. trans. To pass across or through (something); to traverse, cross. Also fig.
3. Astrol. To pass across (a sign, ‘house’, or special point, of the zodiac). Also absol. or intr.
4. Astron. To pass across (the disk of a celestial body, the meridian of a place, or the field of view of a telescope). Also absol. or intr.

None of these make sense to me in the passage you quoted.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 13 January, 2016, 09:21:00 pm
It's good to have you and your OED back here Gareth.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 14 January, 2016, 01:51:40 pm
I was going to remark on decimate being Medieval Latin rather than Classical but Gareth does it so much more stylishly than I could.

I believe the original meaning is the same as tithe, which did indeed once have a 1/10 sense, but anyone who thinks we should only be allowed to use words with their original meaning is clearly gay.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 14 January, 2016, 03:10:08 pm
Hi Gareth.  Haven't seen you in a while :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 14 January, 2016, 03:54:37 pm
I was going to remark on decimate being Medieval Latin rather than Classical but Gareth does it so much more stylishly than I could.

I believe the original meaning is the same as tithe, which did indeed once have a 1/10 sense, but anyone who thinks we should only be allowed to use words with their original meaning is clearly gay.

your all gay...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 14 January, 2016, 04:09:39 pm
Your all gay what?   ;) ;) ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 14 January, 2016, 04:22:15 pm
Your all gay what?   ;) ;) ;D

"Let’s be gay
While we may,
Beauty’s a flower despised in decay. "
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 14 January, 2016, 04:30:42 pm
Youth's the season made for joy
Love is then our duty.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 14 January, 2016, 04:35:33 pm
Youth's the season made for joy
Love is then our duty.

That's so Gay.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 14 January, 2016, 04:39:50 pm
John Gay?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 14 January, 2016, 04:55:39 pm
John Gay?

I believe that was his name.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 15 January, 2016, 09:22:17 am
In a trailer for a film called "London has fallen" (looks like rubbish) the wondrous line "London has been decimated".  Er... devastated?

The OED says:

Quote from: OED
decimate, v. 1. c. to reduce drastically or severely; to destroy, ruin, devastate. ... now the most usual sense in standard English.

with citations from 1660 onwards.

That's very irritating.

If it has become the most usual sense in standard English it's only from abuse - and probably the nefarious influence of German George.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 January, 2016, 09:34:55 am
Quote
Then Cruz said that both McCain, born in Panama, and George Romney, Mitt’s father, were born in Mexico.
Do they mean that Cruz was mistaken as to were McCain was born or did he really say "McCain was born in Panama, that's in Mexico"? Or did he actually say that neither of them was born in the USA? Did anyone proofread this before you published it?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 15 January, 2016, 01:25:30 pm
In a trailer for a film called "London has fallen" (looks like rubbish) the wondrous line "London has been decimated".  Er... devastated?

The OED says:

Quote from: OED
decimate, v. 1. c. to reduce drastically or severely; to destroy, ruin, devastate. ... now the most usual sense in standard English.

with citations from 1660 onwards.

That's very irritating.

If it has become the most usual sense in standard English it's only from abuse - and probably the nefarious influence of German George.
Abuse? Meh.

It's just an exaggeration for effect thing. Perfectly normal. There are many (conflict-related) other examples:

"Chelsea were thrashed by <insert any premier league club> yesterday."

(Note that I do consider abuse of "literally" worthy of a proper thrashing. I'd be quite happy to see that usage decimated ... )
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 15 January, 2016, 02:19:25 pm
More:

Awesome without any awe.
Epic without real heroism.
Fantastic in a down to Earth way.
Marvellous while no one is astonished.
Astonishing things that are quite precitable.

Literally things which are metaphors.


So. (Establishing my place in the conversational flow). Failing to conjugate verbs correctly. I don't care if it's dialect, it's still awful, and I am, literally, cringing.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 15 January, 2016, 02:28:58 pm
In a trailer for a film called "London has fallen" (looks like rubbish) the wondrous line "London has been decimated".  Er... devastated?

The OED says:

Quote from: OED
decimate, v. 1. c. to reduce drastically or severely; to destroy, ruin, devastate. ... now the most usual sense in standard English.

with citations from 1660 onwards.

That's very irritating.

If it has become the most usual sense in standard English it's only from abuse - and probably the nefarious influence of German George.
Abuse? Meh.

It's just an exaggeration for effect thing. Perfectly normal. There are many (conflict-related) other examples:

"Chelsea were thrashed by <insert any premier league club> yesterday."

(Note that I do consider abuse of "literally" worthy of a proper thrashing. I'd be quite happy to see that usage decimated ... )

I suppose it's no worse than using "light years" as an expression of time.  Nonetheless it always implies number to me rather than amount: you could decimate an army but not a fortress, etc. Though ok, you might speak in fun of decimating a ham sandwich.

If they were literally thrashing each other you could sell tickets.  Oh wait, they do that already.

@Gareth We have an OED downstairs but ICBA fetching the bugger, it's the butler's day off.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jurek on 19 January, 2016, 12:49:35 pm
In an email received from my client last Friday

Quote
In all intensive purposes......

.... is not what she meant, and English is her first language  ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 19 January, 2016, 01:49:47 pm
In an email received from my client last Friday

Quote
In all intensive purposes......

.... is not what she meant, and English is her first language  ::-)

Reminds me of one of my Scouts, who was learning the Scout Laws: "A Scout is fiendishly inconsiderate".  He could be right.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 21 January, 2016, 09:50:52 am
BBC News website again:

Quote
US President Barack Obama has pledged his support to the Michigan city beset by a water contamination crisis, saying Flint had been "short-changed".

Speaking from nearby Detroit, he said: "If I were a parent up there, I would be beside myself that my kid's health could be at risk."

The city's water became contaminated when lead leached from old pipes after a change in supplier in 2014.

Since then, residents have complained of bad smells, headaches and rashes.

Unable to drink tap water, the National Guard has joined volunteers in distributing lead tests, filters and bottled water.
It's a shame the National Guard are unable to drink the water.

From here: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-35368144
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 21 January, 2016, 12:37:31 pm
Oil rout in progress:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35362397

No, BBC, the plural of (financial) Index is Indices.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 21 January, 2016, 01:08:03 pm
Is it?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 January, 2016, 01:13:10 pm
Yes it is. No it isn't. Yes, actually, it is. Then again, no it isn't. Perhaps. Maybe. I can't make up my mind, I'm suffering from indexision.

(Ok, it doesn't quite work, but... )
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 21 January, 2016, 01:30:47 pm
It's indices if you know your Latin and indexes in common English parlance.
ICnBA to check a dictionary though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 21 January, 2016, 01:48:36 pm
My understanding (paltry) is that the ones in books are -exes and mathematical ones are -ices.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 21 January, 2016, 02:44:52 pm
BBC News style guide:
"For index, our favoured plural form (as in stock markets) is indexes. The plural is indices only in a mathematical/scientific context."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/journalism/news-style-guide/article/art20130702112133530
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 22 January, 2016, 10:05:50 am
That's interesting - they should tell Simon Jack (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Jack) to read it.  ;)

The standard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_(economics)) used by the publishers of the indices (https://index.barcap.com/), and across the UK financial sector is "indices", and often "indexes" in the US (though Bloomberg's website (http://www.bloombergindexes.com/) hedges its bets by using both on the same page!).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 January, 2016, 10:23:41 am
Both plurals are acceptable and in common use. The point of a style guide is not so much to ensure correctness but consistency where multiple options are possible. The original article came from the BBC and was in accordance with the BBC style guide.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 22 January, 2016, 11:42:53 am
That's interesting - they should tell Simon Jack (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Jack) to read it.  ;)

The standard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_(economics)) used by the publishers of the indices (https://index.barcap.com/), and across the UK financial sector is "indices", and often "indexes" in the US (though Bloomberg's website (http://www.bloombergindexes.com/) hedges its bets by using both on the same page!).

As some wag once said, the great thing about standards is that there are so many of them.

I agree with Cudzo that this is a matter for house style. On which subject, the BBC says in the intro to its own style guide that failing to adhere is 'not a hanging offence'. They probably have more important things to worry about. The joy of internet forums is that we don't.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 22 January, 2016, 12:27:07 pm
Does that mean we're allowed to hang offenders?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 22 January, 2016, 12:29:58 pm
Does that mean we're allowed to hang offenders?

(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/ba/31/8c/ba318c380cfc2c11dd30f31dad1b9628.jpg)
Cross-over?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ham on 30 January, 2016, 08:46:41 pm
You really have to wonder

(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/wBNolTyQHKBWeh3OgkLku1Ws4tsjVkUA36jL5FWsUg0G-2COIFTlQ8H8PmaYWlHbUy1ShzdfZ2yEZckF186xrvrJfd16c7tQ-KGkIk3o-QK9T-RsaZKxVG0zpdYTzuChx9qKM2PVBj_PTULS0D4-hLbvEforXEXNIT7Svb991M1eO9M1z3jpIuzWSy9Pt-jKBN09BK5oKPYBJzVnAnQPJOZfCs7tuNxJ198YWLqB_ZWQjtl5wtcDfxsplFWxvPb03agjZMG-3srZF8FWfeZ28TeK43CILnnDVipExN7JxKtHOa6BRcNF0Hb2zZrxok7d6RuEgAPljf1djRWnrqC-1Alo96GdRkHV5r7eXDJ916FhFzHw7MZN95pOLXFnd7jg7JANN7-9oRq6a-fWevibdt-RY40r1dot0VIbwzYOmRlPMgEirFQXxEmSDtH9r5fe5ebjoUzEDpK_YaO4JVoGKA4-oyImO0DIHhLwwYDDnIXNLGgGFfIxBEuvWkE0FTFFUjPpMNuMDxESq2DoTDXAKdTkkQKTCp4IFYRGTf3K_tmfYDVvGCW2PF-OWxJ1JbLmbln3vA=w677-h902-no)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 30 January, 2016, 11:08:45 pm
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CZ_lMHtWQAEhPzp.jpg)

I don't do ambiguity well.
People who help migrants to drown should be prosecuted...
Oh dear!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 31 January, 2016, 12:03:16 am
Round our way, someone's obviously been training the rail staff. When a train is delayed, they all say that "Your next fastest train to London is...". Now "next best" means not the best, but the one after. So, given that the original train plainly isn't the fastest any more, I want the train that is now fastest, not next fastest, don't I? What exactly do they mean?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 31 January, 2016, 09:19:05 am
You really have to wonder

(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/wBNolTyQHKBWeh3OgkLku1Ws4tsjVkUA36jL5FWsUg0G-2COIFTlQ8H8PmaYWlHbUy1ShzdfZ2yEZckF186xrvrJfd16c7tQ-KGkIk3o-QK9T-RsaZKxVG0zpdYTzuChx9qKM2PVBj_PTULS0D4-hLbvEforXEXNIT7Svb991M1eO9M1z3jpIuzWSy9Pt-jKBN09BK5oKPYBJzVnAnQPJOZfCs7tuNxJ198YWLqB_ZWQjtl5wtcDfxsplFWxvPb03agjZMG-3srZF8FWfeZ28TeK43CILnnDVipExN7JxKtHOa6BRcNF0Hb2zZrxok7d6RuEgAPljf1djRWnrqC-1Alo96GdRkHV5r7eXDJ916FhFzHw7MZN95pOLXFnd7jg7JANN7-9oRq6a-fWevibdt-RY40r1dot0VIbwzYOmRlPMgEirFQXxEmSDtH9r5fe5ebjoUzEDpK_YaO4JVoGKA4-oyImO0DIHhLwwYDDnIXNLGgGFfIxBEuvWkE0FTFFUjPpMNuMDxESq2DoTDXAKdTkkQKTCp4IFYRGTf3K_tmfYDVvGCW2PF-OWxJ1JbLmbln3vA=w677-h902-no)

(Wonders at marvel of little grey "No Entry" sign)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Steph on 31 January, 2016, 03:08:32 pm
Does that mean we're allowed to hang offenders?

(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/ba/31/8c/ba318c380cfc2c11dd30f31dad1b9628.jpg)
Cross-over?
Adjective in place of adverb?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 February, 2016, 11:18:33 am
As a deliberate mistake or as the current leftpondian norm? Hard to tell.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 01 February, 2016, 12:20:51 pm
I stumbled across an article (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-35457135) on the BBC website about a digitally enhanced photo that won a competition. In it Nikon were quoted as saying:

"We have dialogued internally"

I accept that language is constantly changing and that any noun can be verbed, but that's a really ugly construction. 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jurek on 01 February, 2016, 02:21:11 pm
I stumbled across an article (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-35457135) on the BBC website about a digitally enhanced photo that won a competition. In it Nikon were quoted as saying:

"We have dialogued internally"

I accept that language is constantly changing and that any noun can be verbed, but that's a really ugly construction.

Indeed, and earlier in the same article:
Quote
there are many people out there who isn't stupid," said one user.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 01 February, 2016, 02:52:06 pm
I stumbled across an article (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-35457135) on the BBC website about a digitally enhanced photo that won a competition. In it Nikon were quoted as saying:

"We have dialogued internally"

I accept that language is constantly changing and that any noun can be verbed, but that's a really ugly construction.

International English is becoming a Google-translate version of English. 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 01 February, 2016, 04:34:44 pm
I'm familiar with the concept of an internal monologue... the idea of an internal dialogue is really quite troubling.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 01 February, 2016, 09:16:45 pm
We have internal dialogues all the time. It's true you know, we do.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 01 February, 2016, 09:35:30 pm
Speak for yourselves
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 February, 2016, 10:44:50 pm
When one shoulder argues against the other?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 17 February, 2016, 07:15:25 am
A wealth of grammatical mangling from Paul McCartney after being refused entry to a Grammy party last night:

Quote from: Paul McCartney
How VIP do we gotta get?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 17 February, 2016, 07:21:56 am
Yet still comprehensible.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 17 February, 2016, 10:00:38 am
A wealth of grammatical mangling from Paul McCartney last night after being refused entry to a Grammy party last night:

Quote from: Paul McCartney
How VIP do we gotta get?

Scouse-American dialect, innit.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 25 February, 2016, 09:07:56 am
The Alpkit newsletter which arrived last week uses the slogan Go nice places, do good things. That reminds me of an entry on a linguistic blog (might have been Language Log) about the phrase 'go bush'. I'd always interpreted this phrase as an idiom meaning something like 'live in the wilds' but they'd found a sentence where it clearly meant 'go to the uninhabited wild area'. This, they claimed, was the only instance other than home of go + noun without to in the sense of physical movement. But 'go places' can refer to visiting geographical places as well as being a metaphor.

So what's the link between home, places and bush that makes them different from other nouns in this construction? Perhaps it's that they refer to physical locations which are also emblematic of a wider idea. It's been claimed by some that 'home' is an idea unique to the English language, I doubt that very much, but I can't think of an equivalent in another language which works in the same way, being understood at once as a specific place but also a universal idea. The French chez and Slavonic u both need a specified person while the German zu Hause uses an actual building. Of course, that's not even scratching the surface of all the languages there must be in the world. Getting back to English, if that is the link then why can't we say 'go work'?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: LittleWheelsandBig on 25 February, 2016, 10:41:43 am
In Oz, the bush is an area, anything that isn't towns, etc. The outback is well into the bush. To go bush is to go away from civilisation.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 25 February, 2016, 01:25:49 pm
I'd always thought "to go bush" meant to become slightly bonkers from living in the wilds too long.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 25 February, 2016, 02:20:30 pm
I'd always thought "to go bush" meant to become slightly bonkers from living in the wilds too long.
I think it does, but they'd found a sentence where it clearly meant go into the bush.

In Oz, the bush is an area, anything that isn't towns, etc. The outback is well into the bush. To go bush is to go away from civilisation.
Interesting, cos I wasn't quite sure of the distinction.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 25 February, 2016, 03:58:11 pm
I'd always thought "to go bush" meant to become slightly bonkers from living in the wilds too long.
Yes, a state (of mind, in this case) not a place.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 25 February, 2016, 04:17:35 pm
Found it. My memory was slightly incorrect, it was 'head bush' not 'go bush'. More importantly, the claim was that bush functioned as a preposition itself, rather than not needing a preposition. The original sentence was 'On hatching, the chicks scramble to the surface and head bush on their own.' Read it here
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/linguafranca/the-chicks-head-bush-on-their-own/3521116#transcript
and here
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1260

I'm not sure I agree it's a preposition, but it's clearly not an adverb meaning 'go crazy'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 26 February, 2016, 10:46:52 am
"Dairy".  Mrs T reminded me yet again that she's Not Eating "dairy".  Being as what she's a Yorkshire lass I assumed she'd elided the t' and replied, in my best Freddie Truman, "well I don't fancy eating t'dairy either, but I'll have some cheese" and got a black look.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Vince on 26 February, 2016, 11:20:51 am
24/7/365.

There are only 52 weeks in a year.

Either 24/7/52, 24/365 or preferably just 24/7
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 26 February, 2016, 11:24:04 am
Being as what she's a Yorkshire lass ...
Makes me cringe.  Particularly in this instance, seeing as it's followed by "what".  Not quite in the same league as "off of", or compulsive reflexive hypercorrection ("I spoke you yourself yesterday..."), but close.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 26 February, 2016, 01:12:29 pm
'Twas used in jest, sir, and purposely ungrammatical. But please have a good cringe if it makes you feel better.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 26 February, 2016, 02:46:55 pm
'Twas used in jest, sir, and purposely ungrammatical. But please have a good cringe if it makes you feel better.
Yeah, yeah...  ;) ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 27 February, 2016, 03:03:35 pm
24/7/365.

There are only 52 weeks in a year.

Either 24/7/52, 24/365 or preferably just 24/7

Isn't it used not just to indicate that service is provided for 24 hours of every day - including every 'normal' weekend day - but to emphasise that it's also available on days like Easter Sunday or Xmas Day where many other services will be closed?

While it's clearly wrong, I don't mind it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 27 February, 2016, 05:54:32 pm
^^Closed on Monday, though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 02 March, 2016, 06:42:20 pm
BBC (http://www.bbc.com/news): Russia and Syria 'weaponising' migration.

What's wrong with providing weapons or arming whoever was weaponised (which I couldn't work out from the BBC article)?

That's not what they mean - the migrants are not being armed, they're being encouraged/used as a means to destabilise Europe. More of a political/metaphorical weapon really.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 02 March, 2016, 08:47:34 pm
What's wrong with providing weapons...

Yeah, great idea - provide weapons to the migrants, preferably subsidised by the EU.

Paul Dacre would die of a massive heart attack. Hopefully.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 March, 2016, 01:39:39 am
That would suggest he has a heart.  The evidence1 says otherwise.

1: Employimg Jan Moir, for starters.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 04 March, 2016, 08:17:13 am
"To progress"  used transitively, as in "to progress a project", is correct according to Chambers, but it still stinks of MBAland and thereby cringes me.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 March, 2016, 09:24:43 am
I said, "You said, 'He said, "She said, 'They said, "X."'"'" (http://www.theguardian.com/media/mind-your-language/2016/mar/04/quotations-within-quotations-the-russian-doll-of-punctuation)
One true thing in there:
Quote
Opinions vary as to which of these usages is “American”; my inbox suggests that this term is employed by British readers to describe whichever aspect of style they don’t happen to like.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 04 March, 2016, 09:53:13 am
^^^ John Barth has a story that nests quotes to around 20 levels.  Kinda confusing.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 04 March, 2016, 01:19:46 pm
(Not grammar, and it doesn't make me cringe.)

In a similar vein to answering questions with 'Look...' and 'So...', I've noticed that 'I mean...' seems to be on the rise. Like 'So', this isn't an expansion or clarification or continuation on an earlier reply. I think I've noticed it most on American podcasts, but I've a feeling it's a grower: I found myself doing it yesterday. Apologies if this has already been covered.

Also, 'reticent' seems to be making a bid for the ground occupied by 'reluctant',and that does make me cringe. A bit.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wobbly John on 08 March, 2016, 04:45:07 pm
On a sales email from a company we rarely deal with, the representative hopes something about my well. I'm not sure what, as she does not finish the sentence (Hope your well (no full stop) ).  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 08 March, 2016, 04:48:29 pm
I thought clarion's recent post in the Gallery should be here.

(https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1556/24958921453_06bb4b2eee_z.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 08 March, 2016, 05:20:50 pm
Yep. Definitely worth a cringe.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 March, 2016, 05:37:32 pm
But interesting too. Is it simply a written representation of non-standard speech or is it a mistaken use of a past tense for a past participle?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 March, 2016, 07:41:19 pm
Some USAnian SCIENTIST used the word "automatize", which I think means "automate", on a recent episode of "The Infinite Monkey Cage".  I trust he will never be invited to appear on the Home Service again.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 08 March, 2016, 08:21:23 pm
But interesting too. Is it simply a written representation of non-standard speech or is it a mistaken use of a past tense for a past participle?

It's Yorkshire, innit.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 08 March, 2016, 09:52:17 pm
Some USAnian SCIENTIST used the word "automatize", which I think means "automate", on a recent episode of "The Infinite Monkey Cage".  I trust he will never be invited to appear on the Home Service again.
That's just a similar (mis-)construction to "burglarize".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Deano on 08 March, 2016, 10:13:15 pm
I encountered "overwhelm" as a noun today. As in "to avoid overwhelm". It makes sense, but still :-\
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 09 March, 2016, 10:37:37 am
Agreed.  I still struggle with overcast as a noun, from weather forecasters.  I dare say it's been going for years but I still struggle!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 09 March, 2016, 12:20:32 pm
Overcast
Broadcast
Typecast
Couchcast
Plastercast
Sarcast
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 March, 2016, 05:04:29 pm
I like "sarcast".  Charlie Brooker makes a living from writing and presenting sarcasts.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: tiermat on 09 March, 2016, 06:10:13 pm
I thought clarion's recent post in the Gallery should be here.

(https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1556/24958921453_06bb4b2eee_z.jpg)

Northallerton, home of the grammar pedant.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 09 March, 2016, 07:48:08 pm
Agreed.  I still struggle with overcast as a noun, from weather forecasters.  I dare say it's been going for years but I still struggle!
I'm only aware of them using it as an adjective.

But perhaps my horrible grammar filters have been protecting me!

(Just because one CAN noun an  adjective, I don't believe one always should. )
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 March, 2016, 07:56:29 pm
I don't have an issue with overcast as a noun.  "The bombers took off into a heavy overcast" or similar.  Clearly I've spent too long reading about the Gallant Fliers of the RAF as an impressionable youth.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Deano on 09 March, 2016, 10:43:02 pm
Agreed.  I still struggle with overcast as a noun, from weather forecasters.  I dare say it's been going for years but I still struggle!

I've never heard that. It could be quite a nice description, "they rode into the overcast" or suchlike, but it doesn't sound right.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 10 March, 2016, 01:29:26 am
Some USAnian SCIENTIST used the word "automatize", which I think means "automate", on a recent episode of "The Infinite Monkey Cage".  I trust he will never be invited to appear on the Home Service again.
That's just a similar (mis-)construction to "burglarize".

I quite like the idea of the verb being "to burglarate."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 10 March, 2016, 09:16:05 am
Some USAnian SCIENTIST used the word "automatize", which I think means "automate", on a recent episode of "The Infinite Monkey Cage".  I trust he will never be invited to appear on the Home Service again.
That's just a similar (mis-)construction to "burglarize".

I quite like the idea of the verb being "to burglarate."

And a burglar being a burglarator.

Funny thing is, "burgle" is a back-formation from "burglar", so that "burglarize" is closer to strict English usage.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: billplumtree on 10 March, 2016, 01:12:28 pm
I quite like the idea of the verb being "to burglarate."

Which, for me, conjures up a "Rate my burgling" website, where victims can judge how well-conducted their burglary was.  Did they leave a mess?  Did they miss anything of value?  Leave any fingerprints?  How likely are you to recommend this burglar to friends or family?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 10 March, 2016, 10:05:26 pm
And a burglar being a burglarator.
But surely a burglarator would burglaratorize?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 11 March, 2016, 12:16:44 am
And a burglar being a burglarator.
But surely a burglarator would burglaratorize?

No, I think burglaratorising would be done by a burglaratorisator.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 11 March, 2016, 07:49:35 am
That's burglaratorizing. It's never spelt with an s because it's never spelt at all on this side of the Pond ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 11 March, 2016, 08:13:43 am
But them'uns over there do spell spelt spelled, wrought wreaked and sought seeked, and make other depressing regularizatications for the benefit of the thick.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 11 March, 2016, 03:07:55 pm
Well nearly. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tit5gHtVEls)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 11 March, 2016, 07:10:13 pm
Holding up the Captain as a role model for, well, anything sets a dangerous precedent.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Eccentrica Gallumbits on 12 March, 2016, 03:05:06 pm
Radio 2 newsperson just said this afternoon's match at Twickenham "could be a potential decider." He can bugger off. It could be a decider, or it's a potential decider. "Could be a potential decider" is a very irritating level of redundancy.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 12 March, 2016, 04:13:29 pm
The stock management software at my new job uses 'less' instead of 'fewer'. The less/fewer never used to bother me, but it is one of Mr Smith's wee foibles that he is finely attuned to the many misuses and now I have to see it in my notifications every working day.
Perhaps I should take this mug (http://www.theliterarygiftcompany.com/ekmps/shops/danihall/images/less-or-fewer-grammar-grumble-mug-no.1-choose-bone-48982-p.jpg) to work, instead of the predecessor (http://www.buy4less.co.uk/fantastic-mugs/images/i_am_silently_correcting_your_grammar_mug.jpg).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 12 March, 2016, 05:09:37 pm
The stock management software at my new job uses 'less' instead of 'fewer'.

Never trust software that wasn't written by pedants.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 12 March, 2016, 06:25:51 pm
Agreed.  I still struggle with overcast as a noun, from weather forecasters.  I dare say it's been going for years but I still struggle!

I've never heard that. It could be quite a nice description, "they rode into the overcast" or suchlike, but it doesn't sound right.

Maybe it's a Carol Kirkland special; she uses it all the time, except when it's sunny.

I don't like "evening time" either - cuddly rubbish!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 12 March, 2016, 07:37:43 pm
Weather forecasters seem to be developing their own weather-forecaster-language, it's not as irritating as police-officer-language but it does grate a bit. "Spits and spots" is OK once, but every day, repeatedly, for a week? Dawning is quite a poetic word but "East Anglia will be dawning foggy" - what next, "Scotland will be dusking drizzly"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 13 March, 2016, 08:37:34 pm
I think Scotland is more likely to be misting murkily - which will only matter if you are "out and about" (and in Scotland).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 20 March, 2016, 05:39:00 pm
Wasn't sure where to post this - Grammar to make you cringe, fonts to make you cringe, politics to make you cringe, or kerning to make Ian cringe.

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cd-GH9uUIAIFCHW.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 20 March, 2016, 06:26:53 pm
From my Twitter feed.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CY1ZM7cVAAAoOzk.jpg)

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Paul on 21 March, 2016, 07:51:09 pm
Is it that it should say 'In memoriam'? Or just 'Memorial'?

Or is it something else?*

I'm saddened but slightly amused by the idea of a tree being felled by a desk.

Was it in a car park?

(*I thought I was pretty good at grammar (I have been known in several work places as 'Dictionary corner'), but I'm a dilettante by some of the standards here, and I often wonder if I've spotted the real transgression, and not just the obvious one.

Mine field.

(Or is that mined field? Or minefield?))
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 22 March, 2016, 01:24:05 am
Yes IMO, either a Memorial or In Memoriam.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 22 March, 2016, 09:36:42 am
Or a simple "In Memory of".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 22 March, 2016, 12:14:41 pm
Reminds me of Alan Coren's favourite misprint in a funeral notice, something like "...passed away Tues. 14th, mourned by wife Sally and children Arthur, William and Eldine.  A much-loved man by all who knew him. Sadly pissed".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jurek on 22 March, 2016, 02:28:33 pm
Shirley 'dressage' is not what the BBC meant to say  ::-)
(https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1601/25865250592_115a520fc7_b.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 22 March, 2016, 04:39:47 pm
Rather apt reuse of a word I thought was an equestrian discipline.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ruthie on 23 March, 2016, 12:19:26 am
It's when horses attempt to make an ad-hoc statement through the medium of interpretive dance.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 23 March, 2016, 06:54:09 pm
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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 23 March, 2016, 07:21:59 pm
the Department of Redundancy Department

 ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 March, 2016, 11:05:47 am
R U overstimulated? (http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/29/grammar-pedant-personality-type)

With its several references to "extraverts" I can't help wondering if this has been published two days too early.  :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 29 March, 2016, 11:15:34 am
Extravert? (https://youtu.be/TkZFuKHXa7w)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 30 March, 2016, 05:42:44 pm
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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 March, 2016, 03:37:18 pm
 :-[ The OED does give extravert as an accepted spelling. Not intravert though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ruthie on 01 April, 2016, 11:15:01 pm
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'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: orienteer on 02 April, 2016, 10:02:16 am
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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 07 April, 2016, 01:07:15 pm
AVG just informed me that its scan had completed.  A crossword puzzle, doubtless.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Vince on 09 April, 2016, 04:43:57 am
A sign at the local tip recycling centre

Use Both Lanes

So I did
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 10 April, 2016, 09:37:27 pm
(http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k170/smutchin/Screen%20Shot%202016-04-10%20at%2021.26.27_zpsj3nw0rlm.png)

Flewby?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 10 April, 2016, 09:59:06 pm

Flewby?

That's in Norfolk, isn't it?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 10 April, 2016, 10:47:00 pm
If not, it ought to be.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 10 April, 2016, 11:36:03 pm
Back on the subject of weather - 'hill snow' really gets Pingu's goat.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 11 April, 2016, 07:52:14 am
If not, it ought to be.

No, Oughterby's in Cumbria.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: billplumtree on 11 April, 2016, 07:53:15 am
*applause*
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 12 April, 2016, 09:16:26 am
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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 12 April, 2016, 04:16:36 pm
"Robbing" is certainly in common usage for "stealing" on Merseyside.  They've probably got two hundred words for theft, though ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 12 April, 2016, 04:18:49 pm
How many for stereotype?!  :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 12 April, 2016, 04:47:42 pm
Rob is perfectly acceptable in that context.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Vince on 12 April, 2016, 04:53:08 pm
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]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 12 April, 2016, 05:22:47 pm
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'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: orienteer on 12 April, 2016, 06:50:13 pm
Robbing parts is a standard expression in maintenance, where parts might be taken from one piece of machinery to keep another going.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 12 April, 2016, 07:23:45 pm
Quote from: nb10
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?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 12 April, 2016, 08:09:45 pm
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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 April, 2016, 08:46:24 pm
I robbed the bottle cages off my old bike = I stole the bottle cages from my old bike
or to put it another way
I robbed my old bike of the bottle cages.
Just like "I robbed this Brompton off/from Kim" or "I robbed Kim of this Brompton" or "I stole this Brompton from Kim" or "I robbed Kim and stole this Brompton". And I'm giving it back now because I don't want it and I can't sell it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 13 April, 2016, 10:32:17 am
"Robbing" is certainly in common usage for "stealing" on Merseyside.  They've probably got two hundred words for theft, though ;)

Mostly stolen from other languages or dialects.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 13 April, 2016, 11:02:08 am
I robbed the bottle cages off my old bike = I stole the bottle cages from my old bike

Steal is what they think it means, etc, etc. That doesn't mean that it does.  Who was it said that if you tell a lie often enough it becomes the truth? Same with grammar.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 April, 2016, 11:05:21 am
Definitely true with grammar! In a way... Does that mean grammar is lies?  :o
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 13 April, 2016, 11:13:31 am
I robbed the bottle cages off my old bike = I stole the bottle cages from my old bike

Steal is what they think it means, etc, etc. That doesn't mean that it does.  Who was it said that if you tell a lie often enough it becomes the truth? Same with grammar.

Rob and steal are almost synonyms. They are slightly different in that steal normally places focus on the object that was taken and rob more on the act itself.
Robbed is grammatically correct in the case in question its just not common usage in the south of the UK. That doesn't make it incorrect.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 13 April, 2016, 03:51:04 pm
I robbed the bottle cages off my old bike = I stole the bottle cages from my old bike

Steal is what they think it means, etc, etc. That doesn't mean that it does.  Who was it said that if you tell a lie often enough it becomes the truth? Same with grammar.

Rob and steal are almost synonyms. They are slightly different in that steal normally places focus on the object that was taken and rob more on the act itself.
Robbed is grammatically correct in the case in question its just not common usage in the south of the UK. That doesn't make it incorrect.
Robbery involves the threat or use of violins violence.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 April, 2016, 04:16:59 pm
That would be my normal definition of robbery too.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 13 April, 2016, 04:53:28 pm
I robbed the bottle cages off my old bike = I stole the bottle cages from my old bike

Steal is what they think it means, etc, etc. That doesn't mean that it does.  Who was it said that if you tell a lie often enough it becomes the truth? Same with grammar.

Rob and steal are almost synonyms. They are slightly different in that steal normally places focus on the object that was taken and rob more on the act itself.
Robbed is grammatically correct in the case in question its just not common usage in the south of the UK. That doesn't make it incorrect.
Robbery involves the threat or use of violins violence.

In its literal use.  But we use language in all kinds of ways other than baldly literal.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 14 April, 2016, 08:24:10 am
Those Clever people at Cardington are fitting engines to gases now...

Quote
Hybrid Air Vehicles said the Airlander was the first of a new generation of airships to be built there and was filled with helium with diesel engines.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-36031101 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-36031101)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 14 April, 2016, 09:18:04 am
Quote from: the noticeboard outside the gym in my office building
Judy is away from 22 April for she and Graham's annual trip to Jazz Fest in New Orleans
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 14 April, 2016, 09:49:32 am
I robbed the bottle cages off my old bike = I stole the bottle cages from my old bike

Steal is what they think it means, etc, etc. That doesn't mean that it does.  Who was it said that if you tell a lie often enough it becomes the truth? Same with grammar.

Rob and steal are almost synonyms. They are slightly different in that steal normally places focus on the object that was taken and rob more on the act itself.
Robbed is grammatically correct in the case in question its just not common usage in the south of the UK. That doesn't make it incorrect.
Robbery involves the threat or use of violins violence.

Chambers* gives it as "the act or process, or an instance, of robbing, especially theft with threats, force or violence."  I read that as meaning that violence or threat is implied but not necessary for an act to be robbery.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 14 April, 2016, 11:27:10 am
Those Clever people at Cardington are fitting engines to gases now...

Quote
Hybrid Air Vehicles said the Airlander was the first of a new generation of airships to be built there and was filled with helium with diesel engines.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-36031101 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-36031101)

My work might take me there. #excited.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jasmine on 14 April, 2016, 11:58:59 am
In a BBC news article about ParkRun:

Quote
"Surely a £ or 2 is little price to pay for such a fantastic opportunity?"

I suppose it isn't strictly grammar, but it's stylistically awful, especially given that it is quoting what someone said. 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 14 April, 2016, 03:11:16 pm
And while this is just a typo, it's a good'un:

"The cameras also have a global shutter so there won’t be any rolling shitter going on with this device."**

Thought they were talking about an action cam for cyclists at first.

They'll probably correct it ASAP.

** http://bokeh.digitalrev.com/article/facebook-launches-3d-virtual-reality-360-camera
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 14 April, 2016, 11:16:03 pm
I robbed the bottle cages off my old bike = I stole the bottle cages from my old bike

Steal is what they think it means, etc, etc. That doesn't mean that it does.  Who was it said that if you tell a lie often enough it becomes the truth? Same with grammar.

Rob and steal are almost synonyms. They are slightly different in that steal normally places focus on the object that was taken and rob more on the act itself.
Robbed is grammatically correct in the case in question its just not common usage in the south of the UK. That doesn't make it incorrect.
Robbery involves the threat or use of violins violence.

Chambers* gives it as "the act or process, or an instance, of robbing, especially theft with threats, force or violence."  I read that as meaning that violence or threat is implied but not necessary for an act to be robbery.

IIRC, the violence (or threat thereof) is necessary for it *legally* to be robbery (Theft Acts passim, I think).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 15 April, 2016, 08:30:52 am
So someone who breaks into a bank when nobody is there and empties the safe is not guilty of robbery. And isn't it only burglary after dark?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 15 April, 2016, 09:54:07 am
Aye, they'd be a bank burglar, but it doesn't have to be after nightfall.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 15 April, 2016, 10:05:25 am
Funny that. Things have probably changed.  I remember hearing on something like the Round Britain Quiz that before dark it'd be breaking and entering, but after it'd be burglary.  Possibly B&E doesn't imply with theft aforethought whereas with burglary that's assumed.  Quite possibly, too, the law has changed since the 60s.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 15 April, 2016, 10:10:17 am
"My daddy was a bankrobber bank burgler but he never hurt nobody"

I better give The Clash a ring. They slipped in a double negative there as well.
Typical rock stars with their loud music and sloppy grammar. 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 15 April, 2016, 10:23:19 am
The Clash are alright: as long as daddy was using threats of violence he can still be a robber while hurting no-one.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 15 April, 2016, 10:24:58 am
So someone who breaks into a bank when nobody is there and empties the safe is not guilty of robbery. And isn't it only burglary after dark?

Funnily enough, this came up on the radio the other day - can't remember exactly where, probably on Radcliffe & Maconie's 6music show. Anyway, what they said was that the bank has to be open for it to be robbery. Otherwise it's burglary. They didn't specify if it has to be dark.

I guess it has to be open for the threat of violence to be possible.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 April, 2016, 10:27:30 am
So someone who breaks into a bank when nobody is there and empties the safe is not guilty of robbery. And isn't it only burglary after dark?

Funnily enough, this came up on the radio the other day - can't remember exactly where, probably on Radcliffe & Maconie's 6music show. Anyway, what they said was that the bank has to be open for it to be robbery. Otherwise it's burglary. They didn't specify if it has to be dark.

I guess it has to be open for the threat of violence to be possible.
No, there could be staff working after it's closed.
#pedantry101
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 April, 2016, 10:28:51 am
And what if they threaten to blow up the empty building? Does that count as violence?
#pedantry102
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 15 April, 2016, 10:48:38 am
No, there could be staff working after it's closed.
#pedantry101

True. I imagine that was the reasoning for whoever came up with the definition though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: LittleWheelsandBig on 15 April, 2016, 10:49:12 am
Damage to a building is not the same as violence to a person.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 15 April, 2016, 10:54:13 am
I think when a bank is open, the public can enter, ie it's a public place, therefore it's robbery.

When it's closed it's private, like a house, so it's burglary.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 15 April, 2016, 11:46:33 am
"My daddy was a bankrobber bank burgler but he never hurt nobody"

I better give The Clash a ring. They slipped in a double negative there as well.
Typical rock stars with their loud music and sloppy grammar.
You're lucky if you can hear the lyrics these days!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 15 April, 2016, 01:35:17 pm
The Clash are alright: as long as daddy was using threats of violence he can still be a robber while hurting no-one.

I think you'll find it's the kids that are alright. 

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 15 April, 2016, 06:50:38 pm
Burglary only at night, according to Len Deighton in Spy Story, so who am I to argue?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 15 April, 2016, 11:51:18 pm
Grammar or spelling? From the local paper: "has bared a striking resemblance".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 April, 2016, 08:44:47 am
Grammar or spelling? From the local paper: "has bared a striking resemblance".
Unveiled a nude statue?  :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 22 April, 2016, 09:47:11 am
BBC Headline:
"Boy, 13, robbed by bike thieves in Manchester"

(posted as an example of robbery, not as an example of bad grammar!)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 22 April, 2016, 10:55:57 am
Maybe they meant that he was kidnapped.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 22 April, 2016, 12:07:32 pm
Overheard phone-call the other day:  "We should save that for prosterity."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 25 April, 2016, 11:15:37 am
Quote
Grammatically, “me” is always the right choice when you need an objective pronoun. You wouldn’t say, “Hey, Tim, want to come to the milk bar with I?”
Well, duh! Everyone knows it should be "Hey, Tim, want to come to Costa with myself?"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SteveC on 27 April, 2016, 08:53:04 pm
A new one for me yesterday in a work document, deliverable to the customer...

its'

As in belonging to it.  :facepalm:
And it was from the quality department as well...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 April, 2016, 07:00:35 pm
Logic would suggest its' = theirs for inanimate items.
 :D :-\
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 29 April, 2016, 10:52:47 pm
Quote
Grammatically, “me” is always the right choice when you need an objective pronoun. You wouldn’t say, “Hey, Tim, want to come to the milk bar with I?”
Well, duh! Everyone knows it should be "Hey, Tim, want to come to Costa with myself?"

What if you're a Rasta?

"Hey, Tim bwoy, him gwine at milk bah wid I and I?"

(Or something like that - I'm don't claim to be fluent in Jamaican.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 May, 2016, 12:22:00 pm
Quote
Grammatically, “me” is always the right choice when you need an objective pronoun. You wouldn’t say, “Hey, Tim, want to come to the milk bar with I?”
Well, duh! Everyone knows it should be "Hey, Tim, want to come to Costa with myself?"

What if you're a Rasta?

"Hey, Tim bwoy, him gwine at milk bah wid I and I?"

(Or something like that - I'm don't claim to be fluent in Jamaican.)
Yesterday I wasn't entirely sure of my way out of Gloucester to the east. I stopped to look at a map but at that moment an old lady walked by so I thought I'd ask her. "Is this the road to Birdlip?" She sucked her teeth and cast her eyes to heaven before confirming that I was on the right road. "Yes, if you go along to the end then turn right, you'm on track for Birdlip." She wasn't a Rasta though. (And she did follow it up with "It's a long way, mind." It's about four miles. )
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 02 May, 2016, 07:10:36 am
A Glosta Rasta would surely be too much, even for Docta Fosta.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: BrianI on 08 May, 2016, 07:23:44 am
I remember seeing a sign in the gents which read:


Please
"Wash"
Your hands

I wonder what euphemism they meant...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 08 May, 2016, 08:50:04 am
In Friday's Trib, the words "under way" had been Americanized into underway and then hyphenated over a line break.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 09 May, 2016, 07:56:42 pm
Just been looking at satnav reviews on Techradar - there's a website that would benefit from the services of a good subeditor.

It's mostly just typos that aren't worth commenting on, but I did enjoy this gem from their review of the Garmin nuvi 3490LMT:

"This was among the first sat navs to take design cues from smartphones. To that end it's got a capacitive touchscreen, increased slimness and decreased thickness, live services via a connected smartphone app, and looks and feels great."

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 09 May, 2016, 08:50:37 pm
Just been looking at satnav reviews on Techradar - there's a website that would benefit from the services of a good subeditor.

It's mostly just typos that aren't worth commenting on, but I did enjoy this gem from their review of the Garmin nuvi 3490LMT:

"This was among the first sat navs to take design cues from smartphones. To that end it's got a capacitive touchscreen, increased slimness and decreased thickness, live services via a connected smartphone app, and looks and feels great."

Wow!  Even just one of those would have been really great.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 10 May, 2016, 07:27:50 am
NYT story on hackers pumping $81 mil out of the Fed via SWIFT:

Quote
“There are many banks out there right now saying, ‘There but for the grace of God go us,’” said Gareth Lodge, a payments analyst at Celent, a financial consulting firm.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: slope on 15 May, 2016, 08:09:15 pm
(https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7762/27034203245_9560e2a1ff_o.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/HbVmLv)

Missing apostrophe (https://flic.kr/p/HbVmLv)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 15 May, 2016, 10:25:14 pm
Today in Harlesden a number 18 bus collided across the pavement.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 16 May, 2016, 08:13:03 am
(https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7762/27034203245_9560e2a1ff_o.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/HbVmLv)

Missing apostrophe (https://flic.kr/p/HbVmLv)

That's the least of their problems, given the name will be changing (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=96003.0) to, "we are cycling The cyclists' champion UK."

Nice font, though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 17 May, 2016, 12:59:13 pm
From today Grauniad
<<A spokesman for Johnson on Tuesday defended his record on air pollution as mayor and said he had not hid its impact from Londoners.>>

From http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/17/boris-johnson-held-back-negative-findings-of-air-pollution-report?CMP=share_btn_tw (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/17/boris-johnson-held-back-negative-findings-of-air-pollution-report?CMP=share_btn_tw)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 17 May, 2016, 01:27:20 pm
From today Grauniad
<<A spokesman for Johnson on Tuesday defended his record on air pollution as mayor and said he had not hid its impact from Londoners.>>

From http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/17/boris-johnson-held-back-negative-findings-of-air-pollution-report?CMP=share_btn_tw (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/17/boris-johnson-held-back-negative-findings-of-air-pollution-report?CMP=share_btn_tw)

Well Boris was born in the USA. I suspect he says "fit" instead of "fitted" as well ...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 17 May, 2016, 02:12:42 pm
Maybe he was feeling Shakespearean.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 17 May, 2016, 06:52:07 pm
Can something really be "rare but not uncommon"?  If not, TV's Ayshea Buksh will be looking forward to a period of re-education from the Party's Democracy of the Committed.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 May, 2016, 06:55:58 pm
Can something really be "rare but not uncommon"?  If not, TV's Ayshea Buksh will be looking forward to a period of re-education from the Party's Democracy of the Committed.
A steak?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 25 May, 2016, 05:14:24 pm
From the Eurotunnel website:
Quote
The media is reporting fuel shortages in certain locations in France

The media are, shirley?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 25 May, 2016, 06:28:59 pm
No, but "media are" is also acceptable. When using the word media to refer to the press/tv/radio collectively it is treated as singular or plural, in the same way as "data". If referring to, for e.g., a work of art in mixed media, then it is always "media are". On the other hand, if you're talking about several clairvoyants, they are mediums.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 25 May, 2016, 06:59:45 pm
No, but "media are" is also acceptable. When using the word media to refer to the press/tv/radio collectively it is treated as singular or plural, in the same way as "data". If referring to, for e.g., a work of art in mixed media, then it is always "media are". On the other hand, if you're talking about several clairvoyants, they are mediums fraudsters

fTFY :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 25 May, 2016, 07:33:21 pm
At the swimming baths:

"Non and weak swimmers should not practice (sic) in the fast lane"

Cringe!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 26 May, 2016, 03:29:15 pm
[was this thread declared the dumping ground for neo-logisms?]



R5 coverage of the French Open:

"Watson was definitely the overdog in that match-up."

(from an ENGLISH commentator!!! )
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 04 June, 2016, 02:46:30 pm
Forwarded by a chum:

"  ON: CYCLING, LITTLE-KNOWN BIOLOGICAL FACTS ABOUT

It’s all about finding that rhythm, accelerating as hard as you can
without lactating too much.

/cyclist Magnus Bäckstedt/"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 04 June, 2016, 02:48:50 pm
I should milk that one for all it's worth.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 04 June, 2016, 02:52:04 pm
On Paris-Breast?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 04 June, 2016, 05:14:26 pm
From RCI Bank's online banking (they are French so perhaps that's an excuse)...

(https://scontent-ams3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-0/s480x480/13343139_10153468714341786_2957395961109621638_n.jpg?oh=5cdb00f6ad31a4a8d7fccc929030fa84&oe=57D54AF3)

Mind you, I've noticed that people say "there's" for "there are" quite regularly so perhaps "there're" is heading for oblivion.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: orienteer on 04 June, 2016, 09:28:03 pm

Mind you, I've noticed that people say "there's" for "there are" quite regularly so perhaps "there're" is heading for oblivion.

As for all concluding interrogatives other than "innit"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 07 June, 2016, 11:07:43 am
"Drink driving" makes me wince. It presumably means driving while being legally drunk, but not necessarily enough to be really drunk.  Presumably the perps are then drinken drivers rather than drunken drivers. How does the verb conjugate, I drink drive, I drank drive, they shall have been drinken driven?

Drongos.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 10 June, 2016, 01:49:42 am
TfL Traffic Tweet
<< Blackfriars Bridge is now closed southbound due to an ongoing collision on the south-side of the bridge.>>

Ongoing collision...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 10 June, 2016, 07:24:44 am
^^^ Like a slow-motion film of a crash test.

"South-side" as a noun isn't bad either.  Hyphenation gets people all confusticated these days.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 10 June, 2016, 08:51:10 am
I was worried that the internet was going to sh1t; but if people are critiquing  hyphenation used on Twitter, perhaps everything will be OK ...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 10 June, 2016, 09:13:12 am
It's a reflection of the whole bloody world.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 18 June, 2016, 09:29:18 am
That.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 20 June, 2016, 11:34:40 am
From our daily news round-up email

Quote
MOD supplier Cobham has reported interested in a take-up for a right issue after announcing plans to trim its debt.

No. Me neither.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 03 July, 2016, 07:30:35 pm
From this article (http://www.timeout.com/london/blog/the-george-tavern-has-won-its-appeal-to-stop-a-block-of-flats-being-built-next-door-070116):
Quote
Landlady Pauline Forster has been battling for almost a decade to save her legendary music venue that has paid host to Anna Calvi, Factory Floor and John Cooper Clarke while Grace Jones, Grimes, Amy Winehouse and Kate Moss have all been shot in the 600-year-old tavern.

With that kind of violence I'm surprised the place is still open.  ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 July, 2016, 04:38:28 pm
Nigel Farage is the linguistic (but not literary) heir of Geoffrey Chaucer.
Quote
The British decision on June 23rd to leave the European Union is the legacy of Europe’s age-old divisions. Once Geoffrey Chaucer was inclined, and able, to write in English, it was a straight road to English nationalism and, by extension, Brexit.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2016/07/language?spc=scode&spv=xm&ah=9d7f7ab945510a56fa6d37c30b6f1709
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 08 July, 2016, 12:12:01 pm
On a travel site that spammed my Facebook feed "Europe's most historical cities". Historic you colonial numpties.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 19 July, 2016, 04:56:12 pm
A USAnian-type chum of the missus's on FB:

"Do you live in a village type setting?"

No, dear, it's just a village.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 29 July, 2016, 08:12:25 am
John Lewis are asking me to "Buy a new refrigerated appliance".
 :-\
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 29 July, 2016, 09:25:40 am
John Lewis are asking me to "Buy a new refrigerated appliance".
 :-\

Was that a cold call?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 29 July, 2016, 06:40:28 pm
"Shed's Gate's Fencing"

Double-apostrofail is small fry by the standards of this thread, but it annoys me all over again every time I ride past it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 29 July, 2016, 06:41:06 pm
A USAnian-type chum of the missus's on FB:

"Do you live in a village type setting?"

No, dear, it's just a village.

Might be a reference to The Prisoner, I suppose...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 30 July, 2016, 02:12:05 pm
Auntie, REALLY!

Quote
They wore breathing apparatuses and used high powered water jets to put out the blaze.

from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-36932297 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-36932297)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 15 August, 2016, 02:44:56 pm
Perhaps not grammar, strictly speaking, but -

Man flu
Man hug.

 :facepalm:

What's wrong with flu, or hug? Are men supposed to have some special kind of flu, perhaps imaginary, or hug in a special way, perhaps tentatively & looking uncomfortable?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 15 August, 2016, 02:57:33 pm
The whole point of the phrase or saying "man flu" is that it doesn't mean "influenza".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 15 August, 2016, 03:45:30 pm
Which makes it bloody stupid to claim to have it. To me, it sounds as if they're saying "I choose to invite contempt by using illness as an excuse when all I really have is a trivial sniffle or a slight hangover, but doing it half-heartedly by calling it 'man flu' so that everybody knows what I'm doing". Hence it making me cringe.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 15 August, 2016, 04:16:54 pm
As I understand it, it's not a term a man would apply to himself, more something a woman would say disparagingly of a man who is too ill to oblige her.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 15 August, 2016, 05:46:09 pm
Precisely, young man. 'Man-flu' is attributed to the males of the species solely by their female counterparts, who look down upon our pathetic mewling over a teensy sniffle with an experienced contempt. Although my wife attributes anything north of my actual death as psychosomatic.

A 'man-hug' is a special symptom of the ursine companionship of – generally drunken – males.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 15 August, 2016, 06:33:59 pm
As I understand it, it's not a term a man would apply to himself, more something a woman would say disparagingly of a man who is too ill to oblige her.
I have no objections to that (the original, AFAIK) usage. What I'm complaining about is the use of both terms by men about themselves. I've heard (& seen in writing) both used by men about themselves - & it grates, horribly, like fingernails on a blackboard.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 16 August, 2016, 07:57:37 am
It happens. After all, "Yankee Doodle" was originally intended to lampoon the Americans.

Or is self-application a form of Stockholm Syndrome?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 16 August, 2016, 10:11:04 am
Just a bit of simple self-mockery, Shirley?

(or if you are really properly ill, it MIGHT be false modesty. Or something ... )

Now can we get us back to some proper bad grammar please?!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Paul on 16 August, 2016, 10:15:02 am
I once 'phoned in sick with 'man flu'. It was meant ironically (I had a cold, not the flu), and in an attempt to undermine the cruelty of its usual implications. I'm not sure I succeeded: the person taking my call said that there was no category for 'man flu' in the sickness reporting drop down menu.

 :facepalm:

Btw, research suggests that males are more affected by some infections than females. In mice, anyway (http://www.nhs.uk/news/2009/05May/Pages/Manflurealormyth.aspx).

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 16 August, 2016, 01:43:10 pm
Christ, Auntie, I thought you'd be the last bastion against the insidious spread of "off of" (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/36689780)...  :o
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 16 August, 2016, 05:22:50 pm
You might expect Royal Academy to pluralise 'medium' differently...

Quote
Famous as the world’s largest open submission show, there are certain things the Summer Exhibition delivers on every single year: a panorama of art in all mediums, a remarkable mixture of emerging artists and household names, and more to see and explore than any other exhibition you’re likely to visit this year.

...but you would be wrong!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 16 August, 2016, 05:34:00 pm
'Most unhappiest'...

Quote
But this year’s survey comes as a boost for Londoners who last year saw nine of the city's boroughs feature in the UK's ten most unhappiest places to live.

from today's Evening Standard.

Standard's slipping...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 17 August, 2016, 12:53:47 pm
I have just been sent an email to be "forwarded round the bizarres" (sic)

Wrong, but somehow appropriate.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 18 August, 2016, 12:00:22 pm
Snuck.  :facepalm:
Dove (for dived).  :facepalm:

I hate it when idiots invent irregular forms for regular verbs. 'Snuck' seems to have come from late C19 US fiction in which it was put into the mouths of mid-western hicks, presumably to show their hickness.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 August, 2016, 12:13:28 pm
Can worn-out sneakers be called snuckers?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 18 August, 2016, 01:04:29 pm
What's a feaker, then?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 26 August, 2016, 01:30:08 pm
Kitten sized lion named for David Attenborough (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-37182388)

Because he couldn't be arsed presumably?

Dear The BBC: We are not USAnians.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 26 August, 2016, 04:12:06 pm
The headline now reads "after".  Someone at the BBC must be lurking in here ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 27 August, 2016, 08:18:05 pm
The whole point of the phrase or saying "man flu" is that it doesn't mean "influenza".

GPWM, but what about "Man Bag" or "Man Bun"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 28 August, 2016, 02:22:04 am
The whole point of the phrase or saying "man flu" is that it doesn't mean "influenza".

GPWM, but what about "Man Bag" or "Man Bun"?

If there isn't a thread for "Things which shouldn't exist but unfortunately do" you could always start one ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 31 August, 2016, 10:42:56 am
It's not just the grammar in this one:

Quote from: Daily Media round-up email
The One Show (1900): Aired a short segment that looked at how during World War two Royal Engineers helped diffuse a 1000 ton bomb that fell near St Pauls Cathedral. This story was then juxtaposed by the equipment and training current bomb disposal units receive within the Royal Engineers and RLC.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 31 August, 2016, 11:13:38 am
It's not just the grammar in this one:

Quote from: Daily Media round-up email
The One Show (1900): Aired a short segment that looked at how during World War two Royal Engineers helped diffuse a 1000 ton bomb that fell near St Pauls Cathedral. This story was then juxtaposed by the equipment and training current bomb disposal units receive within the Royal Engineers and RLC.

Lord have mercy!  Whoever wrote that should be put out of our misery.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 31 August, 2016, 12:03:15 pm
A 1000 ton bomb proves that the Nazis were reverse-engineering UFO technology and makes me wonder how they ever lost the war.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wombat on 31 August, 2016, 01:03:19 pm
Must be pretty difficult to "diffuse" 1000 tons of bombiness.... it must spread over quite a wide area.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 31 August, 2016, 04:24:37 pm
was it tons or tonnes?

If it was the Germans, expect the latter being all metric and sensible etc.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 01 September, 2016, 12:38:37 am
It's not exactly a major difference. 2240 lbs or 2204.5. As long as the USsian 'ton' (called a short ton in real English, because it is) isn't meant, in which case don't go there. 907 kg IS NOT A TON!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 01 September, 2016, 08:15:58 am
Whereas tonne is pronounce "tunny" to avoid ambiguity...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 01 September, 2016, 08:20:25 am
Quote from: Daily Media round-up email
The One Show (1900):
:-\ but John Logie Baird didn't invent the distascope until 1926?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 01 September, 2016, 08:35:35 am
It's not exactly a major difference. 2240 lbs or 2204.5. As long as the USsian 'ton' (called a short ton in real English, because it is) isn't meant, in which case don't go there. 907 kg IS NOT A TON!

when you're looking at 2 million tonnes of gas a year giving around 5million tonnes of CO2 it make enough of a difference that the regulators would be passing out hefty fines for your error
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 01 September, 2016, 09:47:15 am
Aye, but given that your million is an approximation anyway you might as well say ton.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 01 September, 2016, 11:32:58 am
my "million" is not an approximation when I'm dealing with the real numbers.  It's a metered quantity to a pretty low uncertainty.  The tonne/ton issue is an error which would propagate through other calculations and is quite different.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 01 September, 2016, 12:18:05 pm
It's not exactly a major difference. 2240 lbs or 2204.5. As long as the USsian 'ton' (called a short ton in real English, because it is) isn't meant, in which case don't go there. 907 kg IS NOT A TON!

when you're looking at 2 million tonnes of gas a year giving around 5million tonnes of CO2 it make enough of a difference that the regulators would be passing out hefty fines for your error
Yes, but we weren't looking at that. Different context, different criteria.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wombat on 01 September, 2016, 12:20:40 pm
I can relate to that, ElyDave... The carbon factors I use in the Greenhouse Gas Emissions report I do annually are done to about 4 decimal places...  Luckily I've managed to largely automate the process, maybe I shouldn't have made it so easy for the person who takes over from me when my contract finishes very conveniently on 31st March.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 September, 2016, 11:08:34 am
Quote
I was well into my second decade of journalism before I found out that “enormity” is a synonym for monstrosity or wickedness – not hugeness.
I'm surprised you can go through over ten years of professional writing without knowing that. Also that someone in the same situation might not realise that order of adjectives is (more or less) set.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/13/sentence-order-adjectives-rule-elements-of-eloquence-dictionary
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 14 September, 2016, 12:18:01 pm
I didn't know (or didn't know I know) the adjective order thing (not that I'm a writer). Not that I think the 'rule' is as rigid as suggested. Nor did I know until recently that there is an underlying rule of vowel order in ablaut constructions, namely -i-, -a-, -o-, eg Bish bash bosh, tick tock, hiphop, ding-dang-dong, ping-pong, flim-flam, mish-mash etc. Though I suppose it makes sense, as the tongue moves from the front to the back of the mouth.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 September, 2016, 10:42:27 am
It also shows up in common verb patterns, ring rang rung. Though maybe that's coincidence.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 15 September, 2016, 10:59:40 am
I've just heard a TeamGB athlete refer to the "whole enormity" of the Rio experience  :o
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 15 September, 2016, 11:32:34 am
Stephen King's use of 'for awhile' is irritating in the extreme.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 15 September, 2016, 01:13:11 pm
I'm inured to It.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 15 September, 2016, 02:33:45 pm
 ;D  I'm not, It absolutely terrified me.

Mrs Legs is lying awake at night these days nights, reading Insomnia.  ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 17 September, 2016, 04:24:30 pm
I liked that book. Must read it again.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 September, 2016, 11:38:59 am
This is an exciting period for grammar
it might drive you dotty (http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/why-we-should-stop-using-full-stops-period-a7082246.html)

Gotta love "very similar to spoken speech" even if it is a proofo
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 19 September, 2016, 12:20:36 pm
- So you’re disillusioned with teaching punctuation?
- Well, I’m fed up with teaching full stop.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 19 September, 2016, 12:49:20 pm
Groan! Are you missing a comma after 'teaching'?  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 September, 2016, 11:02:52 am
Right, this one I think is actually wrong:
Quote
Not being able to eat when he chose was one of the freedoms Beard had left behind in the foolish south.

To my mind, the not contradicts the sense of the sentence. He's in Spitsbergen, he hasn't eaten all day and he has to wait till the research ship serves dinner, so the freedom he has left behind is being able to eat when he chose. But the sense is clear anyway.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Paul on 20 September, 2016, 12:47:49 pm
I think the 'Not' shouldn't be there.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 20 September, 2016, 01:19:19 pm
Yes. He is not able to eat when he chooses. He left behind the freedom to be able to eat when he chooses. You can't be free to not be able to eat when you choose. That's not a freedom, it's a constraint.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 20 September, 2016, 08:34:42 pm
from a job ad

"Focusing on Productizing Science®"

aaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhh  :sick:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SteveC on 26 September, 2016, 08:47:56 pm
Just had cause to look at a website where Every Single Word Throughout Was Capitalised Except For e mail.
(Which was spelt like that, e<space>mail).
I've now had an email from the owner and that was exactly the same.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 26 September, 2016, 10:57:56 pm
from a job ad

"Focusing on Productizing Science®"

aaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhh  :sick:

There's more than just grammar wrong with that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 01 October, 2016, 09:36:06 am
Inappropriate prepositions, various perpetrators: "assign on", "specialise on" and a bunch more I can't remember.  Literacy took a dive in 1968.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 01 October, 2016, 09:54:45 am
I think we should post this once a month, just as a reminder like.

(http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/fashion_police_and_grammar_police.png)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 01 October, 2016, 01:46:06 pm
Which is of course a load of bollocks. IDGAS about fashion.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 October, 2016, 02:06:10 pm
I hope that use of "literally" is, like, literally ironic :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 October, 2016, 10:03:38 pm
I thought virtually every post in this thread acted as a reminder. Also in the spelling thread.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 02 October, 2016, 11:07:28 am
Heh heh heh. Jo wins this thread. Actually, the best thing about this thread is watching people get angry at perceived grammatical injustices only to find themselves damned within two posts. There's no camaraderie amongst the grammar police. On slip and the icepicks will be out.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Zipperhead on 02 October, 2016, 11:58:43 am
Heh heh heh. Jo wins this thread. Actually, the best thing about this thread is watching people get angry at perceived grammatical injustices only to find themselves damned within two posts. There's no camaraderie amongst the grammar police. On slip and the icepicks will be out.

"On slip" - is that a ballet step?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 October, 2016, 01:27:57 pm
Fielding position, surely. Pulling ian up for such a slip is just not cricket.


I said up!  ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 02 October, 2016, 01:37:58 pm
Heh heh heh. Jo wins this thread. Actually, the best thing about this thread is watching people get angry at perceived grammatical injustices only to find themselves damned within two posts. There's no camaraderie amongst the grammar police. On slip and the icepicks will be out.

I thought everyone had a fridge these days.  Far too much effort to bash someone over the head with one - would a cleaver do?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 03 October, 2016, 10:44:19 pm
Auntie, on the video here http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zs8xj6f#zgxyhv4 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zs8xj6f#zgxyhv4) suggests you estimate you vocabulary by counting the 'amount of words you know'...[sic]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 10 October, 2016, 11:56:45 am
Announcements on the train. Typically along the lines of: "Passengers are reminded to keep your personal belongings with you at all times."

First it's the use of the passive[-aggressive] voice that grates. Then they follow it up by mangling their personal pronouns. It makes my skin crawl.

"Passengers, please keep your personal belongings with you at all times." Isn't that much neater and clearer?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 10 October, 2016, 12:23:21 pm
Yes but that voice comes direct from 1954 via the Time Trumpet. It's how they talked back then.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 10 October, 2016, 12:39:17 pm
Yes but that voice comes direct from 1954 via the Time Trumpet. It's how they talked back then.

They didn't constantly nag passengers with announcements every 30 seconds back in 1954.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 10 October, 2016, 01:14:33 pm
That's harsh - it's not every 30 seconds. They only make announcements once everyone has found their seats, generally calmed down, and mattC is either settling into his book or having a snooze.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 10 October, 2016, 01:31:26 pm
Announcements on the train. Typically along the lines of: "Passengers are reminded to keep your personal belongings with you at all times."

First it's the use of the passive[-aggressive] voice that grates. Then they follow it up by mangling their personal pronouns. It makes my skin crawl.

"Passengers, please keep your personal belongings with you at all times." Isn't that much neater and clearer?
the 'personal' is unnecessary too and really irritates me. What other belongings would I have with me?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 10 October, 2016, 01:34:47 pm
the 'personal' is unnecessary too and really irritates me. What other belongings would I have with me?

Depends how many people you've mugged on the way to the station
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 10 October, 2016, 01:39:56 pm
That's harsh - it's not every 30 seconds.

OK, maybe that was an exaggeration, but it also depends on what line/service you are on. The train I used to take to work was the commuter service with frequent stops and the sheer number of announcements used to drive me mad, never mind the content of those announcements.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 10 October, 2016, 02:58:25 pm
There's the the Southern tsunami of sorry. They're sorry to announce. It makes it sound more like they're sorry they have to say sorry. Less so about the train that isn't going to arrive. But when they ratchet up, it's like your brain is filling with frantically pogoing sorries. No one can be that sorry, not even the Southern sorry-bot, and that's programmed to be sorry. It only exists to be sorry. Fucking stop it. How about a generic we're sorry broadcast once a day. Preferably from their CEO in stocks and about to be pelted – again – with a sundry collection of decomposing animals and rotten vegetables.

But yes, all the rest. Don't forget your belongings, remember the platforms might be wet, watch that gap, etc. etc. If I could remember not to forget my belonging I wouldn't bloody forget them and I know things are slippy on rainy days. I live in Britain.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: LEE on 12 October, 2016, 11:28:08 pm
I'm not reading 175 pages to see if this is already posted but....


How do you comfort Grammar Fanatics?

Pat them on the head and say "There, Their, They're"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 12 October, 2016, 11:35:29 pm
I suspect that's been in NSFW'S Truly Terrible jokes' thread (most of which would be SFW in a primary school).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: tiermat on 21 October, 2016, 07:25:30 am
Last night I received an email, the subject line of which was "Notice of Termination". Makes me a) wonder just how they are going to terminate me, b)think,  isn't it a bit extreme? and c) reminds me of an old RPG called "Paranoia", whereby your character could get terminated at any, random, time, accompanied by a "Citizen, are you happy?" "Yes" "Please report for termination, immediately"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: 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):

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".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 26 October, 2016, 09:18:11 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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 26 October, 2016, 10:53:54 am
A very gentle slope from which the planes can take off...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 26 October, 2016, 11:00:41 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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: 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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 26 October, 2016, 01:10:13 pm
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!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow 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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim 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.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: 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 ...).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 04 November, 2016, 11:56:49 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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 05 November, 2016, 07:14:54 am
I thought all youth believed that that only related to them anyway, whatever you call it? ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 05 November, 2016, 01:56:14 pm
Good point.  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave 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
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 18 November, 2016, 11:36:25 pm
http://www.camdennewjournal.com/cheetah-dissection-live (http://www.camdennewjournal.com/cheetah-dissection-live)

Thankfully, it's a dead cheetah's dissection demonstrated live...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger 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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 19 November, 2016, 10:44:25 am
The snigger, not the snog.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 19 November, 2016, 10:52:58 am
Staring Dick Bogart, possibly?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow 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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H 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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: 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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec 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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 January, 2017, 08:37:04 am
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!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jakob W on 05 January, 2017, 09:05:59 am
Only it was Charlie Stross, who purports to be British; [...]

But who sells his stuff to the US, and is generally (IIRC from blog discussions over the years) copyedited by the US publisher.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 05 January, 2017, 09:59:19 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.

The OED is dragging its feet a bit. Chambers lists 5 senses for the verb:

verb (racked, racking)
1 to put something in a rack.
2 to move or adjust by rack and pinion.
3 historical to torture someone on a rack.
4 to stretch or move forcibly or excessively.
5 to cause pain or suffering to someone or something.
racked or (and usually regarded as an error) wracked adj tortured; tormented; distressed o be racked with guilt. Also in compounds o disease-racked.
on the rack
1 extremely anxious or distressed.
2 said of skill, etc: stretched to its limits.
rack one's brains to think as hard as one can, especially in order to remember something.

The cough would come under n° 5, causing pain and suffering.  NB the bit I've underlined.

Agree re wrack as alternative to wreck, but AFAIK the usage is archaic (other than among those who have recourse to the OED to paper over mistakes). ;)

Ngram of wrack, wreck (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=wrack%2C+wreck&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cwrack%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cwreck%3B%2Cc0)

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 05 January, 2017, 10:03:36 am
Only it was Charlie Stross, who purports to be British; [...]

But who sells his stuff to the US, and is generally (IIRC from blog discussions over the years) copyedited by the US publisher.

Agree again, but even in the US it's wrong (or should that be rong?)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 January, 2017, 10:34:36 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.

The OED is dragging its feet a bit. Chambers lists 5 senses for the verb:

verb (racked, racking)
1 to put something in a rack.
2 to move or adjust by rack and pinion.
3 historical to torture someone on a rack.
4 to stretch or move forcibly or excessively.
5 to cause pain or suffering to someone or something.
racked or (and usually regarded as an error) wracked adj tortured; tormented; distressed o be racked with guilt. Also in compounds o disease-racked.
on the rack
1 extremely anxious or distressed.
2 said of skill, etc: stretched to its limits.
rack one's brains to think as hard as one can, especially in order to remember something.

The cough would come under n° 5, causing pain and suffering.  NB the bit I've underlined.

Agree re wrack as alternative to wreck, but AFAIK the usage is archaic (other than among those who have recourse to the OED to paper over mistakes). ;)

Ngram of wrack, wreck (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=wrack%2C+wreck&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cwrack%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cwreck%3B%2Cc0)
Splitters and lumpers. Chambers' 4 and 5 seem to be subsets of 3. Alternatively, the OED is defining too coarsely.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 05 January, 2017, 10:54:27 am
More like blinkered. I only learnt rack in the sense of decant when I started making wine, back in the 70s - I'd call that technical vocab or even trade jargon, on a par with sparge,* travish, rebate etc.

*come back Rambling Sid.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Torslanda on 05 January, 2017, 11:33:34 am
<Rambling Sid Rumpo> "Well Oi tether me nadgers to a grouting pole, for the old grey mare is grunging in the meadow"

<Kenneth Horne> "...Better there than here!"  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 05 January, 2017, 01:57:21 pm
"If Oi 'ad me time to live over again
Oi would lunge all the women and scrope all the men."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 05 January, 2017, 07:57:47 pm
Someone on my Twitterfeed was ranting about a 'wreckless cyclist'.
I don't think they meant one with a pristine bike...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 January, 2017, 08:13:19 pm
One of my bikes is rackless. That doesn't mean the other is wracked.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 05 January, 2017, 10:20:02 pm
Someone on my Twitterfeed was ranting about a 'wreckless cyclist'.
I don't think they meant one with a pristine bike...

Was he called Eric?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 06 January, 2017, 08:13:40 am
One of my bikes is rackless. That doesn't mean the other is wracked.

But is it longer, though?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jock Stewart on 07 January, 2017, 04:47:33 pm
English RP is the forced and grating imposition of a Germanic structure onto an Anglo Saxon Language by the Saxe-Coburg Gothas. The forced poshness of it gets on my tits.

It became (even more) political when the Posh English tried to make us Scots stop talking Gaelic and putting down anyone with a a Scottish accent.

#Ref: Lewis Grassic Gibbon's A Scots Quair, and Hugh MacDiarmid.

RP is a foundation on which English snobbishness is built, which is a virus in holding back talent in this country.

This is why I support diversity in accents and in written British language forms. I'm proud of my Broad Glasgow accent, and of writing in that vernacular.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: LittleWheelsandBig on 07 January, 2017, 05:18:39 pm
Just talk slowly when in a conversation, otherwise some of us might have no idea what you're saying.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 07 January, 2017, 06:06:00 pm
RP may grate with Jock. I find it a useful way to entice phone droids to do my bidding with minimal effort.
I had an unhappy time in Glasgow and it is unfortunate that the accent serves as a reminder.
Like it or not, RP is more universally understood than some local variants. I happen to do these with ease but many don't.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 07 January, 2017, 10:36:44 pm
English RP is the forced and grating imposition of a Germanic structure onto an Anglo Saxon Language by the Saxe-Coburg Gothas.
I'm afraid this confuses me. What does pronunciation have to do with the  structure of a language? Different things, surely? And Anglo-Saxon is Germanic - more Germanic than modern English, RP or not, with its huge French vocabulary acquired via Anglo-Norman, loss of most case endings, etc.

BTW, I don't think that RP sounds at all German.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 07 January, 2017, 11:21:12 pm
Depends if it's enunciated by Gisela Stewart...

Many of my early memories are from various German-born aunts and their English (and German was my mother's first language) but I don't think my English is usually particularly German. I can lapse into a German accent totally effortlessly though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 10 January, 2017, 10:05:51 am
Don't know where Jock got that idea about RP from. It basically evolved out of a Midlands accent from the late middle ages. It's got nothing to do with the introduction of a German speaking Royal Family in the 18th Century.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 10 January, 2017, 10:17:24 am
RP may grate with Jock. I find it a useful way to entice phone droids to do my bidding with minimal effort.
I had an unhappy time in Glasgow and it is unfortunate that the accent serves as a reminder.
Like it or not, RP is more universally understood than some local variants. I happen to do these with ease but many don't.

Very true. (although I haven't yet had any bad times in Glasgow, and my colleague across the aisle is a delight, despite his rather strong Glaswegian!)

There are some "poshos" that speak in odd ways, like the "Air Hair Lair" accent. That's not RP.

[Hang on - isn't there a seprate thread for Pronunciations that Grate or similar? ]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 10 January, 2017, 10:34:20 am
Jock may like this (https://sco.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you CACKLE
Post by: T42 on 16 January, 2017, 09:43:37 am
From an Italian hotel brochure:

(http://www.pbase.com/image/164844254.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 16 January, 2017, 10:38:21 am
That scannable digital thingy really is a crime against good taste - totally ruins quite a nice advert.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 13 February, 2017, 03:30:37 pm
Quote
Fenland Council fails the dating game test as FOUR times Chatteris firm planning incentivised switch to Alconbury snubs corporate director Gary Garford

I have read this headline several times now and I don't have a bloody clue what they're on about. It has however, completely disincentivised me from clicking on the link and reading the story.

http://www.elystandard.co.uk/news/fenland_council_fails_the_dating_game_test_as_four_times_chatteris_firm_planning_incentivised_switch_to_alconbury_snubs_corporate_director_gary_garford_1_4888686 (http://www.elystandard.co.uk/news/fenland_council_fails_the_dating_game_test_as_four_times_chatteris_firm_planning_incentivised_switch_to_alconbury_snubs_corporate_director_gary_garford_1_4888686)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 February, 2017, 03:34:11 pm
Ely Standard in punctuation crisis help i am the editor of the ely standard a local newspaper from ely in cambridgeshire and someone has stolen all my commas full stops question marks exclamation marks and all other punctuation now we cant make sense of the long strings of words we write like this can you tell where this begins and ends no neither can i please help me thank you
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 17 February, 2017, 11:11:38 am
Fellow called Simon Winstanley (note the built-in wince) doesn't know that the past tense of may is might.  That wouldn't much matter if he didn't write books, and even then it wouldn't matter if they weren't published.  And their being published wouldn't matter if Mrs T hadn't bought me a couple for me burfdy.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 17 February, 2017, 11:43:21 am
Quote
Fenland Council fails the dating game test as FOUR times Chatteris firm planning incentivised switch to Alconbury snubs corporate director Gary Garford

I have read this headline several times now and I don't have a bloody clue what they're on about. It has however, completely disincentivised me from clicking on the link and reading the story.

The 'four times' and 'as' have been transposed - swap them over and it makes marginally more sense, but it's still an awfully clunky headline.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 17 February, 2017, 01:41:19 pm
Learn me on "subject X"
School me on "subject X"

This seems to be particularly prevalent amongst our American cousins. Why they can't use "teach me about" or "educate me about" I do not know.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 17 February, 2017, 02:13:55 pm
There are some corkers in this push poll (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push_poll) from our favourite tiny-handed orange man-child:

https://action.donaldjtrump.com/mainstream-media-accountability-survey/

The questions are embarrassingly clumsy attempts to manipulate as well as challenging to parse. I especially like this question:

Quote
Do you believe that contrary to what the media says, raising taxes does not create jobs?

[] Yes
[] No
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ruthie on 17 February, 2017, 06:34:14 pm
http://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/15096982.Update__Girl_who_collapsed_in_market_town_remains_critical_as_3_quizzed_by_police/?ref=ebmpn

"Girl remains critical".

She's lying in her hospital bed criticising everyone and everything, and there's nothing they can do to stop her.

Unless she's critically ill, which is something else.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Julian on 17 February, 2017, 07:13:40 pm
"I am applying to [your chambers] as it would provide me with an opportunity to engage further in drugs supply and gang crime."

;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pichy on 17 February, 2017, 08:00:18 pm
My pet hate...

the "10 items or less" signs in my local Sainsbury's.   >:(

I've been known to carry a marker pen around and correct them...  ;D
May I direct you to this? http://bbc.in/2cVOlR5


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 17 February, 2017, 08:31:53 pm
I can't get used to all the things that are being appealed these days.

In this country, you appeal against things.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 17 February, 2017, 08:33:56 pm
You protest against them as well.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 17 February, 2017, 08:42:59 pm
+1
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 20 February, 2017, 08:19:29 am
"With a soap-bar-like design, models within the RX100 line have long been slated for their lacklustre handling, to the extent that many have chosen to lop on third-party grips."

- DigitalRev

OK, they're from Honkers, it's not their first language.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 20 February, 2017, 12:21:32 pm
"I am applying to [your chambers] as it would provide me with an opportunity to engage further in drugs supply and gang crime."

;D
:facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 21 February, 2017, 03:54:31 pm
In the trailer of 13 Minutes, about a 1939 attempt to kill Hitler:

"Wir grüßen unseren Führer mit einem dreifachen Sieg Heil - Sieg Heil - Sieg Heil"

translated in subtitles as

"We welcome the Führer with three cheers".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 21 February, 2017, 09:49:47 pm
Hehehe.  Reminds me of some documentary about Russia back in the early 90s.  A woman was asked where she came from.  She replied 'vagina' (well, a less polite term).  The dubbed translation was "I come from my mother".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: meddyg on 22 February, 2017, 10:05:33 pm
Quote
Fenland Council fails the dating game test as FOUR times Chatteris firm planning incentivised switch to Alconbury snubs corporate director Gary Garford

Clearly this arrived as a telegram and recipient has to add punctuation STOP
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 22 February, 2017, 10:24:45 pm
Quote
Fenland Council fails the dating game test as FOUR times Chatteris firm planning incentivised switch to Alconbury snubs corporate director Gary Garford

I have read this headline several times now and I don't have a bloody clue what they're on about. It has however, completely disincentivised me from clicking on the link and reading the story.

http://www.elystandard.co.uk/news/fenland_council_fails_the_dating_game_test_as_four_times_chatteris_firm_planning_incentivised_switch_to_alconbury_snubs_corporate_director_gary_garford_1_4888686 (http://www.elystandard.co.uk/news/fenland_council_fails_the_dating_game_test_as_four_times_chatteris_firm_planning_incentivised_switch_to_alconbury_snubs_corporate_director_gary_garford_1_4888686)

I think it could be summed up as "For what is Chatteris without you in it?". Thusly (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY2aHxWV1xE)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 24 February, 2017, 12:59:02 am
Just had this in my Twitterfeed.
Site of collision is around 400 metres from here.
I fear violent traffic signals!

Quote
A5 Burnt Oak Broadway / Stag Lane - Reports of a road traffic collision in which traffic signals also struck.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 24 February, 2017, 08:09:08 am
Weatherperson this morning used the word "hardly" as the opposite of "softly". As in "... it will be raining hardly"  ::-)
English is quite complicated, isn't it?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 24 February, 2017, 09:56:56 am
I expect they were being post-modern and ironic in aping the SCROTUS' apparent use of "bigly".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: meddyg on 25 February, 2017, 07:18:15 pm
(https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/397/33070719016_0e234d35be_k.jpg)

I didn't deserve this - we were innocently cycling by on Route 4 between Llanelli and Burry Port
Pwll Rugby Club is next to the cafe when we called for urgent re-caffeination.....
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 26 February, 2017, 05:12:22 pm
The idiots responsible for the Jesusphone 7 advertising-announcement ITV have just screened have committed the #1 Romeo & Juliet-related language crime viz. taken "wherefore" to be a long-winded way of saying "where".  i diskard them.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 26 February, 2017, 09:32:45 pm
Ignorance is piss!
Title: Re: Grammar wot makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 27 February, 2017, 08:12:59 am
Suggested change of title
Title: Re: Grammar wot makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 27 February, 2017, 08:38:36 am
Suggested change of title

Drop the 's' from makes. ;)
Title: Re: Grammar wot make's you cringe
Post by: T42 on 27 February, 2017, 12:53:43 pm
Or... ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 01 March, 2017, 03:41:36 pm
Someone in the local Freegle group is offering a sewing machine that 'can only do one stitch'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 01 March, 2017, 09:06:32 pm
The idiots responsible for the Jesusphone 7 advertising-announcement ITV have just screened have committed the #1 Romeo & Juliet-related language crime viz. taken "wherefore" to be a long-winded way of saying "where".  i diskard them.

Ha!

I once went though an entire report I was editing for someone and corrected every instance of "outwith" not realising at that time that it was a real Scottish word.  The company was in Fife.  My excuse is I was still young.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 02 March, 2017, 09:22:03 am
We've just received the following in the Introductions thread in another place I go to. It's so wrong on so may levels, where does one start?

Quote
Hello everyone

I am a professional writer. Still I am working in a reputed writing company. We offer UK dissertation writing service, dissertation proposal writing service etc for students who have no idea about the writing rules and formatting. I am one among the trained professional writer and I used to read books and stay updated about the trends and changes in the writer's world.

best regards
steve smith

I don't know whether to  ;D,  :( or  :sick:

Whichever, it's all one big  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 02 March, 2017, 10:25:49 am
Several times recently, I have heard the phrase "on a regular basis" being modified for emphasis, eg "on an extremely regular basis".

Now, I hate the phrase to start with - not only is it unnecessarily verbose*, it doesn't mean what people think it means.

Christmas happens "on an extremely regular basis". Halley's comet passes by the Earth "on an extremely regular basis".

If you mean "very often", why not say "very often"?

I am trying hard not to lose any sleep over this unimportant matter.


*ETA: yes, I know - verbosity implies lack of necessity
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: meddyg on 02 March, 2017, 11:25:20 am
Quote
Hello everyone

I am a professional writer. Still I am working in a reputed writing company. We offer UK dissertation writing service, dissertation proposal writing service etc for students who have no idea about the writing rules and formatting. I am one among the trained professional writer and I used to read books and stay updated about the trends and changes in the writer's world.

best regards
steve smith

You have brightened my day !
As a full time grammar Nazi, I will now enjoy sharing this with my long-suffering family.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 02 March, 2017, 11:27:37 am
Quote
Hello everyone

I am a professional writer. Still I am working in a reputed writing company. We offer UK dissertation writing service, dissertation proposal writing service etc for students who have no idea about the writing rules and formatting. I am one among the trained professional writer and I used to read books and stay updated about the trends and changes in the writer's world.

best regards
steve smith

You have brightened my day !
As a full time grammar Nazi, I will now enjoy sharing this with my long-suffering family.

I ARE NOT A ROBOT. I ARE NOT A ROBOT. I ARE NOT A ROBOT. I ARE NOT A ROBOT.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 02 March, 2017, 12:02:26 pm
"I used to read books"

Priceless.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 02 March, 2017, 12:26:38 pm
'I am still writing in a reputed writing company...'

Reputed to be a writing company; I am left to speculate about other rôles.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 02 March, 2017, 01:01:46 pm
"We offer UK dissertation writing service, dissertation proposal writing service etc for students who have no idea about the writing rules and formatting"

A clear case of the blind leading the blind

"I am one among the trained professional writer.."

Ye-e-es [/Paxman]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 02 March, 2017, 02:03:37 pm
"I used to read books"

Priceless.

Reminds me of Mr. Heslop in Porridge. "I read a book once. Green it was."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jasmine on 02 March, 2017, 04:30:51 pm
Several times recently, I have heard the phrase "on a regular basis" being modified for emphasis, eg "on an extremely regular basis".

Now, I hate the phrase to start with - not only is it unnecessarily verbose*, it doesn't mean what people think it means.

Christmas happens "on an extremely regular basis". Halley's comet passes by the Earth "on an extremely regular basis".

If you mean "very often", why not say "very often"?

I am trying hard not to lose any sleep over this unimportant matter.


*ETA: yes, I know - verbosity implies lack of necessity

Ah yes.  Regular vs frequent. I am always surprised at how many people think these are interchangeable. 

My current cringe is 'myself' when used in the place of 'me'.  For example, "If you have further queries, please do not hesitate to contact myself," or "The people responsible are John and myself."  A few people at work use it, presumably because they think it is more formal.  :'(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 02 March, 2017, 04:41:09 pm
Ah yes.  Regular vs frequent. I am always surprised at how many people think these are interchangeable. 

As a general principle, I don't have a problem with words changing their meaning. I know that English is not a dead language.

However, two things bother me about it. First, we already have a word that means frequent. Second, we no longer have a word that means regular.

It's inefficient use of language. Doubleplusungood.

See also: precise vs accurate
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 02 March, 2017, 04:58:02 pm

don't get me started on precise vs accurate vs uncertainty vs repeatability.  All metering terms that some of my clients sprinkle liberally about a conversation without understanding
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 March, 2017, 05:23:19 pm
Myself, yourself, etc as false formalities really grate on me, although this is really just a matter of style. Their misuse doesn't actually lose any meaning, unlike regular/frequent.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 02 March, 2017, 05:48:38 pm
Ah yes.  Regular vs frequent. I am always surprised at how many people think these are interchangeable. 

As a general principle, I don't have a problem with words changing their meaning. I know that English is not a dead language.

However, two things bother me about it. First, we already have a word that means frequent. Second, we no longer have a word that means regular.

It's inefficient use of language. Doubleplusungood.

See also: precise vs accurate
Yeah, like deny & refute.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 02 March, 2017, 06:02:12 pm
Myself, yourself, etc as false formalities really grate on me, although this is really just a matter of style.

They're the grammatical equivalent of pointy shoes on a mistake agent.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 02 March, 2017, 06:50:43 pm
I'm not so sure precise / accurate represent a grammatical problem as such. In common useage when someone agrees with a point by exclaiming "precisely!", I think it implies they agree with its accuracy as much as its precision. But that is well established meaning and not particularly ambiguous.

In a more technical sense way too many people assume precision is a good substitute for accuracy (or at least I am 99.9% sure). I work with many engineers and they are often (68.4% of the time) the worst culprits. I think because they work so often with things where precision does reflect accuracy they forget that in most matters this is not possible.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 02 March, 2017, 09:16:36 pm
Well, precision is a bit pointless without accuracy1 but it's still quite a good idea to remember the difference. I currently work in a field where 10 or 12 digit precision is normal, and our calculations are required to be repeatable to that level, which I find hilarious2 given that the underlying data is based on vague notions of what may or may not happen over the next ten or 25 years.



1"The train will arrive at approximately 08:11"; "Give way in 274 metres"; etc.
2My old physics teacher would have put that rather more strongly.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 02 March, 2017, 09:27:31 pm
My main problem is environmentalists that get involved in techy stuff, rather than leaving it to engineers.

The tend to conflate uncertainty i.e. +/- 2.5% with 95% confidence vs accurate to 2.5% or accurate to  1 m/s. And then we get into error vs uncertainty and I make their heads explode
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 02 March, 2017, 10:30:10 pm
I recall that railway stations in Sri Lanka used to (still do?) have their height above sea level given on signs - in exact multiples of 3.05 metres.  :facepalm:

Rather more precise than accurate, eh?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 03 March, 2017, 07:53:25 am
Myself, yourself, etc as false formalities really grate on me, although this is really just a matter of style. Their misuse doesn't actually lose any meaning, unlike regular/frequent.

I wonder to what extent this usage isn't the result of lousy VOIP/cellphone quality. The "me" of e.g. "John and me" could well be swallowed up or fizzed over, whereas "myself" has a much better chance of being understood.

I suspect it's just affectation, though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 03 March, 2017, 08:06:54 am
There is a world of difference in the meanings of "disinterested" and "uninterested".

Dolts who get this wrong should be tied to a plank, have their shoes and socks removed and the soles of their feet coated with salt, and then laid down in an enclosure containing goats.

gets on my tits
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 03 March, 2017, 10:19:58 am
In a previous role which involved managing changes to industry codes, a constant struggle was getting people to understand the difference between a vote of "Neutral" and "No Interest".  In our context, they were most definitely not the same thing.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 03 March, 2017, 11:31:46 am
Dunno about cringe. This, from another place, made I point and larffe

Quote
Maybe it's the historian and general heritage nutter in me but I always feel loathed to criticise money being spent on buildings which are of national importance...
;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 03 March, 2017, 11:43:51 am
Dunno about cringe. This, from another place, made I point and larffe

Quote
Maybe it's the historian and general heritage nutter in me but I always feel loathed to criticise money being spent on buildings which are of national importance...
;D
;D
In fairness, 'loath' is a very peculiar word.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 03 March, 2017, 11:57:04 am
There is a world of difference in the meanings of "disinterested" and "uninterested".

Dolts who get this wrong should be tied to a plank, have their shoes and socks removed and the soles of their feet coated with salt, and then laid down in an enclosure containing goats.

gets on my tits

I hesitate to call you a Canute, but I think that battle is lost. You're going to need a lot of planks, salt, and goats. (It's so prevalent that I was struck when I heard rugby commentator Brian Moore used it - 'disinterested'- in the traditional way yesterday when talking about the next Wales/Ireland game).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 03 March, 2017, 12:07:03 pm
I hesitate to call you a Canute, but I think that battle is lost.

I'd agree. Again, it's a shame to lose a useful distinction, but in most contexts it's clear that people mean uninterested when they say disinterested so I let it slide.

I'm just shocked to hear an example of a subject on which Brian Moore is not totally ignorant.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 03 March, 2017, 12:23:54 pm
I hesitate to call you a Canute, but I think that battle is lost.

Not until the last fighter falls or submits, it isn't.

I will continue to wake the entire pub up by shouting at the telly every time I hear it. You never know, it might educate some of the morons who walk in and ask the landord "Can I get..." (but that's a whole other grammatical rant)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 03 March, 2017, 12:24:19 pm
I hesitate to call you a Canute, but [...]

As we're all sitting comfortably in pedants' corner, may I suggest that Canute's fable wasn't about an act of hubris, but rather a demonstration to his courtiers of his humility in his powerlessness to stop the tide?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 03 March, 2017, 12:35:57 pm
I hesitate to call you a Canute, but [...]

As we're all sitting comfortably in pedants' corner, may I suggest that Canute's fable wasn't about an act of hubris, but rather a demonstration to his courtiers of his humility in his powerlessness to stop the tide?

Indeed. Whereas I am convinced of the rightness of my cause, and I will prevail*





*Yeah, right.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: offcumden on 03 March, 2017, 12:41:54 pm
On the side of a window-installer's van:
"Every panes a pleasure"

Well-respected local firm; well-respected for their windows, that is.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 03 March, 2017, 12:56:27 pm
Myself, yourself, etc as false formalities really grate on me, although this is really just a matter of style. Their misuse doesn't actually lose any meaning, unlike regular/frequent.

Quote from: Cabin Pressure
ARTHUR: Yeah, will do. Er, but first, can myself draw yourself’s kindly attention to the sign that the captain has kindly en-illuminated in regard to the fastenation of your seatbelt during the current highly-unlikely event of turbulence?
MR. BIRLING: What?
ARTHUR: Could you do your seatbelt up?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 03 March, 2017, 10:38:48 pm
Myself, yourself, etc as false formalities really grate on me, although this is really just a matter of style. Their misuse doesn't actually lose any meaning, unlike regular/frequent.

Quote from: Cabin Pressure
ARTHUR: Yeah, will do. Er, but first, can myself draw yourself’s kindly attention to the sign that the captain has kindly en-illuminated in regard to the fastenation of your seatbelt during the current highly-unlikely event of turbulence?
MR. BIRLING: What?
ARTHUR: Could you do your seatbelt up?

I thought of that too.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 March, 2017, 12:44:24 pm
Quote
Blanchett, who also a vocal critic of President Donald Trump, has long been an advocate for sexism in Hollywood
Quote
Appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Blanchett was asked where her so-called “moral compass” lied.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/cate-blancett-moral-compass-vagina-the-present-a7618501.html
I don't know much about Cate Blanchett, perhaps she actually is an advocate for sexism? The idea of a moral compass that lies is worth exploring too.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 09 March, 2017, 12:46:36 pm
The idea of a moral compass that lies is worth exploring too.
I think we should get Philip Pullman on the case. I'm imagining a sort of alethiometer with attitude.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 16 March, 2017, 08:04:22 am
Usage grumble re 'liberal':

US: left-wing
UK: centrist with a tinge of leftiness
France: right-wing laissez-faire capitalist

But this morning, Graun describes Rutte's bunch as centre-right liberal, while France Info calls them right-wing liberal.

What's a chap to think?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: PhilO on 16 March, 2017, 08:57:41 am
That they mean 'right wing libertarian'?    ???

To my mind, 'liberal' can never go in the same sentence as 'right wing'. Apart from in that sentence, obviously!  ;)

Not that it's grammar.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Paul on 16 March, 2017, 03:37:51 pm
"... sprung a shock" (from the Law Society Gazette (https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/law/pi-discount-rate-u-turn-fear/5060091.article)).

Shouldn't it be "sprang"? I'm girding my loins in case I'm wrong (The Gazette has form for using "sprung" in the past tense).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 16 March, 2017, 03:39:08 pm
Perhaps it's legalese? :P
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 16 March, 2017, 04:39:19 pm
That they mean 'right wing libertarian'?    ???

To my mind, 'liberal' can never go in the same sentence as 'right wing'. Apart from in that sentence, obviously!  ;)

Not that it's grammar.
unless it's neo-liberal, of course ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: spesh on 16 March, 2017, 06:27:29 pm
I'll just leave this here - the tale of a dispute about overtime pay that revolves around the usage of the humble comma...

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/15/health/oxford-comma-maine-court-case-trnd/index.html
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 16 March, 2017, 10:50:06 pm
Eh? I'm not sure I follow the argument, even in US English. It's a list. You need a conjunction before the last item in a list. Since there's no conjunction before the penultimate verbal noun, but there is one before the ultimate one, those two are separate ideas in the list, with or without an Oxford comma.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jakob W on 18 March, 2017, 08:34:35 pm
'or' is a conjunction though, isn't it? I had to read the story twice before I understood the ambiguity, but I'd have sided with the judge...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 19 March, 2017, 12:10:07 am
Yes, but it's the place that "or" has in the list that is telling. A list is built up of A B C D conjunction E (I've left out all commas to avoid for the moment the Oxford issue).

If it's a complex list, you get conjunctions inside some or all of the possibilities too. In other words, any of A-E might be replaced by either "G or H" or maybe "I and J". For example, when some of the guests invited to a party were couples:

John, Mark and Sally, Liz, Jane and Peter,...

However, that doesn't alter the need for a conjunction between the last two list items. So, if the final guests were Dan and Mary:

John, Mark and Sally, Liz, Jane and Peter, and Dan and Mary.

In the article in question, the only conjunction occurs before distribution. Therefore:
To avoid this conclusion, you'd need another conjunction preceding shipment. The Oxford comma debate is secondary and, in this instance, a distraction in my view.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 19 March, 2017, 09:38:26 am
It boils down to the difference between:

A. packing for [shipment or distribution]

B. [packing for shipment], or distribution

A. implies that packing is the only activity covered, B. defines packing and distribution as two activities.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 19 March, 2017, 01:51:10 pm
But then (A) you need a conjunction before packing.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 19 March, 2017, 02:51:53 pm
Repeated 'cos I'm fed up going back a page to look:

"The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of [stuff]"

But then (A) you need a conjunction before packing.

Yes you do; but if you put one in you'd need to precede it by an Oxford comma to avoid shifting the ambiguity back a notch (or creating a second ambiguity).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 19 March, 2017, 04:14:37 pm
Agreed. However, your possibility A is precluded by the absence of the preceding conjunction.

I sense that this is getting boring :-[
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 20 March, 2017, 12:43:38 am
Doesn't the resolution essentially boil down to the judge deciding it was boring, declaring it ambiguous (in other words, he couldn't be arsed deciding between two sets of grammar pedants), and following the principle that ambiguity should be interpreted in favour of the weaker party to the contract, in this case the employees?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 20 March, 2017, 07:05:38 am
Doesn't the resolution essentially boil down to the judge deciding it was boring, declaring it ambiguous (in other words, he couldn't be arsed deciding between two sets of grammar pedants), and following the principle that ambiguity should be interpreted in favour of the weaker party to the contract, in this case the employees?

That was the essence of the judgement as I read it, it could be argued either way, so benefit of the doubt went to the drivers
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 20 March, 2017, 09:41:31 am
Gerunds, people!

For the drivers to be covered by this clause, it would have to be distributing, in line with the other activities in the list, Oxford comma or no.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 20 March, 2017, 09:43:44 am
Gerunds, people!

For the drivers to be covered by this clause, it would have to be distributing, in line with the other activities in the list, Oxford comma or no.

You're on fire today Clarrers.  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 20 March, 2017, 01:06:56 pm
(http://mrcweb.org.uk/mrc2015/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Molesworth-gerund-cut.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 20 March, 2017, 01:33:56 pm
Surely that is Kennedy Discovering the Gerund, and leading it into captivity.

HTH ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 March, 2017, 02:34:15 pm
It's a list not a sentence. It works perfectly well without a final conjunction, therefore the presence of the final conjunction changes the meaning.

a) The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of [stuff]

b) The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment, distribution of [stuff]

That's the logic the judge seems to have followed, and it makes sense to me. Other logics might make sense too.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 21 March, 2017, 09:45:07 am
Not me, but Dez . He is preparing stuff for webcasts in French. It seems that it is a thing in France that a space is placed before punctuation . I have never heard of this before . Is it normal ? Or just this particular client ?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 21 March, 2017, 04:01:23 pm
Never seen that before, & not according to French government websites - http://www.interieur.gouv.fr/ (http://www.interieur.gouv.fr/). All exactly the same as in English, i.e. no spaces before commas, full stops etc.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: spesh on 21 March, 2017, 10:29:10 pm
One of the dictionary definitions of "best" is as a transitive verb, though the usage tends to be colloquial/informal.

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/best
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/best
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 22 March, 2017, 09:18:58 am
Not me, but Dez . He is preparing stuff for webcasts in French. It seems that it is a thing in France that a space is placed before punctuation . I have never heard of this before . Is it normal ? Or just this particular client ?

My understanding is that colons, semicolons, question and exclamation marks take a leading space and the rest don't.  However, the waters have been muddied by computerized text-presentation algorithms, which were all written with English rules in mind and will quite happily insert a line break in the space preceding an exclamation mark, yielding something like this
!

I think the leading space will die out in time, but linguistic conventions are remarkably long-lived in France, where even the spelling-mistakes in the Académie Française's dictionary were taught as gospel until quite recently.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 22 March, 2017, 09:23:54 am
There again, the rest of the sentence is hardly better grammar.

'Most Hot' is an unfortunate conjunction.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 22 March, 2017, 09:29:19 am
One that makes me blench is intuit.  I considered it a nasty back-formation from intuition, yet looking it up yields a first recorded date of 1655.  Taking an ngram  (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=intuit%2Cintuition&year_start=1800&year_end=2016&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cintuit%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cintuition%3B%2Cc0)of it, however, reveals that it has only recently begun to proliferate, so I would place it in the category of nasty back-formations perpetuated in error and beginning to flourish in the garden of careless Internet English.

And anyway, every time I read it I try to think of 64 words for snow.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 22 March, 2017, 09:32:30 am
And anyway, every time I read it I try to think of 64 words for snow.

 ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 22 March, 2017, 11:13:28 am
And anyway, every time I read it I try to think of 64 words for snow.

 ;D
:thumbsup:

I had to read it twice because of that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 March, 2017, 04:19:03 pm
I know we have done making verbs out of other words before but this made me cringe: Nicki Minaj Bests Aretha Franklin for Most Hot 100 Hits By Female Artist (http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/nicki-minaj-bests-aretha-franklin-for-most-hot-100-hits-w473028). It could have been written Nicki Minaj beats Aretha or Nicki Minaj surpasses Aretha and made more sense. There again, the rest of the sentence is hardly better grammar.

If you follow the link, be aware that the photo may not be entirely appropriate at work, although I thought her microphone was the most offensive item on display.

The real question on everyone's lips, though, is not whether "best" is an appropriate word in the context but rather "who the hell is Nicki Minaj?"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 23 March, 2017, 09:37:22 am
Not me, but Dez . He is preparing stuff for webcasts in French. It seems that it is a thing in France that a space is placed before punctuation . I have never heard of this before . Is it normal ? Or just this particular client ?

My previous companies house style on reports was a double space after a full stop.  Nobody could explain why.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 23 March, 2017, 09:42:54 am
And no apostrophes? ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 March, 2017, 10:17:43 am
Not me, but Dez . He is preparing stuff for webcasts in French. It seems that it is a thing in France that a space is placed before punctuation . I have never heard of this before . Is it normal ? Or just this particular client ?

My previous companies house style on reports was a double space after a full stop.  Nobody could explain why.
A company I work for has the same rule. I haven't even asked them why, as I doubt there is a reason beyond "it's our rule" and in any case, it's fairly easy to comply with.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 23 March, 2017, 10:26:44 am
When I typed up a short story for submission in the 60s the standard (they said) was double line spacing, two spaces after a colon or semicolon, and three after a full stop.  They said it made proof-reading and marking-up easier.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 23 March, 2017, 10:34:43 am
It's old skool, man, that emphatic double bang on the space bar.  This sentence is DONE. There ain't no going back on a typewriter*.  So you got to make space. Move on.  Ain't nuthin' more to see. 

*archaic mechanical device for putting words onto paper.  Forced you to think before you wrote.  Then came the internet to casually reverse that.  Now people write and then think.  Thinking will eventually become vestigial. A million monkeys might not write the works Shakespeare (they've done a cracking rewrite of Cymbeline though), but they've no competition on Twitter. 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 23 March, 2017, 11:02:08 am
When I typed up a short story for submission in the 60s the standard (they said) was double line spacing, two spaces after a colon or semicolon, and three after a full stop.  They said it made proof-reading and marking-up easier.
Back in the days when you put proofreading marks on a typescript with a red pen or pencil, using the spaces between the lines. Not much point when the software shuffles things up for you & records all your changes, with you able to choose where it shows them.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 23 March, 2017, 11:27:51 am
As a tiny Mr Larrington I was taught that full stops require more space after them than mere commas, colons or their ilk.  Thus when transitioning to a keyboard I have always used a double space.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 23 March, 2017, 11:29:06 am
Two spaces after a full stop is normal, isn't it?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SteveC on 23 March, 2017, 11:37:57 am
My previous companies house style on reports was a double space after a full stop.  Nobody could explain why.
That was standard for typewriters. It makes sense with monospaced typewriter fonts.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 23 March, 2017, 11:50:25 am
But you don't need to do it any longer. Unless you're using a typewriter to somehow interface with the internet. They should do this for Trump, those pudgy little hands could no way hammer a testy Olympia into submission.

Of course, the only true way to record information is to paint an area of Tipp-Ex1 and then scratch your words into it with the pointy end of a compass2.

1schoolyard hallucinogen, your honour.
2device for drawing circles, schoolyard tattoos (c.f. Parker Ink), and minimally offensive weapon.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 23 March, 2017, 01:01:35 pm
Of course, the only true way to record information is to paint an area of Tipp-Ex and then scratch your words into it with the pointy end of a compass.

Hellish difficult to get that stuff off the display once you'd finished with Wordstar for the day.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 23 March, 2017, 01:35:48 pm
Not me, but Dez . He is preparing stuff for webcasts in French. It seems that it is a thing in France that a space is placed before punctuation . I have never heard of this before . Is it normal ? Or just this particular client ?

My previous companies house style on reports was a double space after a full stop.  Nobody could explain why.

This was standard practice for typists on manual keyboards in days of yore.

I see others concur.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 23 March, 2017, 01:42:09 pm
Not me, but Dez . He is preparing stuff for webcasts in French. It seems that it is a thing in France that a space is placed before punctuation . I have never heard of this before . Is it normal ? Or just this particular client ?

My previous companies house style on reports was a double space after a full stop.  Nobody could explain why.

This was standard practice for typists on manual keyboards in days of yore.

I see others concur.

I think the last time I used a trypewriter in anger was as a penniless pre-student oaf doing some after school clerical work.  Word processing by 286 with a whole 4MB RAM was de-rigeur even by my penniless-student oaf days. 

Which then led to one professor demanding all work in 14 font double spaced, mainly on account of his bottle top glasses.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jakob W on 23 March, 2017, 02:07:25 pm
Not me, but Dez . He is preparing stuff for webcasts in French. It seems that it is a thing in France that a space is placed before punctuation . I have never heard of this before . Is it normal ? Or just this particular client ?

My previous companies house style on reports was a double space after a full stop.  Nobody could explain why.

Because typewriters is the canonical response; typists were taught​ to leave two spaces at the end of a sentence beacuse it supposedly makes it easier to distinguish the end of a sentence in a monospaced face.

Edit: oops, missed that there was another page of people giving the same answer...

(AIUI it's not simply a typewriters vs typographers issue; certain printers had a house style of larger spaces at the end of sentences even before typewriters were invented, and conversely not all typewriter style manuals insisted on double spaced, but enough did that it became engrained.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 23 March, 2017, 02:21:32 pm
Not me, but Dez . He is preparing stuff for webcasts in French. It seems that it is a thing in France that a space is placed before punctuation . I have never heard of this before . Is it normal ? Or just this particular client ?

My previous companies house style on reports was a double space after a full stop.  Nobody could explain why.

I tend to do that.  I spend half my life in monospaced fonts, where it adds a small amount of clarity.

The space before punctuation thing is just weird though .  Dr Biggles does it .  It looks awful !

(There's no point in asking him why.  He's a philistine who uses a wireless keyboard that drops characters at normal typing speed, and thinks AOL are a good ISP.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 23 March, 2017, 02:54:40 pm
Not me, but Dez . He is preparing stuff for webcasts in French. It seems that it is a thing in France that a space is placed before punctuation . I have never heard of this before . Is it normal ? Or just this particular client ?

My previous companies house style on reports was a double space after a full stop.  Nobody could explain why.

This was standard practice for typists on manual keyboards in days of yore.

I see others concur.
Yep.

Those of us who learned to use a keyboard in an IT job 35 years ago never learned such rules, because they weren't relevant.

It was still used by people preparing documents which needed proofreading, because that was done manually for some years after word processors were invented, until the software could do it properly. I proofread manuals for software I was helping to write, back in the 1980s. I do it for a living now, but none of my colleagues know the old proofreading marks (or even, in some cases, of their existence), or know of any reason for double-spaced drafts, etc. Anywhere they hang on is just a tradition, done for mostly forgotten reasons.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 March, 2017, 03:54:18 pm
I learnt all those proofreading marks. I can even remember one or two.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 23 March, 2017, 05:09:00 pm
I'm (obviously) terrible at proofreading but I know all the proofing marks. Another ninja skill for my docket. I still scribble them on documents and usually get a 'huh, what does that mean?'
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 23 March, 2017, 06:36:14 pm
I didn't think I knew proofreading marks, but I've just googled and it seems I've been using many of the content-related ones all along.  (Proofing for typesetting being somewhat redundant since before I ever had to do any.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 23 March, 2017, 06:40:26 pm
It seems I know more than I know I know.  I also know some proofreading stuff
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: spesh on 23 March, 2017, 06:46:22 pm
It seems I know more than I know I know.

You are Donald Rumsfeld, and I claim my five Pounds.  :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 23 March, 2017, 07:00:04 pm
It seems I know more than I know I know.

You are Donald Rumsfeld, and I claim my five Pounds.  :demon:

Rumbled ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 23 March, 2017, 07:20:05 pm
Not me, but Dez . He is preparing stuff for webcasts in French. It seems that it is a thing in France that a space is placed before punctuation . I have never heard of this before . Is it normal ? Or just this particular client ?

My previous companies house style on reports was a double space after a full stop.  Nobody could explain why.

This was standard practice for typists on manual keyboards in days of yore.

I see others concur.
Yep.

Those of us who learned to use a keyboard in an IT job 35 years ago never learned such rules, because they weren't relevant.

It was still used by people preparing documents which needed proofreading, because that was done manually for some years after word processors were invented, until the software could do it properly. I proofread manuals for software I was helping to write, back in the 1980s. I do it for a living now, but none of my colleagues know the old proofreading marks (or even, in some cases, of their existence), or know of any reason for double-spaced drafts, etc. Anywhere they hang on is just a tradition, done for mostly forgotten reasons.

It's good to see that collective memory in yacf extends long enough to demystify the world sometimes (and that there is sufficient corroboration to rule out answers being fanciful confabulation).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jakob W on 23 March, 2017, 11:10:52 pm
I didn't think I knew proofreading marks, but I've just googled and it seems I've been using many of the content-related ones all along.  (Proofing for typesetting being somewhat redundant since before I ever had to do any.)

I dunno - in some ways using the BS marks for page proofs makes more sense than for copy-editing; the latter is often just done using Word's track changes these days. Admittedly this does assume you're actually going to usefully be able to discuss typographic layout with the typesetter, but I get the impression that publishers are no longer offshoring quite so much of this, possibly because getting offshored material that meets the spec requires so much more monitoring at their end (DAHIKT...)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 23 March, 2017, 11:39:23 pm
I think that most of what I proofread & polish the English of (it's almost all translations from Japanese) probably never touches paper. It sits on servers as web pages, or downloadable PDFs, or is a presentation for one-off use, e.g. at a conference. Spellcheckers have greatly reduced one part of the proofreaders task, & I don't really get asked to do layout correction. I think the customers mostly do that themselves, or for corporate brochures & the like send the final text back to whoever did the design to fit in. But people called proofreaders have had their job expand into copy editing.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 24 March, 2017, 09:00:18 am
Anent marking up, back when I was developing word-processing progs many held this (http://www.troff.org/prog.html) item of nostalgia to be the bee's knees. It gave a whole new significance to "Kernkraft? - Nein danke" stickers.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 March, 2017, 09:11:51 am
I think that most of what I proofread & polish the English of (it's almost all translations from Japanese) probably never touches paper. It sits on servers as web pages, or downloadable PDFs, or is a presentation for one-off use, e.g. at a conference. Spellcheckers have greatly reduced one part of the proofreaders task, & I don't really get asked to do layout correction. I think the customers mostly do that themselves, or for corporate brochures & the like send the final text back to whoever did the design to fit in. But people called proofreaders have had their job expand into copy editing.
Yeah, I don't think there's any practical distinction between proofreading and copy editing nowadays. I don't entirely agree about spellcheckers though; they insure that watt yew have ridden is a reel word but not that it is the write word.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 24 March, 2017, 09:35:38 am
I used to manage a small academic publisher and it was me that slayed their proofreaders and left that to the copyeditors. They complained a lot, so I got rid of them too.

Learned 'em right proper, it did.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 24 March, 2017, 10:24:05 am
My goat is got by American copy editors who deform the prose of stolid English gents into their own slapdash gobbledygook. Damn their eyes - nay, poke 'em out with a blue pencil, say I.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 24 March, 2017, 10:27:56 am
I think that most of what I proofread & polish the English of (it's almost all translations from Japanese) probably never touches paper.

Same here, which is largely down to modern working practices - ie we're not all in the same office any more but working from home.

I still prefer proofreading on paper but there's no point when you can't pass the marked proof back across the desk to the person who will be taking in the corrections. Although I do sometimes get sent pdfs of scanned documents with proofing marks on them.

Kids these days probably don't even know what a galley is, amirite?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 24 March, 2017, 01:27:09 pm
I think that most of what I proofread & polish the English of (it's almost all translations from Japanese) probably never touches paper.

Same here, which is largely down to modern working practices - ie we're not all in the same office any more but working from home.

I still prefer proofreading on paper but there's no point when you can't pass the marked proof back across the desk to the person who will be taking in the corrections. Although I do sometimes get sent pdfs of scanned documents with proofing marks on them.

Kids these days probably don't even know what a galley is, amirite?

You are. And they can't fucking well align columns.

For my sins, I have to write in American as it's our house style.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 24 March, 2017, 01:41:15 pm
Kids these days probably don't even know what a galley is, amirite?

Massive wooden fing wiv oars, innit
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 March, 2017, 01:57:13 pm
I bet none of them are any good at carving woodblocks either.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 24 March, 2017, 01:57:59 pm
Kids these days probably don't even know what a galley is, amirite?

Massive wooden fing wiv oars, innit
NOOOO!!!!

Guy, you're so wrong. ;D

It's a kitchen.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rr on 24 March, 2017, 02:00:31 pm
I think that most of what I proofread & polish the English of (it's almost all translations from Japanese) probably never touches paper. It sits on servers as web pages, or downloadable PDFs, or is a presentation for one-off use, e.g. at a conference. Spellcheckers have greatly reduced one part of the proofreaders task, & I don't really get asked to do layout correction. I think the customers mostly do that themselves, or for corporate brochures & the like send the final text back to whoever did the design to fit in. But people called proofreaders have had their job expand into copy editing.
Yeah, I don't think there's any practical distinction between proofreading and copy editing nowadays. I don't entirely agree about spellcheckers though; they insure that watt yew have ridden is a reel word but not that it is the write word.
Indeed my grate friend Dave once wrote a data analysis assignment discussing, at length, the floored arguments.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 24 March, 2017, 02:59:11 pm
I think that most of what I proofread & polish the English of (it's almost all translations from Japanese) probably never touches paper.

Same here, which is largely down to modern working practices - ie we're not all in the same office any more but working from home.

I still prefer proofreading on paper but there's no point when you can't pass the marked proof back across the desk to the person who will be taking in the corrections. Although I do sometimes get sent pdfs of scanned documents with proofing marks on them.

Kids these days probably don't even know what a galley is, amirite?

You are. And they can't fucking well align columns.

For my sins, I have to write in American as it's our house style.

One of my American colleagues changed every single -ise to an -ize in a report wot I wrote.  If that's how he wants to pass his time, meh
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 29 March, 2017, 02:12:20 pm
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/23/more-than-half-australian-snake-bite-deaths-since-2000-occurred-at-victims-home

You'd have thought they would have learned not to visit him, wouldn't you?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 29 March, 2017, 02:36:51 pm
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/23/more-than-half-australian-snake-bite-deaths-since-2000-occurred-at-victims-home

You'd have thought they would have learned not to visit him, wouldn't you?

I think that's fine - only one victim per bite.

"Victims' home" would also imply that they all lived together.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 29 March, 2017, 04:24:40 pm
I think that most of what I proofread & polish the English of (it's almost all translations from Japanese) probably never touches paper.

Same here, which is largely down to modern working practices - ie we're not all in the same office any more but working from home.

I still prefer proofreading on paper but there's no point when you can't pass the marked proof back across the desk to the person who will be taking in the corrections. Although I do sometimes get sent pdfs of scanned documents with proofing marks on them.

Kids these days probably don't even know what a galley is, amirite?

You are. And they can't fucking well align columns.

For my sins, I have to write in American as it's our house style.
The stuff I work on is mostly in USian, but not 100%. Some of it involves international agencies which use English, & the Japanese government stuff is often in English, dating back to when they first started talking to foreign gubbinments, I think. I've checked letters from ministers to foreign governments (no-security form letters of thanks consisting of a bit of boilerplate customised for the occasion) & IIRC the standard text has always been in English. But a lot of internal & local govt. stuff is in USian.

Corporate Japanese stuff is pretty much all in USian, as is most academic. They don't 'correct' quoted English to USian, though, as I've seen in US stuff. If their English is good enough to notice the English spellings it's good enough to know what they are.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 29 March, 2017, 09:46:00 pm
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/23/more-than-half-australian-snake-bite-deaths-since-2000-occurred-at-victims-home

You'd have thought they would have learned not to visit him, wouldn't you?

I think that's fine - only one victim per bite.

"Victims' home" would also imply that they all lived together.

Surely should be "victims' homes".

Edit: I was talking about the headline rather than the wording of the link.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 29 March, 2017, 11:16:56 pm
Surely should be "victims' homes".

Could be. I think either is fine.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 29 March, 2017, 11:53:26 pm
"More than half Australian snake bite deaths since 2000 occurred at victim’s home" implies one victim and one home. I think they definitely meant more than one victim and more than one home, so neither should be singular.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 30 March, 2017, 07:28:45 am
implies one victim and one home

...for each incident.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 30 March, 2017, 08:53:10 am
implies one victim and one home

...for each incident.

Well, I have to say I laughed when I read it, and when I showed it to Mrs. Wow and Dez so did they.

Come on, Citoyen! If you are going to be a grammar pedant you have got to do it properly!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 30 March, 2017, 05:59:18 pm
Come on, Citoyen! If you are going to be a grammar pedant you have got to do it properly!

Oh, but I am! I'm next level.

"Victim's home" is logically correct because each incident has a single victim and a single location.

"Victims' homes" could be taken to mean that each incident had multiple victims and/or multiple locations.

Compare and contrast:
Men with red noses
Men with a red nose
Men with broken arms
Men with a broken arm

HTH  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: TheLurker on 30 March, 2017, 07:15:11 pm
I haven't got a leg to stand on with this grumble because the usage is perfectly correct, but it stills grates.  The use of, "train station" instead of, "railway station".  An age thing I suppose.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 31 March, 2017, 09:08:41 am
And "next station stop" in onboard announcements. Why not just "next stop" or "next station"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 March, 2017, 09:15:19 am
I take that to be a case of excessive exactitude for the sake of arse-covering. The train might stop somewhere that's not a station and it might pass through stations where it does not stop.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 31 March, 2017, 09:20:29 am
And "next station stop" in onboard announcements. Why not just "next stop" or "next station"?

Well, journeys on Southern trains are often punctuated by stops that don't coincide with stations. I, for one, relish my regular opportunity to sit back and admire my surroundings. I once saw a rat in St Reatham that was so big it might have been an hippo in fancy dress (rodent cosplay is a literally big thing for hippos). And I'm not sure what happened to Anerley recently, but it now resembles Tunguska. Either a comet or an outbreak of angry Canadian lumberjacks.

Anyway, on Southern, your next stop is unlikely to be a station. And the next station might legitimately not be the one you stop at.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jon P on 31 March, 2017, 10:01:01 am
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/23/more-than-half-australian-snake-bite-deaths-since-2000-occurred-at-victims-home

You'd have thought they would have learned not to visit him, wouldn't you?

I think that's fine - only one victim per bite.

"Victims' home" would also imply that they all lived together.

Surely should be "victims' homes".

Edit: I was talking about the headline rather than the wording of the link.

Anyhow why did so many of them choose to die at home rather than hospital, wherever the actual bite occurred?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 31 March, 2017, 11:23:21 am
Our Media-Digesters do it again

Quote
The Herald p12-13 (p3): A hotel is set to be built on Drake’s island near Portsmouth after finally getting planning permission, and neither EPA or the MOD have no objections to the scheme.

So, objections all round, then. ::-) :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 April, 2017, 12:24:11 pm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08kys4c
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 03 April, 2017, 12:27:55 pm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08kys4c

Banksy x Truss
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 03 April, 2017, 02:42:14 pm
Quote
The Herald p12-13 (p3): A hotel is set to be built on Drake’s island near Portsmouth after finally getting planning permission, and neither EPA or the MOD have no objections to the scheme.
I can spot four there...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: phantasmagoriana on 09 April, 2017, 05:43:32 pm
Spotted today on a construction site banner: "The Sport, Health and Wellbeing facility will transform the Universitys campus with a new, state-of-the-art building..."

I'd expect better from a university. :facepalm:

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 09 April, 2017, 05:59:25 pm
Spotted today on a construction site banner: "The Sport, Health and Wellbeing facility will transform the Universitys campus with a new, state-of-the-art building..."

I'd expect better from a university. :facepalm:

The Stupid Union are known as such for a broadly similar reason...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 11 April, 2017, 09:37:17 am
Ian Tregillis is an entertaining writer, but his vocabulary doesn't stretch as far as he thinks it does.  People and devices don't run over polished floors with surety unless they're in a hurry to placate a banker.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 11 April, 2017, 12:28:50 pm
Ian Tregillis is an entertaining writer, but his vocabulary doesn't stretch as far as he thinks it does.  People and devices don't run over polished floors with surety unless they're in a hurry to placate a banker.
That's what editors are for.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 12 April, 2017, 03:19:56 pm
An announcement at London Bridge trainrailway station, earlier:

"Please use the lifts for access to the platforms. If you have heavy or bulky luggage, thank you for your cooperation."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 April, 2017, 02:52:00 am
It's a Great British export! The grocer's's apo'strophe has made its way into FORRIN!
(http://bi.gazeta.pl/im/3b/ae/14/z21686587IH,Skupiska-reklamowe-w-Warszawie.jpg)

It might not be clear on that scale, but that's a Polish advert offering, among other things, "cupcake's". Apostrophes are not normally used in Polish even for abbreviations, so they can only have taken it as the English spelling.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 26 April, 2017, 08:45:17 am
I wonder if the gentleman who figures on the poster above the cupcake'''''s contributed any ingredients, although to judge from the stoned expressions of the ethereal maidens beneath it was more likely the tea.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 26 April, 2017, 10:29:07 am
Quote from: BBC Radio 2
6 modern artists we wouldn't have without Ella Fitzgerald

That bit is iffy (six/6: I'm not a stickler), but this grates:

Quote
Discover who's sound has been influenced by the wonderful Ella Fitzgerald

Yeah, the repetition of the full name in a short heading is pretty clunky, too.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 April, 2017, 10:34:49 am
I wonder if the gentleman who figures on the poster above the cupcake'''''s contributed any ingredients, although to judge from the stoned expressions of the ethereal maidens beneath it was more likely the tea.
I think he might have contributed some of the colourings!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 26 April, 2017, 06:23:37 pm
Quote from: BBC Radio 2
6 modern artists we wouldn't have without Ella Fitzgerald

That bit is iffy (six/6: I'm not a stickler), but this grates:

Quote
Discover who's sound has been influenced by the wonderful Ella Fitzgerald

Yeah, the repetition of the full name in a short heading is pretty clunky, too.

So does the apostrophe abuse >:(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 May, 2017, 01:33:55 pm
The Bank of England is being criticised by some cringeworthy pedants called the National Literacy Trust for not using speech marks around the Churchill quote on the £5 note. It's pretty obvious it's a quote though, surely?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/27/new-5-note-has-major-grammar-blunderbut-have-spotted/

Ed: I disagree with the aesthetics argument though. I think it would actually look better in quotes.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 03 May, 2017, 01:54:08 pm
...
is being criticised by some cringeworthy pedants
...

You do know what thread you posted this on, don't you?

:P
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 03 May, 2017, 03:38:06 pm
...
is being criticised by some cringeworthy pedants
...

You do know what thread you posted this on, don't you?

:P

The distinction between cringeworthy and merely worthy is surely worth noting.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 10 May, 2017, 11:53:25 am
 Dammit I hate, loathe & despise the misuse of the word "optics" to mean appearance/appearances, etc.!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 10 May, 2017, 04:05:12 pm
"optics" used to mean appearance/appearances, etc. Dammit I hate, loathe & despise that misuse of the word!

It used to mean lenses etc...

I'm afraid your posting is a tad ambiguous...   ;) ;D :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 11 May, 2017, 12:09:03 am
Corrected . . .
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 11 May, 2017, 08:51:35 am
On slate.com, a gentleman by the name of Phil Plait discourses on the "multihued cacophony" of iridescent clouds.  They must bang together or summat, like saucepans.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 May, 2017, 08:53:48 am
That's rather a nice phrase, though it does imply he doesn't like these iridescent clouds.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: red marley on 11 May, 2017, 09:25:15 am
On slate.com, a gentleman by the name of Phil Plait discourses on the "multihued cacophony" of iridescent clouds.  They must bang together or summat, like saucepans.

Perhaps start a new thread called "Ban all metaphor now!" ? Or perhaps "Send all metaphors to the gallows!".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 11 May, 2017, 09:38:11 am
We can call it literal literalism.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 11 May, 2017, 09:47:39 am
We can literally call it literal literalism.

FTFY.  But Ogden Nash got there first with "Very Like A Whale" and one literally wouldn't wish to contradict him, in any sense of the word.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 11 May, 2017, 09:48:25 am
On slate.com, a gentleman by the name of Phil Plait discourses on the "multihued cacophony" of iridescent clouds.  They must bang together or summat, like saucepans.

Perhaps start a new thread called "Ban all metaphor now!" ? Or perhaps "Send all metaphors to the gallows!".

Ah come on. It's closer to malapropism than metaphor - unless he suffers from synaesthesia, of course.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 May, 2017, 10:10:27 am
I'm not sure suffer is at all the right word for synaesthesia.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 11 May, 2017, 10:15:26 am
We can literally call it literal literalism.

FTFY.  But Ogden Nash got there first with "Very Like A Whale" and one literally wouldn't wish to contradict him, in any sense of the word.
And Shakespeare got there before him

Quote from: Hamlet, Act 3 Scene 2
POLONIUS
My lord, the queen would speak with you, and presently.


 HAMLET
Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?
 

POLONIUS
By th' mass, and ’tis like a camel indeed.

 HAMLET
Methinks it is like a weasel.
 

 POLONIUS
It is backed like a weasel.
 

 HAMLET
Or like a whale.
 

 POLONIUS
Very like a whale.
 

 HAMLET
Then I will come to my mother by and by. (aside) They fool me to the top of my bent.—I will come by and by.
 

 POLONIUS
I will say so.

 

 HAMLET
“By and by” is easily said.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 11 May, 2017, 10:18:44 am
On slate.com, a gentleman by the name of Phil Plait discourses on the "multihued cacophony" of iridescent clouds.  They must bang together or summat, like saucepans.

Perhaps start a new thread called "Ban all metaphor now!" ? Or perhaps "Send all metaphors to the gallows!".

Ah come on. It's closer to malapropism than metaphor - unless he suffers from synaesthesia, of course.

I haven't heard a squeak from my colleague's loud shirt this morning.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 11 May, 2017, 01:30:47 pm
On slate.com, a gentleman by the name of Phil Plait discourses on the "multihued cacophony" of iridescent clouds.  They must bang together or summat, like saucepans.

Perhaps start a new thread called "Ban all metaphor now!" ? Or perhaps "Send all metaphors to the gallows!".

Ah come on. It's closer to malapropism than metaphor - unless he suffers from synaesthesia, of course.

I haven't heard a squeak from my colleague's loud shirt this morning.

A cacophony is a disagreeable sound, so this wight is saying that the clouds he's so fond of are objectionable. I think he's indulging in cackophony, i.e. talking shit.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 15 May, 2017, 02:41:05 pm
I think this one isn't just a spelling error, but from a misunderstanding of the origin & meaning of the term: shoe-in  :facepalm: instead of shoo-in, as if it had something to do with giving something a kicking, not waving it through.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 15 May, 2017, 02:46:55 pm
"This is so fun"

Missing adjective. Seems more prevalent in the US than here but it grates every time I see it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 15 May, 2017, 03:02:47 pm
I think this one isn't just a spelling error, but from a misunderstanding of the origin & meaning of the term: shoe-in  :facepalm: instead of shoo-in, as if it had something to do with giving something a kicking, not waving it through.

Deserves to be shod out.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ham on 24 May, 2017, 03:11:00 pm
I think this one isn't just a spelling error, but from a misunderstanding of the origin & meaning of the term: shoe-in  :facepalm: instead of shoo-in, as if it had something to do with giving something a kicking, not waving it through.

That's in the same box as "Fine tooth-comb", which we have probably had before.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 24 May, 2017, 06:20:44 pm
I think this one isn't just a spelling error, but from a misunderstanding of the origin & meaning of the term: shoe-in  :facepalm: instead of shoo-in, as if it had something to do with giving something a kicking, not waving it through.

That's in the same box as "Fine tooth-comb", which we have probably had before.

Raise to the ground

Tow the line

ect.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 24 May, 2017, 06:32:00 pm
I think this one isn't just a spelling error, but from a misunderstanding of the origin & meaning of the term: shoe-in  :facepalm: instead of shoo-in, as if it had something to do with giving something a kicking, not waving it through.

That's in the same box as "Fine tooth-comb", which we have probably had before.

Raise to the ground

Tow the line

ect.

As eny fule kno, "ect" has honourable origins, being a creation of n molesworth, the gorila of 3B and curse of st custards ect ect.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 24 May, 2017, 06:53:05 pm
I have witnessed Robyn Hitchcock actually saying "ect ect" during one of his between-song spoken interludes.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 25 May, 2017, 08:03:04 am
As eny fule kno, "ect" has honourable origins, being a creation of n molesworth, the gorila of 3B and curse of st custards ect ect.

Oops. That was not supposed to be one of the examples in the list!  :facepalm: I can see that it looks like it was, now.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 25 May, 2017, 08:21:08 am
Fine tooth-comb

I thought that fine and tooth are adjectives describing the comb and, as such, it would be a fine toothed comb. Similarly, box set, as in a box set of CDs or DVDs, I would instead describe them as a boxed set.

Do I need to correct my understanding and my grammar?

I've had the same thought about fine-toothed but fine-tooth is more conventional and it's hardly ambiguous. Note, however, that in the interests of doing pedantry properly, you need the hyphen either way.

The OED has given in on this one and now lists toothcomb as acceptable usage. Presumably a fine toothcomb is one made out of gold or something.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 25 May, 2017, 08:43:03 am
If you want to describe the material, workpersonship etc., fine comb is sufficient: combs have teeth, otherwise they're sticks or full of honey. If you're referring to the spacing of the teeth it's a fine-toothed comb.  Beware of elisions and cheaply-sourced botched jobs.

The funny thing is, no cliché-monger pronounces it that way: it's always a fine toothcomb.

Heigh-ho. (Now why does that take a hyphen?)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 08 June, 2017, 04:33:38 pm
'Kudo' and general treatment of 'kudos' as a mass noun.  I blame the USAnians for mispronouncing it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 09 June, 2017, 09:12:38 am
I do some work with a company called Kudos. They have a great time in the US.

I was talking to an American doctor about respiratory medicine the other day. She was pulling that funny face Americans do when they don't understand. Oh, respiratory, she finally says. I confess, though I'm quite good at switching between British and American English, I've somehow never noticed that one.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 09 June, 2017, 02:40:09 pm
Just discovered a great new way to spell hole: u-n-a-u-t-h-o-r-i-z-e-d-a-c-c-e-s-s-p-o-i-n-t, according to Wednesbury police.  "Releasing more details of what happened, police said the boys had entered the depot through an unauthorised access point in the depot's fence."

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-birmingham-40205147
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: PhilO on 09 June, 2017, 05:08:48 pm
That reminds me of a line in one of Tom Sharpe's farces. ISTR the it was something along the lines of, "Talk about calling a spade an earth-inverting agricultural implement."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 June, 2017, 05:37:26 pm
The "hexaform rotatable surface compression unit" is US Armyspeak for the thing that goes on the end of a bolt.  Trufax.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 09 June, 2017, 05:48:38 pm
I was talking to an American doctor about respiratory medicine the other day. She was pulling that funny face Americans do when they don't understand. Oh, respiratory, she finally says. I confess, though I'm quite good at switching between British and American English, I've somehow never noticed that one.

I'm sure I've reported previously on how, back when it was new and interesting, my parents got halfway through the first episode of ER before switching off in frustration at all the medical jargon being in USAnian.  (Not just pronunciation, it also tends to suffer from a combination of the words-for-things-invented-in-the-first-half-of-the-20th-century problem; the firkin/furlong/Fahrenheit problem and a reliance on completely different brand names.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 09 June, 2017, 11:11:11 pm
I was talking to an American doctor about respiratory medicine the other day. She was pulling that funny face Americans do when they don't understand. Oh, respiratory, she finally says. I confess, though I'm quite good at switching between British and American English, I've somehow never noticed that one.
Wow, that's weird!

I'd not noticed it either, so I just had a listen online.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moleman76 on 11 June, 2017, 07:47:58 am
US Armyspeak

In days of considerable yore, I was clad in a "Shirt, Man's, Fire-Resistant Cotton" when sent out to extinguish burning sagebrush.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jakob W on 13 June, 2017, 08:56:35 am
words-for-things-invented-in-the-first-half-of-the-20th-century problem

Is this a superseded names thing, or something else?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 June, 2017, 09:12:27 am
In a sides-of-the-Atlantic context, might it be that that's the time when the two sides were most fiercely established as separate?

Going back to respiratory, it strikes me that in general Americans are more likely to pronounce a word, particularly a technical word, nearly as it's written, whereas the British pronunciation will swallow a syllable or two.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 13 June, 2017, 09:28:05 am
Oh-bee-gee-why-en. Possibly Americans don't like saying gynaecology. Or maybe obstetrics just asks for a contraction. I shall collect my outer garment now.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 13 June, 2017, 10:45:10 am
Oh-bee-gee-why-en. Possibly Americans don't like saying gynaecology. Or maybe obstetrics just asks for a contraction. I shall collect my outer garment now.

Is it a "labratory" coat?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 13 June, 2017, 12:42:25 pm
In a sides-of-the-Atlantic context, might it be that that's the time when the two sides were most fiercely established as separate?

Going back to respiratory, it strikes me that in general Americans are more likely to pronounce a word, particularly a technical word, nearly as it's written, whereas the British pronunciation will swallow a syllable or two.

Uh?

I thought the American said respratory and Brits said resPIRatory.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 June, 2017, 01:07:50 pm
Yes: by stressing the second syllable the sound following it becomes a schwa, giving the Brits syllable-SYLLABLE-schwa-syllable, whereas the Americans have SYLLABLE-syllable-syllable-syllable-syllabe

re SPIR a tree – RE spir eh ta ree

respiratory
adjective [ before noun ] UK ​ /rɪˈspɪr.ə.tər.i/ US ​ /ˈres.pə.rə.tɔːr.i/
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/respiratory
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 13 June, 2017, 01:44:21 pm
In a sides-of-the-Atlantic context, might it be that that's the time when the two sides were most fiercely established as separate?

Yeah.  Hence very different vocabulary for things developed in the 19th and early 20th centuries.  Cars.  Railways.  Modern clothing.  That sort of thing.  It all changed very quickly after the second world war, as USAnian culture was exported to the world and the English vocabulary that developed around new technologies was much more global, so we get spelling and pronunciation differences, sometimes habitual preference for one related (but equally understood) term over another, rather than completely different words for the same thing.

Though in the context of medicine, I think this effect is much less significant than that of brand names and different measurement units.  Acetaminowhat?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 13 June, 2017, 02:52:36 pm
Some of it's because they buggered up the spelling. If they spelt palæontology correctly they wouldn't pronounce it pale. The bloody thing is, Brits copy them.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 13 June, 2017, 10:17:57 pm
In a sides-of-the-Atlantic context, might it be that that's the time when the two sides were most fiercely established as separate?

Going back to respiratory, it strikes me that in general Americans are more likely to pronounce a word, particularly a technical word, nearly as it's written, whereas the British pronunciation will swallow a syllable or two.

Uh?

I thought the American said respratory and Brits said resPIRatory.

No we flatten it out (as Cudzo's links show). I was curious because she didn't understand my pronunciation and I'd somehow never noticed the American pronunciation (and I used to work for a major respiratory society in Europe, and have spent a significant chunk of my life living in the US, so have no excuses).

It's another example of the cognitive gap that American's teeter on for what can be for only a (still perceptable) few milliseconds to entire minutes, on encounting English accents (more so when they vary from RP). We're inculcated by constant culture immersion so American accents and pronunciations don't phase us.

I'm thinking that the next time I board our Philadelphia mothership I switch to the East Midlands accent of my childhood home town for the entire time I'm aboard, delivering presentations in pure ey-up-me-duck Erewashian (mind you, I've not understood a word my dad has said for at least thirty years).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 June, 2017, 08:30:53 am
Well, today I'm trying to make sense of a bunch of Americans talking about respiratory disease! They're mostly saying "RESpraTORee". It's part, I think, of a general difference in stress on polysllabic words. Americans tend to a forward stress, often with a secondary stress later in the word, whereas Brits tend to a single stress. Hence they're also talking about "the REGulaTORee authorities" and doing "REsearch". Though I don't think even the most British of Brits says "pulMONary".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Palinurus on 22 June, 2017, 08:10:13 am
At work, ordering stuff.

"Quick Quote provides you the possibility, to order articles, which are not part of the suppliers electronic catalog. Quick Quote enables you to send a request directly to the supplier and ensures a save and Quick Quoteing process, from requesting a good untill it's ordering."

I will rework your copy for money (within 60 days, from 28th of the month)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 24 June, 2017, 11:20:38 pm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-40286318

Quote from: One example from the above link
Also, the Dunfallandy Stone in Pitlochry, Perthshire.

It may have words and punctuation, but it's not a sentence. ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 08 July, 2017, 04:47:20 pm
chaff 1
noun
1 the husks that form the outer covering of cereal grain, and are separated from the seeds during threshing.
2 chopped hay or straw used as animal feed or bedding.
3 worthless material.
4 thin strips of metallic foil fired into or dropped through the atmosphere in order to deflect radar signals and so prevent detection.
[Anglo-Saxon ceaf.]
chaff 2
noun light-hearted joking or teasing.
verb (chaffed, chaffing) to tease or make fun of someone in a good-natured way.
[19c: probably from chaff 1.]


chafe
verb (chafed, chafing)
1 tr & intr to make or become sore or worn by rubbing.
2 to make warm by rubbing.
3 intrans (also chafe at or under something) to become angry or impatient : chafe at the rules.
noun an irritation caused by rubbing.
[14c: from French chaufer to heat, ultimately from Latin calere to be warm + facere to make.]

Get it right, for fuck's sake!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 08 July, 2017, 05:20:19 pm
I read of the unfortunate demise of a man who has fallen about 100 feet to his death.

He apparently worked as a a sports masseuse in Brighton's Grand Hotel.

Males are masseurs, n'est-ce pas?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 09 July, 2017, 09:28:57 am
In theory.  But are all employees female?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 10 July, 2017, 09:19:52 am
"blocks up to 100% of unwanted calls"

on the side of a phone packaging.

Well it can't block more than 100% can it. Whilst absolutely accurate that statement is utterly pointless
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Paul on 10 July, 2017, 11:49:17 am
In theory.  But are all employees female?
Why do you ask?

I think that the "ee" suffix denotes relationship, not sex/gender.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 10 July, 2017, 01:22:12 pm
In theory.  But are all employees female?
Why do you ask?

I think that the "ee" suffix denotes relationship, not sex/gender.

It does now, but the word derives from the feminine form of the French employé, so if the masseur/-euse distinction is to be made in English, why should it not apply in the case of an employee?

But in reality I was being flippant: the answer is simply that English provides no adequate way to distinguish between employ and employe, so using the feminine form and pronouncing it ee is the next best solution. Bah goom.

It's amusing to note, though, that while PC has done its best to eliminate gender-linked versions of nouns, e.g. waitresses and waiters must now become waitpersons or something of the kind (service professionals? :facepalm:), the masculine and feminine versions of masseur waltz happily on, presumably because of the louche associations some attach to masseuse.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 11 July, 2017, 10:06:57 am
"blocks up to 100% of unwanted calls"

on the side of a phone packaging.

Well it can't block more than 100% can it. Whilst absolutely accurate that statement is utterly pointless
Ah yes ...

The various "upto x" statements have featured before on this thread, and are well deserved of their inclusion!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 11 July, 2017, 10:53:46 am
"blocks up to 100% of unwanted calls"

on the side of a phone packaging.

Well it can't block more than 100% can it. Whilst absolutely accurate that statement is utterly pointless

It's not so much pointless, it is meaningless.  If it didn't block any unwanted calls at all, the statement would not be false; it implies good performance without promising it.  The test of reasonable expectation might apply if you had a good lawyer.   
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 July, 2017, 02:50:31 pm
Verbs need to agree with their subjects. This is true in virtually* every language in the world. You certainly can't say "Great Britain and Poland is threatened," especially when you follow it with "We have... ".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-40509632

*There is one North American language where verbs agree with the subject's possessor: My horse am black, your horse are white.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 12 July, 2017, 03:17:52 pm
Japanese doesn't do number or gender. Everything desu*, regardless of how many desu: I desu, you desu, they desu, we desu, he/she (no difference) desu, etc. 

*Dess, not dess-oo.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 July, 2017, 10:33:21 am
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/13/american-english-language-study

Scroll down and there's a graph showing Americanisation vs Britishization of English in various countries. I love that vocabulary in the USA is less American than in Mexico or Brazil and spelling in the UK is less British than in Ireland! Canada is also a fun exception to the general pattern, with broadly British spelling and mostly American vocabulary. It would be interesting to look at grammar and pronunciation along the same lines too (but even more misleading to push them into two neat boxes).

(No grumbles were made in the writing of this post.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: The French Tandem on 13 July, 2017, 11:43:28 am
I read of the unfortunate demise of a man who has fallen about 100 feet to his death.

He apparently worked as a a sports masseuse in Brighton's Grand Hotel.

Males are masseurs, n'est-ce pas?

Indeed, and how do you call a man who does the job of a midwife? A midwife or a midhusband?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 13 July, 2017, 02:02:32 pm
I suspect it'll be an abomination like male midwife. (I think we've just about seen off male nurse.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 July, 2017, 02:09:55 pm
I'd imagine the term midwife would be replaced by something like birth assistant or natal specialist nurse (this last probably not used in South Africa!)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Polar Bear on 13 July, 2017, 02:51:12 pm
Some friends and I had an interesting conversation yesterday leading on from a comment I made relating to them that I had been gifted some rhubarb by a generous neighbour.  Two of them in particular were adamant that I gift or gifted could not be used as a verb.   

Websters dictionary, which was on the shelf in the pub and is regularly used by crossworders, supported my use of gifted used as a transitive verb though my own OED is silent on the matter.   I'd be interested in the opinions of the learned folk herein.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 13 July, 2017, 03:27:28 pm
I suspect it'll be an abomination like male midwife. (I think we've just about seen off male nurse.)
ISTRC midwife has managed not to become "male". Etymologically speaking the "wife" bit refers to the woman giving birth, not the person helping.

Wiki says it better;
Quote
The word derives from Old English mid, "with" and wif, "woman", and thus originally meant "with-woman", that is, the woman who is with the mother at childbirth
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: The French Tandem on 13 July, 2017, 04:26:54 pm
I'd imagine the term midwife would be replaced by something like birth assistant or natal specialist nurse (this last probably not used in South Africa!)

I like the birth assistant, as it is really neutral. In French, people say "sage-femme" (wise woman) no matter whether the person is male or female. It feels really awkward for a male.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jakob W on 13 July, 2017, 05:08:56 pm
From vague memories of the history of medicine modules I took way back when, I believe the term was historically (17th-18th-c.?) 'man-midwife'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 13 July, 2017, 05:15:56 pm
Some friends and I had an interesting conversation yesterday leading on from a comment I made relating to them that I had been gifted some rhubarb by a generous neighbour.  Two of them in particular were adamant that I gift or gifted could not be used as a verb.   

Websters dictionary, which was on the shelf in the pub and is regularly used by crossworders, supported my use of gifted used as a transitive verb though my own OED is silent on the matter.   I'd be interested in the opinions of the learned folk herein.

Dodgy one, that.  I have a feeling that to gift is an archaic usage revived not so long ago (10 - 20 years, maybe) in the US as an aid to pomposity, and smuggled into normal English via the Internet.  I avoid it.

I can't think of any others just now, but in the past I have looked up other strange usages only to find that they date from the 16th century.

Irrelevantly, our bank manager once turned up on our doorstep with a big parcel of rhubarb after he nearly knocked me off my bike while driving a cultivator.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 13 July, 2017, 05:19:49 pm
I suspect it'll be an abomination like male midwife. (I think we've just about seen off male nurse.)

Incidentally, the mid- means with, not in the middle.

Not fond of birth assistant, they're a deal too marvellous to merely assist.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 13 July, 2017, 05:47:30 pm
I though midwife originated as mit wife (saxon, dutch etc), i.e. as pointed out above, literally with the wife
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 July, 2017, 11:27:37 pm
This is right, hence no need to change it. Though that doesn't mean it won't happen.  :-\
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 July, 2017, 11:28:57 pm
Some friends and I had an interesting conversation yesterday leading on from a comment I made relating to them that I had been gifted some rhubarb by a generous neighbour.  Two of them in particular were adamant that I gift or gifted could not be used as a verb.   

Websters dictionary, which was on the shelf in the pub and is regularly used by crossworders, supported my use of gifted used as a transitive verb though my own OED is silent on the matter.   I'd be interested in the opinions of the learned folk herein.

Dodgy one, that.  I have a feeling that to gift is an archaic usage revived not so long ago (10 - 20 years, maybe) in the US as an aid to pomposity, and smuggled into normal English via the Internet.  I avoid it.

I can't think of any others just now, but in the past I have looked up other strange usages only to find that they date from the 16th century.

Irrelevantly, our bank manager once turned up on our doorstep with a big parcel of rhubarb after he nearly knocked me off my bike while driving a cultivator.
Garden cultivator or farm machinery? I can't imagine a UK bank manager in charge of agricultural equipment!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 17 July, 2017, 02:05:45 pm
Quote
Upon inspection of the external walls we can report that these were mainly painted solid brickwork, with some areas having rendered finish, these elevations appeared to be in reasonable condition, considering the age of the property, however, there was hairline to 2mm cracking in evidence to a few isolated areas, this was particularly prevalent to the front of the property, where the staircase anex (sic) adjoined the main property on the right-hand side, around the corner of the window, we attribute this to be possible differential movement of the related foundations and the movement appears historic but potentially ongoing.
Where to start?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 17 July, 2017, 03:47:26 pm
In school, but it's too late.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 17 July, 2017, 05:52:28 pm
Standard surveyorese, but at least it's clear. I read that sentence and knew exactly what it meant - to my mind, the grammar is secondary.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 17 July, 2017, 06:40:08 pm
Where to start?

Hack out the heart with a blunt knife. By the time you've done that, you should have got into your rhythm and the rest will come naturally.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 17 July, 2017, 07:37:26 pm
House surveys are always written like that. All surveyors run an old version of Word which a special Clippy add-on. I see you're writing a house survey, it chirpily declares from the bottom of the screen. What it does is ensure every sentence is equivocal. While it looks like your house isn't falling down, it might be falling down. To every statement is attached a clause that undoes it. You should be left at the end scratching your head, no clearer whether the house you plan to buy is going to stand until the end of time or collapse the next time someone slams the front door. Don't be under the illusion that the £600ish you sprung for a 'building survey' is worth them committing to anything close to a decisive opinion.

So yes, hack out their heart, and raise a couple of demons. Given access to suitable array of culinary equipment they can be splendidly and creatively persuasive.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 20 July, 2017, 10:10:44 am
Quote
Good Morning fboab,

Following on from our conversation on the 19/07/17 regarding the above subjects  , I would like to be considered a supplier of such products ,I know you mentioned it’s not something you’d be interested in at present , but by all means have a perusal of our services in the attached brochure’s.

I was already irritated by extra spaces before commas, but throwing that grocer's apopstrophe in there, especially after 'perusal' consigns you straight to The Bin.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: orienteer on 20 July, 2017, 12:59:42 pm
Am I the only one to cringe at the increasing use of "rooves" as the plural of roof? The BBC newsreader used it last night.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 July, 2017, 01:56:33 pm
Not grammar and not really a cringe, more of a grumble about the appropriation of language to further consumerist ends: Save 25p by having your coffee in a reusable cup. That's simply a cup, made of pottery or some other durable material, as opposed to a disposable cup, made of plastic and paper. So Costa and similar shops have managed to make a cup mean a disposable cup and a non-disposable cup need a special descriptor. (Yes, I know this is late, about 1,000 years late.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 20 July, 2017, 02:03:33 pm
Am I the only one to cringe at the increasing use of "rooves" as the plural of roof?

What else would it be?  I'm fairly sure that's what I was taught.  'Roofs' just sounds wrong.

Urbandictionary (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=rooves) would appear to have the best answer...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 20 July, 2017, 02:17:39 pm
The misuse of the question mark vexes me greatly.

For example, in an email from my boss:
"Chris will print a hard copy for each of you to look at. I hope you like it?"

"I hope you like it" is not a question, so doesn't require a question mark.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 20 July, 2017, 02:23:03 pm
Am I the only one to cringe at the increasing use of "rooves" as the plural of roof?

What else would it be?  I'm fairly sure that's what I was taught.  'Roofs' just sounds wrong.

Urbandictionary (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=rooves) would appear to have the best answer...
Roof, hoof, proof
Roofs, hooves, proofs.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 20 July, 2017, 02:23:29 pm
The misuse of the question mark vexes me greatly.

For example, in an email from my boss:
"Chris will print a hard copy for each of you to look at. I hope you like it?"

"I hope you like it" is not a question, so doesn't require a question mark.

Is he Australian?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 20 July, 2017, 02:27:32 pm
The misuse of the question mark vexes me greatly.

For example, in an email from my boss:
"Chris will print a hard copy for each of you to look at. I hope you like it?"

"I hope you like it" is not a question, so doesn't require a question mark.

Is he Australian?

Boss. Noun, decorative knob.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 July, 2017, 10:53:26 am
Quote
Kamila Gasiuk-Pihowicz, a leading member of the opposition party Modern, called it a step in the right direction and an “act of courage.” She said Duda’s decision also shows the power of civic protests.

Katarzyna Lubnauer, head of the parliamentary caucus of the opposition party Nowoczesna, said: “What we had was not a reform, but appropriation of the courts. I congratulate all Poles, this is a great success”.
Poor journalism rather than bad grammar. Nowoczesna and "Modern" are the same party. Either translate consistently or don't translate at all.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 26 July, 2017, 05:23:38 pm
More poor journalism: (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40717424)
Quote
When asked whether the Queen, who is his godmother, said anything to him about the eulogy, he said a friend had told him she said he had a right to say whatever he felt.
Reminds me of "But am I in the pension scheme?" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAhKnINpWx0)  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 27 July, 2017, 09:31:48 am
Not cringeworthy but curious: the word dint, as in by dint of. I looked it up just now: it comes from the Anglo-Saxon dynt, meaning a blow. The A.S. chappies must have done everything by hitting it.

Hence the connection with the dint in a car door. Aethelfrith dun it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 27 July, 2017, 09:54:54 am
As did 'fuck' (or at least, the verb meant 'to strike') before its meaning was superseded following an importation from Dutch, Fresian or Low German, if this (https://solongasitswords.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/on-the-origin-of-fuck/) is to be believed.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: orienteer on 27 July, 2017, 12:40:52 pm
There are notices on tube trains which advise passengers who feel unwell to get off at the next station "and speak to a member of staff who will be able to help you".

I find the lack of a comma after staff rather ominous, especially as finding any member of staff these days is difficult.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 27 July, 2017, 01:18:11 pm
As did 'fuck' (or at least, the verb meant 'to strike') before its meaning was superseded following an importation from Dutch, Fresian or Low German, if this (https://solongasitswords.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/on-the-origin-of-fuck/) is to be believed.

So get tae fck means go on strike. That'll save the Graun a few ems in the headline: Rail Unions get tae fck again.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Monty on 27 July, 2017, 02:29:21 pm
an as in Jack an Jill.

There's a (fucking) d in there! It's just one letter. Yoof Twatter...Jesus!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 27 July, 2017, 04:34:20 pm
Some friends and I had an interesting conversation yesterday leading on from a comment I made relating to them that I had been gifted some rhubarb by a generous neighbour.  Two of them in particular were adamant that I gift or gifted could not be used as a verb.   

Websters dictionary, which was on the shelf in the pub and is regularly used by crossworders, supported my use of gifted used as a transitive verb though my own OED is silent on the matter.   I'd be interested in the opinions of the learned folk herein.

Dodgy one, that.  I have a feeling that to gift is an archaic usage revived not so long ago (10 - 20 years, maybe) in the US as an aid to pomposity, and smuggled into normal English via the Internet.  I avoid it.

I can't think of any others just now, but in the past I have looked up other strange usages only to find that they date from the 16th century.

Irrelevantly, our bank manager once turned up on our doorstep with a big parcel of rhubarb after he nearly knocked me off my bike while driving a cultivator.
My 1960s Concise Oxford lists gift as a verb, but as its least important meaning.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 10 August, 2017, 08:09:12 am
^^^That's (partly) the point. Archaic usage survives in the OED as an escape hatch for morons.

Anyway, I stumbled in here because I'm fed up seeing such abortions as "singers damaging their voice".  Voices, you egregious dimwits. This time it was only the the Graun and nobody expects the Graun to use decent English, but the habit is common to all the papers these days.  The same article, apparently written by a singer, went on to talk about singers such as Adele damaging their vocal "cords".

Meanwhile, an English FB friend of Mrs T42 asked her the other day what an adverb was, because she had to learn Spanish and had never been taught any grammar at school.  :o WTF do they learn at school these days? Zen defecation?*

* My soul prompts me to put an æ in that but my Chambers** insists not. The entry ends with the helpful suggestion "See faeces." Not just now, thanks. Seen enough.
** best place for defecation, if you ask me.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 10 August, 2017, 12:35:35 pm
When people say "to coin a phrase", when they mean "to use a well-known phrase".  :demon:

I know that the lines are blurred here, because various reference sources suggest that this use arose from people who were fully aware of its real meaning, using it ironically.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 10 August, 2017, 12:56:15 pm
Yup. "Hold down the fort" has the same origin.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 20 August, 2017, 07:55:42 pm
Anyway, I stumbled in here because I'm fed up seeing such abortions as "singers damaging their voice".  Voices, you egregious dimwits. 

We've discussed this one before...

What I was taught is that since each singer has only one voice, the singular is correct.

It's arguable either way.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 21 August, 2017, 09:41:19 am
The singular sounds better to my ears. Otherwise it sounds like each of the singers has their own little box of voices which they're working through one by one.

Of course, for my crimes against grammar I will be getting an all-expenses-paid post-mortem trip to Tartarus. Euphony trumps grammar every time.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 21 August, 2017, 10:19:38 am
Yet constructions such as "their voice was damaged" are distinctly queer.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 21 August, 2017, 10:45:12 am
Writing it that way around suggests that they were sharing the same voice like a dubious Costa del Sol timeshare.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 21 August, 2017, 10:59:07 am
Yup. Yet "people worried about their weights" makes them sound like a bunch of perplexed iron-pumpers.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 21 August, 2017, 01:05:12 pm
Goes to show that grammar should be decided case by case, rather than by pedantic adherence to a rule.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 21 August, 2017, 01:08:48 pm
Decided by whom?!  What's "euphonic" to someone might not be to someone else.  What's right to someone (e.g. your English teachers) might be wrong to someone else.  In other news, have you got all the articles you need for Arrivee?

Peter
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 August, 2017, 01:43:09 pm
Singers should have more than one voice each.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 21 August, 2017, 02:28:18 pm
A singer should both have more than one voices......!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 21 August, 2017, 03:32:58 pm
Goes to show that grammar should be decided case by case, rather than by pedantic adherence to a rule.

Actually, it doesn't.  Remove the adjective, which is a matter of opinion, and what's left?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jakob W on 21 August, 2017, 03:44:44 pm
Language as she is spoke?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 21 August, 2017, 03:55:22 pm
Goes to show that grammar should be decided case by case, rather than by pedantic adherence to a rule.

Actually, it doesn't.  Remove the adjective, which is a matter of opinion, and what's left?

Language that people understand and appreciate, rather than a clunky set of rules that most don't?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 21 August, 2017, 04:00:12 pm
Prescriptive vs descriptive.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 21 August, 2017, 08:28:38 pm
Goes to show that grammar should be decided case by case, rather than by pedantic adherence to a rule.

Oi! I earned a pretty decent living as a pedant, I'll have you know, applying rules to small people!  :P
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 21 August, 2017, 08:30:16 pm
Anyway, I stumbled in here because I'm fed up seeing such abortions as "singers damaging their voice".  Voices, you egregious dimwits. 

We've discussed this one before...

What I was taught is that since each singer has only one voice, the singular is correct.

It's arguable either way.

ISTR that you and I discussed this very point some time ago, but I cannot remember the nouns in question now.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 22 August, 2017, 01:03:06 pm
In the end, I reckon that if two argue about grammar and both can produce examples to support them, then there is a basic rule governing all cases that neither of them knows.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 22 August, 2017, 02:41:12 pm
Yet constructions such as "their voice was damaged" are distinctly queer.

The GLBTQ community uses 'their' as a singular possessive pronoun though...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 22 August, 2017, 04:23:18 pm
That's not grammar, that's politics.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 August, 2017, 05:16:46 pm
It's the influence of politics on grammar. And vice versa.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jakob W on 22 August, 2017, 07:22:33 pm
'They' as a singular pronoun has *centuries* of previous usage as a precedent. It's weird that people seem to dislike it so much, especially as an unambiguous non-gender-specific singular pronoun makes for a useful distinction in practice.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: phantasmagoriana on 31 August, 2017, 12:23:43 pm
Verbing the nouns to potential students at open day yesterday: https://twitter.com/UofGLEADSLearn/status/902852339245174784

 :'(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 August, 2017, 01:13:20 pm
We need a specific name for verbing nouns, like we have gerund for nouning verbs.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: CrinklyLion on 31 August, 2017, 02:28:54 pm
Meanwhile, an English FB friend of Mrs T42 asked her the other day what an adverb was, because she had to learn Spanish and had never been taught any grammar at school.  :o WTF do they learn at school these days? Zen defecation?*

Don't go there.  My youngest was set a target in Y3 (at the age of 7) to use fronted adverbials in his writing.  The teaching of SPAG these days would bring joy to the harshest pedant... it's a shame that it crushes the joy out of writing.

Of course, in those days I clearly remember a lesson in my first year at secondary school when we were suppposed to separate a list of words into nouns, verbs and adjectives.  When I put my hand up to point out that one of the words was none of the above my teacher said it must be, then came to look when I said that it really wasn't because it was like an adjective for verbs and we'd been learning that adjectives described nouns.  That is how my English class learned what an adverb was.

Only three of my (top set) GCSE class could identify the grammatical error in Henry Reed's line "You can do it quite easy if you have any strength in your thumb" when we were studying war poetry.  Of those three, two were confident that to be grammatically (rather that poetically) correct the word needed was 'easily'.  Of those two, only I knew that this was becasue easy is not an adverb...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 31 August, 2017, 02:47:03 pm
Yeah, it's a generational thing.  I think I learned everything I know about grammar from, in order:
- My mum
- Foreign languages (at which I am shit)
- Interactive fiction parsers (ditto)
- Fuddy-duddy teachers (often of subjects other than English[1]) going off-syllabus to improve people's basic writing skills

The pendulum has since swung in the other direction, so we've got teachers (of my clueless generation) inflicting voodoo grammar on kids who are expected to know about fronted adverbials and such.

Still, at least they finally got the right idea about Computer Science.


[1] In my day, this was divided into two subjects:  English, which was about metaphysical imagery and rhythmic devices counterpointing the surrealism of the underlying metaphor and such, and English Literature which was exactly the same sort of bollocks, except you knew what the books were going to be in advance for ease of rote-learning the answers.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 31 August, 2017, 02:55:25 pm

Only three of my (top set) GCSE class could identify the grammatical error in Henry Reed's line "You can do it quite easy if you have any strength in your thumb" when we were studying war poetry.  Of those three, two were confident that to be grammatically (rather that poetically) correct the word needed was 'easily'.  Of those two, only I knew that this was becasue easy is not an adverb...

This reminds me of where Richard Feynman talks about bird watching. <fx:tappity tap>
Quote
The next Monday, when the fathers were all back at work, we kids were playing in a field. One kid says to me, “See that bird? What kind of bird is that?” I said, “I haven’t the slightest idea what kind of a bird it is.” He says, “It’s a brown-throated thrush. Your father doesn’t teach you anything!” But it was the opposite. He had already taught me: “See that bird?” he says. “It’s a Spencer’s warbler.” (I knew he didn’t know the real name.) “Well, in Italian, it’s a Chutto Lapittida. In Portuguese, it’s a Bom da Peida. In Chinese, it’s a Chung-long-tah, and in Japanese, it’s a Katano Tekeda. You can know the name of that bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. You’ll only know about humans in different places, and what they call the bird. So let’s look at the bird and see what it’s doing—that’s what counts.”

Or to put it another way, The Naming of Parts is one of my favourite poems. The best words in the best order.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 31 August, 2017, 03:35:13 pm
'They' as a singular pronoun has *centuries* of previous usage as a precedent. It's weird that people seem to dislike it so much, especially as an unambiguous non-gender-specific singular pronoun makes for a useful distinction in practice.

It's been in used for centuries as a colloquialism.  In formal use it still looks as if it has wandered into a wedding reception wearing unmatched gumboots.  I don't much mind it, though, as long as the rest of the text is consistent.  Sentences that begin with "a person" and "their" only to end with "him" and "his" make me unbutton the flap of my holster.  And it's bloody stupid when it's under the photo of what is patently a bloke. Or must the genitals be in view?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 31 August, 2017, 03:37:34 pm
Why the fuck are kids being taught fronted adverbials anyway? Do the educational authorities want to make them all sound like Yoda?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 31 August, 2017, 03:47:14 pm
Meanwhile, an English FB friend of Mrs T42 asked her the other day what an adverb was, because she had to learn Spanish and had never been taught any grammar at school.  :o WTF do they learn at school these days? Zen defecation?*

Don't go there.  My youngest was set a target in Y3 (at the age of 7) to use fronted adverbials in his writing.  The teaching of SPAG these days would bring joy to the harshest pedant... it's a shame that it crushes the joy out of writing.

Of course, in those days I clearly remember a lesson in my first year at secondary school when we were suppposed to separate a list of words into nouns, verbs and adjectives.  When I put my hand up to point out that one of the words was none of the above my teacher said it must be, then came to look when I said that it really wasn't because it was like an adjective for verbs and we'd been learning that adjectives described nouns.  That is how my English class learned what an adverb was.

Only three of my (top set) GCSE class could identify the grammatical error in Henry Reed's line "You can do it quite easy if you have any strength in your thumb" when we were studying war poetry.  Of those three, two were confident that to be grammatically (rather that poetically) correct the word needed was 'easily'.  Of those two, only I knew that this was becasue easy is not an adverb...

Aye, but the error was necessary to put across his instructor sergeant's level of education.  Take it easily. ;)

WRT adverbs in general, I have an idea that their decline is due to mass German emigration to America in the 19th century.  German adverbs and adjectives are identical, and mature folk learning English for the first time would have trouble remembering the distinction.  Leaving off the -ly doesn't distort the meaning, so you could achieve a usable level of comprehensibility by ignoring it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 31 August, 2017, 03:48:05 pm
Why the fuck are kids being taught fronted adverbials anyway? Do the educational authorities want to make them all sound like Yoda?

Cos SATs, targets and League Tables or sumpfink.

I dozen kno wot a fronted adverbial is and I pretend to be literate.

(I believe this to be part of some monetarist ploy to commoditise 'education' but that's a tad POBI.)
 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 31 August, 2017, 04:03:03 pm
I dozen kno wot a fronted adverbial is and I pretend to be literate.

'Fronted' in this context just means 'moved to the front of the sentence'.

(Adverbs usually come after the verb in English, but you might move them to the front of the sentence for emphasis or just to vary your sentence structure to make it more interesting. Seems an elaborate waste of time teaching this to 9-10 year olds.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: CrinklyLion on 31 August, 2017, 04:05:13 pm
Why the fuck are kids being taught fronted adverbials anyway? Do the educational authorities want to make them all sound like Yoda?

Because Gove?

I did say to not go there, didn't I... the primary curriculum and SPAG test has a tendency to get me a bit soapbox-ranty... because I see teachers twisting themselves in all directions trying desparately to make this shit into something interesting, and pupils getting the joy of words sucked out of them despite the very best efforts of those teachers because of the systems they are working within.  And my own SmallestCub is right in the middle of all that nonsense.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/may/09/fronted-adverbials-sats-grammar-test-primary

And you really don't want to get me started on the comma/semi-colon SNAFU
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/jul/10/primary-school-children-lose-marks-in-sats-tests-for-mis-shaped-commas

Of course, the privately educated kids in fee paying schools don't have to put up with all that nonsense.

ETA
It's not 9-10 year olds that get the fronted adverbial shite, it is the 7-8 year olds.  By Year 5/6 it is all about your sentence and clause types...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 31 August, 2017, 04:08:28 pm
I don't know what a frontal adverb is (my mind performs an emergency stop at 'full frontal'*) and I write (and draw pictures) for a living (I know, I know, laugh it up, you ain't seen my pay cheque – and if you have, I want it back). I don't feel especially deficient. I come from that generation without grammar, we just had words at my school. Considering we all spoke Erewashian, which as dialects go is pretty much a glottal apocalypse where consonants fear to tread, I think mere words were challenge enough.

I did recently read a book about grammar I found on my wife's desk (she's a writer and editor) which was awfully dull, so I pity the kids that are subjected to such enhanced grammarification techniques. What are the adverbs in this sentence, it would demand. I don't know. Or more I didn't care. Sentences either sound good or they don't. Much rhetorical flourish, I'm sure, is defiantly ungrammatical.

Reading about kids and schools these days, I'm glad I went when I did, before we slapped a target on everything and didn't believe anything that didn't come with a checklist.

*Yes, I know, on re-reading it's 'frontED'. Freud wrote that book, not me.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 31 August, 2017, 04:28:23 pm
It's not 9-10 year olds that get the fronted adverbial shite, it is the 7-8 year olds.

That's insane.

What really offends me is not that they're being taught the idea of moving adverb phrases to the front of the sentence, which is moderately useful (if a little advanced for that age group), but that they are required to know the term 'fronted adverbial', which is recondite educationalist jargon, of no earthly use to anyone in the real world.

Since this thread is about grammar that makes you cringe, I'll also point out that this use of 'fronted' makes me cringe big time.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 31 August, 2017, 04:36:39 pm
Only really seen 'fronted' used by estate agents describing properties like a double-fronted house in the outside world.
Can't say it bothered me then.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 31 August, 2017, 04:44:56 pm
Why the fuck are kids being taught fronted adverbials anyway? Do the educational authorities want to make them all sound like Yoda?

Because Gove?

I expect that someone, quite reasonably, pointed out that it might be useful to learn some grammar in school.  And then Gove happened.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 31 August, 2017, 04:51:27 pm
'They' as a singular pronoun has *centuries* of previous usage as a precedent. It's weird that people seem to dislike it so much, especially as an unambiguous non-gender-specific singular pronoun makes for a useful distinction in practice.

In formal use it still looks as if it has wandered into a wedding reception wearing unmatched gumboots.

I dunno, that sounds like my kind of wedding reception...   :demon:


Quote
I don't much mind it, though, as long as the rest of the text is consistent.  Sentences that begin with "a person" and "their" only to end with "him" and "his" make me unbutton the flap of my holster.

Agreed, unless perhaps it's an edge case where the gender of the person is revealed partway through the sentence, in which case it's a cheap grammatical trick.


Quote
And it's bloody stupid when it's under the photo of what is patently a bloke. Or must the genitals be in view?

This, not so much.  Disregarding the 'it's not about the genitals' factor, the great thing about gender-neutral writing is that you can use it for anyone.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 August, 2017, 04:51:55 pm
Why the fuck are kids being taught fronted adverbials anyway? Do the educational authorities want to make them all sound like Yoda?

Because Gove?

I expect that someone, quite reasonably, pointed out that it might be useful to learn some grammar in school.  And then Gove happened.
That makes it sound like Gove was conceived as a result of grammar being taught at school. In which case, I'm all for the innocent virtues of illiteracy.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 31 August, 2017, 04:54:02 pm
See, that sort of sloppy "$noun happened" construction is excatly the sort of thing people come up with when they aren't teeched proper grammer.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 31 August, 2017, 05:09:11 pm
I can't remember what we learned or did in English. In French it was words and how to use them to maximise the distress of our French teachers. I have an O level (grade A, if memory serves, or possibly I'm mixing it up with chicken fillets). I also have a O level in English Literature (keep laughing at the back, I've read all the big books).

I do remember we had to pick books and read them. Probably while the teacher snuck out for a smoke, which is what teachers did a lot back then, well that and the ever popular running off with sixteen year olds. Sometimes we had to read sections of our chosen novel in class, which was appropriately horrid. Thirty pairs of eyes would fall to the floor the moment our teacher look up and said 'so who next'. I think my eyeballs once scuttled into the next classroom to evade the task. One microsecond of eye contact was all it took for an Ian?. It wasn't without entertainment. My best pal back then was reading that James Herbert book The Rats. Now, as any teenage boy in my generation knows* things always got a little spicy around page 172. So in hindsight, he shouldn't have started reading at page 171 and then he would have never had to read the phrase 'she reached down and grabbed his stiff...' out loud in front a teacher and thirty of his teenage peers. His stiff what? demanded teacher. There was a moment of exquisitely painful silence.

Cock, miss, he finally replied. The sounds of thirty kids snorting at the same time isn't a good one.

Sadly, he may have thought he was off the hook. Not so.

Well carry on reading then, Neil.

He bottled it at that. You'll have to read the book to find out if it was put to a grammatically correct use.

*We didn't have the internet and the top shelf of the newsagent was a mission no one took lightly, so mastubation took a lot more effort, at least in the preparation. A playground copy of Knave or Fiesta, liberated from someone's dad's stash, was significant currency.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 31 August, 2017, 05:16:00 pm
I just found this Michael Rosen piece on fronted adverbials, which is replete with wisdom, as you'd expect...

http://michaelrosenblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/health-alert-how-fronted-adverbial.html

Full of shite, this government is.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 31 August, 2017, 05:35:40 pm
I do remember we had to pick books and read them. Probably while the teacher snuck out for a smoke, which is what teachers did a lot back then, well that and the ever popular running off with sixteen year olds. Sometimes we had to read sections of our chosen novel in class, which was appropriately horrid. Thirty pairs of eyes would fall to the floor the moment our teacher look up and said 'so who next'. I think my eyeballs once scuttled into the next classroom to evade the task. One microsecond of eye contact was all it took for an Ian?.

We had a much less interesting version:  We were all assigned the same book.  Which meant that reading in class was a special, if much less interesting, form of torture where you were made to read a book at the speed of whoever was struggling with the embarrassment of reading out loud, else be caught 'not paying attention' and made to read the next bit.  Have you ever tried to read a book deliberately slowly?  It's like following the live subtitles on the BBC news, only without the comedy word substitutions.

I eventually worked out that I could preserve a shred of sanity by reading the book over the weekend before we started studying it, in order to know what happened next.  This had the advantage that I could appreciate the book on its own merit, unsullied by the analysis of English teachers.  It had the disadvantage that I had to finish a book that was almost certainly a bit dull[1] over the course of a random weekend, but I was a nerd with no life, so that wasn't as big a deal as it might sound.


[1] We didn't even get Mr Darcy, let alone car chases and explosions.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 31 August, 2017, 06:53:49 pm
I seem to recall set texts in English Literature, none so enlightening as The Rats. I think they were OK, if faintly radical for the dark era of Thatcher and, as a plus, none of them were DH Lawrence (as a side note, everyone in movie and TV versions of Lawrence stuff speaks with a Yorkshire accent, never Erewashian – admittedly this practice avoids the need for subtitling). I seem to recall writing a lot about Animal Farm and Pygmalion. I think I'm finally appreciating the irony of the latter, considering the local dialect.

Being forced to read out loud was, of course, an acutely embarrassing form of aural nakedity. One mispronounced word (or worse, one correctly pronounced 'posh' word) was the only qualification for months of abuse, usually by the group of more feral pupils aping (an easy skill for them) your pronunciation everywhere you went. I once had to stab someone with a compass point over the pronunciation of diplodocus. Admittedly, I expect similar behaviour from curators at the National History Museum.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Vernon on 31 August, 2017, 07:02:09 pm
We need a specific name for verbing nouns, like we have gerund for nouning verbs.

gerov?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 31 August, 2017, 07:22:25 pm
Being forced to read out loud was, of course, an acutely embarrassing form of aural nakedity.

I used to enjoy it and would always volunteer to be the one to read out loud. But that's probably because I'm a shameless exhibitionist. Thus were my classmates subjected to me reading pretty much the whole of Watership Down to them, aged 11.

Perhaps the only reason I avoided getting beaten up was because I spared the less willing members of the group from having to do it themselves.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jakob W on 31 August, 2017, 09:56:14 pm
I was going to link to that Rosen piece, but was beaten to it. Of course a hideous fuckup should be no surprise for a Govian initiative, but it's the cargo-cultiness of it that offends. Some knowledge of 'grammar' is probably helpful, but AFAICS what's taught is mainly syntax, which native speakers pick up and internalise fairly well anyway; and the error-riddled box-ticking syllabus is no way to teach even the bits that might be useful.

In a similar vein to Rosen, I reckon a far better way to learn about the effective and powerful use of language is simply to read lots of varied texts, and (sorry, Kim...) to do a fair amount of textual analysis at various levels, including close reading and more structural/narratological approaches.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 31 August, 2017, 11:12:06 pm
I don't think this particular education tool has been used in the UK:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_diagram

I hating diagramming sentences, but I did learn from it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 31 August, 2017, 11:21:47 pm
I don't think this particular education tool has been used in the UK:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_diagram

Probably only in Computer Science.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 01 September, 2017, 08:28:06 am
It's not 9-10 year olds that get the fronted adverbial shite, it is the 7-8 year olds.

That's insane.

What really offends me is not that they're being taught the idea of moving adverb phrases to the front of the sentence, which is moderately useful (if a little advanced for that age group), but that they are required to know the term 'fronted adverbial', which is recondite educationalist jargon, of no earthly use to anyone in the real world.

Since this thread is about grammar that makes you cringe, I'll also point out that this use of 'fronted' makes me cringe big time.

You're affronted, so to speak.

Betcha it snuck in from over there.

A propos of which, I quite like American colloquialisms, but when they thrust right-hand feet into left-hand shoes with such grotesque terminology as fronted I could happily harvey the lot of them.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 01 September, 2017, 10:21:14 am
Betcha it snuck in from over there.

Not necessarily. I reckon our academics are quite capable of inventing crap jargon of their own.

(Apparently, a linguistics professor called Richard Hudson was mainly responsible for introducing fronted adverbials to UK education, and he's a Brit, but I don't know if he invented the term or got it from elsewhere.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 September, 2017, 12:22:02 pm
I had manged fifty-three years of not knowing what a "fronted adverbial" is.  Now I do know1, and would like to go and kill someone.  Not Michael Gove, though, because everyone already wants to kill him.

1: And will doubtless have forgotten by lunch-time.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 01 September, 2017, 01:05:09 pm
I had manged fifty-three years of not knowing what a "fronted adverbial" is.

AIUI they didn't exist for approximately the first 47 of those years.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 01 September, 2017, 03:19:32 pm
The norm, then, being backed adverbials.  How about sided, aboved and undered ones?  Or diagonally to the rear, i.e. backsided? Adverbial on the port quarter, Cap'n!!! Give it the 9-pounders, Mr. Pullings, if you please.

I need another cuppa.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 01 September, 2017, 03:44:42 pm
Interestingly, spent Mr Larrington much childhood in Germany, where fronted adverbs commonplace are...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Diver300 on 02 September, 2017, 07:47:18 am
I hope it is only barbers, talking about the problems running resonant clippers designed for 60 Hz mains on 50 Hz, who say that Hertz is a measure of "hertage".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4eFU2fPXAA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4eFU2fPXAA)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfeErR17uUc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfeErR17uUc)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 02 September, 2017, 11:23:03 am
I thought it was AAA points that were the measure of hurtage.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 02 September, 2017, 11:27:58 am
I hope it is only barbers, talking about the problems running resonant clippers designed for 60 Hz mains on 50 Hz, who say that Hertz is a measure of "hertage".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4eFU2fPXAA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4eFU2fPXAA)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfeErR17uUc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfeErR17uUc)

There's a high frequency incidence of technical illiteracy!

"I have twenty years of barbering experience."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 02 September, 2017, 12:41:13 pm
Interestingly, spent Mr Larrington much childhood in Germany, where fronted adverbs commonplace are...

Nobbut two years, living on an estate full of BRITONS, going to a BRITISH skool and subsisting on food more often than not purchased from the NAAFI.  Interactions with actual Germans were rare.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 02 September, 2017, 01:35:38 pm
I thought it was AAA points that were the measure of hurtage.

"Say AAAAAA - now, this won't hurt a bit."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 12 September, 2017, 10:28:27 am
People writing tonne when they mean ton, as in it cost a tonne of money. It's a wonder they don't write it cost a tonne (0.984 Imperial long tons) of money.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 12 September, 2017, 10:40:39 am
People writing tonne when they mean ton, as in it cost a tonne of money. It's a wonder they don't write it cost a tonne (0.984 Imperial long tons) of money.

One of my colleagues does this all the time. If I'm editing his copy, I usually change it to 'loads' or something else to avoid the issue.

I think it's a form of hypercorrection, whereby all units are pedantically expressed in metric even if used figuratively.

See also: hide your light under 36.387 litres, go the whole 8.23 metres, give them 2.54cm and they'll take 1,6km...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 September, 2017, 10:42:42 am
People writing tonne when they mean ton, as in it cost a tonne of money. It's a wonder they don't write it cost a tonne (0.984 Imperial long tons) of money.

One of my colleagues does this all the time. If I'm editing his copy, I usually change it to 'loads' or something else to avoid the issue.

I think it's a form of hypercorrection, whereby all units are pedantically expressed in metric even if used figuratively.

See also: hiding your light under 36.387 litres, going the whole 8.23 metres, give them 2.54cm and they'll take 1,6km...
Going metric with the punctuation in the last one.  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 12 September, 2017, 10:44:57 am
Going metric with the punctuation in the last one.  :thumbsup:

Gives it an air of Gallic sophistication, innit.

Either that or I pressed the wrong key...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 12 September, 2017, 11:21:31 am
See also: hide your light under 36.387 litres, go the whole 8.23 metres, give them 2.54cm and they'll take 1,6km...

Or 1.143 m up in Yorks.

I remember reading a novel by Philip José Farmer untold years ago in which he (or his editor) had stated every quantity in imperial with the metric equivalent in brackets after it, thus: "about a mile (1.6 km) up the river he could see...".  Kinda broke the rhythm.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 12 September, 2017, 12:04:54 pm
Or 1.143 m up in Yorks.

Or 42cm if you go back to the oldest version of the saying.

Quote
I remember reading a novel by Philip José Farmer untold years ago in which he (or his editor) had stated every quantity in imperial with the metric equivalent in brackets after it, thus: "about a mile (1.6 km) up the river he could see...".  Kinda broke the rhythm.

That really does make me cringe.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 September, 2017, 12:31:07 pm
It might make sense for non-fiction but in a novel it's beyond unhelpful.

I've never been keen on the spelling tonne and would prefer ton for both imperial and metric (and American and other) definitions, except where necessary to avoid confusion. And as spelling alone can't avoid confusion between Imperial and American, why use it for the far smaller difference between Imperial and metric?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 12 September, 2017, 01:02:31 pm
Yebbut a ton isn't as big as a metric fucktonne, so a distinction must be made
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 12 September, 2017, 01:26:31 pm
Or 1.143 m up in Yorks.

Or 42cm if you go back to the oldest version of the saying.

Oh 'ell... what's that, a short metric cubit?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 12 September, 2017, 03:27:55 pm
People writing tonne when they mean ton, as in it cost a tonne of money. It's a wonder they don't write it cost a tonne (0.984 Imperial long tons) of money.

maybe they do mean tonne? I deal in 1000kg tonnes all the time and am careful to use either the full spelling or te to avoid any Americanism or imperialism creeping in
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 12 September, 2017, 03:41:10 pm
People writing tonne when they mean ton, as in it cost a tonne of money. It's a wonder they don't write it cost a tonne (0.984 Imperial long tons) of money.

maybe they do mean tonne?

But do they mean a tonne of pennies or a tonne of £50 notes? It could make quite a difference.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 12 September, 2017, 03:45:16 pm
People writing tonne when they mean ton, as in it cost a tonne of money. It's a wonder they don't write it cost a tonne (0.984 Imperial long tons) of money.

maybe they do mean tonne? I deal in 1000kg tonnes all the time and am careful to use either the full spelling or te to avoid any Americanism or imperialism creeping in

No problem, it's a valid unit. But figurative use is misplaced.  I could give you a tun of examples. ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 12 September, 2017, 09:15:34 pm
I'm happy to be paid in beer, cuts out the middleman ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jasmine on 15 September, 2017, 06:34:59 pm
In this article http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-41279069

Quote
Environment body Natural Resources Wales (NRW) said it discovered the remains of the hedgerow beech trees amounting to 200 metres cubed of felled timber.

I hate it when people say 'metres cubed', but writing it down makes me wince.

Edit - it's now been changed to 200 cubic metres.  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 23 September, 2017, 09:01:42 am
I don't think this particular education tool has been used in the UK:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentence_diagram

Probably only in Computer Science.

Yup, formal language theory.  It has a weird beauty normally only found in the further reaches of outer space.  It is computer science, underpinning formal verification of computer programs you really don't want to have failing on you.  The Vienna Development Method is an early approach to program proving.  If you thought writing software was easy.. although most programs in commerce are written by guess and by god.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 24 September, 2017, 07:06:04 am
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4489/37243499312_12b998c33e_c.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/YK5ENu)
P9230248 (https://flic.kr/p/YK5ENu) by Mr Larrington (https://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_larrington/), on Flickr

It rather looks as though some nincomfuck has tried to correct a sign which was already right...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 24 September, 2017, 09:22:00 am
... up to the last sentence
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you vomit
Post by: T42 on 24 September, 2017, 11:20:16 am
"Insane" when the perpetrator means "rather unusual". Sure, the public fixes on such expressions now and then - I remember when the mildly surprising was constantly described as amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing in the 80s - but this latest fad is even more idiotic. :sick:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 24 September, 2017, 03:13:26 pm
See also "awesome" as an adjective meaning anything from "jaw-droppingly, mind-buggeringly amazingly amazing" to "a bit different".  Doubly so if you hail from the part of California south of I-80.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 25 September, 2017, 10:09:16 am
My former boss was 'Awesome George' on account that he awesomed everything. Eventually, he had to default to 'super awesome' to cover those situations that weren't just mildly awesome.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 25 September, 2017, 10:40:38 am
I rather think that "insane" is the new "awesome". They're both "awful".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 25 September, 2017, 12:45:40 pm
Here's one we discussed earlier...

(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4367/36637144603_28cdb16e3d_z.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: The French Tandem on 25 September, 2017, 02:38:30 pm
^^Hard disks are getting heavier due to the zillions of electrons they carry :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 25 September, 2017, 06:37:01 pm
at least it's a metric tonne of storage, not one of those old fashioned ones
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 25 September, 2017, 07:25:34 pm
People writing tonne when they mean ton, as in it cost a tonne of money. It's a wonder they don't write it cost a tonne (0.984 Imperial long tons) of money.

One of my colleagues does this all the time. If I'm editing his copy, I usually change it to 'loads' or something else to avoid the issue.

I think it's a form of hypercorrection, whereby all units are pedantically expressed in metric even if used figuratively.

See also: hide your light under 36.387 litres, go the whole 8.23 metres, give them 2.54cm and they'll take 1,6km...
I recall wandering around Sri Lanka in the 1980s & noticing that railway stations had the altitude on the main name sign.

In metres, in multiples of 3.05.  :facepalm:

At least it wasn't in multiples of 3.048.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 29 September, 2017, 10:13:06 am
A grammar that makes me cringe:
(https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4461/36717049343_b3087f5c6c_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/XWytyT)

It was the headline that first caught my attention (which, to be fair is what headlines are supposed to do), particularly the unwieldy passive construction 'have been deemed selective' - I guess 'have you passed the 11+?' is deprecated for all sorts of reasons, but that's a fairly cackhanded way of getting around it.

Then I read on and it got worse. That third sentence is 37 words long.  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 29 September, 2017, 10:30:06 am
The benefits of a comprehensive school education mean I can't compose sentences that long.

Which is a good thing for everyone.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 29 September, 2017, 10:42:29 am
Then I read on and it got worse. That third sentence is 37 words long.  :facepalm:

Going for the Henry James award?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 September, 2017, 11:24:32 am
Bumf or even arsef.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 29 September, 2017, 11:28:39 am
Bumf or even arsef.

It's an advert on a train for a school open day. They could say everything they needed to say in three or four succinct bullet points.

Arsef is a good word. I shall adopt it. Even though I don't know how to say it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 September, 2017, 11:43:37 am
I'd just say it like arse with a 'f' sound at the end. I've never said it out loud though; I might let you have the honour of being the first. Though we already have the perfectly good 'arsewipe' to describe that kind of pseudo-impressive writing.

Perhaps they could have said something like 'Have you qualified for a selective school?' in the headline, avoiding the clumsy passive, the dodgy use of selective and the 'controversial' 11+ all in one go. Perhaps they could have found something concrete to say about their school as well.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 29 September, 2017, 11:51:50 am
Perhaps they could have said something like 'Have you qualified for a selective school?' in the headline

Or they could just be honest about a policy that leaves a vast number of 10 year olds on the educational scrapheap.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 29 September, 2017, 11:53:21 am
How many 11-year-olds would know they had been "deemed selective"?   Is this a buzz-phrase in the South?  Do you want to go to a school that is going to "allow" you to smile?  Most kids do it naturally, until education intervenes.  There's so much that's infelicitous in the last sentence that it's hard to know where to start.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 29 September, 2017, 11:59:00 am
There's so much that's infelicitous in the last sentence that it's hard to know where to start.

Everything about it appals me, but the bit about "allowing" kids to smile is particularly invidious.

In any case, it's the school that's selective; the pupils are selected. It's offensive to suggest the kids have any control over "proceedings".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 29 September, 2017, 01:57:41 pm
It is, admittedly, a peculiarly awful piece of text. I feel sure the school in question features an 'executive leadership team.'
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 September, 2017, 02:58:42 pm
I'd echo Peter's question. Is 'deemed selective' an actual phrase in Kent or has the school made it up?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 29 September, 2017, 03:01:10 pm
They forgot to mention that if you don't buy the correct uniform from their "approved supplier" then you'll be out on your ear.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 29 September, 2017, 03:09:27 pm
I'd echo Peter's question. Is 'deemed selective' an actual phrase in Kent or has the school made it up?

I just googled the phrase "deemed selective" and it seems to be a London Borough of Bexley thing. File alongside fronted adverbials in the folder marked Horrendous Educationalist Jargon.
https://www.bexley.gov.uk/services/children-families-and-education/education-and-services-children/school-admissions/selection-tests

I've never heard it before though. My son did the 11+ in East Kent, which is a different LEA, and it was some years ago so I can't remember what euphemisms they used to skirt around openly stating that they were weeding out the thickos.

This is what is says on the KCC website:
"If you want to apply for a year 7 place at a Kent grammar school, you can register your child for the Kent Test. The test assesses whether grammar school is a suitable option for your child."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 29 September, 2017, 04:41:08 pm
Is being 'Deemed Selective' a Statement of Snootiness?

I tend to think of a selective person being fussy to the point of snobbery but maybe my use of English is not like others.



Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Redlight on 29 September, 2017, 06:06:58 pm
It is, admittedly, a peculiarly awful piece of text. I feel sure the school in question features an 'executive leadership team.'

The ad's a tad premature in any case - the tests were only a couple of weeks ago and the results aren't due for another two weeks.

(I don't know about Beths' governance but it is known as one of the better schools in this part of SE London and so there's fierce competition for places there, especially from neighbouring boroughs like Lewisham and Greenwich where there are no grammar schools and few good comprehensives.  I'm surprised they even need to advertise the open days. )
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Redlight on 29 September, 2017, 06:08:05 pm
Back on topic - can I propose a ban on the phrase "of all time"?   So far as I am aware, the world has not yet ended so "all time" will, hopefully, have some time still to run.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 29 September, 2017, 06:23:13 pm
It's all bizarre to me. I went to the local comprehensive because that was the only school there was.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Redlight on 29 September, 2017, 06:25:34 pm
It's all bizarre to me. I went to the local comprehensive because that was the only school there was.

As the father of a 10 year-old, I can vouch for the fact that it's a complete f----ing shambles  :(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 29 September, 2017, 06:58:31 pm
I'm glad that I only have cats. Them don't need no schoolin'.

It does seem a nightmare that mostly seems built to cater to middle-class parents craving for status rather than their kids' educational needs.

When I grew up there was a high school 'down Nottingham' I suppose, though I didn't know anyone who breathed that rarified air of educational attainment. We just bumbled to the local comp got stratified into the thickies (just sit there and try to be quiet for the next five years, OK? Please...), the merely mediocre motoring for the bottom quartile of the GCSE grading curve, and the smart-ish kids.

Mind you, I remember when I told my dad I was going to university. He gave it a bit of thought. And then asked 'why?'

It only took him another twenty-eight years to ask me what I studied.

Yes, yes, I was one of the smart kids, so shut up.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 30 September, 2017, 10:01:35 am
Back in the day my mum was forbidden a university education because a girl at Queen's Belfast got "herself into trouble"*.  That would have been in the 1920s.

*NB "herself". Must have been parthenogenesis. Cringeworthy these days.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 30 September, 2017, 11:57:40 am
I'm surprised they even need to advertise the open days. )

I had the same thought. It's not just that it's one of the "better" schools, it's that there are far more candidates "deemed selective" than there are places in grammar schools  - mainly because the population has increased but the number of grammar school places hasn't, which is why the Tories are intent on changing the rules to allow new grammar schools (rather than improving the standard of education at comprehensives).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mcshroom on 30 September, 2017, 09:30:37 pm
People writing tonne when they mean ton, as in it cost a tonne of money. It's a wonder they don't write it cost a tonne (0.984 Imperial long tons) of money.

One of my colleagues does this all the time. If I'm editing his copy, I usually change it to 'loads' or something else to avoid the issue.

I think it's a form of hypercorrection, whereby all units are pedantically expressed in metric even if used figuratively.

See also: hide your light under 36.387 litres, go the whole 8.23 metres, give them 2.54cm and they'll take 1,6km...
I recall wandering around Sri Lanka in the 1980s & noticing that railway stations had the altitude on the main name sign.

In metres, in multiples of 3.05.  :facepalm:

At least it wasn't in multiples of 3.048.

We have height restriction barriers at work which are labelled as "Maximum height 5.334 m". :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 October, 2017, 03:11:03 pm
Archbishop of Canterbury "can't give a straight answer on gay sex," which made me smile, even if it was accidental.
Quote
Asked by Campbell if gay sex was sinful, Welby said: “You know very well that is a question I can’t give a straight answer to. Sorry, badly phrased there. I should have thought that one through.”
But then he spoils it by talking about "enormity".
Quote
In his GQ interview, Welby also said he hoped he would not have to preside over the Queen’s funeral. “It’s enormous whoever does it – God willing someone else – because it is an enormous public event. But as a parish priest, at every funeral you think about the enormity of it.
I don't think he really means that. Or maybe he does?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 02 October, 2017, 09:04:17 pm
Oxford Dictionary gives that as a common accepted usage, and who would argue with them?
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 02 October, 2017, 10:06:23 pm
Oxford Dictionary gives that as a common accepted usage, and who would argue with them?

Gives what exactly as a common accepted usage? I can’t think of any definition of enormity that seems applicable to funerals.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 October, 2017, 10:15:28 pm
Pickled Onion is right.
Quote
1.1 (in neutral use) large size or scale.
‘I began to get a sense of the enormity of the task’
Quote
Usage
Enormity traditionally means ‘the extreme scale or seriousness of something bad or morally wrong’, as in residents of the town were struggling to deal with the enormity of the crime. Today, however, a more neutral sense as a synonym for hugeness or immensity, as in he soon discovered the enormity of the task, is common. Some people regard this use as wrong, arguing that enormity in its original sense meant ‘a crime’ and should therefore continue to be used only of contexts in which a negative moral judgement is implied. Nevertheless, the sense is now broadly accepted in standard English, although it generally relates to something difficult, such as a task, challenge, or achievement
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/enormity

It seems I've become an old fuddy-duddy hyper-correct cringer (perhaps through overexposure to YACF?) and in addition have to cringe at my own cringe. My onions well and truly pickled!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 02 October, 2017, 10:39:28 pm
Look again at what Welby actually said. Is the large size or scale of the event really something he thinks about at every funeral?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 October, 2017, 10:50:20 pm
He presumably doesn't think of every funeral as a crime or something morally wrong, and I doubt he spends every funeral thinking about having to conduct the Queen's funeral. Obviously not every funeral is large in number of mourners or any other measure of physical scale. I think what he thinks about is the enormous spiritual dimension of death.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 02 October, 2017, 10:54:20 pm
I presume he’s talking about the enormous responsibility of conducting a funeral but it’s clumsily expressed.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 October, 2017, 10:56:30 pm
It's certainly clumsy! Enormity is probably a word best avoided for the next decade or however long it takes its meaning to become settled.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 03 October, 2017, 08:19:56 am
Its meaning was settled. Sloppy nitwits have screwed it up.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 03 October, 2017, 09:02:20 am
Its meaning was settled. Sloppy nitwits have screwed it up.

You've long since lost the fight on this one, I'm afraid. No point being a Canute about it. ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 03 October, 2017, 09:32:33 am
Yeah. They used to call Canutism "kicking against the pricks" but I'd prefer to give perpetrators one in the balls.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 04 October, 2017, 01:48:34 pm
Everybody on GBBO last night referring to pastéis de nata as if it were singular.

Mind you, I'm the twat who asks for a panino at the sarnie shop...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 October, 2017, 02:59:34 pm
We had 'obligated' a page or two back. I've been into a secondhand (ie charity) bookshop and come out with Bright Lights, Big City. Opening it at random, I was struck by
Quote
Objectively, you know that Elaine is desirable and you feel obligated to desire her.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: phantasmagoriana on 04 October, 2017, 03:28:12 pm

Mind you, I'm the twat who asks for a panino at the sarnie shop...

:thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 04 October, 2017, 04:03:33 pm
We had 'obligated' a page or two back. I've been into a secondhand (ie charity) bookshop and come out with Bright Lights, Big City. Opening it at random, I was struck by
Quote
Objectively, you know that Elaine is desirable and you feel obligated to desire her.

American, 1984. It fits.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 04 October, 2017, 05:11:44 pm

Mind you, I'm the twat who asks for a panino at the sarnie shop...

:thumbsup:

I may have reported in this very thread the time I was in Waitrose. There was a sign on the cafe counter apologising for the lack of "sandwiche's, toastie's and panini's". This had been corrected with a finely wielded Sharpie, deleting the apostrophes and the unnecessary final "s" on panini.  This ties in well with the alleged "overheard in Waitrose" which got onto Twitter some time back: "Daddy, does Lego have a silent T, like Merlot?"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 October, 2017, 08:44:33 am
We had 'obligated' a page or two back. I've been into a secondhand (ie charity) bookshop and come out with Bright Lights, Big City. Opening it at random, I was struck by
Quote
Objectively, you know that Elaine is desirable and you feel obligated to desire her.

American, 1984. It fits.
From the same source:
Quote
The matter is still under advisement.
Ugly but, again, it fits.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 11 October, 2017, 10:34:10 am
The NYT enjoins me to "play the crossword".  You don't play a crossword, you ninny, you DO a crossword. And the NYT specimens are pathetic.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 11 October, 2017, 10:54:17 am
I think you complete* a crossword


* whether you complete it or not
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 11 October, 2017, 01:22:49 pm
Less common but yes. Or fill it in - I knew of one train commuter who used to fill in his Times crossword with unutterable* filth then toss the paper casually on the seat and walk out of the compartment, just for the fun of watching other passengers crane at his answers or even dive to pick it up before anyone else.

But play? Nyet.

*in those days, not now
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 11 October, 2017, 01:54:59 pm
I knew of one train commuter who used to fill in his Times crossword with unutterable* filth then toss the paper casually on the seat and walk out of the compartment, just for the fun of watching other passengers crane at his answers or even dive to pick it up before anyone else.

I used to do this with the Evening Standard crossword back when I was a regular commuter. It's a shite crossword so this is a lot more fun than filling it in with the correct answers.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 11 October, 2017, 02:49:04 pm
Everybody on GBBO last night referring to pastéis de nata as if it were singular.

Mind you, I'm the twat who asks for a panino at the sarnie shop...

Seems all right to me, but then I ask for multiples of espressi or cappuccini
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 October, 2017, 03:03:45 pm
If you want a panino, you need the music shop.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 11 October, 2017, 06:09:18 pm
People writing tonne when they mean ton, as in it cost a tonne of money. It's a wonder they don't write it cost a tonne (0.984 Imperial long tons) of money.

One of my colleagues does this all the time. If I'm editing his copy, I usually change it to 'loads' or something else to avoid the issue.

I think it's a form of hypercorrection, whereby all units are pedantically expressed in metric even if used figuratively.

See also: hide your light under 36.387 litres, go the whole 8.23 metres, give them 2.54cm and they'll take 1,6km...
I recall wandering around Sri Lanka in the 1980s & noticing that railway stations had the altitude on the main name sign.

In metres, in multiples of 3.05.  :facepalm:

At least it wasn't in multiples of 3.048.

We have height restriction barriers at work which are labelled as "Maximum height 5.334 m". :facepalm:

Doh!   :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 October, 2017, 08:36:08 pm
The habit of ending every sentence with an upward intonation as if it were a question is generally reckoned to have come from Australia. Neighbours seems to be suspected as the vector. It could be older and not Australian though.
Quote
On Friday my whole family went for a ride in my brother's new car. My brother bought this new Pontiac last week, and he wanted to take us all for a ride –  you know, to try it out and everything? ... And then, let's see, on Saturday I stayed home all day and helped my mother make my sister's wedding dress. My sister's engaged to be married, you see, and my mother's making this wedding dress for her?
Quote
We saw Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde. It was real good too. It's all about this guy who mixes up this chemical, like, that he drinks?
 And whenever he drinks this chemical, he changes into this real monster, like? You see him drink this chemical, and then you see his hands start to get all scales all over them, like a reptile and everything, and then you see his face start to change into this real horrible-looking face – with fangs and all? Sticking out of his mouth?
Quote
On Sunday, Bill Stringer came over to my house, and my dad helped rig up this old tire on this long rope? From a tree? There's this steep hill down behind my house, you see – this ravine, like? – and we hung this tire so that what you do is, you take the tire and run a little ways and then lift your feet, and you go swinging way, way out over the ravine and back.
Fourth grade children telling stories in class, NY State, mid-1950s.

Of course it still could have reached Britain from Australian soaps but the origin seems to be before that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 17 October, 2017, 10:44:38 pm
Every year thousands of elderly people die from falling in the EU alone (http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2017/07/25/these-shoes-will-keep-you-from-falling.cnnmoney/index.html?iid=ob_article_video)

Well, they should move. Or get with someone.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ben T on 17 October, 2017, 10:54:57 pm
Probably said it before but: "different than"  >:( >:(  :facepalm: :facepalm:
It's different FROM!!   ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Torslanda on 18 October, 2017, 09:02:58 am
Not 'different to'?  :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 18 October, 2017, 09:28:23 am
The intranet comments feature at work has an option to "Show less replies".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 18 October, 2017, 09:29:59 am
Not 'different to'?  :demon:

One's as good than the other.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 18 October, 2017, 06:46:57 pm
Probably said it before but: "different than"  >:( >:(  :facepalm: :facepalm:
It's different FROM!!   ::-)

Standard usage in USAnia.  It grates.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 26 October, 2017, 03:31:34 pm
"Heirloom" meaning pricey but possibly a shade better than mass-produced.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ben T on 26 October, 2017, 09:40:49 pm
Not 'different to'?  :demon:
yeah that's fine, just not different than.


Today I asked the (fairly young) receptionist at the gym for the code for the car park barrier, she said "hashtag 266"  :demon:  :demon:
Aaaaahhhh..  the ASCII CHARACTER # is not called hash TAG , it's JUST HASH YOU IDIOT  :sick:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 26 October, 2017, 11:34:25 pm
Hash, pound (although you need to be USAnian to pull that off), number, sharp, square, octothorpe.

Anything but bloody hashtag.

It's worse than misuse of Asterix.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 27 October, 2017, 08:40:09 am
Hash, pound (although you need to be USAnian to pull that off), number, sharp, square, octothorpe.

We used to call it a hashmark (70s/80s).  It felt a bit disjointed to work with US SW blokes who called it a pound.

I've heard it called a blivvet as well.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 27 October, 2017, 08:43:25 am
I say hashtag. I've never heard an American call it a pound.

Heirloom, by the by, is a specific botanical term (for varieties that out of common cultivation but maintained by gardeners, hence heirloom tomatoes).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: tatanab on 27 October, 2017, 09:02:13 am
I say hashtag. I've never heard an American call it a pound.
Perhaps not in these days of Twitter, but when I lived there 20 years ago it was always "pound".  As an old git, it has always been "hash" to me.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 October, 2017, 09:12:20 am
Used to be "pound key" on phones.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 27 October, 2017, 09:14:15 am
I say hashtag. I've never heard an American call it a pound.

Heirloom, by the by, is a specific botanical term (for varieties that out of common cultivation but maintained by gardeners, hence heirloom tomatoes).

Certainly, but a company talking about its new line of heirloom tools I find blenchworthy.

Used to be "pound key" on phones.

Jab them, bash them, hammer them...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 27 October, 2017, 09:18:52 am
Actually, I tell a big fat lie. An untruth of walrussian proportions. The American Webex robot says 'press the pound key' quite a lot. She seems to like saying it. Before she whispers kill them all, of course.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 27 October, 2017, 10:29:23 am
There's a Mitchell and Webb sketch which has references to a Haydn suite in F hash tag minor.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 27 October, 2017, 10:37:21 am
There are few things more cringe-worthy than TV/radio presenters reading out stuff from Social Media that includes hashtags.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 27 October, 2017, 01:46:48 pm
Hashtag browns & gravy, please.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 27 October, 2017, 02:13:05 pm
I say hashtag. I've never heard an American call it a pound.
Perhaps not in these days of Twitter, but when I lived there 20 years ago it was always "pound".  As an old git, it has always been "hash" to me.

Americans calling it 'pound' is a vital part of the confusingness that is the Apple UK keymap.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 27 October, 2017, 08:07:17 pm
It does have a specific name, but I can't remember it right now.

As for me,

Male Toilets or Female Toilets  :sick:

That assigns a sex to the toilets, when they are gender neutral.  Gents' or Ladies' assigns the gender to those using them.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 27 October, 2017, 08:17:20 pm
Male Toilets or Female Toilets  :sick:

That assigns a sex to the toilets

I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees it that way.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ben T on 27 October, 2017, 08:26:29 pm
Hash, pound (although you need to be USAnian to pull that off), number, sharp, square, octothorpe.

Anything but bloody hashtag.

It's worse than misuse of Asterix.

although, at a previous work place, a tech support guy was asked if he'd ever done any programming or had any experience in .net, "Oh yeah, I've dabbled in C-hash"  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 27 October, 2017, 08:26:31 pm
I'm never sure that the Disabled Toilet will work before I use it...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ian H on 27 October, 2017, 08:45:40 pm
I'm never sure that the Disabled Toilet will work before I use it...

Like disabled parking spaces, it might be rendered unusable by the able-bodied using it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 27 October, 2017, 08:51:48 pm
I frequently open the door to a Disabled Toilet with a coin or credit card.

Management often make sure they ARE disabled...

(I also have a RADAR key...)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 28 October, 2017, 12:31:14 am
although, at a previous work place, a tech support guy was asked if he'd ever done any programming or had any experience in .net, "Oh yeah, I've dabbled in C-hash"  :facepalm:

:)

Most people learn technical computing stuff by reading though, so that sort of thing is a forgivable[1] mistake (at least for things you've only dabbled in).  I mean, you get hashes all the time in programming languages, so you might not make the out-of-context connection to the musical pun on "C++".

Also, having looked it up, it's officially written "C#" not "C♯":

Quote from: C# Language Specification, chapter 6
The name C# is pronounced “C Sharp”.
The name C# is written as the LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C (U+0043) followed by the NUMBER SIGN # (U+0023).

...which is the sort of thing that Microsoft would think was a good idea.


[1] I mean, really, what's not to like about someone having learned a thing by reading?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 28 October, 2017, 12:31:52 am
That assigns a sex to the toilets, when they are gender neutral.  Gents' or Ladies' assigns the gender to those using them.

Some might argue that that's a feature, not a bug.  Toilets often having sex-specific features, which may or may not align with the gender of those who need them.  Not that that's the intent of the sign-makers, of course - they probably just don't want to be old-fashioned, and don't like the sound of the perfectly sensible "men's" and "women's".

Personally I'd be in favour of practical distinctions:  "toilet with urinals" "accessible toilet" "toilet with an insane robotic sanitary bin" "toilet for people who don't want piss on the floor" or even just "toilet".  (Pet hate: pointless gendering of single-cublicle loos resulting in a queue.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 October, 2017, 12:46:38 am
Describing a toilet (or pretty much anything) as accessible is surely making at least as many assumptions as genderizing* toilets. I mean, accessible to who?**
*It's a word now!
**No, I did not mean to write whom. 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 28 October, 2017, 12:55:15 am
Yes, that's a can of worms that makes things like "cycle parking" sound consistent.

The Changing Places (http://www.changing-places.org/) specification is the gold standard.  Those are pretty rare in the real world.

Most people use it to refer to a toilet that has grab handles and a sink, and is wheelchair accessible to a standard in line with Part M of the building regulations (which is fairly shit).  Obviously that doesn't make it accessible to everyone, but it's a start - especially if it's maintained and not a de-facto store cupboard.

But it's an improvement on 'disabled toilet' - not so much because it doesn't imply the plumbing is non-functional, as the implication that the regular toilets have severe access problems.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 28 October, 2017, 08:00:09 am
Describing a toilet (or pretty much anything) as accessible is surely making at least as many assumptions as genderizing* toilets. I mean, accessible to who?**
*It's a word now!
**No, I did not mean to write whom.

Vaguely imagining Dr. Who if he had decided to manifest the Tardis as an outdoor loo instead of a police box.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 28 October, 2017, 12:49:28 pm
Vaguely imagining Dr. Who if he had decided to manifest the Tardis as an outdoor loo instead of a police box.

I think that actually happened somewhere in the canon (possibly not The Doctor's TARDIS?).  A Doctor Who fan will be along in a minute with the details.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 28 October, 2017, 12:53:36 pm
I think I saw a public loo configured as the Tardis somewhere on the interweb.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 28 October, 2017, 06:28:27 pm
midrift, referring to the central portion of your body
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 28 October, 2017, 07:03:25 pm
Hence the Midrift Valley as the navel of the human race?

(http://legslarry.org.uk/BikeStull/coat_48.png)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 28 October, 2017, 07:04:34 pm
I think I saw a public loo configured as the Tardis somewhere on the interweb.

There's a company called Tardis Toilet Hire whose vans I see driving around from time to time.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SteveC on 28 October, 2017, 07:07:25 pm
I think I saw a public loo configured as the Tardis somewhere on the interweb.
There's a company called Tardis Toilet Hire whose vans I see driving around from time to time.
In the re-enacting world (and probably other places) portable chemical toilets are known as Turdises.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 October, 2017, 09:07:33 pm
I think I saw a public loo configured as the Tardis somewhere on the interweb.
I have used one! At Warmley Waiting Room cafe on the Bristol-Bath Railway Path.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 31 October, 2017, 06:53:44 am
Pled.
It's probably American or something but it still makes me cringe.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 31 October, 2017, 07:11:57 am
Pled.
It's probably American or something but it still makes me cringe.

Yes, I keep cringing over this one too.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 31 October, 2017, 08:21:36 am
Chambers gives it as N. American and Scots, which latter is probably why I usually feel slight confusion on hearing "pleaded", me ma having been Scots.

"Having been" is awkward in comparison to "being".  There's a definite case for "wasing".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 31 October, 2017, 09:41:39 am
Hence the Midrift Valley as the navel of the human race?

(http://legslarry.org.uk/BikeStull/coat_48.png)
Someone on that BookFace mentioned the navel battle of Jutland, which made it sound a lot more interesting than it was.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 October, 2017, 10:03:47 am
Navel battle:
https://youtu.be/hqM4j-MQje0
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: spesh on 31 October, 2017, 12:21:18 pm
A missing hyphen could rub some people up the wrong way: https://twitter.com/Reaganista/status/925200874980429825
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Paul on 31 October, 2017, 01:20:55 pm
Pled.
It's probably American or something but it still makes me cringe.

Yes, I keep cringing over this one too.

I came across this for the first time recently. Our trainee moved into her criminal seat and used it when describing the events at court that day. I picked her up on it (I didn't know that it was even a word, anywhere, let alone possibly an acceptable alternative) but she assured me it was correct. I checked with our prosecutor who confirmed that it was acceptable.

But I don't think I'll ever use it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 31 October, 2017, 01:24:01 pm
Pled.
It's probably American or something but it still makes me cringe.

Yes, I keep cringing over this one too.

I came across this for the first time recently. Our trainee moved into her criminal seat and used it when describing the events at court that day. I picked her up on it (I didn't know that it was even a word, anywhere, let alone possibly an acceptable alternative) but she assured me it was correct. I checked with our prosecutor who confirmed that it was acceptable.

I came across for the first time just now in this thread.  Took me a minute to work out that it wasn't supposed to be the past participle of 'plod'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 October, 2017, 05:05:16 pm
Nah, plod is the past participle of plo(w).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ham on 04 November, 2017, 04:17:42 pm
(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RAJsbh3-ATU/Wf3n8dFtOzI/AAAAAAABD6w/W3ymbVl-CQQQEFcDWInGcQjqspFoGuSIQCKgBGAs/s640/IMG_20171104_155514.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 04 November, 2017, 06:05:46 pm
I thought it was missing an a, should be plead?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 04 November, 2017, 07:48:51 pm
From the grain, science no less

For example, if neutrinos prove to be on the heavy side of current estimates, then their combined gravitation pull would effect the expansion of the cosmos and slow it down. However, if their mass is on the light side, neutrinos, despite their cosmological ubiquity, will be unable to act as any kind of meaningful brake to the universe’s expansion.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 05 November, 2017, 09:13:40 am
'we do not consider these sufficient enough'

From a letter written by a legal expert!  Allegedly.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 05 November, 2017, 10:32:50 am
Maybe they charge by the word.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 November, 2017, 05:10:00 pm
http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/quiz-you-know-what-teenage-713855
Toke, douche, IDK, pre. These are not exactly new words. Even if you're old enough to have a teenage child. Judging by the fact they've made this quiz, neither are peng, swole, but at least they're words you (well I) have only heard from a 2017 teenager.

Edit: Domestic teenager got one less than me, disagrees with the use of most he got right, in particular says "allow" is used in all three meanings. Points out that drinking and smoking slang is out of date cos drinking and smoking is out of date (but then he's only 13).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 05 November, 2017, 08:13:43 pm
Seems I iz hep to their kooky teen lingo, but who is "Mike" Jagger?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ben T on 05 November, 2017, 08:23:56 pm
although, at a previous work place, a tech support guy was asked if he'd ever done any programming or had any experience in .net, "Oh yeah, I've dabbled in C-hash"  :facepalm:

:)

Most people learn technical computing stuff by reading though, so that sort of thing is a forgivable[1] mistake (at least for things you've only dabbled in).  I mean, you get hashes all the time in programming languages, so you might not make the out-of-context connection to the musical pun on "C++".

Also, having looked it up, it's officially written "C#" not "C♯":

Quote from: C# Language Specification, chapter 6
The name C# is pronounced “C Sharp”.
The name C# is written as the LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C (U+0043) followed by the NUMBER SIGN # (U+0023).

...which is the sort of thing that Microsoft would think was a good idea.


[1] I mean, really, what's not to like about someone having learned a thing by reading?

It's how the confident "oh yeah" start of the response is then kind of invalidated by the dabbling not even having reached the point of, say, having discussed it with other people, for instance.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 05 November, 2017, 10:17:46 pm
http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/quiz-you-know-what-teenage-713855
Toke, douche, IDK, pre. These are not exactly new words. Even if you're old enough to have a teenage child. Judging by the fact they've made this quiz, neither are peng, swole, but at least they're words you (well I) have only heard from a 2017 teenager.

Edit: Domestic teenager got one less than me, disagrees with the use of most he got right, in particular says "allow" is used in all three meanings. Points out that drinking and smoking slang is out of date cos drinking and smoking is out of date (but then he's only 13).

Stands to reason that anyone making a quiz for a local newspaper website isn't actually on fleek with teenage slang.

I don't think drinking and smoking will be going out of fashion any time soon, but we can hope.  The rise of a) mobile phones  and  b) vaping  have surely made a huge dent in the popularity of underage smoking.  I was watching a student having a fag on their front doorstep recently and realised that the workplace smoking ban will pre-date their taking up smoking.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 06 November, 2017, 12:06:29 am
Seems I iz hep to their kooky teen lingo, but who is "Mike" Jagger?

A hoopy frood who knows where his towel is?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 06 November, 2017, 06:42:18 am
Tch!  Another person using "hoopy" as an adjective instead of a noun.  I don't know what they teach these Young People in schools nowadays.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 06 November, 2017, 09:44:02 am
Indeed.  H2G2 is Core Curriculum, isn't it?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 November, 2017, 10:08:09 am
Seems I iz hep to their kooky teen lingo, but who is "Mike" Jagger?

A hoopy frood who knows where his tdowel is?
Mike "Michael" Jagger is the unsung/unsinging genius behind the Carpenters.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 07 November, 2017, 11:35:41 am
"The legends ... remained popular during the 19th century but have since become little known."
(From here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ingoldsby_Legends )

 :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 06 December, 2017, 06:30:30 pm
Mathematical 'grammar' on BBC News website:

Quote
By Wednesday lunchtime, the post had almost 25,000 thousand retweets, more than 52,000 likes, and a response from the manufacturer.

25 MILLION ReTweets? I think not!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 06 December, 2017, 07:01:45 pm
Mathematical 'grammar' on BBC News website:

Quote
By Wednesday lunchtime, the post had almost 25,000 thousand retweets, more than 52,000 likes, and a response from the manufacturer.

25 MILLION ReTweets? I think not!

That's a typo rather than grammar though - at a guess, it was originally written as '25 thousand retweets,' and the sub-editor (assuming the BBC still has 'em) was correcting it to be in line with the style guide and read '25,000 retweets,' but forgot to delete the superfluous 'thousand.'
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 09 December, 2017, 12:33:23 pm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-42000256

"Alunnus" is the singular, not "alumni".  "Graduate" is less pretentious.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 09 December, 2017, 01:06:41 pm
"Roscoe and Duffy" would sound like a TV cop-opera.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 09 December, 2017, 01:38:28 pm
Have we had get-go/getgo/get go yet? Someone never heard of the word "start"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 09 December, 2017, 03:08:25 pm
If you read that "A orbited B" (in an article about satellites), what would you assume this meant?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 09 December, 2017, 03:15:43 pm
Either that A went round B or that A put B into orbit. Not saying the latter's right, though.  It's like podiuming.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 09 December, 2017, 03:20:53 pm
Either that A went round B or that A put B into orbit. Not saying the latter's right, though.

Indeed. <grinds teeth>

Quote
  It's like podiuming.
So is that where very large men are employed to put successful female gymnasts on the podium??
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 09 December, 2017, 04:02:17 pm
Miss Z the younger wrote that a building was "stoned" rather than "stone-built", much to the amusement of her teachet.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 10 December, 2017, 10:34:11 am
Either that A went round B or that A put B into orbit. Not saying the latter's right, though.

Indeed. <grinds teeth>

Quote
  It's like podiuming.
So it that where very large men are employed to put successful female gymnasts on the podium??

There must be a technical word for doing such things to verbs.  Arseholery?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 10 December, 2017, 04:42:34 pm
Either that A went round B or that A put B into orbit. Not saying the latter's right, though.

Indeed. <grinds teeth>

Quote
  It's like podiuming.
So it that where very large men are employed to put successful female gymnasts on the podium??

There must be a technical word for doing such things to verbs.  Arseholery?

'Verbing weirds language' was a frequent Sheddi phrase...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 11 December, 2017, 08:45:48 am
Either that A went round B or that A put B into orbit. Not saying the latter's right, though.

Indeed. <grinds teeth>

Quote
  It's like podiuming.
So it that where very large men are employed to put successful female gymnasts on the podium??

There must be a technical word for doing such things to verbs.  Arseholery?

'Verbing weirds language' was a frequent Sheddi phrase...

Back in the 90s I wrote a statement of requirements for software, using the kind of formality I had used since I was writing up school: such expressions as "the project will be saved as...". I was rather surprised when the client's tech chappie said "you can't do it that way these days" and told me how the passive had to be eliminated and the people or agency performing an action had to be identified, "giving a punchier, more dynamic impression". My clients were American, btw.  Tech chappie said that this had been taught for years. In other words, while I was cranking stuff out in French and German, my own language had been turned inside-out by dubious foreign stylists.

Anyway, I think this thrust to eliminate the passive is at the root of all the weirding: for many people, reformulating a sentence to replace the passive voice with the active is too difficult, so they simply use the passive form of the verb as the active: "is obsessed by" becomes "obsesses over". Bleh.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 11 December, 2017, 09:15:50 am
Anyway, I think this thrust to eliminate the passive is at the root of all the weirding

Yes, it's one of those things like elegant variation where writers try too hard to follow the rules. I started listening to a book reading on Radio 4 Extra the other day but had to turn it off after five minutes because the prose was so excruciatingly painful. The author had clearly been taught at some point in her life that the passive is to be avoided* and so had mangled her sentences to avoid it at all costs. It led to some very strange sentences. Wish I could remember some examples. But also glad I can't.

*see what I did there?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jakob W on 11 December, 2017, 09:20:41 am
'Is obsessed by' and 'obsesses over' have slightly different meanings to my mind; whether people are using them in this way is of course debatable.

And yes, I think it's from a slavish devotion to the 'no passive' rule; while on the whole it's worth trying to follow, sometimes the passive is the best solution, especially for technical or complex prose.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 11 December, 2017, 09:40:46 am
I like weirding, obvs.

I spent a small portion of my working life hunting down passives and putting them out of their misery (it's easy, they don't even run away) – this was for scientific and medical writing, where there used to be (and often still is) some odd belief that every sentence should be morbidly passive. It makes reading it and odd and dismal experience, as though you are attending the writing's funeral. There are indeed places where passive hits the right tone, but entire paragraphs and pages, particularly when it's unnaturally enforced passivity, are the mind killer.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jakob W on 11 December, 2017, 10:03:15 am
But Science is Objective! Obviously that means suppressing any hint of authorial action, and methods just float freely on a soup of passive verbs...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 11 December, 2017, 10:09:45 am
Slavishly following the 'no passive' rule is the kind of thing Will Self was talking about in his infamous 'cult of mediocrity' piece about George Orwell. The point being that stubbornly pedantic adherence to prescriptive grammar rules is not the route to fluent prose writing.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 21 December, 2017, 02:47:33 pm
A couple of 'orrible site emails this week:

"These will appear via a number of mediums including site broadcasts, "

oh will they??


"Please cascade this to your staff."

<no comment>
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 21 December, 2017, 07:29:47 pm
They have the late Doris Stokes on standby?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: professor palindrome on 25 December, 2017, 11:36:21 am
Auntie Beeb  (who should know better) mis-managed tragic news from Lebanon last week by alleging that the poor woman   "had been found strangled by a motorway".  (Hazard warning.  Beware of Malevolent Spaghetti Junction ?)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moleman76 on 26 December, 2017, 08:09:15 am
"These will appear via a number of mediums including site broadcasts, "

sending out a band of supernatural prognosticators?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 27 December, 2017, 09:44:04 am
Interesting subtitles last night: joder (Spanish for fuck) translated as Jesus
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 27 December, 2017, 03:19:40 pm
Interesting subtitles last night: joder (Spanish for fuck) translated as Jesus.

Translation loses much.

My 'My Heritage' feed had various entries as different because the algorithms couldn't see Köln/North Rhine Westphalia as being the same, Like wise Frankfurt/Frankfurt am Main when translated or transliterated from Hebrew
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 29 December, 2017, 11:22:26 am
"On Christmas" as opposed to "at Christmas", seems to be leftpondian mainly but it grates.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 29 December, 2017, 12:36:24 pm
"On Christmas" as opposed to "at Christmas", seems to be leftpondian mainly but it grates.

"On Christmas [Day]" makes sense though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 29 December, 2017, 02:57:12 pm
Interesting subtitles last night: joder (Spanish for fuck) translated as Jesus.

Translation loses much.


Joder/Jesus isn't so much a translation error as a strange appreciation of the gravity of swear-words across cultures. Ofcom rates fuck among the strongest, so if the translators looked at their rating then they might think Jesus a pretty strong word for their target audience, but I doubt it. As far as I can see, both fuck and joder seem to be mild throwaways these days, so why they would bother not using the direct translation is puzzling. Maybe it's OK to say it but not to write it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 January, 2018, 10:34:53 am
I've been reading an account written by a British woman who travelled up the Yangtse* in 1898. She frequently complains of Chinese "grooviness" by which she means rigidity of thought and habit. The idea is obviously being stuck in a groove, but it's amusing to think how the word had changed in meaning six or seven decades later.

*Not a euphemism.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 26 January, 2018, 10:53:53 am
Funny, that. I think of our "Recent Unread Topics" as The Rut.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moleman76 on 29 January, 2018, 02:41:09 am
because the following comes from the Facebook "Analytical Grammar" group, I'm putting it here instead of among the Truly Terrible Jokes:

"I swallowed a dictionary.  It gave me thesaurus throat I've ever had".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 29 January, 2018, 10:31:12 am
From an email this morning about work being done on site

Quote
...will commence to start...
:o :facepalm: :hand:

Violent Stabby DETH is too good for some people >:(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 29 January, 2018, 08:43:33 pm
Commence to begin starting?

(takes cover . . . )
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 29 January, 2018, 10:23:50 pm
Commence to begin starting?

(takes cover . . . )

going forward
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 30 January, 2018, 09:02:52 am
Made myself cringe by writing "aversion for" or "aversion of" on YACF the other day, and now I can't find it to correct it. I was brain-dead after a late night out, yer honour.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 30 January, 2018, 09:44:09 am
Made myself cringe by writing "aversion for" or "aversion of" on YACF the other day, and now I can't find it to correct it. I was brain-dead after a late night out, yer honour.

You've managed to quote ian writing "aversion of to," but that was some weeks ago.

They cook steaks for 25 to 30 minutes, minimum, and believe olive oil is 'for your ears.' They both have such an aversion of to garlic that frankly even a vampire would find extreme. Except in HP sauce.

My maternal grandmother was a lady's maid, so my mother inherited very clear ideas of what was "correct" and what wasn't. She would never have allowed a bottle of HP on the table, frowned at L&P and referred to the EPNS cutlery as "the silver".  She was a dab hand at turning steak into kevlar before kevlar was invented. My dad once put her into terminal miff by asking for the last.




Google site search was my friend. I'm not a stalker, just a smart-arse.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Redlight on 30 January, 2018, 10:08:55 am
Battle your way past some IVR systems and you will be told that an operator will be "with you momentarily".  That's not a lot of use - I would like him or her there for the whole conversation.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: orienteer on 30 January, 2018, 10:17:48 am
USAnian. Even more worrying when the pilot says they'll be taking off momentarily.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 30 January, 2018, 11:10:22 am
You've managed to quote ian writing "aversion of to," but that was some weeks ago.

I'm just glad to see I'm having an influence. I don't actually write individual words, I simply create a paragraph of linguistic probability.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ham on 30 January, 2018, 11:47:15 am
Commence to begin starting?

(takes cover . . . )

going forward

Guess the link before clicking (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCXVxE_YeP4)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Torslanda on 01 February, 2018, 09:17:26 am
I pray to $Deity that I should never again have to hear someone use the term 'literally' when it literally is not, like literally, like relevant. In Estuary . . .

Sorry if we've like, literally done this before. Literally . . .
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 February, 2018, 09:34:15 am
Saw a thing on Farcebok the other day about some bar in New York that literally bars punters who use the word.  They contend that it is literally the most over- and inappropriately-used word in the English language.

They are, however, this: wrong.  Because "awesome".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 01 February, 2018, 11:50:29 am
I've a feeling we're past peak awesome, but that's maybe because I no longer work with the same set of awesome  dudes that I worked with 5 years ago.  I was sorrunded by it then and started, for my private amusement, to record each instance I heard. I decided to stop after this exchange:

- It's my nan's birthday next week
- Awesome!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 01 February, 2018, 02:40:07 pm
I've a feeling we're past peak awesome, but that's maybe because I no longer work with the same set of awesome  dudes that I worked with 5 years ago.  I was sorrunded by it then and started, for my private amusement, to record each instance I heard. I decided to stop after this exchange:

- It's my nan's birthday next week
- Awesome!

The peak of the recent epidemic was back in 2003 according to Google's Ngrams (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=awesome&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Cawesome%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bawesome%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BAwesome%3B%2Cc0), but there was a bigger peak in 1989. Trouble is, it takes six months to develop a vaccine for the current strain and, since they use eggs to do so, vegans can't have it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 01 February, 2018, 06:00:31 pm
My previous boss (and all round nice chap) was called Awesome George on account of his ability to enthuse any and every sentence with 'awesome.'
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 February, 2018, 06:04:19 pm
I think 'super' as a prefix to just about any adjective is the new awesome.

–It's my nan's birthday next week.
–Hope she has a super-good day!

–My canary died.
–You must be super-upset.

etc.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 01 February, 2018, 06:22:22 pm
I've a feeling we're past peak awesome, but that's maybe because I no longer work with the same set of awesome  dudes that I worked with 5 years ago.  I was sorrunded by it then and started, for my private amusement, to record each instance I heard. I decided to stop after this exchange:

- It's my nan's birthday next week
- Awesome!

The peak of the recent epidemic was back in 2003 according to Google's Ngrams (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=awesome&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2Cawesome%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3Bawesome%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BAwesome%3B%2Cc0), but there was a bigger peak in 1989. Trouble is, it takes six months to develop a vaccine for the current strain and, since they use eggs to do so, vegans can't have it.

Duck eggs presumably.  I thought that - other than a brief resurgence associated with the recent Lego movie - 'awesome' went out with Edd The Duck.  Or was displaced by 'mega' at the turn of the 90s.  Or something.


I've been immunised against 'super', on account of always reading it in the tone of Olivia from Dark Season.  (Older readers can substitute with Reggie Perrin's colleagues.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 01 February, 2018, 08:51:41 pm
I pray to $Deity that I should never again have to hear someone use the term 'literally' when it literally is not, like literally, like relevant. In Estuary . . .

Sorry if we've like, literally done this before. Literally . . .

Too late, literally now literally does mean not literally: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/literally A fine example of defining a word using the word you're defining  ::-)



Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 February, 2018, 09:17:20 pm
Niblings.
Quote
Languages like Spanish and French are fine with using a masculine plural to simply call the whole lot ‘nephews’ (sobrinos and neveux, respectively) – although some people are calling for a rethink of this approach at the moment. At one time, this might have been acceptable in English, too, but try it now and you’re likely to experience a fair amount of outrage from your little niece Trixabelle.

There have been a couple of suggestions to fill this gap, but they haven’t made it into the dictionary yet. ‘Niblings’ appears to be the most popular, like siblings with an ‘n’ for nieces and nephews. Several people claim to have invented this word, but it appears to have been first used by a linguist named Samuel E. Martin in 1951. A few fans use the term – I actually heard somebody mention their niblings last Christmas.

Personally, though, I find it a bit odd. Your nephews and nieces aren’t really comparable to your siblings (even if they look like them). They’re a different generation, for one thing. So ‘niblings’ doesn’t feel like a good fit to me.
https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2018/01/22/nibling-nieces-nephews-collective-term/

Personally I think it has quite a nice sound to it. But never mind a different generation, it sounds like something small to eat; party snacks, maybe? "I'll have some more of these niblings, they're delicious!"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 02 February, 2018, 09:18:14 am
Sounds like Nibelung.

(http://www.germanicmythology.com/ASTRONOMY/images/Nibelung1.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 06 February, 2018, 07:04:41 pm
Did TV's Christian Fraser really just say that "last week President TЯump offered the fig leaf to the Democrats"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 06 February, 2018, 08:53:42 pm
Not knowing a fig leaf from an olive branch suggests confusion of biblical botanical metaphors.
Is that grammar?

Certainly is IGNORANT!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 06 February, 2018, 08:58:14 pm
I'm just hoping that was a figurative and not a literal fig leaf. That's not a sight you'll come back from.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: clarion on 07 February, 2018, 08:35:46 am
GOD HATES FIGS!!!

Matt 21:19
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 February, 2018, 08:23:06 pm
Quote
Take the hilly city of Seattle, where several neighbourhoods have no pavements at all, and many streets have a slope grade (or tilt) of 10% or even 20%.
Alternatively, they have an incline, pitch or gradient. Maybe the writer is paid, remunerated or salaried by the word?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 20 February, 2018, 02:16:04 pm

 
Quote
There are no automatic promotion boards, by enlarge it’s an annual occurrence that by the end of the...

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 20 February, 2018, 05:06:46 pm
That sign you often see on the back of lorries:

"CYCLISTS! Do not pass this vehicle on the inside."

Well, I wouldn't even try to do that - not while the doors are closed.

Has the traditional term "nearside" fallen entirely out of currency?

Or, even better:
"CYCLISTS! Do not pass this vehicle on the left."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 20 February, 2018, 05:24:55 pm
Yes, it has.

And some of us, contorted into a spatial dimension where things are mostly confusionwards, don't know left and right. I have no idea unless I'm writing and I check which hand (and I spent a good portion of my life unsure why hand to use – right is less smudgy – even if, according to my handwriting, it belongs to a girl, and if it does, she's not having it back, and for those of you at the back thinking of such matters, please stop it, she's not that kind of girl).

Inside is right. Or left. Oh fuck.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 20 February, 2018, 05:32:39 pm
And some of us, contorted into a spatial dimension where things are mostly confusionwards, don't know left and right.

Fair point. My wife's trick is to hold her hands out in front of her, palms facing down, fingers pointing forwards, thumbs pointing towards each other. The hand that makes an L shape is the left, the one that makes a backwards L shape is not the left. If I'm ever giving her directions, I don't say "turn right" or "turn left", I say "turn your side" or "turn my side".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 February, 2018, 06:06:25 pm
I saw a good version of that sticker on a lorry the other day. Instead of instructing anyone to do anything, it said "Beware, blind spot".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Feanor on 20 February, 2018, 06:12:25 pm
And some of us, contorted into a spatial dimension where things are mostly confusionwards, don't know left and right.

Fair point. My wife's trick is to hold her hands out in front of her, palms facing down, fingers pointing forwards, thumbs pointing towards each other. The hand that makes an L shape is the left, the one that makes a backwards L shape is not the left. If I'm ever giving her directions, I don't say "turn right" or "turn left", I say "turn your side" or "turn my side".

It's not unknown for Mrs F to say "Turn Left!"
Then I turn Right.

But that was actually what she meant, and both of our mix-ups cancelled out.

Others in the car looked puzzled, but it's fairly normal for us.
If it looks like the driver might be going the wrong way, they might say "No, the OTHER Left!"


Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 20 February, 2018, 10:32:51 pm
Yes, it has.

And some of us, contorted into a spatial dimension where things are mostly confusionwards, don't know left and right. I have no idea unless I'm writing and I check which hand (and I spent a good portion of my life unsure why hand to use – right is less smudgy – even if, according to my handwriting, it belongs to a girl, and if it does, she's not having it back, and for those of you at the back thinking of such matters, please stop it, she's not that kind of girl).

Inside is right. Or left. Oh fuck.

I thought that was just me. See also traffic reports for the M25. "J10 on the clockwise carriageway" Wha?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moleman76 on 21 February, 2018, 06:29:54 am
I saw a good version of that sticker on a lorry the other day. Instead of instructing anyone to do anything, it said "Beware, blind spot".
I've seen "If you can't see my mirror, I can't see you".  Now, whether or not the driver will look into the mirror ...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 21 February, 2018, 09:38:37 am
I've seen "If you can't see my mirror, I can't see you".  Now, whether or not the driver will look into the mirror ...
The pedant in me always wants to change that to, "If you can't see my mirror, I can't see your eyes".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 21 February, 2018, 12:15:45 pm
Terminally unimaginative and/or lazy writers on the kind of webby news aggregator site who use the phrase or saying "X is taking the internet by storm!!1!".

No.  No, it is not.  Stop being wrong.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 February, 2018, 07:00:16 pm
Quote
Every lexicographer I spoke to made clear their distaste for “word-lovers”, who in the dictionary world are regarded as the type of person liable to scrawl “fewer” on to supermarket signs reading “10 items or less”, or recite “antidisestablishmentarianism” to anyone who will listen.
:thumbsup:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/feb/23/oxford-english-dictionary-can-worlds-biggest-dictionary-survive-internet
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 23 February, 2018, 07:12:05 pm
That sign you often see on the back of lorries:

"CYCLISTS! Do not pass this vehicle on the inside."

Well, I wouldn't even try to do that - not while the doors are closed.

Has the traditional term "nearside" fallen entirely out of currency?

Or, even better:
"CYCLISTS! Do not pass this vehicle on the left."

I hope "nearside" does die out. I know this marks me out as a road-user simpleton, but I have NEVER understood the term; I don't find it intuitive, and it's a word that isn't used in any other context (that I know of). Whereas "left" is quite widely used in Anglophone countries, by non-drivers, children etc.

Tip for Ian et al; "Left" is the side of the road that Brits drive on - that's how to remember it. HTH!

(and why not hang/write an "L" somewhere inside your car? If this lack of a skill f*cks up your driving/navigating so badly, a cheap fix seems worthwhile. Just sayin ... )
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 23 February, 2018, 07:44:41 pm
Nearside and offside are occasionally useful technical terms, when you're talking about the construction or operation of vehicles and need to be agnostic about which side of the road people are driving on.  But in real life I just use left and right.

But I say that as someone who has no problem with left and right, cardinal directions, or indeed other people's (or the stage's) left and right.  Other people's brains work differently[1], and we fail as communicators if we don't allow for that.  It hadn't really occurred to me that people might find nearside and offside less confusing than left and right, but I do recall an account of someone who had internalised 'left' as "easy turn" and 'right' as "complicated turn" and became unable to follow directions as soon as they drove in ABROAD.


[1] Barakta, for example, occupies some middle ground where she's fine with her own left and right, but has no sense of cardinals and needs to use heuristics to give directions for another person's perspective.  Her mum's at the other extreme and needs to do a little morris dance on the steering wheel every time to work out which way is 'left'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 24 February, 2018, 08:23:54 am
Shined.  Having one's shoes shined is OK, in that one is putting a shine on them, but for writing "keeping his light shined ahead", Greg Bear deserves a shiner even though he has the excuse of being American.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: JennyB on 24 February, 2018, 08:54:14 am
I've seen "If you can't see my mirror, I can't see you".  Now, whether or not the driver will look into the mirror ...
The pedant in me always wants to change that to, "If you can't see my mirror, I can't see your eyes".

"If you can't see my eyes in my mirror you can't know I can see you"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 24 February, 2018, 10:00:43 am
I've seen "If you can't see my mirror, I can't see you".  Now, whether or not the driver will look into the mirror ...
The pedant in me always wants to change that to, "If you can't see my mirror, I can't see your eyes".

"If you can't see my eyes in my mirror you can't know I can see you"
:thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 26 February, 2018, 10:08:20 am
Tip for Ian et al; "Left" is the side of the road that Brits drive on - that's how to remember it. HTH!

I learned to drive in the US (and have only driven in the US), so this doesn't entirely help.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 February, 2018, 10:15:02 am
AIUI nearside and offside came from horses, referring to the side from which it's traditional to mount and dismount, and not do anything like that, respectively. But there's bound to be someone who finds it easier to get on a horse from the right; does that make their nearside everyone else's offside and vice versa?

I'd say the motoring uses of inside and outside are counterintuitive. Why is the outside lane in the middle of the road and the inside lane on the outside?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 26 February, 2018, 11:10:28 am
AIUI nearside and offside came from horses, referring to the side from which it's traditional to mount and dismount, and not do anything like that, respectively. But there's bound to be someone who finds it easier to get on a horse from the right; does that make their nearside everyone else's offside and vice versa?

I'm guessing that story has the same dubious origins as the one about why we drive on the left, which is supposedly something to do with the side you mount your sword while riding on horseback. Snopes probably has a view on the matter but ICBA to look it up.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 26 February, 2018, 11:20:11 am
Roman armies marched on the left, I guess they just had to pick one side or the other as I am sure they didn't politely keep to one side if there was an opposing army coming up the road the other way.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 26 February, 2018, 11:33:16 am
Again, my instinctive response is [citation needed].
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 February, 2018, 12:01:46 pm
AIUI nearside and offside came from horses, referring to the side from which it's traditional to mount and dismount, and not do anything like that, respectively. But there's bound to be someone who finds it easier to get on a horse from the right; does that make their nearside everyone else's offside and vice versa?

I'm guessing that story has the same dubious origins as the one about why we drive on the left, which is supposedly something to do with the side you mount your sword while riding on horseback. Snopes probably has a view on the matter but ICBA to look it up.
Probably!
Quote
nearside noun the side of a vehicle, horse or team of horses nearer the kerb, ie in the UK the left side, and in most other countries the right side. Also as adj • the nearside front tyre.
http://chambers.co.uk/search/?query=nearside&title=21st
So it's defined by the road, and nothing to do with mounting.

As for the Romans, there is archaeological evidence (wheel ruts from a quarry somewhere in southern Britain) that shows they drove on the left. But apparently there's contradictory evidence too. You'd have thought that if there had been a law about it, some record might have survived, so perhaps it wasn't considered law-worthy?

But everyone knows that the Romans, who brought us civilization, rule of law, democracy and liberty, as well as roads, drove on the left, whereas driving on the right was invented by the evil, despotic Napoleon and spread in the 20th century by Hitler and Stalin. This makes driving on the right not only a FOREIGN habit but a sinister one.

Oh hang on that's not quite right.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 26 February, 2018, 12:59:45 pm


But everyone knows that the Romans, who brought us civilization, rule of law, democracy and liberty, as well as roads, drove on the left, whereas driving on the right was invented by the evil, despotic Napoleon and spread in the 20th century by Hitler and Stalin. This makes driving on the right not only a FOREIGN habit but a sinister one.

Oh hang on that's not quite right.
The bigger question is which side of the road should you drive your herd of pedigree Dexters?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 February, 2018, 03:53:14 pm


But everyone knows that the Romans, who brought us civilization, rule of law, democracy and liberty, as well as roads, drove on the left, whereas driving on the right was invented by the evil, despotic Napoleon and spread in the 20th century by Hitler and Stalin. This makes driving on the right not only a FOREIGN habit but a sinister one.

Oh hang on that's not quite right.
The bigger question is which side of the road should you drive your herd of pedigree Dexters?
I find your question somewhat gauche.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 26 February, 2018, 04:14:28 pm


But everyone knows that the Romans, who brought us civilization, rule of law, democracy and liberty, as well as roads, drove on the left, whereas driving on the right was invented by the evil, despotic Napoleon and spread in the 20th century by Hitler and Stalin. This makes driving on the right not only a FOREIGN habit but a sinister one.

Oh hang on that's not quite right.
The bigger question is which side of the road should you drive your herd of pedigree Dexters?
I find your question somewhat gauche.

I suspect sinister intentions.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jasmine on 26 February, 2018, 05:32:31 pm
I actually have a herd of pedigree Dexters.  And my bull is called Sinister (Ister for short).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Paul on 26 February, 2018, 07:14:58 pm


But everyone knows that the Romans, who brought us civilization, rule of law, democracy and liberty, as well as roads, drove on the left, whereas driving on the right was invented by the evil, despotic Napoleon and spread in the 20th century by Hitler and Stalin. This makes driving on the right not only a FOREIGN habit but a sinister one.

Oh hang on that's not quite right.
The bigger question is which side of the road should you drive your herd of pedigree Dexters?
I find your question somewhat gauche.

I suspect sinister intentions.
Adroitly put.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 27 February, 2018, 08:35:58 pm
I've probably gone on about this before, but "get go"? WTF is wrong with something that means something like "beginning"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 01 March, 2018, 02:52:55 pm
When did 'straightaway' become a single word?
The DwP used this several times in a letter I received today.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 March, 2018, 02:54:38 pm
Since horse racing moved to organised tracks? So several hundred years...   :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 01 March, 2018, 03:02:10 pm
When did 'straightaway' become a single word?

It was prescribed that way in the style guide at my place of employment something like 20 years ago. I didn't like it at the time but my boss could out-pedant anyone in this thread on grammar matters so I never questioned her authority (this is the same boss who taught me to hate dangling participles).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 March, 2018, 10:31:06 am
I've just read a 165-page novel without a single full stop, that probably makes it sound impossible, Joycean you might say, and Joyce's Ulysses was one of the many famous literary works the narrator refers to, but in fact it was very easy to read, because even when you have a complete double page spread of uninterrupted text, the conversational style and liberal use of commas, which the narrator, because the whole thing is told from his point of view, as if he were chatting to us, only using some speech marks when he quotes other people from time to time, means you can simply treat any comma as a larger pause, if you really need to

there are also paragraphs, which stop, and start again on a new line but without a capital letter or anything like that, and some of them are very long, as I mentioned already, it's full of paragraphs which are two or three whole pages long

***

There are also chapters, which do start with a capital letter, but there are no chapter numbers or titles, though in a way each chapter tells a new story, or a new story within the life of the narrator, as all those stories are told to him by the people he meets, and he writes their stories down in a notebook, which is the novel
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 March, 2018, 01:45:28 pm
This made me smile:
Quote
At a conference on noise organised by the European commission in April 2017, noise was regarded as “the silent killer”, with potentially severe consequences for our physical and mental health.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 08 March, 2018, 04:09:05 pm
Just came across one of those 'why commas are important' things in a piece I'm working on - not so much grammar that makes you cringe as grammar that makes you wince:

"Put your feet up my man" vs "Put your feet up, my man"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moleman76 on 12 March, 2018, 02:17:11 am
the use of "around" when the speaker really means "with regard to", "concerns", etc.

As in, "This thread is around grammar which causes cringes"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 12 March, 2018, 07:54:03 am
Not a wince but a faint smile at Edward Whymper's referring to various reverses as "the disagreeables".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 March, 2018, 06:12:05 pm
Back to adjectives as adverbs and the origins or at least age of the usage:
Quote
'I'll go on,' Hypolita said. 'Life's too short to walk so slow.'
That's 1915 and British. Clearly not such a recent phenomenon.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 21 March, 2018, 12:41:51 pm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-43469574 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-43469574)

Quote
"Ant and Dec helm not one but three of their very biggest shows, around which so much of ITV's schedule is built."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 21 March, 2018, 04:31:41 pm
Back to adjectives as adverbs and the origins or at least age of the usage:
Quote
'I'll go on,' Hypolita said. 'Life's too short to walk so slow.'
That's 1915 and British. Clearly not such a recent phenomenon.

Chambers gives both slow and slowly as adverbs.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 March, 2018, 05:58:33 pm
Back to adjectives as adverbs and the origins or at least age of the usage:
Quote
'I'll go on,' Hypolita said. 'Life's too short to walk so slow.'
That's 1915 and British. Clearly not such a recent phenomenon.

Chambers gives both slow and slowly as adverbs.
How absolutely with it!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 22 March, 2018, 08:05:39 am
Mr. Fowler agrees:
Quote
Slow(ly) advv: In spite of the encroachments of -ly, slow maintains itself as at least an idiomatic possibility...

Mind you, that's from the first edition. Those who wish to stickle may claim obsolescence.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 April, 2018, 08:36:03 am
Equatorial zits?  :D
Quote
The fatberg autopsy also uncovered evidence of Britons’ contact with street and pharmaceutical drugs, including small plastic “baggies”, a needle and syringe, as well as a high proportion of chemicals found in tropical creams for acne and paracetamol.
Title: Re: Grammar wot makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 24 April, 2018, 10:45:04 am
Campbell's Cream of Paracetamol?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 24 April, 2018, 12:33:47 pm
Needs an Oxford comma...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 24 April, 2018, 12:44:12 pm
I wonder if they didn't mean topical.  If acne is limited to the tropics, Belfast was a lot further south when I was a spotty youff.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 April, 2018, 02:43:06 pm
I wonder if they didn't mean topical.  If acne is limited to the tropics, Belfast was a lot further south when I was a spotty youff.
This is explained by the growth of monarchical unionism. It's king kongtinental drift.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 24 April, 2018, 04:54:53 pm
I am sure they did mean topical but sub-literacy is rife...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 11 May, 2018, 07:51:19 am
On eBay (unless it was Amazon): ramassage avec mines for pickup with leads.

Automatic translation is here to corset.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you gasp
Post by: T42 on 28 June, 2018, 03:37:14 pm
(http://www.pbase.com/image/167720616.jpg)

It's organic all right.

Not sure whether to post this in the random food-things thread, the politically-incorrect foods or here. Here won.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 28 June, 2018, 03:50:15 pm
Not the 'badly-named business' then?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 July, 2018, 08:58:58 am
This isn't exactly grammar, but I can't tell whether it's a proper vocabulary mix-up or just a typo. I ordered something through webby magic and received a reply which finished:
Quote
This is an automated message. No rights can be deducted from this message.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 06 July, 2018, 09:16:14 am
The American treatment of collective nouns. To use a Wold Cup example:

US: England is playing Sweden on Saturday.
UK: England are playing Sweden on Saturday.

Any yes I know that the British English usage is somewhat inconsistent but the American usage still grates.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 06 July, 2018, 10:45:15 am
The American British treatment of collective nouns. To use a Wold Cup example:

US: England is playing Sweden on Saturday.
UK: England are playing Sweden on Saturday.

Any yes I know that the British English usage is somewhat inconsistent wrong but and the American usage still grates is correct.

FTFY.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 06 July, 2018, 11:50:40 am
Neither is incorrect.

Or should that be 'neither are incorrect?' ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 06 July, 2018, 01:42:01 pm
The American treatment of collective nouns. To use a Wold Cup example:

US: England is playing Sweden on Saturday.
UK: England are playing Sweden on Saturday.

Any yes I know that the British English usage is somewhat inconsistent but the American usage still grates.



The first refers to England the country, the second to England the team. Team is a collective, so may be treated as singular or plural, but preferably not as both in the same piece. The Graun, of course, will treat it as both three words apart in the same sentence, and probably spell it as meat into the bargain.

England, of course, is singular, hence Brexit. See also Green Grow the Rushes-O.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: andyoxon on 13 July, 2018, 02:34:29 pm
Is this a front page typo on BBC?  Indispensible rather than indispensable...

"Donald Trump: US-UK relationship indispensible"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 13 July, 2018, 02:47:30 pm
Why not? The Beeb is hardly an authority these days.

One that pissed me off, but I can't remember whether it was Beeb or Graun, was a comment about a player giving away a free kick in the WC* for nearly hitting something with "their" boot. If it's an all-male team, why not use "his"? Twats.


* splosh
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 13 July, 2018, 03:00:35 pm
Talking of boots ...

On some Radio4 serious prog (about motivating workers IIRC); interviewer says to expert:

"So when did we take our foot off the ball? And who took their foot off the ball."

Expert interviewee was clearly used to bullshit jargon, as he answered without missing a beat!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: andyoxon on 13 July, 2018, 03:15:27 pm
Why not? The Beeb is hardly an authority these days.

...

Reckon it's a typo, since indispensible is not in the main dictionaries.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 13 July, 2018, 03:30:04 pm
I wouldn't quabble.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jakob W on 13 July, 2018, 04:00:37 pm
Why not? The Beeb is hardly an authority these days.

One that pissed me off, but I can't remember whether it was Beeb or Graun, was a comment about a player giving away a free kick in the WC* for nearly hitting something with "their" boot. If it's an all-male team, why not use "his"? Twats.


* splosh

Seems a little harsh; singular they has been in use for 400 years or so, and it's not like it adds ambiguity.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 17 July, 2018, 08:33:50 am
"Their" as a singular has been in use since whenever but only when the sex of whoever it referred to was indeterminate, and even then only in colloquial use.

Anyway, the trigger of my grammatical rant today stems is a NOTP chum's abuse of adjectival nouns. Adjectives in English don't take plurals so neither do they. Ditto adverbs. End of, and you can shove your "teeth-whitening products" up your illiterate arse.

Of course, I'm too chicken to say it to his face.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 July, 2018, 08:36:36 am
 ??? The only plural in your example is "products" and that's definitely a noun.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 17 July, 2018, 10:43:01 am
"Teeth-whitening" should be "tooth-whitening". "Tooth-" is used adverbially to modify "whitening". The fact that it works on more than one tooth is grammatically immaterial.

I was wrong to call it an adjectival noun, though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 17 July, 2018, 11:12:30 am
The fact that it works on more than one tooth is grammatically immaterial.

I think this is one of those instances where practice trumps grammar - no one uses such products for the whitening of a single tooth, do they?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 July, 2018, 11:14:41 am
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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 17 July, 2018, 12:45:02 pm
The fact that it works on more than one tooth is grammatically immaterial.

I think this is one of those instances where practice trumps grammar - no one uses such products for the whitening of a single tooth, do they?

We know what Trump does to grammar. No reason to muck it up any further.

Anyway, that reasoning demonstrates that adjectival/adverbial nouns are not understood. They never, ever, ever take plurals. "Student housing" is never "students housing".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 17 July, 2018, 12:54:25 pm
It may, of course, be students' housing.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 17 July, 2018, 01:03:34 pm
Anyway, that reasoning demonstrates that adjectival/adverbial nouns are not understood.

Or that rigidly prescriptive grammar rules do not reflect everyday usage.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 17 July, 2018, 02:30:49 pm
Everday ignorance, more like.

It may, of course, be students' housing.

Aye, but that's a possessive, a completely different form.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 July, 2018, 05:12:22 pm
Without context we don't know whether it's students' housing, student's housing or students housing (ie subject verb, "students housing animals are in breach of university rules").
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 18 July, 2018, 12:59:26 am
It may, of course, be students' housing.

Aye, but that's a possessive, a completely different form.

Really? I always thought the apostrophe pluralised it. Hey ho, you learn something new every day.


Don't you just hate it when a perfectly good bit of smart-arsery provokes such a reasoned, informative response? You might even think pedantry were dead.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 18 July, 2018, 08:29:45 am
Without context we don't know whether it's students' housing, student's housing or students housing (ie subject verb, "students housing animals are in breach of university rules").

Right enough. I was thinking of halls of residence, digs, etc., in other words student housing as it might be considered by a university accommodation bureau.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 18 July, 2018, 10:51:25 am
They never, ever, ever take plurals.

Here's an interesting piece on the subject that debunks that notion:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/mind-your-language/2012/jul/05/mind-your-language-nouns

While there are many of these phrases that use plural adjuncts, I also thought of one that uses the singular form of a noun that is never normally used in the singular:

Trouser press

Not a phrase I've ever given much thought to before but now that I am thinking about it, it looks really odd.

On the matter of tooth-whitening vs teeth-whitening, you could refer to the precedent set by toothbrush, of course.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 July, 2018, 11:12:05 am
Quote
There's dispute over the technical term for such juxtapositions of nouns. Some say adjectival noun, some noun adjunct, some noun modifier. I'll call them attributive nouns, in keeping with most dictionaries (you've probably noticed those entries that start "often attrib").
Perhaps we've started off with what people call a category error; T42 is correct that English adjectives don't take plurals, but these are not adjectives. They're still nouns, albeit used in conjunction with other nouns.

Alternatively we could say that English adjectives do take plurals and decline for gender and case, just like they do in other Indo-European languages, but in English all genders and cases and both plural and singular look exactly the same.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 18 July, 2018, 11:20:26 am
T42 is correct that English adjectives don't take plurals, but these are not adjectives. They're still nouns, albeit used in conjunction with other nouns.

'Adjectival nouns' is how T42 described them and I'm familiar with that term. His argument is that such adjectival nouns should follow the same rules as adjectives, which is fine as a general principle but custom doesn't always follow the rules.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 July, 2018, 11:32:23 am
So he did, Sorry.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 18 July, 2018, 01:38:22 pm
They never, ever, ever take plurals.

Here's an interesting piece on the subject that debunks that notion:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/mind-your-language/2012/jul/05/mind-your-language-nouns


Well, ladies room isn't a straight plural, but a possessive plural from which some struggling grocer has omitted the apostrophe.  Apart from that it's true that arms race is in the plural, so my never ever ever is a bit too strong.  I'd agree with him, though, that any new coinage should stick to the singular.


Quote
While there are many of these phrases that use plural adjuncts, I also thought of one that uses the singular form of a noun that is never normally used in the singular:

Trouser press

Not a phrase I've ever given much thought to before but now that I am thinking about it, it looks really odd.

On the matter of tooth-whitening vs teeth-whitening, you could refer to the precedent set by toothbrush, of course.

This doesn't help much: https://www.etymonline.com/word/trousers other than to mention that the garment was considered Celtic. Dave Allen could have made something of that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 July, 2018, 01:45:07 pm
Also, scissor sharpener.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Croft on 22 July, 2018, 07:29:37 pm
TeeVee's Ned Boulting – "mitigate" and "militate" are not the same word. I think you mean almost exactly the opposite of what you are saying.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 23 July, 2018, 07:10:29 am
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
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 23 July, 2018, 07:49:39 am
Also, scissor sharpener.

OK, ok, I bow; but both trousers and scissors are special cases in that the singular form is an oddity.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: offcumden on 23 July, 2018, 07:58:41 am
TeeVee's Ned Boulting – "mitigate" and "militate" are not the same word. I think you mean almost exactly the opposite of what you are saying.

Since you mention Tdf commentators, would someone tell David Millar that dominant riding, such as that displayed by a specialist climber leaving the peloton in his wake, might justifiably be described as 'imperious'.  But not 'imperial'; nothing to do with empires.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 23 July, 2018, 10:05:43 am
Also, scissor sharpener.

OK, ok, I bow; but both trousers and scissors are special cases in that the singular form is an oddity.
knicker elastic
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 23 July, 2018, 12:46:43 pm
Also, scissor sharpener.

OK, ok, I bow; but both trousers and scissors are special cases in that the singular form is an oddity.
knicker elastic

Almost any garment that clothes the body where lower limbs meet trunk has this 'oddity'.
Tights
Trousers
Pants
Shorts
Knickers
Breeches
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 July, 2018, 12:58:20 pm
But they don't all singularize in compounds. Someone who darns tights (I'm informed this was a genuine paid occupation in bygone days) would, I think, be a tights darner rather than a tight darner. Though it's always possible to have a tight tights darner.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 23 July, 2018, 01:07:36 pm
But they don't all singularize in compounds. Someone who darns tights (I'm informed this was a genuine paid occupation in bygone days) would, I think, be a tights darner rather than a tight darner. Though it's always possible to have a tight tights darner.

I think the reasons for that are covered in the Guardian piece I linked to - where singularising the noun would change its meaning, you'd tend towards keeping the plural, and that's one of the few valid reasons for breaking the rule of using the singular.

T42 was essentially correct in the first place, but you should never say never when it comes to grammar...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 23 July, 2018, 02:10:24 pm
Especially English grammar.

I can remember folk in my school French class being amused that the French spoke of trousers and diseases in the singular.

Anent diseases, it seems that we speak of the common ones that causes rashes and swellings in the plural, but others in the singular: measles, mumps, shingles and yaws but malaria, cholera, plague, etc.

Incidentally, the French for malaria is paludisme. I never thought about where they got that from until we cycled past an area called La Grande Palud in Brittany a few years back. It means "marsh".

Malaria might also mean a bad song, e.g. rap, which makes me feel ill.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 23 July, 2018, 02:21:02 pm
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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 23 July, 2018, 04:17:07 pm
Most 'plural' diseases have multiple swellings or spots.

Singular entities are usually generalised ailments though may have other names in plural.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 23 July, 2018, 04:25:45 pm
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
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: andytheflyer on 23 July, 2018, 04:27:55 pm
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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 23 July, 2018, 04:43:13 pm
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.

Quote
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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 23 July, 2018, 05:42:49 pm
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. ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 23 July, 2018, 08:31:19 pm
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....
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 24 July, 2018, 08:30:54 am
Mal = bad = French, non?

I believe it’s the Italian male rather than the French mal, but icbw.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 24 July, 2018, 09:39:05 am
Yup. Chambers derives it from mal' aria. Which could also be Piers Brosnan singing, according to Il Groanio.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 24 July, 2018, 09:54:25 am
Pierce "Pick A Note - Any Note" Brosnan, as TV's Mark Commode Kermode called him the other day.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 July, 2018, 05:36:25 pm
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
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 09 August, 2018, 12:52:31 pm
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 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-45054525/a-look-at-the-uk-s-largest-wall-mural)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 09 August, 2018, 12:56:47 pm
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 (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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 09 August, 2018, 01:29:32 pm
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?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 09 August, 2018, 02:29:25 pm
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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 09 August, 2018, 02:29:44 pm
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 (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>
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 August, 2018, 02:40:55 pm
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'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 09 August, 2018, 02:51:04 pm
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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 09 August, 2018, 02:52:41 pm
...Is a 'super' tsunami, linguistically speaking, on its way?

For sure.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 09 August, 2018, 02:59:44 pm
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.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 August, 2018, 03:16:33 pm
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!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Paul on 09 August, 2018, 03:44:02 pm
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?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 09 August, 2018, 03:55:00 pm
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!"


Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 09 August, 2018, 03:56:18 pm
I say 'super' a lot. It's quite addictive. It's super-fun, I find.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 09 August, 2018, 03:58:32 pm
This German teacher reckons using "super" is the best way to sound German:

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

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 09 August, 2018, 04:05:04 pm
When he says geil means sexy, he means randy.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Torslanda on 09 August, 2018, 04:15:45 pm
Quote
Yebbut what do you call a mural on the ceiling?

The Cistine Chapel...?

Meanwhile, in other news, The Beeb newsreader said the police were 'treating the fire as supected arson'. FFS!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 09 August, 2018, 04:23:52 pm
Weirdly I rarely hear Germans saying "super". Occasionally "supi!" which is a slang version. Maybe the "super" time has now passed them by and the rest of Europe is catching up.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 09 August, 2018, 04:27:46 pm
Weirdly I rarely hear Germans saying "super". Occasionally "supi!" which is a slang version. Maybe the "super" time has now passed them by and the rest of Europe is catching up.

Hear "super!" loads in Vienna and Munich a few weeks ago. Maybe its now a southern German / Austrian thing?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 August, 2018, 05:04:44 pm
You hear it a lot in Polish, even though/because it ignores normal grammatical rules (ie it doesn't agree with nouns). But did it really become trendy in English from German?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: gonzo on 09 August, 2018, 05:18:37 pm
I got an error message on an internal system today which read;

The data's are not valid.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 09 August, 2018, 05:21:09 pm
You hear it a lot in Polish, even though/because it ignores normal grammatical rules (ie it doesn't agree with nouns). But did it really become trendy in English from German?

Not in a position to say. I first heard it in German 30 years ago from the mouth of a Herr Doktor N. as he had his first suck of margarita in Colorado: Oh, das ist soooper!

It's funny. You expect your own language to evolve with time, but when you've gone to the trouble of learning a different one you rather expect the foreigns not to go changing things behind your back.

Incidentally, in the 70s I learnt that it was very ill-bred to say "hallo"; now it seems to be the standard casual greeting, at least in the Rheinpfalz.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 09 August, 2018, 08:04:56 pm
I got an error message on an internal system today which read;

The data's are not valid.

That is multiply cringeworthy!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 09 August, 2018, 08:08:51 pm
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 (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.

My understanding is that artwork on architecture is a fresco and if specifically on a wall can be termed a mural.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ham on 09 August, 2018, 08:11:00 pm
IIRC fresco is more to do with the technique of applying on fresh plaster, but it wouldn't be the first time I go t things wrong today if it isn't.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 09 August, 2018, 09:11:38 pm
...Is a 'super' tsunami, linguistically speaking, on its way?

For sure.
Thanks. I was hoping someone would.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 09 August, 2018, 09:18:20 pm
Incidentally, in the 70s I learnt that it was very ill-bred to say "hallo"; now it seems to be the standard casual greeting, at least in the Rheinpfalz.
hallo is what you say to people you pass walking on the street, to colleagues etc, here in NRW. It’s the most common greeting.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 09 August, 2018, 09:27:11 pm
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'.

Soon we'll be using hyperlatives.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 August, 2018, 07:55:13 am
We should have a statement from the Bank of Words on the increasing verbal inflation rate.

It's occurred to me that actually the Polish – and from the sound of it, German – use of "super" is different from what people were talking about in English, in that in those languages it is a standalone adjective and is not usually used in compounds.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ham on 14 August, 2018, 06:25:30 pm
Mr Stephen Calk, thank you for a true facepalm moment. I wonder, what IS the view like from behind bars?

(https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180813220510-calk-roll-manafort-trial-01-exlarge-169.jpg)

Given the subject matter, I think we can take it as read it was self penned.

from https://edition.cnn.com/2018/08/14/politics/paul-manafort-trial-robert-mueller-day-11/index.html
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: gonzo on 14 August, 2018, 06:38:08 pm
I got an error message on an internal system today which read;

The data's are not valid.

That is multiply cringeworthy!

I know - I was almost impressed at how bad it was!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 14 August, 2018, 08:22:28 pm
Meanwhile, in other news, The Beeb newsreader said the police were 'treating the fire as supected arson'. FFS!

Don't see the problem with that, TBH. It was a fire; they suspect it may have been started deliberately. Once they've got evidence for that - accelerants or WHY - then it moves from suspected arson to arson.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pedaldog. on 14 August, 2018, 10:56:21 pm

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.

By "Any Other Surface" they mean "Anywhere that some Self Important Vandal can get to with a Marking Device" I suppose?



My understanding is that artwork on architecture is a Liberty and if specifically on a wall can be termed an Unwanted....    Sorry, I hate Graffittittiti as much as Cars parking on a FOOTPATH.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moleman76 on 15 August, 2018, 06:35:33 am
returning to "super" - isn't it just the modern version of 'double plus good' ?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 15 August, 2018, 08:06:26 am
I got an error message on an internal system today which read;

The data's are not valid.

That is multiply cringeworthy!

I know - I was almost impressed at how bad it was!

It's all you can expect when you farm translation work out to the lowest bidder, or leave it to the tea-boy who speak good the English, isn't it? When Mrs T was translating professionally she often got documents in "just to check - we already translated it ourselves" where she had to ask for the original in order to understand the "English".


Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 16 August, 2018, 12:55:49 pm
Incidentally, in the 70s I learnt that it was very ill-bred to say "hallo"; now it seems to be the standard casual greeting, at least in the Rheinpfalz.
hallo is what you say to people you pass walking on the street, to colleagues etc, here in NRW. It’s the most common greeting.
We heard a lot of "hallo"s on HBK last week, so I started using it myself  ::-)

They also use "ciao" rather a lot - which was kinda cute, as it's so not a Germanic-sounding word :)

(And I had one "cheers" from a serving frau who knew I was English.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 16 August, 2018, 01:22:14 pm
I rarely if ever hear ciao! What I hear for the goodbye greeting is Tschüss or Tschöööö
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 16 August, 2018, 01:26:28 pm
Incidentally, in the 70s I learnt that it was very ill-bred to say "hallo"; now it seems to be the standard casual greeting, at least in the Rheinpfalz.
hallo is what you say to people you pass walking on the street, to colleagues etc, here in NRW. It’s the most common greeting.
Whereas here in the UK in my lifetime the standard casual greeting has shifted from (close variations) of "hallo" to "hi".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 22 August, 2018, 01:49:36 pm
[Accuracy whinge]
This morning's mail brought me an envelope franked 'Queens square'
Should be 'Queen Square'.
David was Not Impressed.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 26 August, 2018, 06:05:29 pm
This is a new one on me:

"
Quote
I have bullhorns on my fixie, which's brake levers are on the tops, reachable in most positions.
"

Is that allowed in the Queen's English??
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: offcumden on 26 August, 2018, 06:54:37 pm
Well, such an abomination would never pass my lips, nor I doubt would Her Maj approve.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 26 August, 2018, 07:25:07 pm
'which are, I would hope...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moleman76 on 27 August, 2018, 02:56:43 am
"
Quote
I have bullhorns on my fixie, which's brake levers are on the tops, reachable in most positions.
"


Several things here:

Are the bullhorns a handlebar, or are they handlebars?  (Or are they devices for voice amplification)?

Do the brake levers pertain to the fixie [bicycle], or to the bullhorn/s?

and, why not just say "I have bullhorn handlebars on my fixie bicycle.  The brake levers are mounted on the tops of the handlebars and are reachable in most positions." ?  No rule against using more than one sentence, is there?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 27 August, 2018, 07:58:21 am
Well, such an abomination would never pass my lips, nor I doubt would Her Maj approve.

You'd hope not, but she was home-schooled, wasn't she?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: De Sisti on 27 August, 2018, 09:13:24 am
My secondary school was rubbish at teaching grammar. I don't recall a lesson outling the subject.
I still don't know when to use a semi colon. I'm confused by the term adverb. I've yet to understand
what a preposition is. However, my grasp of the English language is good enough to have obtained
a post in the organisation I work for; and I can write a decent letter of compaint.


(Please feel free to correct my post for mistakes). ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 27 August, 2018, 09:55:15 am
I still don't know when to use a semi colon.

The simple answer is never.

There are very few instances of semicolon use where a full stop or comma wouldn’t work just as well.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 August, 2018, 09:58:20 am
"I have bullhorns on my fixie, whose brake levers... "
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 27 August, 2018, 10:06:31 am
I still don't know when to use a semi colon.

The simple answer is never.

There are very few instances of semicolon use where a full stop or comma wouldn’t work just as well.
It's like spellin, innit? If you can't confidently spell a word (or you're unsure of its meaning), it's generally better to use a different word.

[I'm pretty sure I could have used a "semi" in there, but chose to play safe! ]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jakob W on 27 August, 2018, 10:35:42 am
I still don't know when to use a semi colon.

The simple answer is never.

There are very few instances of semicolon use where a full stop or comma wouldn’t work just as well.

Lies! I will fully admit to being perhaps a little over-fond of the semi-colon, but stylistically it's a useful mid-point between the comma and the full stop.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 27 August, 2018, 12:22:05 pm
Powertools are useful too, if you know how to use them, but dangerous if you don't...

So be careful with that semicolon or you'll have someone's eye out.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 27 August, 2018, 12:29:41 pm
I seem to recall M$ Word doesn't like semi-colons one little bit; that's American software for you.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 29 August, 2018, 01:18:25 pm
 
Quote
@Jacob_Rees_Mogg

Trust in politics will evaporate if Brexit were not delivered.

Limiting your answer to the grammatical rather than political, this is bad isn't it? Is he aiming at the subjunctive, and missing?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: offcumden on 29 August, 2018, 01:25:46 pm
Quote
@Jacob_Rees_Mogg

Trust in politics will evaporate if Brexit were not delivered.

Limiting your answer to the grammatical rather than political, this is bad isn't it? Is he aiming at the subjunctive, and missing?

I'd guess it should have been "Trust in politics would evaporate if Brexit were not delivered".   Nonsense however you look at it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 29 August, 2018, 01:35:13 pm
Limiting your answer to the grammatical rather than political, this is bad isn't it? Is he aiming at the subjunctive, and missing?

I don't think in this case you can separate the political and the grammatical aspects of the statement. I believe it to be deliberate.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 29 August, 2018, 01:41:39 pm
Swapping OUT
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 29 August, 2018, 02:14:17 pm
Swapping OUT

Yeah, hangover from ITspeak. From cabinet POV Boris was swapped for Hunt so Boris was swapped out while Hunt got swapped in. In IT, however, the expectation is that what went out will come in again with the same status...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 30 August, 2018, 04:13:03 pm
That feckin' Thatcher's Cider advert has me on the verge of throwing things at the telly every time it comes on.

"You wouldn't want a hot air balloon that could almost fly, would you? So why would you want a cider that's almost perfect? Thankfully, Thatcher's make sure theirs is."

Makes sure theirs is what - "almost perfect"? But you just said I wouldn't want that. Or maybe that's an absolute "is", to express the idea that Thatcher's make sure their cider exists. Cidero ergo sum, or something.

And besides, the "almost able to fly" and "almost perfect" comparison is a category error. It really doesn't work as a metaphor.

I almost wish I were a Thatcher's Cider drinker so I could boycott it in protest.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 02 September, 2018, 12:51:48 pm
From this, http://www.wymt.com/content/news/Child-shot-in-the-head-state-police-investigating-492184471.html, mentioned on the Stupid Deaths thread.

Quote
Kentucky State Police confirmed to WYMT the child has died from their injuries.

:facepalm:

Yes, yes, PC & all that, damn its festering eyes.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jakob W on 02 September, 2018, 01:09:43 pm
To be fair, in the news report that sentence was followed by
Quote
We still do not know the gender of the victim.
Which makes that a bit less cringey, though the ambiguity is still there. I guess they thought 'the child has died from its injuries' was too impersonal.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 02 September, 2018, 01:48:48 pm
It isn't necessarily a neuter pronoun. It provides for cases in which gender is indeterminate.

But never mind: arguing grammar against Transpondian ignorance is kicking against the pricks.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 02 September, 2018, 03:13:38 pm
Seen in the comments on a friend's facebook post:
(https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1868/30557143438_51dd87d0e6.jpg)

I don't know where to start... I'm itching to tell MB how wrong he is but I don't know him and I'm not a dick.

'Grammar enthusiasts' indeed.

I blame Lynne Truss.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 02 September, 2018, 03:33:43 pm
World of difference between "I might as well shoot the vicar" and "I may have well shot the vicar" or rather "I may well have shot the vicar", especially from the vicar's POV.

Lynne Truss* sounds like part of a roof, or maybe something for a hernia.

* Pandas & all that, right?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 02 September, 2018, 03:48:33 pm
* Pandas & all that, right?

That's the one - the woman who normalised being an arse about misplaced apostrophes.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 02 September, 2018, 04:13:55 pm
Funny things, apostrophes.  I have a 17th-century book in which his is used instead, e.g. drawings are labelled King George hif Baftion etc.  I've head that that arose from a mifunderftanding of apoftrophes.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 02 September, 2018, 06:40:34 pm
* Pandas & all that, right?

That's the one - the woman who normalised being an arse about misplaced apostrophes.
This probably isn't the best place to be defending misplaced apostrophes. Good luck though  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SteveC on 02 September, 2018, 06:53:12 pm
Funny things, apostrophes.  I have a 17th-century book in which his is used instead, e.g. drawings are labelled King George hif Baftion etc.  I've head that that arose from a mifunderftanding of apoftrophes.
Or possibly that the use of apostrophes for possessives grew out of the way they used to put the 'his' in, but compressed it to just the 's' when speaking.

[[Off topic -- is there a standard unicode or whatever for the long 's' character T42 has represented by 'f' in his quote?]]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 02 September, 2018, 08:24:09 pm
Funny things, apostrophes.  I have a 17th-century book in which his is used instead, e.g. drawings are labelled King George hif Baftion etc.  I've head that that arose from a mifunderftanding of apoftrophes.
Or possibly that the use of apostrophes for possessives grew out of the way they used to put the 'his' in, but compressed it to just the 's' when speaking.

[[Off topic -- is there a standard unicode or whatever for the long 's' character T42 has represented by 'f' in his quote?]]

Long S - modern usage (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s#Modern_usage)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 03 September, 2018, 10:06:18 am
Amusing note re fraktur, mentioned in that Wiki snippet:  At some point during WW2 some SS researcher decided that fraktur was of Jewish origin and should not be used in future.  The note went out on SS letterhead, which was in fraktur.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 September, 2018, 10:29:18 am
Funny things, apostrophes.  I have a 17th-century book in which his is used instead, e.g. drawings are labelled King George hif Baftion etc.  I've head that that arose from a mifunderftanding of apoftrophes.
Or possibly that the use of apostrophes for possessives grew out of the way they used to put the 'his' in, but compressed it to just the 's' when speaking.

[[Off topic -- is there a standard unicode or whatever for the long 's' character T42 has represented by 'f' in his quote?]]

Long S - modern usage (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s#Modern_usage)

Quote
Another survival of the long s was the abbreviation used in British English for shilling, as in 7 ∕ 6 "seven shillings and sixpence," where the shilling mark " ∕ " stands in for the long s, an abbreviation for the Latin solidus.[26] In the same way, the "d" in "7s. 6d." abbreviates the Latin denarius.
That's something I've learned today. I'd assumed it was just a conventional divider, like a colon or whatever.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 03 September, 2018, 10:42:19 am
Quote
Another survival of the long s was the abbreviation used in British English for shilling, as in 7 ∕ 6 "seven shillings and sixpence," where the shilling mark " ∕ " stands in for the long s, an abbreviation for the Latin solidus.[26] In the same way, the "d" in "7s. 6d." abbreviates the Latin denarius.
That's something I've learned today. I'd assumed it was just a conventional divider, like a colon or whatever.

Yes, same here - I knew that d stood for denarius and s for solidus, but not that the 'shilling mark' stroke represented the long s.

I did already know, however, that the 'pound sign' £ is a glorified L and stands for livre. (Although AIUI what Americans call a pound sign is the octothorpe, or hash - #)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 September, 2018, 11:37:41 am
The word octothorpe is something else I've learnt today!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 03 September, 2018, 12:48:37 pm
Octothorpe is nice. Sounds like a thicket of Jeremies.

Solidus is the formal name of the forward slash.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 03 September, 2018, 01:04:40 pm
An octothorp sounds like a terribly English cephalopod. Probably dines on some aquatic relative of the aspidistra.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 03 September, 2018, 02:18:22 pm
Any time now we'll be writing The Deeper Meaning of Liff.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: andytheflyer on 03 September, 2018, 04:18:21 pm
Solidus is the formal name of the forward slash.

?  Thought it was the temperature below which a substance (or a rock in my case) is solid.  You learn something new every day.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Little Jim on 04 September, 2018, 11:13:07 am
Thanks to Andrij I've now spent far too long on Wikipedia reading about the "Long S", but the following quote on there from the Vicar of Dibley made me laugh:

In an episode of "The Vicar of Dibley" the eternally dim character Alice, attempting to use a Bible so antique it uses the long s at the beginning of and within some words, reads to the congregation "...and He shall be thy f- ffuu--" before being rescued by the minister Geraldine with an emphatic "succour!"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 04 September, 2018, 04:44:50 pm
I saw a Fringe "Renaissance" sketch years ago in which the long S was pronounced as F. "Fecrete thyfelf behind the arraff!" etc. And of course it ended up with someone being told to go and ffffffsuck eggs.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Torslanda on 09 September, 2018, 07:21:40 pm
Correct me if I am wrong*

If something is a rare example of something once commonplace then it is a 'rare example' or 'one of a/the few remaining'.

If something is the sole remaining example then it is 'the only remaining'.

With me so far? Good. What is really grinding my gears at the moment is when something is described as 'one of the only remaining'

*Actually, don't bother. My give-a-shit-o-meter's packed up...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 09 September, 2018, 08:08:31 pm


*Actually, don't bother. My give-a-shit-o-meter's packed up...

That happens more and more with me these days. I find it quite relaxing, so won't be trying to mend it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 09 September, 2018, 08:10:11 pm
"It was so fun" and all variation thereof.

Fun is a noun not an adjective.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 09 September, 2018, 09:05:58 pm
"It was so fun" and all variation thereof.

Fun is a noun not an adjective.

Go fun yourself. ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: FifeingEejit on 09 September, 2018, 09:54:29 pm
out with

It's one word, but that's outwith most spell checkers capabilities.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 10 September, 2018, 08:55:07 am
"It was so fun" and all variation thereof.

Fun is a noun not an adjective.

Go fun yourself. ;)

[17c, from earlier fon to make a fool of.] - Chambers
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 10 December, 2018, 07:08:50 am
From the Graun this morning

from playing the father of a pregnant teenager in Juno to chomping cigars as Peter Parker’s editor-in-chief in Spider-Man – that the newly coronated character actor got bumped up to a leading role.

Coronated?
crowned, surely?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 10 December, 2018, 01:39:40 pm
Well, it's the Graun, innit? Fool's Pardon rules apply. Sorry, applicate.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 18 December, 2018, 09:31:44 am
Dear world, "insane" is driving me insane. Stop it. Just fucking stop it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 December, 2018, 10:22:55 am
I was recently treated to the word "de-increase." It was in speech not writing but even so, I can't help feeling there might have been a clearer way to express it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 18 December, 2018, 01:18:02 pm
This is not grammar but the ambiguity REALLY riles me!
BBC News feature 'Wheelchair dance tips for new bride'

I really didn't know if the wheelchair had toppled (as has happened to me and is unpleasant at best) or whether this was instructional...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 15 January, 2019, 08:30:44 am
The brain-dead Graun has taken to only putting capitals on the first letters of acronyms. Skimming an article about temperatures in Oz this morning to see if a chum was getting fried, I was wondering what the Bom was (Under the Bom, under the Boo?) until I remembered their idiot propensity and "Bureau of Meteorology" went ding.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 15 January, 2019, 08:39:43 am
The brain-dead Graun has taken to only putting capitals on the first letters of acronyms. Skimming an article about temperatures in Oz this morning to see if a chum was getting fried, I was wondering what the Bom was (Under the Bom, under the Boo?) until I remembered their idiot propensity and "Bureau of Meteorology" went ding.

I assumed that was a British thing.  Seeing NASA written Nasa drives me up the wall.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 January, 2019, 09:12:54 am
I'm not sure it's a particularly British thing. It might just be Guardian house style. Given the context T42 mentions, it might even be an Australian habit.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 15 January, 2019, 09:24:38 am
It has only surfaced recently, and I think I've only seen it in the Graun.  Maybe they've got a new spelling checker.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 15 January, 2019, 10:32:29 am
I'm not sure it's a particularly British thing. It might just be Guardian house style. Given the context T42 mentions, it might even be an Australian habit.

I am not an habitual Graun reader, and have seen said 'style' in numerous publications.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 15 January, 2019, 10:36:31 am
The brain-dead Graun has taken to only putting capitals on the first letters of acronyms. Skimming an article about temperatures in Oz this morning to see if a chum was getting fried, I was wondering what the Bom was (Under the Bom, under the Boo?) until I remembered their idiot propensity and "Bureau of Meteorology" went ding.

I assumed that was a British thing.  Seeing NASA written Nasa drives me up the wall.

if you type "nasa" in WorD it turns it into "Nasa". This may  explain a lot  ::-)

(I don't think the Brits (or the BRITS) can be blamed for WOrd.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SteveC on 15 January, 2019, 10:38:33 am
The Graun style guide says all caps if the letters are pronounced, e.g. BBC but initial cap when it’s pronounced as a word, e.g.  Nasa.

Not sure I agree but that’s their choice.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 15 January, 2019, 08:46:50 pm
Most style guides I've encountered (and I've worked in publishing for a bazillion years, so this isn't a new thing) state that acronyms be written in lower case ('laser') and capitalized if proper nouns ('Nato'). It's how I've always done it. Abbreviations should, of course, be capitalized throughout ('BBC'). The Chicago Manual of Style suggests it might be a British thing, but they say that about everything.

That said, carry on, this thread is always the purest and most delectable source of wrongolium.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 January, 2019, 08:53:32 pm
Words like laser and radar blur the boundary between acronym and, erm, word. I think this just means they are viewed as words in their own right and not thought of as standing for anything. We form other words from them, like, erm, gaydar. T42's "Bom" hasn't reached that level of acceptance and likely never will.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 16 January, 2019, 05:05:45 am
Ukip is written now largely in lowercase, whereas my iPad just autocorrected it to UKIP, which is what I would prefer anyway.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 16 January, 2019, 08:23:25 am
As per ian’s experience, initial-caps-only for acronyms has been standard for as long as I’ve been doing this kind of thing for a living. Which is a long time. Is it a British thing? Yeah, could be, but I’m British so get over it.

That said, I suspect T42’s example is a case of house style being rigidly applied in spite of what would be sensible. As custodian of the style guide, I would always rather go against my own style rules than print something that readers won’t understand. Mind you, in my current job (in a content agency), house style is largely defined as “what the client wants”, and I’m sure we’ve all seen the stylistic abominations that marketing people come up with for company and brand names...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 January, 2019, 08:34:32 am
As custodian of the style guide, I would always rather go against my own style rules than print something that readers won’t understand.
Far too sensible.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 16 January, 2019, 08:43:13 am
As custodian of the style guide, I would always rather go against my own style rules than print something that readers won’t understand.
Far too sensible.

No, the sensible thing would be to do a job for which you get paid well and don’t have to worry about such unimportant nonsense.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jakob W on 16 January, 2019, 09:01:55 am
All of my UK style guides have initial caps as acceptable, though none are prescriptive. My copy of Butcher's suggests that one house style that is common is to use initial cap for acronyms that are 5 letters or longer, but to keep uppercase where clarity and/or custom require, e.g. SALT II, WYSIWYG.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 16 January, 2019, 09:18:17 am
TBH, all style guides are about consistency and not correctness. Inconsistency looks unprofessional and is annoying to read or view. No one really cares whether it's Nasa or NASA, but using the two formats interchangeably ought reasonably to be punished by grisly death.
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 16 January, 2019, 09:44:24 am
Note however that consistency doesn’t mean applying style rules with stubbornly pedantic rigidity.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 16 January, 2019, 09:58:37 am
We form other words from them, like, erm, gaydar.
and frickin'-laser...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 16 January, 2019, 10:15:32 am
Note however that consistency doesn’t mean applying style rules with stubbornly pedantic rigidity.

Try telling my wife that. She's an editorial tyrant. I can't even leave a note in the kitchen without her getting out the bloody red pen.
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 16 January, 2019, 10:41:54 am
We form other words from them, like, erm, gaydar.
and frickin'-laser...

But not gayser, which is a shame - I’m imagining this to be some kind of superpower where you turn someone into a big old homo by firing rays out of your eyes at them.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 16 January, 2019, 10:51:00 am

That said, carry on, this thread is always the purest and most delectable source of wrongolium.

Googlewhack!  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 16 January, 2019, 11:10:43 am
We form other words from them, like, erm, gaydar.
and frickin'-laser...

But not gayser, which is a shame - I’m imagining this to be some kind of superpower where you turn someone into a big old homo by firing rays out of your eyes at them.

My father seems to live in genuine fear that gay men have just this very power.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 January, 2019, 11:32:45 am
We form other words from them, like, erm, gaydar.
and frickin'-laser...

But not gayser, which is a shame - I’m imagining this to be some kind of superpower where you turn someone into a big old homo by firing rays out of your eyes at them.
I thought it would be something to do with high pressure superheated steam shooting out of orifices.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 16 January, 2019, 12:25:26 pm
Reminds me, apropos of orifices and high pressures, I never pulled out my case file on The Jerusalem Artichoke Incident to share.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 16 January, 2019, 12:41:10 pm
We form other words from them, like, erm, gaydar.
and frickin'-laser...

But not gayser, which is a shame - I’m imagining this to be some kind of superpower where you turn someone into a big old homo by firing rays out of your eyes at them.

Surely a gayser is when you amplify gayness by stimulating their emissions...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 January, 2019, 10:24:38 am
Quote
With a a significant working class and industrial legacy that has left its traces on the cityscape in the lace-market, the extensive network of caves that run under the city, the canal, and derelict industrial-era mill buildings, it is also.
What makes this particularly striking is that it's not buried in the middle of other text, it's the second sentence. From the Graudnia, obviously.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 05 February, 2019, 07:26:07 pm
Since we don't have a "scientific ignorance[1] that makes you cringe" thread, this will have to do:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-norfolk-47132158/drone-captures-southrepps-radiation-fog-daybreak

Quote
The phenomenon has nothing to do with radiation, but refers to the way heat "radiates" from the Earth meaning the air can hold less moisture, so it turns to fog.

 :facepalm:


[1] Or just plain 'meanings of words' ignorance.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 February, 2019, 07:36:08 pm
Heat radiates, radiators convect, radiation is nasty stuff that gives you cancer and negative mortgage equity. Everyone knows that!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 February, 2019, 03:05:42 pm
Quote
The situation has parallels with the US-China trade dispute last year, when US ships raced across the world to deliver soybeans before Beijing could impose tariffs on them. Some boats were stuck in harbours after failing to miss the deadline.
Failing to miss?  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 08 February, 2019, 09:23:01 am
"Stuck in harbours" is a wee bit phunny too.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Aidan on 09 February, 2019, 07:30:32 am
This made me cringe a bit


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/02/08/woman-dies-stabbed-death-fellow-motorist-surrey/?li_source=LI&li_medium=li-recommendation-widget


Very sad but the headline writer wants a slap.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 11 February, 2019, 05:29:55 pm
Can't remember if we've had this one before, but those strange impersonal-imperative-subjunctive passive-aggressive announcements you get on trains: eg "passengers are reminded to take all their belongings with them when leaving the train", which is bad enough, but it usually gets mangled into "passengers are reminded to take all your belongings with you when leaving the train" which is worse.

I think the problem is that they want to make it clear that the message is addressing passengers (as opposed to whom exactly? The driver?) but the indirect formulation is confusing when you're actually addressing passengers directly (albeit over the PA).

Either way, it makes me cringe.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 18 February, 2019, 08:37:04 am
Pootling around the EDF website* I stumbled across this:

[
Quote
They also let us collect this information remotely, so we’ll no longer need to ask you for meter reads.

WTF is a "meter read"?

* see the smart meter thread in a  bit.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: toontra on 18 February, 2019, 09:13:04 am
Sportspeople seeing how many times they can fit the word "obviously" into an interview.  Usually abbreviated to "obvusly" or "ovusly" for the sake of brevity.

I can hear my English teacher, "What the person is saying is that they "obviously" don't have a wide enough vocabulary to express themselves".

As for the obligatory prefix filler "so" which I mentioned on this thread many years ago, it has now reached truly epidemic proportions and is "so" widespread as to rival the ghastly "like" of yoof-speak.  Indeed it's actually being used in written form - a post here the other day (no names mentioned) started, "So... ".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Torslanda on 18 February, 2019, 09:38:59 am
See also "Well, you know..."

If I hear you contract this to "Ye'oh" be assured I have contemplated termination with extreme prejudice.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 18 February, 2019, 10:37:35 am
...
I can hear my English teacher, "What the person is saying is that they "obviously" don't have a wide enough vocabulary to express themselves".
...

Then they'd both be completely wrong and more than a bit of a dick.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 18 February, 2019, 11:05:57 am
As for the obligatory prefix filler "so" which I mentioned on this thread many years ago, it has now reached truly epidemic proportions...

I used to find that irritating but I've come to terms with it now. Filler is all it is. And it has only replaced previous filler words that were probably equally irritating when new.

Reaching 'epidemic proportions' is pretty much an essential trait of language, otherwise it is mere dialect.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 18 February, 2019, 11:44:06 am
I did a presentation skillz thing some time back – they had you learn and present a passage without any filler words or circumlocutions while they videoed it.

The result (and it's very difficult to do) of speaking with unadulterated precision is that you come across as rude and arrogant, and it's very offputting to anyone listening. It's also difficult to follow because we need those spaces to catch up and digest what's being said. Fillers and similar serve a vital purpose in both spoken and written communication. They're only generational in the terms used, they're a consistent component of how we communicate.

The idea that they're somehow a mask for inadequate vocabulary or lack of intelligence is nonsense.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 18 February, 2019, 12:12:49 pm
I did a presentation skillz thing some time back – they had you learn and present a passage without any filler words or circumlocutions while they videoed it.

The result (and it's very difficult to do) of speaking with unadulterated precision is that you come across as rude and arrogant, and it's very offputting to anyone listening. It's also difficult to follow because we need those spaces to catch up and digest what's being said. Fillers and similar serve a vital purpose in both spoken and written communication. They're only generational in the terms used, they're a consistent component of how we communicate.

The idea that they're somehow a mask for inadequate vocabulary or lack of intelligence is nonsense.
... and even if it was they were, it can't be helped that some people in the anglophone world are not blessed with perfect oratory skills. Get over it!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 February, 2019, 12:49:15 pm
Spoken language is different from written language, obviously. If you read the unedited transcript of a speech or interview word for word, even a scripted one, it looks very messy due to all the fillers, repetitions and hesitations. Dialogue in a novel, for instance, is more akin to a script than the actual spoken words. You wouldn't want to read it otherwise.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 18 February, 2019, 01:00:15 pm
As for the obligatory prefix filler "so" which I mentioned on this thread many years ago, it has now reached truly epidemic proportions...
I used to find that irritating but I've come to terms with it now.
I'm not quite there yet. Thinking about it, my level of irritation might correlate closely with my general level of irritation with the person doing the speaking. So (!) I'm quite OK with it if the speaker's a tidy boy, like.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 18 February, 2019, 01:08:17 pm
Spoken language is different from written language, obviously. If you read the unedited transcript of a speech or interview word for word, even a scripted one, it looks very messy due to all the fillers, repetitions and hesitations. Dialogue in a novel, for instance, is more akin to a script than the actual spoken words. You wouldn't want to read it otherwise.

Writing is done differently, but we still space, fill, and circumlocute – those are core components of a writer's style, of course.

Prefixes like 'so' are often spoken or written cues that a new statement is about to be introduced, they're attention grabbers.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 18 February, 2019, 01:11:50 pm
The Australian* "Look ..." is by far the more irritating way for sports personages to start their on-air replies.

They might as well start with "Fuck off! Let me explain this to you: "


*It has spread to plenty of other nations' athletes. But the Ozzies are the worst for it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 February, 2019, 01:32:06 pm
Spoken language is different from written language, obviously. If you read the unedited transcript of a speech or interview word for word, even a scripted one, it looks very messy due to all the fillers, repetitions and hesitations. Dialogue in a novel, for instance, is more akin to a script than the actual spoken words. You wouldn't want to read it otherwise.

Writing is done differently, but we still space, fill, and circumlocute – those are core components of a writer's style, of course.

Prefixes like 'so' are often spoken or written cues that a new statement is about to be introduced, they're attention grabbers.
It's certainly different. Taking words as spoken and making them nicely readable can be tricky. But I do it because people pay me (sometimes!). Legal verbatim is in some ways easier because if it doesn't make sense, you don't have to make sense of it.

Meanwhile, I've discovered that Ugandans are particularly fond of turning every statement into a question and answer. They are ending the sentence with what? A question. And after the question comes what? The answer. The people doing this are who? The Ugandans. And they are doing this when? To tell you something.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 18 February, 2019, 01:40:26 pm
Pootling around the EDF website* I stumbled across this:

[
Quote
They also let us collect this information remotely, so we’ll no longer need to ask you for meter reads.

WTF is a "meter read"?

The act of reading a meter, as distinct from the data obtained by doing so (a "meter reading")?

Maybe I've spent too long fettling computers, where you might reasonably talk about "disk reads" or "memory reads".  I certainly wouldn't object to, say, "meter reads per second" when technically discussing the network overheads of polling smart meters for their data, but it seems wrong in a customer-facing context like that.

Possibly written by a non-Brit?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 18 February, 2019, 01:43:43 pm
As for the obligatory prefix filler "so" which I mentioned on this thread many years ago, it has now reached truly epidemic proportions and is "so" widespread as to rival the ghastly "like" of yoof-speak.  Indeed it's actually being used in written form - a post here the other day (no names mentioned) started, "So... ".

I do it all the time, at least in speech, it's just a normal and ordinary part of language, and anyone objecting to it comes across in much the same way as old people objecting to the use of 'cool'.  Preambles perform an important function of allowing the listener time to pay attention, and "So...." or "Right..."[1] is a conveniently natural sounding one that doesn't confusing the hearing people in the way that a full "Are you listening?" or "Ping?" handshake might.

In writing, only if I were deliberately attempting an informal style.  Which is most forum posts, tbh.


(I eschew ", like," (other than for ironic purposes) because I've been inoculated against that particular form of Valley Girl speak by prior experience of Mancunians.)


[1] Or even "Roit..."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 18 February, 2019, 02:00:45 pm
Interestingly, the amount of filliing in a conversation doesn't vary by education/social class (the two will always confound), but the type of filler does, from 'like' to 'actually.' I can't be bothered to find the study (there's quite a few). At the lower end of education/social class, fillers are shorter and used more frequently, higher up, they're longer but let frequent, for instance stepping through the syllable of ac-tual-ly and then pausing. The amount of time spent filling is much the same. Of course, the type of filler you use is a social class cue in itself.

It's very rare for anyone not to have sufficient vocabulary hence the nonsense of that teacher's statement, we all do. The different that education and a lot of reading gives us is access to a lot more synonyms and different ways of saying things.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rafletcher on 18 February, 2019, 02:10:00 pm
As for the obligatory prefix filler "so" which I mentioned on this thread many years ago, it has now reached truly epidemic proportions...
I used to find that irritating but I've come to terms with it now.
I'm not quite there yet......

Nor me. It was noticeable on "Winterwatch" that +TPTB had had a word with Gillian Burke, whose every phrase (nearly)used to start with "So...". It was almost entirely absent this time, thankfully. It is, like most things,  ok in moderation, but not as a blanket prefix.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 18 February, 2019, 02:10:26 pm
"Produce" as used Transpondially to mean vegetables. "He was so bad they were throwing produce at him".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 February, 2019, 02:30:10 pm
Pootling around the EDF website* I stumbled across this:

[
Quote
They also let us collect this information remotely, so we’ll no longer need to ask you for meter reads.

WTF is a "meter read"?

The act of reading a meter, as distinct from the data obtained by doing so (a "meter reading")?

Maybe I've spent too long fettling computers, where you might reasonably talk about "disk reads" or "memory reads".  I certainly wouldn't object to, say, "meter reads per second" when technically discussing the network overheads of polling smart meters for their data, but it seems wrong in a customer-facing context like that.

Possibly written by a non-Brit?
As in "do a big shop" versus "put the shopping in the cupboard".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 18 February, 2019, 02:52:06 pm
I don't think I've ever seen read used as a noun outside set phrases, eg 'a good read'.

You could quibble that what the supplier is asking you for is a meter reading, but you have to perform a meter read in order to obtain the information. Admittedly, 'read the meter' is somewhat snappier than 'perform a meter read'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 18 February, 2019, 03:01:30 pm
Exactly. The latter is just an awful bit of verb-nouning.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 February, 2019, 03:08:19 pm
We'll no longer need to ask you for meter reads.
... for meter readings.
... to read the meter.

There might be a technical difference between these but nothing that a customer as opposed to a meter technician (if there is such a job) could be expected to know about.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 18 February, 2019, 04:07:26 pm
We'll no longer need to ask you for meter reads.
... for meter readings.
... to read the meter.

There might be a technical difference between these but nothing that a customer as opposed to a meter technician (if there is such a job) could be expected to know about.
There is no longer such a job as a meter technician. Smart meters have made them redundant.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 18 February, 2019, 07:00:48 pm
As for the obligatory prefix filler "so" which I mentioned on this thread many years ago, it has now reached truly epidemic proportions and is "so" widespread as to rival the ghastly "like" of yoof-speak.  Indeed it's actually being used in written form - a post here the other day (no names mentioned) started, "So... ".

Sadly Professor Larrington was guilty of this when she had a series on R4 a couple of years ago.  I shall take her to task on it if further media tartery is in the pipeline.

"Produce" as used Transpondially to mean vegetables. "He was so bad they were throwing produce at him".

Mr Sainsbury's House Of Toothy Comestibles were doing this behind the scenes in the early 1980s.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 18 February, 2019, 07:50:48 pm
There might be a technical difference between these but nothing that a customer as opposed to a meter technician (if there is such a job) could be expected to know about.
There is no longer such a job as a meter technician. Smart meters have made them redundant.

Smart meters have given them a zillion new meters to install...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 18 February, 2019, 08:06:56 pm
Lovely meter, meter read, nothing can come between us.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: toontra on 18 February, 2019, 08:22:25 pm
As for the obligatory prefix filler "so" which I mentioned on this thread many years ago, it has now reached truly epidemic proportions and is "so" widespread as to rival the ghastly "like" of yoof-speak.  Indeed it's actually being used in written form - a post here the other day (no names mentioned) started, "So... ".

Sadly Professor Larrington was guilty of this when she had a series on R4 a couple of years ago.  I shall take her to task on it if further media tartery is in the pipeline.

Much appreciated  ;D  Tell her it will increase listening figures by at least one!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: andytheflyer on 18 February, 2019, 08:23:49 pm
"Produce" as used Transpondially to mean vegetables. "He was so bad they were throwing produce at him".

Not just Transpondially I suggest.  I'm from the Lincolnshire Fens and there are very many agricultural businesses in that part of the world known as 'Produce Merchants'.  They grow, or trade in veg, mainly cabbage, Brussels and caulis.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jurek on 18 February, 2019, 08:29:13 pm
Lovely meter, meter read, nothing can come between us.
Took her out and tried to win her...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 February, 2019, 08:41:05 pm
Elders, as in elders of a community. It's quite a common word, isn't it? Is there any reason someone wouldn't know it? Specifically someone from Ireland. Maybe it's not used in Ireland? Would welcome comments from Irish persons.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 18 February, 2019, 08:48:14 pm
"Produce" as used Transpondially to mean vegetables. "He was so bad they were throwing produce at him".

Not just Transpondially I suggest.  I'm from the Lincolnshire Fens and there are very many agricultural businesses in that part of the world known as 'Produce Merchants'.  They grow, or trade in veg, mainly cabbage, Brussels and caulis.

It's certainly a common word on the sides of lorries and vans coming and going from New Covent Garden which would suggest that's it's not very American at all. They only just built the US Embassy there, after all.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jakob W on 18 February, 2019, 09:51:09 pm
As for the obligatory prefix filler "so" which I mentioned on this thread many years ago, it has now reached truly epidemic proportions and is "so" widespread as to rival the ghastly "like" of yoof-speak.  Indeed it's actually being used in written form - a post here the other day (no names mentioned) started, "So... ".

Sadly Professor Larrington was guilty of this when she had a series on R4 a couple of years ago.  I shall take her to task on it if further media tartery is in the pipeline.

Nah, I'd have thought she'd just point out that it's got a good pedigree. IIRC Beowulf starts 'Hwaet', which in Seamus Heaney's translation is rendered 'So':
Quote from: Heaney
So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by
and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness.
We have heard of those princes’ heroic campaigns.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 19 February, 2019, 07:46:28 am
Elders, as in elders of a community. It's quite a common word, isn't it? Is there any reason someone wouldn't know it? Specifically someone from Ireland. Maybe it's not used in Ireland? Would welcome comments from Irish persons.

I'm not Irish, but my general association would be religious, and originating in USania as in Mormon Elders, perhaps because I occasionally see them on trains from Ely, out on their missions.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 19 February, 2019, 08:51:39 am
"Produce" as used Transpondially to mean vegetables. "He was so bad they were throwing produce at him".

Not just Transpondially I suggest.  I'm from the Lincolnshire Fens and there are very many agricultural businesses in that part of the world known as 'Produce Merchants'.  They grow, or trade in veg, mainly cabbage, Brussels and caulis.

It's certainly a common word on the sides of lorries and vans coming and going from New Covent Garden which would suggest that's it's not very American at all. They only just built the US Embassy there, after all.

That kind of slightly stilted formal use on the side of a van carrying grocer'ies is unsurprising. Hearing it used in ordinary speech is strange.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 February, 2019, 09:18:20 am
Elders, as in elders of a community. It's quite a common word, isn't it? Is there any reason someone wouldn't know it? Specifically someone from Ireland. Maybe it's not used in Ireland? Would welcome comments from Irish persons.

I'm not Irish, but my general association would be religious, and originating in USania as in Mormon Elders, perhaps because I occasionally see them on trains from Ely, out on their missions.
The context wasn't Mormon (East African in fact) and the religious aspect was implicit rather than explicit but that sounds about right.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SteveC on 19 February, 2019, 09:41:43 am
"Produce" as used Transpondially to mean vegetables. "He was so bad they were throwing produce at him".
Our village flower show is officially known as the 'Flower and Produce Show' and has been for years. Knowing some of the past organisers (now all in their 80s) I doubt transpondia as an influence. Possibly another example of Americans continuing to use words which we consider obsolete, but no more than that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 19 February, 2019, 10:22:45 am
Am I right in thinking that one meaning of 'products' is 'stuff you put in your hair'?

eg
- Do you use products?
- Yes, but just brylcreem
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 19 February, 2019, 10:32:33 am
"Produce" as used Transpondially to mean vegetables. "He was so bad they were throwing produce at him".
Our village flower show is officially known as the 'Flower and Produce Show' and has been for years. Knowing some of the past organisers (now all in their 80s) I doubt transpondia as an influence. Possibly another example of Americans continuing to use words which we consider obsolete, but no more than that.

Certainly. My venerable 1968 Chambers says 'ns: that which is produced: proceeds: product: crop: yield, esp. of fields and gardens'; in other words, using it for fruit & veg is OK in a foody/flowery context.  I'd say, though, that using it in everyday non-foody speech, e.g. throwing produce at a performer, implies that the word means fruit & veg predominantly or even exclusively. After all an Ikea chair, produce of Sweden, might also be heaved at the poor bugger. It is the shrinking of the word's meaning that I find curiously Usanian.

Another instance was "you're not going to bribe me with a bagful of produce". Make it produce of the Royal Mint (or whatever they call it these days) and it just might work.

Am I right in thinking that one meaning of 'products' is 'stuff you put in your hair'?

eg
- Do you use products?
- Yes, but just brylcreem

That's like the French produits, shortened from produits chimiques. As in mange pas ça, y a des produits dedans.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 February, 2019, 10:41:43 am
Hair product is the English phrase, and for some reason it's usually uncountable (that I've heard it).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 19 February, 2019, 10:56:55 am
Going back to "elders",  it certainly can have a religious connotation but it should be familiar to most surely as in "Respect your elders and betters" which is a flowery way of saying, "me".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 19 February, 2019, 12:25:19 pm
^^^ yes, also the general connotation of village elders/tribal elders as a source of wisdom, which I guess then morphed into religious elders
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 19 February, 2019, 01:09:19 pm
Our village flower show is officially known as the 'Flower and Produce Show' and has been for years.

So is Ambridge's.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 19 February, 2019, 01:24:24 pm
Going back to "elders",  it certainly can have a religious connotation but it should be familiar to most surely as in "Respect your elders and betters" which is a flowery way of saying, "me".
So (see what I did there?) elders and betters aren't those old fellas coming out of the bookies then?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 February, 2019, 02:08:54 pm
Going back to "elders",  it certainly can have a religious connotation but it should be familiar to most surely as in "Respect your elders and betters" which is a flowery way of saying, "me".
So (see what I did there?) elders and betters aren't those old fellas coming out of the bookies then?
:hand: ::-) ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 19 February, 2019, 02:32:14 pm
Then there are elders and aldermen. Elders have hollow pithy stems, produce small dark-red fruit and propagate like f*cking rabbits, whereas aldermen have dark greyish-brown fissured bark, oval or rounded leaves with toothed margins, and produce catkins.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: fimm on 19 February, 2019, 02:44:07 pm
The plural of month is months, isn't it? Not months'? Months' means "belonging to the month" doesn't it? Please? Tell me I'm not going mad...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 19 February, 2019, 03:11:39 pm
You're not gong mads'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 19 February, 2019, 03:27:10 pm
Months' means "belonging to the month" doesn't it?

"Belonging to some months" if I'm being picky.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 19 February, 2019, 03:27:32 pm
The plural of month is months, isn't it? Not months'? Months' means "belonging to the month" doesn't it? Please? Tell me I'm not going mad...

Plural of month is months.
One month's earnings is what you'll receive for working in February.
Three months' earnings is what you'll get for March, April and May combined.

HTH & HAND.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: fimm on 19 February, 2019, 03:58:13 pm
The plural of month is months, isn't it? Not months'? Months' means "belonging to the month" doesn't it? Please? Tell me I'm not going mad...

Plural of month is months.
One month's earnings is what you'll receive for working in February.
Three months' earnings is what you'll get for March, April and May combined.

HTH & HAND.

Thank you, all.
The first rule of criticising spelling or grammar on the internet is that the person making the criticism will themselves make a spelling or grammatical mistake...

Helly: Hope That Helps and HAND?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 19 February, 2019, 05:01:50 pm
Hope that helps (or happy to help) and have a nice day!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 20 February, 2019, 08:35:09 am
Ah, OK. No need for SHRIMP, then.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: fimm on 20 February, 2019, 09:45:15 am
Yes, the penny eventually dropped while I was cycling to the station yesterday evening.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 20 February, 2019, 01:05:01 pm
I actually encountered someone on Farcebok yesterday who spelled his surname "Crook's".  Options:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 February, 2019, 01:11:07 pm
Or:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 20 February, 2019, 01:17:22 pm
[OT] Crookes was a pharmaceutical house that was swallowed up by the Boot's empire. (I don't know if the legacy of Jesse Boot uses any apostrophe now.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 21 February, 2019, 02:28:05 pm
Barakta's in a circle of hell, and I'm currently listening to the TextRelay robot arguing with the Santander I'm-very-sorry-to-keep-you-waiting robot.  (There's presumably a bored scouser in the loop, too, but they'll be communicating by keyboard.)

There should be a law against unintelligent automated systems apologising for things, but referring to themselves as "I" in the process[1], as if it's actually their fault, is a special level of urgh.


[1] I'll accept "I'll put you through now" or "I can't seem to access the database" as a cutesy anthropomorphic attempt at UI, but it's not the PBX's fault that Santander don't employ enough call-centre staff, and it shouldn't be taking the blame for it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 21 February, 2019, 03:06:49 pm
Like 'Sorry I'm not in service' buses.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 21 February, 2019, 07:03:58 pm
Southern and Thameslink are always sorry about something. I don't actually think they are sorry, but they have developed a robot solely to apologize. I think someone posted their 'excuses' API responses a while back.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 21 February, 2019, 08:11:08 pm
If they truly WERE 'sorry', they would go to some lengths to ensure that train delays/cancellations and predictable staff shortages would not recur. I see no evidence this is the case.

They are not 'sorry'. They a mechanised lying bastards.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 February, 2019, 10:43:44 am
"I joined the gym last week. I've had my first session and been induced on all the machines."
This inevitably led to crap jokes about having a kid called Jim.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 22 February, 2019, 04:45:40 pm
"I joined the gym last week. I've had my first session and been induced on all the machines."
This inevitably led to crap jokes about having a kid called Jim.

Or calling them Eddy...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 February, 2019, 06:37:45 pm
"I joined the gym last week. I've had my first session and been induced on all the machines."
This inevitably led to crap jokes about having a kid called Jim.

Or calling them Eddy...
???
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 22 February, 2019, 07:13:27 pm
"I joined the gym last week. I've had my first session and been induced on all the machines."
This inevitably led to crap jokes about having a kid called Jim.

Or calling them Eddy...
???

Electrical induction causes eddy currents.
Induction of labour causes childbirth.

Those of us exposed to the language of Physics in our formative years can pun till the sun goes down.

That's enough Faraday...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 22 February, 2019, 07:28:59 pm
- Eddies in the spacetime continuum.

- Is he?

[one of my favourite Douglas Adams silly jokes]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 February, 2019, 07:29:38 pm
Might have known it was some sort of electrical joke!
Doesn't induction of labour cause apples? Or at least jobs.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Deano on 22 February, 2019, 07:33:26 pm
- Eddies in the spacetime continuum.

- Is he?

[one of my favourite Douglas Adams silly jokes]

Isn't that a Terry Pratchett's joke? :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 22 February, 2019, 08:06:27 pm
- Eddies in the spacetime continuum.

- Is he?

[one of my favourite Douglas Adams silly jokes]

Isn't that a Terry Pratchett's joke? :)
I think Adams would have written it around 1980-ish?? Doesn't that predate PTerry? (my memory is pretty poor on both TBH!)

Of course there is the follow-up:
- And that's his sofa, is it?
[which probably needs a bit more context to understand ... ]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SteveC on 22 February, 2019, 08:34:38 pm
HHGTTG was on the radio when I was at uni (77-80). I bought the double LP in my final year.
pTerry was already published by then, but not Discworld. A housemate got hardbacks of Strata and Dark Side of the Sun from a remainders bookshop also in my final year.

But the joke sounds more Adams to me.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 28 February, 2019, 11:11:01 am
Recreator - one who is engaged in the act of recreation.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 28 February, 2019, 11:46:53 am
Recreator - one who is engaged in the act of recreation.
Not recreationalist ?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 28 February, 2019, 11:54:00 am
Recreator - one who is engaged in the act of recreation.
Not recreationalist ?

Not according to one of the Guardian's American stringers:

It’s also illegal for recreators to approach Glory Hole, since laws prohibit boaters from traveling near dams, such as the one next to spillway.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 28 February, 2019, 02:02:58 pm
Not only is it illegal, it's probably impossible.  At least it was in September 2016:

(https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8323/29538430856_e4acb93788_b.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/M1dboC)
P9090052 (https://flic.kr/p/M1dboC) by Mr Larrington (https://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_larrington/), on Flickr.  The black thing bottom left is part of the idiot fence.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 28 February, 2019, 03:36:29 pm
I didn't know the Sealed Knot did boats 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 01 March, 2019, 08:00:59 am
One of the vagaries of working in contract publishing is that the client has final say over content so will sometimes tell you to change things because they know best, even though they have hired you for your expertise in the field.

Yesterday, the client asked us to add a hyphen to “in store” in the cover line “Save £110 in store today”. This is not a hill I would be prepared to die on, and it is perhaps arguable either way (at least, I wouldn’t assert dogmatically that it is incorrect, as the account manager did, in her typically noisy and hysterical fashion), but the main case against is that we’ve never had a hyphen in that cover line (which is on every issue) so bringing it up now is really just an exercise in the client asserting their authority because they have to be seen to justify their existence.

The editor ultimately wrote an email back to the client, taking the “blind them with science” approach by citing complex and wordy grammar rules. And that was the bit that made me cringe.

I think it’s quite simple: a compound modifier is not usually hyphenated when it comes <after> the noun, except where required for clarity.

Although I get why the editor took the approach she did - you’ve got to put the client in their place sometimes. ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 01 March, 2019, 08:19:36 am
Actually, thinking about it some more, I would say the editor’s reply was wrong. She described “in store” as a compound adjective but surely it’s adverbial in this context, ie modifying the verb “save”?

Also, I wonder if a terse explanation carries more authority - long-winded explanations can give the impression you don’t really understand what you’re talking about...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 01 March, 2019, 08:29:04 am
Definitely adverbiage (sorry, couldn't resist).

Anyway, we had a lot of that when MrsT was translating, particularly from the "-ize is American, -ise is British" crew. Or is it the other way round? I forget.* We used to get orders to translate something from French into American, and every time we knew some in-house moron who spikka good ze Eengleesh would be taking his best red pen to it.

* AIUI it was all -ize before Halitosis Johnson (a.k.a. Doctor) muddied the water with his "it comes from the French so it should be -ise". Eejit.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 March, 2019, 09:11:56 am
"It covers a wide variety of everything" has just made me smile.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 01 March, 2019, 09:44:15 am
Definitely adverbiage (sorry, couldn't resist).

Yep. And in fact, I realise now that I didn't read the editor's reply properly (I glossed over it, not really wanting to get involved in fatuous grammar arguments) and what she actually said was that in this context, "in store" is a noun, which is definitely very wrong indeed.

The grammar is so ingrained that sometimes when I actually stop to think of why something is right or wrong, it doesn't always come straight away. I look at "Save £110 in store" and know instinctively that it doesn't need a hyphen but I have to admit it needed a good deal of thought as to why. However, once I twigged that it's an adverb, it all became clear.

ETA I like this: http://www.grammarunderground.com/should-you-hyphenate-compound-adverbs.html
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 01 March, 2019, 09:44:26 am
"It covers a wide variety of everything" has just made me smile.

Love it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 March, 2019, 07:22:51 pm
Lawyers famously avoid commas as far as they possibly can. Some people, equally famously, love commas, and use them, wherever they possibly can.
Quote
And secondly, based on your interaction with the rating agencies and, clearly, they, obviously, give you the benefit in terms of [...]
This takes love of commas into a slavish obsession.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 March, 2019, 07:25:56 pm
Definitely adverbiage (sorry, couldn't resist).

Yep. And in fact, I realise now that I didn't read the editor's reply properly (I glossed over it, not really wanting to get involved in fatuous grammar arguments) and what she actually said was that in this context, "in store" is a noun, which is definitely very wrong indeed.

The grammar is so ingrained that sometimes when I actually stop to think of why something is right or wrong, it doesn't always come straight away. I look at "Save £110 in store" and know instinctively that it doesn't need a hyphen but I have to admit it needed a good deal of thought as to why. However, once I twigged that it's an adverb, it all became clear.

ETA I like this: http://www.grammarunderground.com/should-you-hyphenate-compound-adverbs.html
"Store" is a noun, but are you actually saying that both words of "in store" form part of the noun, rather than a preposition and a noun?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 01 March, 2019, 09:12:57 pm
surely to be in store is not a noun?

The store in which you are in is the noun?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 02 March, 2019, 07:23:16 am
Interesting.

I reckon it's just wrong, but sounds correct because "in store" is a common phrase.

You can have "in-store savings". You can say "Savings are in store for you tomorrow". But "Save in store" means "Save in the store". No-one would say "get in car" or "put this in box".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 02 March, 2019, 08:54:12 am
ETA I like this: http://www.grammarunderground.com/should-you-hyphenate-compound-adverbs.html

Reading that, my brain goes into a feedback loop where the hyphens flicker in and out of existence and eventually settle to a grey blur.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 02 March, 2019, 11:18:09 am
"Store" is a noun, but are you actually saying that both words of "in store" form part of the noun, rather than a preposition and a noun?

No, I’m not saying it’s a noun - that’s what the editor said but I think she was confusing herself.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 02 March, 2019, 11:33:37 am
But "Save in store" means "Save in the store". No-one would say "get in car" or "put this in box".

But you might say “save online”, right?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 02 March, 2019, 01:19:13 pm
I probably wouldn't but then I'm an anachronism.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 March, 2019, 05:41:20 pm
Save on line! Get your line cheap from us!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 March, 2019, 06:33:48 pm
I've the elders man again. And once again he's confused by the very same word! Partly it's the East African accent baffling him, but he's got to get used to that as he seems to be interviewing dozens of East Africans. I think he's rather linguistically inflexible, as he also doesn't understand the phrase "They would close an eye on it." ("They would what?" "They would – how do you say it? – they would pretend they didn't see it." "Oh, they would turn a blind eye to it.") Still, I'm sure he's good at gathering evidence.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: toontra on 02 March, 2019, 09:15:25 pm
Overheard on train today - first 6 words of the conversation were:

"So like, I was so, like...", etc. ad nauseam with "like" repeated every 5 words and "so" every 10 (or so). 

It's actually torture to my ears - had to put the headphones in.

There is no longer any doubt that "so" is the new "like" and together they are massacring the language.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 03 March, 2019, 08:26:26 am
Germans were introducing sentences with so and also* at least 40 years ago, if not 400.  I reckon it spread to the US in the 1850s, permeated the vernacular and returned east via the media, starting with the talkies.  If it has as much sticking power in the UK as it has over there you're in trouble.

* which doesn't mean also.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 March, 2019, 05:28:03 pm
Also spoke Zarathustra. Yebbut who else?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 March, 2019, 04:47:11 pm
Quote
It does rather look as if whomever made the decision watched Rain Main on Netflix, or something, and thought oo-er, we’d better find out if some of these scary people are out and about on the roads.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/autism-dvla-driving-jess-phillips-a8807096.html

I'd have said it was the curse of pseudoformality, but it's really not a formal sentence.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 March, 2019, 10:33:37 pm
Quote
As a company, *** Tankers can essentially go three ways: it can go up, it can go sideways, it can go down.

Nothing wrong with the grammar at all, it just made me smile.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 March, 2019, 06:18:38 pm
Today I have a question for this thread!

In the phrase "our anti money laundering systems" where would you place hyphens?
anti-money-laundering systems
anti-money laundering systems
anti money-laundering systems
anti-moneylaundering systems

They all look a bit wrong to me (including leaving them all out).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 13 March, 2019, 06:25:05 pm
Today I have a question for this thread!

In the phrase "our anti money laundering systems" where would you place hyphens?
anti-money-laundering systems
anti-money laundering systems
anti money-laundering systems
anti-moneylaundering systems

They all look a bit wrong to me (including leaving them all out).

IMO double hyphenating looks wrong and we Brits seldom concatenate words.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 13 March, 2019, 06:48:10 pm
Not to be confused with antimony-laundering systems, of course.

I'd go with "anti-money laundering systems" for pretty much the reasons helly states.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 March, 2019, 07:02:58 pm
I agree the double hyphen looks odd, though I also think it's the most logical. "Anti money-laundering systems" looks a bit odd with the anti on its own, while "anti-money laundering systems" suggests the laundering of anti-money. Okay, time to apply reality over logic, this isn't sci-fi so anti-money isn't a potential confusion.

I'm now pondering the same question with "a mid single digit number". Why can't these people be like everyone else and just say "in single digits"! Guess I'll go with "mid-single digit number" on the same basis. And use of non-breaking spaces.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 March, 2019, 07:06:35 pm
actually reckon "mid single-digit number" looks better.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 13 March, 2019, 08:34:26 pm
If 2008 taught us anything, it's that anti-money is every bit as real as normal money.  Not sure how you launder it, thobut.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Torslanda on 13 March, 2019, 08:39:27 pm
Anti-money? Shouldn't that be kept away from its opposite?

If Star Trek taught us anything . . .
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 March, 2019, 09:01:03 pm
If 2008 taught us anything, it's that anti-money is every bit as real as normal money.  Not sure how you launder it, thobut.
With an anti-washing machine, otherwise known as COR.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 13 March, 2019, 09:02:07 pm
Anti-money? Shouldn't that be kept away from its opposite?

If Star Trek taught us anything . . .

Sb is toxic...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 14 March, 2019, 08:15:39 am
Since you're into chemistry now why not apply the idea of bonding to hyphens?  Money-laundering is obviously the thing they're anti so it should get a double bond, like so: money=laundering. Anti (bless her) merely gets a single bond, so the result is anti-money=laundering.

On second thoughts, :sick:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 14 March, 2019, 09:09:43 am
Not to be confused with antimony-laundering systems, of course.

I'd go with "anti-money laundering systems" for pretty much the reasons helly states.

Yes, but that looks like someone is laundering 'anti-money' which is a thing in my wallet that annihilates real money while I stand in the pub.

I'd go with 'systems to prevent money laundering' and disavow the hyphenation.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 14 March, 2019, 09:13:55 am
I'd go with 'systems to prevent money laundering' and disavow the hyphenation.

Funnily enough, that's exactly what I was going to say but I changed my mind and went with the crap antimony-laundering gag instead.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 March, 2019, 09:21:40 am
Not to be confused with antimony-laundering systems, of course.

I'd go with "anti-money laundering systems" for pretty much the reasons helly states.

Yes, but that looks like someone is laundering 'anti-money' which is a thing in my wallet that annihilates real money while I stand in the pub.

I'd go with 'systems to prevent money laundering' and disavow the hyphenation.
That would be great but alas AML is the standard acronym.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 14 March, 2019, 09:58:09 am
I'd go with 'systems to prevent money laundering' and disavow the hyphenation.

Funnily enough, that's exactly what I was going to say but I changed my mind and went with the crap antimony-laundering gag instead.

It's good to see an element of humour in this thread.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jakob W on 14 March, 2019, 10:18:39 am
Don't worry, people will soon start spewing bile...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 14 March, 2019, 11:06:13 am
Beeb: "Viral food hack shows we've been eating pineapple wrong this entire time."  Wrongly or the wrong way, please.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 14 March, 2019, 11:15:49 am
Beeb: "Viral food hack shows we've been eating pineapple wrong this entire time."  Wrongly or the wrong way, please.

Wrong is generally accepted as an adverb these days.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 14 March, 2019, 11:23:34 am
Indeed, no one says what am I doing wrongly even if it's rightly.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 14 March, 2019, 11:43:40 am
Don't worry, people will soon start spewing bile...
I'm an anti bile-spewing person.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 March, 2019, 12:28:15 pm
It seems that both the FCA in the UK and EBA prefer to launder anti-money.
https://www.fca.org.uk/firms/financial-crime/money-laundering-terrorist-financing
https://eba.europa.eu/regulation-and-policy/anti-money-laundering-and-e-money
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 14 March, 2019, 01:11:10 pm
FCA's not so sure.

Quote
Your internal controls effectively monitor and manage your firm’s compliance with anti-money-laundering (AML) policies and procedures.
and
Quote
We also require that firms:
give overall responsibility for anti money-laundering systems and controls to a director or senior manager.

EBA and https://www.gov.uk/anti-money-laundering-registration (https://www.gov.uk/anti-money-laundering-registration) are consistently anti-money laundering.


Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 14 March, 2019, 01:27:24 pm
Beeb: "Viral food hack shows we've been eating pineapple wrong this entire time."  Wrongly or the wrong way, please.

Wrong is generally accepted as an adverb these days.

And thereby hangs a tale.

Yes, but what are you going to do about it?

I'm more bothered by people saying 'good' when they mean 'well' but I've admitted defeat on that one too.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 March, 2019, 01:38:54 pm
So you're anti-wrong doing in grammar. I mean anti wrong-doing. No, hang on...  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 March, 2019, 01:41:29 pm
I'm doing good to increase my wellbeing. Doing bad would be wrongdoing.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 14 March, 2019, 02:05:50 pm
Beeb: "Viral food hack shows we've been eating pineapple wrong this entire time."  Wrongly or the wrong way, please.

Wrong is generally accepted as an adverb these days.

It's still bloody inelegant.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 14 March, 2019, 04:18:08 pm
Beeb: "Viral food hack shows we've been eating pineapple wrong this entire time."  Wrongly or the wrong way, please.

Wrong is generally accepted as an adverb these days.

It's still bloody inelegant.

Flashbacks to having "-ly!" shouted at me by parents, in that tone usually used for pulling you up for dropping 't's.

It's one of those things I'll do in speech and informal[1] text, but not in writing.  I can't be certain that I'm *always* referencing the "$thing: ur doing it wrong" meme, either.


[1] IRC and other speech-equivalent media where I wouldn't make the effort to use upper case and non-essential punctuation.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 14 March, 2019, 04:42:45 pm
I just made the Lady Inside My Computer say 'eating pineapple wrongly this entire time.'

Nah. Besides adding 'ly' to words is Trumply these days.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 14 March, 2019, 05:09:50 pm
Yebbut he does it wrongly.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 14 March, 2019, 05:43:43 pm
He's the bestly wrong though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 14 March, 2019, 06:32:10 pm
Beeb: "Viral food hack shows we've been eating pineapple wrong this entire time."  Wrongly or the wrong way, please.

Wrong is generally accepted as an adverb these days.

It's still bloody inelegant.

Flashbacks to having "-ly!" shouted at me by parents, in that tone usually used for pulling you up for dropping 't's.

It's one of those things I'll do in speech and informal[1] text, but not in writing. 
<snip>
Yeah, I'll go with that.

I think of "wrong" as being a shortening of "wrongly" in this context.

Perhaps it should have an apostrophe to represent the missing letters? That seems like a rule that would make the world a better place.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 March, 2019, 06:37:03 pm
Your not wron'g about that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 14 March, 2019, 07:27:26 pm
That seems like a rule that would make the world a better place.

Behave!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 15 March, 2019, 10:44:41 am
Not to be confused with antimony-laundering systems, of course.

I'd go with "anti-money laundering systems" for pretty much the reasons helly states.

Yes, but that looks like someone is laundering 'anti-money' which is a thing in my wallet that annihilates real money while I stand in the pub.

I'd go with 'systems to prevent money laundering' and disavow the hyphenation.
That would be great but alas AML is the standard acronym.

AML is, as any fule kno, the standard abbreviation for Aston Martin-Lagonda.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 15 March, 2019, 01:07:23 pm
That seems like a rule that would make the world a better place.

Behave!

To which my son once replied "I am being have!" (To rhyme with wave.) He was about 3, I think.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 15 March, 2019, 01:09:25 pm
Not to be confused with antimony-laundering systems, of course.

I'd go with "anti-money laundering systems" for pretty much the reasons helly states.

Yes, but that looks like someone is laundering 'anti-money' which is a thing in my wallet that annihilates real money while I stand in the pub.

I'd go with 'systems to prevent money laundering' and disavow the hyphenation.
That would be great but alas AML is the standard acronym.

AML is, as any fule kno, the standard abbreviation for Aston Martin-Lagonda.

Acute Myeloid Leukaemia for the medics...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 March, 2019, 01:10:03 pm
Not to be confused with antimony-laundering systems, of course.

I'd go with "anti-money laundering systems" for pretty much the reasons helly states.

Yes, but that looks like someone is laundering 'anti-money' which is a thing in my wallet that annihilates real money while I stand in the pub.

I'd go with 'systems to prevent money laundering' and disavow the hyphenation.
That would be great but alas AML is the standard acronym.

AML is, as any fule kno, the standard abbreviation for Aston Martin-Lagonda.
If I bought one of those, it would definitely be an Anti Money-Lagonda.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Torslanda on 15 March, 2019, 07:50:00 pm
Why would you want a Lagonda made from antimony?

Never mind . . .
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 15 March, 2019, 07:55:19 pm
From the DRM thread, the use of 'rip' to mean 'burn', in the style of people using 'borrow' to mean 'lend'.

(Directional verbs are clunky as hell in spoken languages.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 March, 2019, 12:58:29 pm
Beeb: "Viral food hack shows we've been eating pineapple wrong this entire time."  Wrongly or the wrong way, please.

Wrong is generally accepted as an adverb these days.

It's still bloody inelegant.

Flashbacks to having "-ly!" shouted at me by parents, in that tone usually used for pulling you up for dropping 't's.

It's one of those things I'll do in speech and informal[1] text, but not in writing. 
<snip>
Yeah, I'll go with that.

I think of "wrong" as being a shortening of "wrongly" in this context.

Perhaps it should have an apostrophe to represent the missing letters? That seems like a rule that would make the world a better place.
Legend has it that when The Supremes were presented with the lyric
Tell me what did I do wrong
To make you stay away so long

Diana Ross rebelled, arguing
"You've written it wrongly,
It ought to be be 'longly'."
Though she made her case real strongly, she had to sing it full strongly.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 16 March, 2019, 01:32:28 pm
To which my son once replied "I am being have!" (To rhyme with wave.) He was about 3, I think.

Genius!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 16 March, 2019, 01:50:26 pm
Yeah. He ain't no dumb cluck.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 March, 2019, 08:37:33 pm
Quote
You will often find ourselves "filtering" whilst on cycle patrol, motorcycle patrol or on #OpClosePass with no harm to ourselves or other road users.
West Midlands police.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 16 March, 2019, 09:20:35 pm
Quote
You will often find ourselves "filtering" whilst on cycle patrol, motorcycle patrol or on #OpClosePass with no harm to ourselves or other road users.
West Midlands police.

Close relative of 'yourself' as used by mistake agents and similar bureaucratic mustelids?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 March, 2019, 09:29:45 pm
Either that or 'you' was a typo(??!??) for 'we'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 19 March, 2019, 02:45:40 pm
Not cringeworthy at all: after untold decades of knowing what imprecations are, I actually looked up imprecate and was delighted to find that it means "to call down by prayer"; and while it's usually evil that's requested one might equally ask for a tin of Quality Street.

How nice.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 March, 2019, 08:02:52 pm
Asking for a tin of Roses would, however, be evil.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jasmine on 20 March, 2019, 03:31:06 pm
Quote
You will often find ourselves "filtering" whilst on cycle patrol, motorcycle patrol or on #OpClosePass with no harm to ourselves or other road users.
West Midlands police.

Close relative of 'yourself' as used by mistake agents and similar bureaucratic mustelids?

Argh!!! See also, "If you have any queries, please contact myself."  A sizeable number of my colleagues write like that.  It drives me up the wall.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 21 March, 2019, 11:34:02 am
Mine too.
I'd love to see the Venn diagram for people who incorrectly use reflexive pronoun, and people who use the word utilise/ze with gay abandon.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rafletcher on 21 March, 2019, 12:39:39 pm
Reading a book set in Dublin, I once again came across the use of "bring" where I would use "take" as in "the hurl that he always brought with with him" as opposed to "the hurl he always took with him", the sense being that was was always carried by the individual. I think that either is fine, but it falls down for me when the expression "He brought me to the shops" is used to mean the speaker had been taken to the shops, but is not necessarily still there, so the sense is "took".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 March, 2019, 03:25:26 pm
Today I have a question for this thread!

In the phrase "our anti money laundering systems" where would you place hyphens?
anti-money-laundering systems
anti-money laundering systems
anti money-laundering systems
anti-moneylaundering systems

They all look a bit wrong to me (including leaving them all out).
Today I have "non-US dollar based partners," which I've rendered as written. Seems quite simple in comparison (and sadly devoid of chemical pun potential).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 21 March, 2019, 05:35:04 pm
One that made me stop and think for a moment today was "immune system-boosting nutrients".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 27 March, 2019, 11:04:45 am
An actor, or a witness in court, might give a credible performance.  A footballer might give a creditable performance.  Sportsball pundits, get your shit outsorted.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 27 March, 2019, 11:12:19 am
An actor, or a witness in court, might give a credible performance.  A footballer might give a creditable performance.  Sportsball pundits, get your shit outsorted.

But if a footballer can give an incredible performance, surely they must be able to give a credible one.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 27 March, 2019, 11:15:19 am
Today I have "non-US dollar based partners," which I've rendered as written. Seems quite simple in comparison (and sadly devoid of chemical pun potential).

But is that partners who use non-US dollars, or partners who use US dollars although they're not based in the USA, or something entirely different?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 27 March, 2019, 11:19:40 am
Is a complicated psychological condition associated with intricate arrangements of buildings a complex complex complex complex?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 27 March, 2019, 11:38:49 am
An actor, or a witness in court, might give a credible performance.  A footballer might give a creditable performance.  Sportsball pundits, get your shit outsorted.

But if a footballer can give an incredible performance, surely they must be able to give a credible one.

That is only a reasonable assumption if the use of the word "incredible" is correct in that context, which it isn't, however frequently we say it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 March, 2019, 11:39:24 am
An actor, or a witness in court, might give a credible performance.  A footballer might give a creditable performance.  Sportsball pundits, get your shit outsorted.

But if a footballer can give an incredible performance, surely they must be able to give a credible one.
Reminds me of when I first came across the Polish word for incredible. "The bloke who organises these charity events is niesamowity." So what does that mean? Nie, obviously, is a negative prefix, so I looked up samowity in a Polish-English dictionary. Not there. No such word. Turns out Polish, quite sensibly, uses different words for "credible=believable" and "incredible=amazing."

Today I have "non-US dollar based partners," which I've rendered as written. Seems quite simple in comparison (and sadly devoid of chemical pun potential).

But is that partners who use non-US dollars, or partners who use US dollars although they're not based in the USA, or something entirely different?
Partners who use any currency other the US dollar. As opposed to non-US dollar-based partners, I suppose. You'd think lawyers would speak more clearly.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 March, 2019, 11:40:25 am
Does getting your shit outsorted mean getting it sorted by a third party contracted for the specific task?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 27 March, 2019, 12:03:58 pm
I just didn't want to end a sentence with a preposition.  It seems that this is the type of thread up with which people will not put that.  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 27 March, 2019, 12:23:20 pm
Does getting your shit outsorted mean getting it sorted by a third party contracted for the specific task?
That's quite a useful term!

I have a lot of stuff that I need outsorting ...

(NO, IE spellchecker, do NOT underline "outsorting" - BAD IE!)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 27 March, 2019, 12:26:55 pm
Yay, I've helped to coin a new phrase.

I'm never sure whether people who use 'to coin a phrase' to introduce a time-worn cliché are using it ironically, or are just ignorant of what it really means...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 27 March, 2019, 12:45:41 pm
I just didn't want to end a sentence with a preposition.  It seems that this is the type of thread up with which people will not put that.  :facepalm:

That would be the kind of thing up with which I would not put...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 27 March, 2019, 01:57:44 pm
Isn't the preposition "rule" one of those spurious 19th-century dictates? I'd look it up in Fowler but it's two feet out of reach.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 27 March, 2019, 02:10:41 pm
I just didn't want to end a sentence with a preposition.  It seems that this is the type of thread up with which people will not put that.  :facepalm:

What are you talking about? ;)

Isn't the preposition "rule" one of those spurious 19th-century dictates? I'd look it up in Fowler but it's two feet out of reach.

Yes - belongs in the bin along with split infinitives, another pseudo-Latin affectation.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rr on 27 March, 2019, 10:52:38 pm
Job advert for principle engineer.
Government chief whip?

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Crumbling Nick on 28 March, 2019, 12:18:16 am
I just didn't want to end a sentence with a preposition.  It seems that this is the type of thread up with which people will not put that.  :facepalm:

What are you talking about? ;)

Isn't the preposition "rule" one of those spurious 19th-century dictates? I'd look it up in Fowler but it's two feet out of reach.

Yes - belongs in the bin along with split infinitives, another pseudo-Latin affectation.
I'm slightly puzzled by the Pseudo-latin reference. Split infinitives seem to be popular in the American dialects of our language. UK dialects, particularly the RP varieties (which many in the UK view as an affectation) have a different tradition. I don't know of any split inifinitives in Black Country, though I'm not a native speaker.
In contrast, Latin lacks (lacked, if you prefer, though it seems to be the Lingua Franca  :demon: in the Vatican) splittable infinitives. Are there any European languages that share this oddment of English (with a suspicion that some of the pidgin English dialects may not have it)?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 28 March, 2019, 08:04:34 am
German, with zu. I suspect that the anti-splitting edict might have been imported with George rev. 1 or Albert of the hyperconstrictive britches.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 28 March, 2019, 11:38:16 am
In contrast, Latin lacks (lacked, if you prefer, though it seems to be the Lingua Franca  :demon: in the Vatican) splittable infinitives. Are there any European languages that share this oddment of English (with a suspicion that some of the pidgin English dialects may not have it)?

That's the point - as I understand it, the rule about not splitting infinitives in English was laid down by scholars who felt that English should emulate Latin. And I think the same is true of the rule about not ending sentences with prepositions.

But English, as you rightly say, is not Latin.

German takes precisely the opposite approach - actively encouraging the shunting of prepositions to the end of the sentence, even if they are tacked on to the front of compound verbs in the infinitive.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 March, 2019, 03:25:31 pm
I'm not sure whether to call this grammar or vocabulary (and it's definitely not a cringe), but if you were truing a wheel would you say you were making it "more truthful"? I'd say I was making it "truer" but yesterday someone who was talking to me while I did a rim swap used the "more truthful" phrase.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 29 March, 2019, 04:39:32 pm
A thing can either be true or not true, so I'd say closer to true rather than either; but if I had to choose I'd say truer, since truthful means honest and I don't see wheels having the capacity to tell lies.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 29 March, 2019, 05:20:10 pm
I don't see wheels having the capacity to tell lies.

Unless there's diesel about...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 March, 2019, 06:37:18 pm
Yeah, my thinking also was that truth is not the same as being true.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 March, 2019, 07:07:32 pm
Quote
Bristol’s streets will be safer for cyclists when the government relaxes the laws on electrically-powered e-bikes.
As opposed to, say, steam-powered e-bikes.
https://www.bristol247.com/opinion/your-say/bristol-streets-will-be-safer-for-cyclists-when-government-relaxes-laws-on-e-bikes/
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 01 April, 2019, 12:13:01 pm
What's wrong with
"closer to true" in this context?

Or truer for informal usage.

(as a wheel is never perfectly true, scientifically speaking :)  )

I certainly agree that truthful is the wrong word in this context - I would suggest that the speaker was just making a linguistic joke.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 02 April, 2019, 10:54:53 am
Spelling, Grammar, whatever, it's wrong-er than a wrong thing in Wrongton.

Quote
I have attached just one very simple ingredients list to give you a very small idea of what is available from ****'s 64 contracted principles ranges.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 02 April, 2019, 02:47:02 pm
I reckon that one fails on excessive verbal gymnastics, rather than any specific technical offence.  It really needs a management buzzword early on in the sentence as a warning of what's to come.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 April, 2019, 02:04:45 pm
I'm giving pun of the day award to whoever it was that wrote this (about Mark Francois) in the Graudnia:
Quote
Last night, after a narrow Commons vote to delay Brexit, he briefly graduated from corporal to deity: “Forgive them father, for they know not what they do”.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 05 April, 2019, 03:53:27 pm
HM Gov. The wrong your[sic] in a Brexit Webinar.


IT IS THE END TIMES
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 April, 2019, 04:31:21 pm
HM Gov. The wrong your[sic] in a Brexit Webinar.


IT IS THE END TIMES
Not eu're?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moleman76 on 05 April, 2019, 11:31:48 pm
Not eu're?
[/quote]

nor ewe're ?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 April, 2019, 12:50:19 pm
Eu were...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 06 April, 2019, 12:59:09 pm
"Dr. Johanna Rhodes, an infectious disease expert at Imperial College London. "We are driving this with the use of antifungicides on crops," she said of drug-resistant germs."

Wie bitte?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/06/health/drug-resistant-candida-auris.html
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 April, 2019, 06:13:31 pm
HM Gov. The wrong your[sic] in a Brexit Webinar.


IT IS THE END TIMES

We knew that just from the use of the foul term "Webinar".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 08 April, 2019, 06:27:04 pm
HM Gov. The wrong your[sic] in a Brexit Webinar.


IT IS THE END TIMES

We knew that just from the use of the foul term "Webinar".
We knew that from the foul term "Brexit"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 April, 2019, 06:34:14 pm
That too.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 April, 2019, 11:26:19 am
English is one of the weirdest languages in the world! (https://theconversation.com/linguists-found-the-weirdest-languages-and-english-is-one-of-them-113621)
Some of the comments are even weirder.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 17 April, 2019, 12:15:54 pm
https://corplinguistics.wordpress.com/2013/06/21/the-weirdest-languages/
 (https://corplinguistics.wordpress.com/2013/06/21/the-weirdest-languages/)
And the weirdest, by their methods, is 'Chalcatongo Mixtec' spoken by around 6,000 people in Oaxaca, Mexico. And to get to that point it is
- tonal, which marks it as slightly weird (very approx 40% of languages)
- verb-initial (very approx 8%)
- Yes/no question sentences are not distinguished from statements either by word order, use of a 'question participle' somewhere in the sentence, change of intonation, or, indeed anything (1 out of the 954 languages in the study). 'I am the only person on this forum unable to my head round this'.
- Something odd with 'proniminal subjects' combining the, eg, Spanish/Italian method (subject markers modifying the verb), and the, eg, English/German method ('he','it', 'they'), but in the latter the pronoun does not appear in the same position as the full noun phrase would appear (again Chalcatongo Mixtec is the only one).

Whereas Basque, a language isolate, is 10th least weird. Weird.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moleman76 on 24 April, 2019, 08:14:58 am
from a public "blotter" posting of law enforcement activity:

"5000 S Regal, officers responding for a reported domestic violence incident between a father and 7 year old, who argued over eating vegetables and a cell phone. -CS"

that's how the tooth marks appear on cell phones, it seems
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 24 April, 2019, 01:15:58 pm
That's silly.  Cell phones are obviously a fruit.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 24 April, 2019, 01:46:10 pm
Only iPhones, shirley?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 24 April, 2019, 04:30:05 pm
And Blackberrys?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: JJ on 24 April, 2019, 04:44:56 pm
This one was on the BBC News website.  I'll paraphrase because the context is distracting:  Her and her husband took their children somewhere.
I expected better.  Thankfully it's been fixed now.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mllePB on 25 April, 2019, 09:20:03 pm
I know that moaning about misplaced apostrophes is old hat, but I did particular cringe recently when I saw a form where the bloke had also completed his wife's details, giving her the title Mr's

Not what the paperwork concerned, but they were in the process of getting divorced.  Good grounds I'd say.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 25 April, 2019, 09:30:15 pm
giving her the title Mr's

That's not the etymology, is it?

*googles*

Thank fuck.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 May, 2019, 03:10:55 pm
Elsewhere someone has posted a photo of a railway timetable from 1952. On the front cover, to indicate that it was given to passengers without charge, is the word "gratuitous". I love the way words shift in meaning.  :thumbsup:

<We apologise the lack of grammar and cringe in this post. Normal service will be resumed shortly.>
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 02 May, 2019, 05:52:22 pm
Elsewhere someone has posted a photo of a railway timetable from 1952. On the front cover, to indicate that it was given to passengers without charge, is the word "gratuitous". I love the way words shift in meaning.  :thumbsup:

My wife certainly feels that the timetable information I pass on to her for any given rail journey is gratuitous.

(In fairness, since I discovered Realtime Trains, she's got a point.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 03 May, 2019, 08:27:03 am
giving her the title Mr's

That's not the etymology, is it?

*googles*

Thank fuck.

Etymologically you could say that it's a contracted mistress, if you wanted to invite strangulation.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 03 May, 2019, 08:32:42 am
Elsewhere someone has posted a photo of a railway timetable from 1952. On the front cover, to indicate that it was given to passengers without charge, is the word "gratuitous". I love the way words shift in meaning.  :thumbsup:

<We apologise the lack of grammar and cringe in this post. Normal service will be resumed shortly.>

Yeah. Derive* derives from the French word for drift.

*   which my fingers this morning want to type as Dervie, which sounds like a station on the Glasgow-Stranraer line**.
** Tut, two whiches in the same sentence. One more and we can do Macbeth.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 08 May, 2019, 11:00:39 am
Creeping vernacular, Batmanperson! Latter-day definitions requested for:

DM: Graun headline: Creepy men slide into women's DMs all the time, but they can be shut down.  Doc Martens? Drogerie Markt?  Diuretic Marmalade???

Crombie: Friend of missus's used it to refer to an old copy of a book, and when queried replied "but everyone uses it" without elaborating. The only crombie I know of takes a capital and is a coat.  Can someone please explain?

Ta.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 08 May, 2019, 11:18:42 am
DM: Graun headline: Creepy men slide into women's DMs all the time, but they can be shut down.  Doc Martens? Drogerie Markt?  Diuretic Marmalade???

Direct messages (ie private communication on social media channels)

Quote
Crombie: Friend of missus's used it to refer to an old copy of a book, and when queried replied "but everyone uses it" without elaborating. The only crombie I know of takes a capital and is a coat.  Can someone please explain?

A synonym for hesh.  ;)

I believe it comes from Abercrombie & Fitch - a clothing brand that is popular among today's youth.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Salvatore on 08 May, 2019, 12:53:53 pm
The OED says it's from
Quote
J. & J. Crombie Ltd., a Scottish firm of cloth-makers
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 08 May, 2019, 01:01:30 pm
Ta, but she spoke of the old copy of the book as being her "crombie".  Had it been a copy of the Times and she lived under a bridge I could understand the vestimentary reference, but I gather she doesn't. Could a crombie also mean a vademecum or a staff to be relied on, like Bradshaw's or the OS 1-inch series?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Salvatore on 08 May, 2019, 01:05:47 pm
Ta, but she spoke of the old copy of the book as being her "crombie".  Had it been a copy of the Times and she lived under a bridge I could understand the vestimentary reference, but I gather she doesn't. Could a crombie also mean a vademecum or a staff to be relied on, like Bradshaw's or the OS 1-inch series?

The OED only mentions the coat.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 08 May, 2019, 01:09:36 pm
You'd have to ask her what she means by the term - it might not correspond to what others mean or understand by it. This is the trouble with slang - people hear words being used and pick them up but without an understanding of what they mean or where they come from to inform their usage.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 08 May, 2019, 01:32:18 pm
Or she could be like me and occasionally make-up words because she thinks they sound like the right sort of word for the intended meaning.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 08 May, 2019, 01:50:23 pm
Indeed. A perfectly cromulent thing to do.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 08 May, 2019, 01:53:40 pm
Ta, but she spoke of the old copy of the book as being her "crombie".  Had it been a copy of the Times and she lived under a bridge I could understand the vestimentary reference, but I gather she doesn't. Could a crombie also mean a vademecum or a staff to be relied on, like Bradshaw's or the OS 1-inch series?

The OED only mentions the coat.

That's all anyone mentions.

You'd have to ask her what she means by the term - it might not correspond to what others mean or understand by it. This is the trouble with slang - people hear words being used and pick them up but without an understanding of what they mean or where they come from to inform their usage.

Missus did. Helpful reply was: "everyone uses it".

Or she could be like me and occasionally make-up words because she thinks they sound like the right sort of word for the intended meaning.

I just can't crombie some people.  I'm going to crombie over to the workshop & make some dust crombie.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 08 May, 2019, 01:55:12 pm
Apple crombie, now, that'd be something else.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 May, 2019, 01:57:39 pm
Is the cromby issue distressing you?
https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Psychology_Mental_Health_and_Distress.html?id=3CmHMgEACAAJ&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y
Quote
Psychology, Mental Health and Distress
Front Cover
John Cromby, Dave Harper, Paula Reavey
Macmillan Education UK, 27 Feb 2013 - Psychology - 452 pages
0 Reviews
Is depression simply the result of chemical imbalances, or Schizophrenia a wholly biological disorder? What role do the broader circumstances of an individual’s social, cultural and heuristic world play in the wider scheme of their psychological wellbeing? In this ground-breaking and highly innovative text, Cromby et al deliver an introduction to the the biopsychosocial paradigm for understanding and treating psychological distress, taking into consideration the wider contexts that engender the onset of mental illness and critiquing the limitations in the sole use of the biomedical model in psychological practice. Rather than biologically determined or clinically measurable, readers are encouraged to consider mental illness as a subjective experience that is expressed according to the individual experiences of the sufferer rather than the rigidity of diagnostic categories. Similarly, approaches to recovery expand beyond psychiatric medication to consider the fundamental function of methods such as psychotherapy, community psychology and service-user movements in the recovery process. Offering a holistic account of the experience of psychological distress, this text draws upon not only statistical evidence but places an integral emphasis on the service-user experience; anecdotal accounts of which feature throughout in order to provide readers with the perspective of the mental health sufferer.

Taking an integrative approach to the psychology of mental health, the authors draw from a wealth of experience, examples and approaches to present this student-friendly and engaging text. This is core reading for anyone serious about understanding mental health issues and is suitable for undergraduate students taking introductory courses in psychology and abnormal psychology.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 May, 2019, 02:00:18 pm
DM: Graun headline: Creepy men slide into women's DMs all the time, but they can be shut down.  Doc Martens? Drogerie Markt?  Diuretic Marmalade???

Direct messages (ie private communication on social media channels)

Quote
Crombie: Friend of missus's used it to refer to an old copy of a book, and when queried replied "but everyone uses it" without elaborating. The only crombie I know of takes a capital and is a coat.  Can someone please explain?

A synonym for hesh.  ;)

I believe it comes from Abercrombie & Fitch - a clothing brand that is popular among today's youth.

'Hesh', as any fule kno, is an acronym for "High explosive squash head", wot is a type of ammunition used in anti-tank weapons. Firing old books at armour-plated mechanical behemoths is rarely a sound tactic.  Even Dickens is no match for a T-72.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 May, 2019, 02:30:54 pm
No, it's an alternative form of jute.  :D
http://www.thrashermagazine.com/articles/magazine/hésh/
Quote
THE TERM “HESH” AND THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST seem to go hand-in-hand. But what does hesh mean? It’s not easily defined, and there’s certainly lots of room for interpretation. Most would agree it’s derived from the word “Hessian,”
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 08 May, 2019, 03:26:02 pm
And there was me thinking that it was marijuana smoked by aristos.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 08 May, 2019, 04:59:06 pm
DM: Graun headline: Creepy men slide into women's DMs all the time, but they can be shut down.  Doc Martens? Drogerie Markt?  Diuretic Marmalade???

Direct messages (ie private communication on social media channels)

Quote
Crombie: Friend of missus's used it to refer to an old copy of a book, and when queried replied "but everyone uses it" without elaborating. The only crombie I know of takes a capital and is a coat.  Can someone please explain?

A synonym for hesh.  ;)

I believe it comes from Abercrombie & Fitch - a clothing brand that is popular among today's youth.

'Hesh', as any fule kno, is an acronym for "High explosive squash head", wot is a type of ammunition used in anti-tank weapons. Firing old books at armour-plated mechanical behemoths is rarely a sound tactic.  Even Dickens is no match for a T-42.

FTFY.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 25 May, 2019, 04:49:44 pm
People using us when it should be we. Nobody (well, no competent speakers of Englísh, that is) would say "what us have to do is..." but they would happily say "what us cyclists have to do is...".  Do they think we... sounds Tory, or what? Inverted grammatical snobbery?

It's utterly wrong.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 June, 2019, 06:21:18 pm
Quote
Use lower case for East, west, south and north unless they form part of a proper name:
North Korea, South Africa, but northeast India.
From a style guide.  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 11 June, 2019, 08:16:16 pm
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-48602172/driver-films-people-crawling-out-of-manhole-cover-in-border-town

Look, it's not complicated:  A manhole is a void underneath the ground to allow people to access buried utilities, etc.  A manhole cover is the bloody great solid thing that goes on top to cover it up...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 12 June, 2019, 08:02:21 am
Strange-ish: the URL contains 'cover' but the page it lands on doesn't.  Someone at the Beeb has been doing some backing & filling.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 12 June, 2019, 04:09:45 pm
Strange-ish: the URL contains 'cover' but the page it lands on doesn't.  Someone at the Beeb has been doing some backing & filling.
Yeah, the text on the page has been edited. The captions in the video itself were always fine.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 June, 2019, 03:17:21 pm
Discussing the registration of "illegible refugees" to receive benefits.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 19 June, 2019, 02:49:38 pm
"Shop" as in "Shop $newshinything" when what is meant is "Shop FOR $newshinything." Or even "Buy $newshinything."  It's a useage that's becoming more common, especially on websites.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 19 June, 2019, 04:12:59 pm
Same thing happened to search.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 June, 2019, 05:34:24 pm
From Fowler's entry on portmanteau:
Quote
Pakistan is a mixture of a portmanteau word and an acronym: it is said to be compounded of elements from Punjab, Afghan Frontier, Kashmir, Sind and Baluchistan.
The spurious backronym is clearly neither a recent phenomenon nor restricted to urban myth and bad journalism. The origin of Pakistan is the word pak meaning pure, clean, in both physical and spiritual senses, as in Pak Butchers. (https://www.pakbutchers.co.uk) Pakistan is the Land of the Pure.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mllePB on 20 June, 2019, 08:58:04 pm
"This train is heavily commuterised until..."

There was me thinking that I was using the train, but instead I seems to be one of the bullying crowd commuterisng the poor thing until we got off...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 June, 2019, 11:36:26 am
"they have embraced the opportunity to create their own special brand of uniqueness"
No everyday uniqueness here.
https://www.bristol247.com/opinion/your-say/stokes-croft-is-a-shining-example-for-other-areas-to-follow/
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 July, 2019, 08:16:18 pm
A Korean woman is being interviewed in English. She works in Geneva and although her English is pretty decent, she's clearly more used to using French in daily life. "I think it happened end of two-thousand-dix-sept or 'dix-huit." And the way it comes off her tongue, she doesn't even realize she's moved from one not-Korean to another.  :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 10 July, 2019, 09:27:37 pm
I don't get why that should make you cringe, a non-English speaking native, speaking in two languages for our delight. 

My wife occaisionally throws Hindi and Punjabi words into sentences at random just because she's thinking in both
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 July, 2019, 11:56:59 am
It doesn't make me cringe at all. (In fact, very little in this thread does.) It makes me  :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 12 July, 2019, 08:22:42 pm
I think this is increasing in frequency as we see more children speaking 3 languages.

I find having holidayed in Tenerife this year, visited Berlin and now in France that I can sometimes say “Danke, gracias, Merci “
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 12 July, 2019, 09:45:20 pm
I have myself asked for "drei croissant, s'il vous plait"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 13 July, 2019, 07:47:59 am
US college prof on FB: Peacock baby photos just because their cute.

First comment:  Is that you’re baby?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 14 July, 2019, 10:47:38 pm
Bonus point for:

I have myself asked for "drei croissant, s'il vous plait por favor"

 :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 14 July, 2019, 10:55:47 pm
I have on more than one occasion observed my grate frend Mr Woolrich switching from French to Spanish in mid-sentence.  The look that this produces on a Frenchman's face can only be copied by a lungfish.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 14 July, 2019, 11:00:51 pm
Whereas my Mum and her sister shuttle seamlessly twixt English and Danish and eyelids remain unbatted.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 15 July, 2019, 07:28:09 am
The first language I spoke was Ukrainian.  I am most fluent in English.  Growing up our common language was Ukrainglish.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 July, 2019, 08:38:03 am
And I'm sure you've been know to switch from Ukrainglish to Englainian in mid-sentence!  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 15 July, 2019, 09:46:21 am
Alsacien is the perfect schizophrenic's language. Basically it's a dialect of German, liberally salted with French and pronounced like neither. It also varies from village to village, so that villagers know when to look down their noses at each other.  I'm fluent in French and German but in 30 years I've never managed to get my head round it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 19 July, 2019, 09:53:13 am
Stand up and take a bow British Cycling.

Weekly poll in this week's email:

Quote
Have you ever fallen over while clipping in to your peddles?

 :facepalm: ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 19 July, 2019, 01:29:35 pm
Any day now the illiterati will be protesting that peddle is an acceptable alternative; and 5 years later the OED will so list it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 19 July, 2019, 01:31:23 pm
Any day now the illiterati will be protesting that peddle is an acceptable alternative; and 5 years later the OED will so list it.

Chambers already does.


(probably)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 19 July, 2019, 01:31:36 pm
Bonus point for:

I have myself asked for "drei croissant, s'il vous plait por favor"

 :D

Last time I tried to speak French, it came out in a mixture of BSL and German...

(Disclaimer: I'm monumentally shit at French, and my brane only has room for about 1.5 languages.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Torslanda on 21 July, 2019, 07:48:13 am
Any day now the illiterati will be protesting that peddle is an acceptable alternative; and 5 years later the OED will so list it.

Chambers already does.


(probably)

 "Chambers? Isn't that the dictionary of piss pots?"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 21 July, 2019, 08:07:12 am
Bonus point for:

I have myself asked for "drei croissant, s'il vous plait por favor"

 :D

Last time I tried to speak French, it came out in a mixture of BSL and German...

(Disclaimer: I'm monumentally shit at French, and my brane only has room for about 1.5 languages.)

IOW three times that of the average Internet user.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 25 July, 2019, 05:21:08 pm
Quote
The town functions as a microcosm of what African Americans have had to deal with in America, says Dr Barbara Ellen Smith, a professor emerita who has spent much of her career focused on inequality in Appalachia.
I don't think I've come across this feminine version before. As we don't inflect adjectives in English, it's kind of odd to do so even if the term is borrowed from Latin. In fact, I'm wondering if we even use this form in UK?

(Ely Dave and others please not, this is another not-cringe!)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 26 July, 2019, 08:07:20 am
I thought "emerita" was the plural form of "emeritus".

I have been wrong before, and am quite happy to be wrong again.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 July, 2019, 08:11:11 am
The plural is "emeriti" according to Merriam-Webster.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/emeritus
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 26 July, 2019, 09:22:09 am
The plural is "emeriti" according to Merriam-Webster.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/emeritus

 :sick:

When did it become a noun?

This is an outrage.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Salvatore on 26 July, 2019, 09:33:42 am
Quote
The town functions as a microcosm of what African Americans have had to deal with in America, says Dr Barbara Ellen Smith, a professor emerita who has spent much of her career focused on inequality in Appalachia.
I don't think I've come across this feminine version before. As we don't inflect adjectives in English, it's kind of odd to do so even if the term is borrowed from Latin. In fact, I'm wondering if we even use this form in UK?

(Ely Dave and others please not, this is another not-cringe!)

Not only English but also Welsh

Quote
Athro Almaeneg Emerita Aberystwyth Emerita Professor of German 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 26 July, 2019, 09:35:56 am
The plural is "emeriti" according to Merriam-Webster.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/emeritus

 :sick:

When did it become a noun?

This is an outrage.

Hang about, it'll be a verb next week.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 26 July, 2019, 09:40:51 am
Hang about, it'll be a verb next week.

Single or double S in the past participle?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Salvatore on 26 July, 2019, 09:53:54 am
The plural is "emeriti" according to Merriam-Webster.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/emeritus

 :sick:

When did it become a noun?


Since Tacitus, Suetonius and Lacanus used it as a noun, I'd say it was about 2000 years ago.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 26 July, 2019, 10:34:48 am
Since Tacitus, Suetonius and Lacanus used it as a noun, I'd say it was about 2000 years ago.

OK, fair enough, but they were using the original Latin. I've only ever seen it used in English as an adjective.

I might also argue that it should take a naturalised plural form. Not least because it has become somewhat distanced from the original meaning (veteran soldier). See also: forum, stadium. I'm sure some smart arse will point out examples where I'm happy to use a non-naturalised plural form (eg data). But I really don't care. I don't make any claim to being rational about this.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 26 July, 2019, 11:07:51 am
Hang about, it'll be a verb next week.

Single or double S in the past participle?

Oh, a single, so that people can argue over whether it's pronounced -ussed or -yoozed.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 July, 2019, 08:05:53 pm
Hang about, it'll be a verb next week.

Single or double S in the past participle?

Oh, a single, so that people can argue over whether it's pronounced -ussed or -yoozed.
None. "After 32 years on the faculty, he emerited." Or should that be "emeritted"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 July, 2019, 08:09:12 pm
I suppose that now I've written that, google is going to find it and it'll appear in the next edition of Merriam-Webster. Sorry!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 July, 2019, 09:21:54 pm
The plural is "emeriti" according to Merriam-Webster.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/emeritus

 :sick:

When did it become a noun?


Since Tacitus, Suetonius and Lacanus used it as a noun, I'd say it was about 2000 years ago.
And in English since 1701, which is almost a century before people started using it as an adjective.
Quote
First Known Use of emeritus
Noun

circa 1701, in the meaning defined above

Adjective

1794, in the meaning defined at sense 1
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 28 July, 2019, 10:18:29 am
Hang about, it'll be a verb next week.

Single or double S in the past participle?

Oh, a single, so that people can argue over whether it's pronounced -ussed or -yoozed.
None. "After 32 years on the faculty, he emerited." Or should that be "emeritted"?

One T in the US, two in the UK, but if we're going that way, my money would be on "emeritated".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 28 July, 2019, 11:07:56 am
Emeritatorized.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 28 July, 2019, 04:42:16 pm
And in English since 1701, which is almost a century before people started using it as an adjective.

You can sod off, with your inconvenient facts.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 06 August, 2019, 08:43:15 am
Aargh! German:

https://www.korrekturen.de/wortliste/im_voraus.shtml

Vee haff vays off makink you feel bevildert.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 14 August, 2019, 11:07:43 am
Where does the jury stand on 'themself' as a singular gender-neutral reflexive pronoun?

For example:

The Principal Contractor must satisfy themself that the are no major cables in the vicinity of the works.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 14 August, 2019, 12:45:52 pm
Gender neutrality mandate use of they/them/their for the singular.
I personally dislike this but see where they are coming from..

So it's acceptable
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 14 August, 2019, 01:02:15 pm
Seems fine to me, what else would you use?  'Itself' would only work if the principle contractor is an abstract entity rather than a person.

It's people (primarily Mistake Agents and other mustelid professionals) using 'yourself' when they mean 'you' that winds me up.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 14 August, 2019, 01:08:23 pm
I'd just use the plural. Themself looks a bit odd and forced.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 14 August, 2019, 01:10:31 pm
I'd just use the plural. Themself looks a bit odd and forced.

Actually, yes, agreed.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 14 August, 2019, 01:26:03 pm
Or just avoid the clunky wording with [t]he Principal Contractor must be satisfied that the are no major cables in the vicinity of the works or similar.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rafletcher on 14 August, 2019, 01:40:43 pm
I'd just use the plural. Themself looks a bit odd and forced.

Actually, yes, agreed.

Yebbut then it would have to be contractors would it not? And generally there will only be one Principal Contractor.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 14 August, 2019, 02:00:37 pm
That was my quandary.  I think ian's suggestion of getting rid of the clunky reflexive altogether is probably the best.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 14 August, 2019, 02:39:11 pm
I would, I mean who else is the Principal Contractor satisfying? You could go a step further and simply state they should [have] check[ed] for cables in the area.

In situations like this, I think best just to sidestep. Themself isn't widely used in standard English (so says my dictionary) and looks like an awkward attempt to solve a problem that doesn't need to exist. Themselves can be applied to the singular, in the same way as gender-neutral they etc.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 14 August, 2019, 02:57:51 pm
I don't really have a problem with gender-neutral they-singular (better that he/she/it or (s)he, or another other such abomination), but it makes me cringe to see themselves-singular.

Thank you (plural) for your (plural) contributions.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 14 August, 2019, 04:46:17 pm
What pisses me off is seeing a pic of what is manifestly a bloke over an article in which he is referred to as Bill or some such but given the personal pronouns they, their and them.  If it looks like a bloke, smells like a bloke and answers to a blokish name then why in hell not acknowledge the fact that it is a bloke?

T'other one is they used of a child.  Children are it until gender is known.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jasmine on 14 August, 2019, 04:53:17 pm

It's people (primarily Mistake Agents and other mustelid professionals) using 'yourself' when they mean 'you' that winds me up.

I've got a post somewhere upthread on exactly this.  It really winds me up, along with all the similar ones such as "If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact myself".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 14 August, 2019, 08:38:10 pm
On the match commentary tonight:
“Kante, swarming around like a wasp...”

Surely “swarming around like a large number of wasps”?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 15 August, 2019, 10:31:11 am

It's people (primarily Mistake Agents and other mustelid professionals) using 'yourself' when they mean 'you' that winds me up.

I've got a post somewhere upthread on exactly this.  It really winds me up, along with all the similar ones such as "If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact myself".

Sure and I'd love to contact himself's arse with me right DM.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 15 August, 2019, 10:55:21 am
Or just avoid the clunky wording with [t]he Principal Contractor must be satisfied that the are no major cables in the vicinity of the works or similar.
I think so. A lot of the problems with gender neutrality do seem to be capable of resolution in this way - i.e. avoid backing yourself into the corner of needing to use a gender-sensitive pronoun, rather than using a clunky way out of it.

Whilst I can see the point behind gender neutrality, I do wish we'd managed to introduce proper gender-neutral pronouns, rather than damaging the language by removing a useful singular/plural distinction. Has something similar happened in most (Western) languages, does anyone know?

It's also slightly perverse, of course, that it's not that long since the truly gender-neutral "one" passed out of common usage. "When acting as Principal Contractor, one must be satisfied that there are no major cables in the vicinity of the works" is entirely gender neutral, but somehow seen as a rather snobbish way of writing.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 15 August, 2019, 11:04:27 am
Reflexive pronouns are usually unnecessary, I'm not really sure why people torture themselves and their sentences by their inclusion (ok, why they persist in the tortuous inclusion of reflexive pronouns), the result is either clumsy (heaven spare us from he/she said to him/her constructions). I have no issues with they/their used for the singular, but again, it's usually easy to write them out of a sentence.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 August, 2019, 06:11:52 pm
Remember latinx? It seems it's becoming common Tex-Mex grammar:
Quote
Each day brings new policies to block or detain asylum seekers and migrants from legal entry, adding new challenges and terror imposed on the fronterizx—people from both El Paso and Juárez—who have always crossed and made a life on both sides.
https://www.citylab.com/life/2019/08/rio-grande-map-us-mexico-border-history-el-paso-rio-bravo/596227/
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: tatanab on 01 September, 2019, 01:10:02 pm
So
The current trend (in the last year I suppose) of starting every internet forum post with "so".

So, does anybody know--
So, I got my bike out --
So, I have a new frame --

So, it does so get up my nose!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 01 September, 2019, 01:24:05 pm
It a natural preamble and as such forms a useful part of speech.  Obviously it's redundant in writing, but this sort of thing is an occupational hazard with informal writing styles.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 02 September, 2019, 01:02:49 am
Well, I think I agree with you
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 September, 2019, 01:03:46 pm
A pub for people who preserve the distinction between plural and singular. (https://www.bristol247.com/food-and-drink/pubs-and-bars/pub-of-the-week-the-criterion/)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 16 September, 2019, 09:33:42 pm
My 2p on the "so" meme:

I will start a sentence with "So" as a shorter form of "And therefore".  So I wouldn't start a paragraph with it - it acts as a weak conjunction joining the two sentences.

HTH.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 17 September, 2019, 07:07:55 am
A pub for people who preserve the distinction between plural and singular. (https://www.bristol247.com/food-and-drink/pubs-and-bars/pub-of-the-week-the-criterion/)
Funnily enough (?) I've just heard Paul Merton survive a related challenge on Just A Minute;
he'd used:
"Innkeepers"
&
"Innkeeper's"
 and thus gained a point for an incorrect challenge.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 30 September, 2019, 01:11:56 pm
Photograph captions in the past tense are horrible, e.g. in the NYT article on Roy Cohn's FBI file.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/29/nyregion/roy-cohn-fbi-file-trump.html

OK, photographs are always of past events but the caption describes or elucidates what is happening in the picture, so the present tense is appropriate. Past tense is meh: "Roy Cohn questioned a witness in 1954 at a United States Senate hearing." You betcha.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Basil on 30 September, 2019, 01:56:20 pm
I went to the dentist today, where I was able to read on a display screen that was alternating adverts for very expensive dental procedures and 'interesting' facts;  "The oldest dentures were found in the 3rd century BC"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 07 October, 2019, 08:00:35 am
Invite used as a noun.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 October, 2019, 09:01:07 am
I note that it follows the verb/noun stress differentiation seen in record and other two-syllable verbs that serve as nouns.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 19 October, 2019, 09:14:34 am
Troop/troops/troopers. Graun: '...the public security secretary Alfonso Durazo said that eight troops and one army officer were “held and later liberated”...'.

That must have been one officer and a hell of a lot of troopers.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 29 October, 2019, 03:25:46 pm
From a missive about business continuity

Quote from: Directorate of Security & Resilience
...establishments and business units’ are advised to review...

I am particularly impres's'ed with the s'uperfluous' apos'trophe  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: meddyg on 30 October, 2019, 08:25:12 am
A magazine for sale in WH Smith titled "Hobby's" !
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 30 October, 2019, 08:27:14 am
A magazine for sale in WH Smith titled "Hobby's" !

AAAAAARRRRRRGGGHHHHH!!!11!!  :hand:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 30 October, 2019, 09:36:25 am
I think it's a conspiracy to give old bugger's apoplexy and save money for the NH'S.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 30 October, 2019, 09:16:11 pm
This one?
(https://hobby.uk.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/aa3b0f049e82e9c7bbaca44dff1a2d5c/a/n/an_50_web.jpg)

It's not about hobbies, it's a catalogue from a company called Hobby.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 31 October, 2019, 09:54:57 am
Seriously, everyone on this thread gets hoisted. It's excellent.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 October, 2019, 10:01:30 am
https://hobby.uk.com

 :thumbsup: :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 31 October, 2019, 12:06:02 pm
Do uk.com domains count as cringeworthy grammar?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: meddyg on 01 November, 2019, 08:43:08 am
This one?
(https://hobby.uk.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/aa3b0f049e82e9c7bbaca44dff1a2d5c/a/n/an_50_web.jpg)

It's not about hobbies, it's a catalogue from a company called Hobby.
Good spot and elucidation - I had to go and hide in the corner of WH Smith in case I was right !
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: meddyg on 01 November, 2019, 08:46:08 am
Meanwhile, on BBC World Service, interviewer asks Jeff Goldblum
(apparently he sang at Glastonbury last year)

"so, are you proposing to transition from an acting career to singing?"

Transtion as a verb is very groovy lately; probably borrowed from American English
where verbs are nouns and nouns are verbs....
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 02 November, 2019, 06:37:19 pm
Email from Dominic Grieve this evening...

Quote
Win or lose, this will be the last time I stand for Parliament. And it's becoming increasingly clear that my last election will also be the most important one I've ever ran in.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 02 November, 2019, 10:24:39 pm
Do uk.com domains count as cringeworthy grammar?
Not really. They are perfectly legitimate domains. It's just that they are American.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 November, 2019, 02:34:04 am
Email from Dominic Grieve this evening...

Quote
Win or lose, this will be the last time I stand for Parliament. And it's becoming increasingly clear that my last election will also be the most important one I've ever ran in.

I shall report this to my b-i-l, who has been chums with Mr Grieve since they were Penniless Student Oaves together.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 03 November, 2019, 12:35:21 pm
Do uk.com domains count as cringeworthy grammar?
Not really. They are perfectly legitimate domains. It's just that they are American.

I suppose it reflects our status as the 51st state...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rafletcher on 03 November, 2019, 01:57:45 pm
Invite used as a noun.

Just checked my 2006 Chambers, and it’s in there as a noun, albeit informal.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 03 November, 2019, 02:09:54 pm
Invite used as a noun.

Just checked my 2006 Chambers, and it’s in there as a noun, albeit informal.

And I have no great objection to its informal use, other than that the joke's worn a bit thin by now.  The usage probably originated with somebody literate pretending not to be, so when it appears in supposedly formal text it's a reasonable assumption that the writer genuinely isn't.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 03 November, 2019, 02:19:02 pm
The OED has examples of invite used nounishly from the 17th century onwards (first cite is to 1659). I think it's a perfectly acceptable alternative to the more letterified invitation.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 03 November, 2019, 02:51:20 pm
You can find practically any usage if you go back that far, but in more recent times invite as a noun has only been used waggishly - that is, until the internet began sanctifying ignorance.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 November, 2019, 09:38:50 am
Do uk.com domains count as cringeworthy grammar?
Not really. They are perfectly legitimate domains. It's just that they are American.
If we were to associate domains with geography, Rapha would be based in the Cocos Islands, Tuvalu would be the broadcast equivalent of Hollywood, and so on.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 04 November, 2019, 11:53:55 am
Do uk.com domains count as cringeworthy grammar?
Not really. They are perfectly legitimate domains. It's just that they are American.
If we were to associate domains with geography, Rapha would be based in the Cocos Islands, Tuvalu would be the broadcast equivalent of Hollywood, and so on.

My objection was more that it was middle-endian, like a USAnian date.  Domain names are usually little-endian.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 November, 2019, 12:04:28 pm
Do uk.com domains count as cringeworthy grammar?
Not really. They are perfectly legitimate domains. It's just that they are American.
If we were to associate domains with geography, Rapha would be based in the Cocos Islands, Tuvalu would be the broadcast equivalent of Hollywood, and so on.

My objection was more that it was middle-endian, like a USAnian date.  Domain names are usually little-endian.
Usanian dates are a problem because they lead to misinterpretation, ambiguity and confusion. Most people don't really need to interpret domain names in that way and the web wranglers who do, presumably know the grammar. But is it grammar? (yes, you already asked this!) Or is it that in this case as in all language, content is more important than grammar? Just as Usanian dates cease to be a problem when the month is written than given as a number.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 04 November, 2019, 12:22:54 pm
It's certainly grammar; the structure determines how the name servers recursively look up the address[1].  I'm not sure how cringeworthy it is, as the recursion becomes a bit academic to mere mortals at the second-level domain.

TBH, the rot set in when they kept the original top level domains for USAnia and gave other countries their own code.  Which was pragmatic and sensible and semantically wrong.  It's been going downhill[2] ever since, and now we're at the point where if you own $widgetco you really have to register all of widgetco.co.uk widgetco.uk.com widgetco.com widgetco.eu[3] widgetco.widgets and so on, just to stop anyone else getting them.


[1] When resolving www.yacf.co.uk, your [ISP's] server asks the root servers for 'uk', which ask that to find 'co.uk', which asks that to find 'yacf.co.uk' and so on until it gets to an ip address.
[2] Since this is a cycling forum, should the metaphor be "going uphill"?
[3] These are going to be Type 2 fun after brexit...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 04 November, 2019, 12:56:52 pm
[3] These are going to be Type 2 fun after brexit...[/sub]

You're going to need Metformin for that...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 November, 2019, 01:21:20 pm
I wonder how those urls would look if the Russians had developed the internet? Russian postal addresses follow their own idiosyncratic format, which IIRC is (or used to be, I think they've changed it now):
PUTIN Vladimir
MOSCOW
Big Palace St 1/1
0123456789
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 04 November, 2019, 01:39:39 pm
I wonder how those urls would look if the Russians had developed the internet?

My first thought is that probably wouldn't be based in 7-bit ASCII, for a start...

Most of the history of Soviet-era computing involves quirky derivatives of western systems, but starter for 10 from the days before Microsoft and ISO and Unicode and so on:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KOI-7

(It always amazes me how much in common some of these standards can have.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 04 November, 2019, 11:11:37 pm
If we were to associate domains with geography, Rapha would be based in the Cocos Islands, Tuvalu would be the broadcast equivalent of Hollywood, and so on.
Domains are associated with geography, whether you like it or not. .com domains genuinely are managed from the USA, .tv ones generate a significant part of the national income of Tuvalu, and so on. Reading them is pretty easy because, like various other parts of the Internet*, they are based on the real world. We all know that postal addresses divide up the world into ever-smaller sections, working backwards from the end and that, in nearly all cases, a different body will be in charge at each level; domain just means the part that a body is in charge of:

13 (The bit of the world where I am in charge, if this is the number of my house)
High Street (the local council)
Summertown (ditto in this case)
Countyshire (the County Council)
United Kingdom (Parliament/the national government)

Internet domains work the same way:

mail.eps.leeds.ac.uk or www.eps.leeds.ac.uk (specific individual server addresses within EPS's domain)
eps.leeds.ac.uk (the engineering & physical sciences [EPS] department of Leeds University)
.leeds.ac.uk (Leeds University)
.ac.uk (Nominet)
.uk (In this case Nominet as well - in some countries it would be a different organisation at this level)
. (the top-level domain run by ICANN)

In the real world, number 13 High Street might be further subdivided (into flats) before you got down to an actual address where people resided. Or number 13 might represent a cluster of buildings, and so could be divided first into buildings and then into flats. In the Internet, you can similarly keep dividing before you reach a point at which a service exists. But the division is always little endian in the real world, and so it is also in the Internet. It no more makes sense to claim that ourcompany.uk.com is a .uk address with .com after it than it does to write an address ... 13 High Street, United Kingdom, Birmingham.

* For example, email uses a multi-hop system not unlike real mail, in which batches of mail are passed from place to place, getting ever nearer to their destinations, until finally they are delivered quite locally. And often using POP, the Post Office Protocol :) What's more, email uses envelopes (https://www.xeams.com/difference-envelope-header.htm), which is one of the reasons why the To: address does not actually determine where the message is delivered. In the same way, the addressee at the top of a paper letter does not determine where it goes, because the letter is inside an envelope with an address that might be quite different.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 05 November, 2019, 07:33:02 am
Radio 4 this morning: "... there have been five Secretary of States"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 November, 2019, 08:45:35 am
If we were to associate domains with geography, Rapha would be based in the Cocos Islands, Tuvalu would be the broadcast equivalent of Hollywood, and so on.
Domains are associated with geography, whether you like it or not. .com domains genuinely are managed from the USA, .tv ones generate a significant part of the national income of Tuvalu, and so on.
That's what I'm saying! Rapha's website is on a server located in the Cocos Islands but it's simply because of a coincidence, there's no link between the company and the islands. Adverts tell me I could register a .tv address for £34.99 a year but unfortunately there's no South Pacific holiday in it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: fimm on 05 November, 2019, 10:47:13 am
Response to email to colleague:
"I am out of office. I will be back on <date>"
Could you not have typed "the", colleague?

On the other hand, a different colleague has "Dear Sender, Thank you for your email. I am currently unable to respond to your enquiry as I am out of the office until <date> and will not be able to respond until then." which goes a bit too far in the opposite direction.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Steph on 05 November, 2019, 12:01:15 pm
Response to email to colleague:
"I am out of office. I will be back on <date>"
Could you not have typed "the", colleague?

On the other hand, a different colleague has "Dear Sender, Thank you for your email. I am currently unable to respond to your enquiry as I am out of the office until <date> and will not be able to respond until then." which goes a bit too far in the opposite direction.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7702913.stm
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 05 November, 2019, 12:01:52 pm
If we were to associate domains with geography, Rapha would be based in the Cocos Islands, Tuvalu would be the broadcast equivalent of Hollywood, and so on.
Domains are associated with geography, whether you like it or not. .com domains genuinely are managed from the USA, .tv ones generate a significant part of the national income of Tuvalu, and so on.
That's what I'm saying! Rapha's website is on a server located in the Cocos Islands but it's simply because of a coincidence, there's no link between the company and the islands.

No, it looks like it's on a server hosted by an American company in That London.  With a Cocos Islands domain name.

(This sort of thing is normal and ordinary.  IIRC YACF is hosted in Amserdam or somewhere...)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 November, 2019, 12:28:30 pm
I suspected as much!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 05 November, 2019, 01:06:23 pm
Apparently the Cook Islands have clamped down on waggish types registering.co.ck domains, probably after TV's Nathan Barley had trashbat.co.ck prominently displayed.  Wasp T12 Speechtool - It's Well Weapon!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: fimm on 05 November, 2019, 01:54:41 pm
Response to email to colleague:
"I am out of office. I will be back on <date>"
Could you not have typed "the", colleague?

On the other hand, a different colleague has "Dear Sender, Thank you for your email. I am currently unable to respond to your enquiry as I am out of the office until <date> and will not be able to respond until then." which goes a bit too far in the opposite direction.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7702913.stm
I knew that was going to be the Welsh out-of-office story before I clicked on it...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 05 November, 2019, 07:12:59 pm
That's what I'm saying! Rapha's website is on a server located in the Cocos Islands but it's simply because of a coincidence, there's no link between the company and the islands. Adverts tell me I could register a .tv address for £34.99 a year but unfortunately there's no South Pacific holiday in it.
Oh yes, that much is true, because the domain is a separate entity from the server, and simply points to the server wherever it is. There's no requirement for the location of the server to correspond to the country from which the domain is derived. Nor is there (typically, there are exceptions) a requirement that the organisation buying the domain be based in, or even have a presence in, that country. However (at least for the traditional domains before the recent waves of daft ones), the domains absolutely do relate to the countries, and bodies within those countries, that control and issue them.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Torslanda on 06 November, 2019, 07:35:43 pm
Invite used as a noun.

Just checked my 2006 Chambers, and it’s in there as a noun, albeit informal.

<Milligan, S.> Chambers Encyclopaedia? Isn't that the dictionary of piss-pots? </Millgan, S.>
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 06 November, 2019, 08:12:45 pm
Do uk.com domains count as cringeworthy grammar?
Not really. They are perfectly legitimate domains. It's just that they are American.
If we were to associate domains with geography, Rapha would be based in the Cocos Islands, Tuvalu would be the broadcast equivalent of Hollywood, and so on.

My objection was more that it was middle-endian, like a USAnian date.  Domain names are usually little-endian.

Didn't domain names used to be backwards and wasn't there something horrid were you had to somehow wrangle an address through nfs.net or something strange (and there was a dog called fido), and much of the internet was based around vibrating strings, and not the eleven-dimensional sort, oh no, real wet string.

And the first time you logged on, you got a message warning you that the mere press of a key would use billions of dollars of infrastructure so don't even think of using it. You, sir/madam, are not worthy of all our hard work. Anyway, that so obviously did not work.

I probably imagined all this. I only got onto the internet because someone told me about this email thing and I was, as ever, trying to impress a girl with my technological skills. Back then you had to write emails in a text editor and save them before you could send. The 'save' bit turned out to be important. Because if you didn't save, you sent a blank email. So basically, I was like inadvertently sending her the email equivalent of a heavy breather phone call.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moleman76 on 07 November, 2019, 08:08:18 am
Response to email to colleague:
"I am out of office. I will be back on <date>"
Could you not have typed "the", colleague?

As a native speaker of Leftpondese, I would agree with "out of the office" as 'normal.'  But, then again we say that someone is "in the hospital" versus "in hospital" over here.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 November, 2019, 08:47:43 am
In hopsital = ill.
In the hospital = in the location for another reason, eg work or visiting.
Generally speaking. Same with school and a few other specific purpose buildings, eg court.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Salvatore on 07 November, 2019, 09:06:34 am
In hopsital = ill.
In the hospital = in the location for another reason, eg work or visiting.
Generally speaking. Same with school and a few other specific purpose buildings, eg court.

But in/to the pub.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 November, 2019, 09:20:35 am
As pub is short for public house, I guess it's a multifunction place. At least potentially.
On similar lines, go to the pub, go to hospital, go to Australia, but go to home. Why?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 07 November, 2019, 09:31:32 am
There ain't no why, it just growed. That's why it's called idiom.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 November, 2019, 09:56:31 am
A few years ago, I think it was in Language Lab, someone claimed that Australians now use bush in the same way. "He's gone bush" rather than "He's gone to the bush". The examples they gave made it seem more like an adverb though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 07 November, 2019, 12:06:47 pm
Response to email to colleague:
"I am out of office. I will be back on <date>"
Could you not have typed "the", colleague?

As a native speaker of Leftpondese, I would agree with "out of the office" as 'normal.'  But, then again we say that someone is "in the hospital" versus "in hospital" over here.

Oh!

I thought the 'the' was missing from between "back on" and "<date>"   :facepalm:


FWIW, I read "out of office" as business jargon for state of telecoms-unresponsiveness only loosely related to one's physical location, and more to do with whether one is officially working or not.  "Out of the office" is either referring to a person's actual physical location, or someone getting the jargon wrong.

Consider "Ian's phone is DND" (or 'off-hook' for analogue jibblers).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 07 November, 2019, 12:14:29 pm
ian's office phone has never rung, true fact. In fact, it's never been used.

I think I say I'm Out of Office, it's a compounded sense of not-being-there or simply I've turned it on because I'm not going to respond and really shouldn't get your hopes up. So I may not literally be out of the office, I am existentially Out of Office.

Of course, out-of-office messages should run like 'I've been abducted. By aliens. Send help."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 07 November, 2019, 12:21:19 pm
I accidentally DNDed my phone the other day[1].  I know this because "DND active" had appeared on the screen.  On closer investigation, there didn't appear to be any form of tabletop roleplaying game in progress.  I concluded that this was probably a way of rejecting SIP INVITEs so you don't get disturbed by rude telephonic people, and had to resort to RTFMing[2] to work out how to turn it off...


[1] Subsequent investigation revealed that this was probably an unintended consequence of wiping off the tomato soup I'd accidentally sneezed onto the keypad the previous evening.  It's a good thing I don't work in a nuclear bunker, isn't it?
[2] Since this is the grammar thread, should that be "RingTFM"?  I sincerely hope not.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 07 November, 2019, 12:45:22 pm
As pub is short for public house, I guess it's a multifunction place. At least potentially.
On similar lines, go to the pub, go to hospital, go to Australia, but go to home. Why?

Not just going home, going upstairs, or going anywhere, in fact ('adverbs of place' apparently)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 November, 2019, 12:45:38 pm
You know the women/female thing that annoys some people? Well, some like to hedge their bets:
Quote
We've also hired some female external women into important roles across the region.
He is, of course, boasting. And let's not look to closely at the adjective order. But he's also from the southern hemisphere, they do things differently there.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 November, 2019, 12:47:06 pm
[2] Since this is the grammar thread, should that be "RingTFM"?  I sincerely hope not.[/sub]
Ring the fucking manual? That's probably something that happens in Rogerzilla's office!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 November, 2019, 12:48:11 pm
As pub is short for public house, I guess it's a multifunction place. At least potentially.
On similar lines, go to the pub, go to hospital, go to Australia, but go to home. Why?

Not just going home, going upstairs, or going anywhere, in fact ('adverbs of place' apparently)
Of course, home is an adverb there, not a noun. Just like bush, in fact. D'oh on me for thinking of it as a noun!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 07 November, 2019, 12:56:12 pm
You know the women/female thing that annoys some people? Well, some like to hedge their bets:
Quote
We've also hired some female external women into important roles across the region.
He is, of course, boasting. And let's not look to closely at the adjective order. But he's also from the southern hemisphere, they do things differently there.

Ahem!

 ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 November, 2019, 01:15:04 pm
From now on I'm folowing minimalist speling. Elimination of al double leters.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 07 November, 2019, 02:48:04 pm
There's exclusivity, and then there's having the diaeresis over the 'wrong' letter in your name (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-50327034).

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 08 November, 2019, 09:41:11 pm
Didn't domain names used to be backwards and wasn't there something horrid were you had to somehow wrangle an address through nfs.net or something strange (and there was a dog called fido), and much of the internet was based around vibrating strings, and not the eleven-dimensional sort, oh no, real wet string.
Not that I can think of, but I may be missing something. Unless you're remembering X.400 email addresses (https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/X400), such as:

G=Georg; S=Hansen; O=sintef; OU=delab; PRMD=uninett; ADMD=uninett; C=no

Back around 1990, I was working for a place that supplied information-service providers (we and others supplied the databases, and they built them into an overall technical information service that was bought by major research companies and so on). They were mostly accessed by dial-up packet-switching networks such as Telenet and Tymnet (before X.25 and the Internet, this!) In time, each provider introduced a closed email system that allowed us, as suppliers, to communicate with staff from that provider and its customers. We also used Compuserve, but again as a closed system allowing email with other Compuserve users.

Gradually, these systems began to open up with interconnections to customers' private systems and so on. To communicate between systems, we used to build X.400 addresses with our bare hands from directories. They worked at least 30% of the time.

SMTP was a revelation :thumbsup: We quickly moved most of our email to the provider who was first to adopt it. Then, a year or two later, the nascent Internet was opened up beyond academia to the likes of us, who were not academic but provided services to academia.

We celebrated by launching our first Gopher server, which we duly closed down months later after our first Web site launched.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 08 November, 2019, 11:12:39 pm
UUCP addresses were big-endian, weren't they?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 November, 2019, 01:04:08 am
Aaaaaah, bang paths...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 09 November, 2019, 08:29:33 am
Just read this (http://mm.iit.uni-miskolc.hu/Data/texts/NAG/subsection2_12_3_2.html). Sounds fun.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 09 November, 2019, 09:27:03 am
Takes me back to the 70s when another bloke & I were debugging coms protocols in adjoining machine rooms and bellowing ACK & NAK* back and forth as stuff got through or fell down the timeout hole.

* A nak is a female yak.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Zipperhead on 09 November, 2019, 05:24:23 pm
Aaaaaah, bang paths...

I think I can still remember my path from ucbvax.

Obvs. although old I'm not yet demented.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 November, 2019, 09:27:56 pm
https://theconversation.com/five-common-words-were-all-using-incorrectly-125781

Number 4 is well known, as is the process of number 5 though I wasn't aware it applied to this word. For number 1, I'd think there's another factor they haven't mentioned, which is the k<>t shift, as in all those Italian words that have "tt" where English and French have "ct" and Spanish has "c", or little>likkle, or omitting the c from words like tractor (especially tractor!) in some dialects.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 November, 2019, 06:16:07 pm
My knowledge of Scots Gaelic is zero but I'm guessing from this combination of headline and photo:
Tuil a' toirt buaidh air loidhne rèile
(https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/15F4C/production/_109623998_flood_networkrail.jpg)
that the Gaelic for ice is similar to the Polish, lód. Which is unexpected.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/naidheachdan/50388106

Edit: The English headline says flooding, so it's probably nothing to do with ice, though it does look like ice on that photo.
Flooding affects railway in Highlands and A75 in South
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-50389244
So, the Gaelic for flooding is nothing like the Polish. Which is not unexpected.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 November, 2019, 10:06:12 am
Quote
Shoppers will no longer be able to find Grolsch lager bottles in Tesco and Asda supermarkets.

The Dutch beer is recognisable by its distinctive green glass bottles and swig-top lids.
Tobago!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 November, 2019, 05:11:47 pm
What do you call a drive-through liquor store? A question from some weird quiz my son is doing (he's meant to be doing his homework!) One of the options is "a brew-through", which I think is rather a good term. Or would be if we had such things here, which I'm glad we don't. (The others were brew barn, party barn and bootlegger.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Steph on 18 November, 2019, 05:21:27 pm
My knowledge of Scots Gaelic is zero but I'm guessing from this combination of headline and photo:
Tuil a' toirt buaidh air loidhne rèile
(https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/15F4C/production/_109623998_flood_networkrail.jpg)
that the Gaelic for ice is similar to the Polish, lód. Which is unexpected.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/naidheachdan/50388106

Edit: The English headline says flooding, so it's probably nothing to do with ice, though it does look like ice on that photo.
Flooding affects railway in Highlands and A75 in South
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-50389244
So, the Gaelic for flooding is nothing like the Polish. Which is not unexpected.

The Gaelic words in question can be read/pronounced almost exactly as "Line Rail", if that helps. Or in English, Railway Line.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 November, 2019, 05:35:18 pm
Yeah, already worked out that it's nothing to do with ice.  :facepalm: But not that it was "line".  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Rod Marton on 18 November, 2019, 05:57:37 pm
So now I know why ice cream is called lody in Polish. Though personally I find the Czech word much more aesthetically satisfying - zmrzlina.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Steph on 18 November, 2019, 06:06:24 pm
Yeah, already worked out that it's nothing to do with ice.  :facepalm: But not that it was "line".  :thumbsup:

"Flood affects railway"

And the Welsh for ice cream is hufen ia--very roughly*, huvven yah

* the 'u' is pronounced halfway between 'uh' and 'ee'. Varies depending on regional accent.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 November, 2019, 06:32:06 pm
Zmrzlina is a very good word.  :) Unfortunately it's also a bit how I'm feeling right now.  :-\ Perhaps I'm just a "zmrzlak."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 01 December, 2019, 08:16:55 pm
Terrible new's!

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/dec/01/laziness-has-won-apostrophe-society-admits-its-defeat?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other&fbclid=IwAR1K1pS1vD6x989KL6SRT3OsssA44Vh6hM-FubANtMDAYkqggVPapeEPpQs
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 December, 2019, 08:45:42 pm
I liked this one:
(https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/919d56c50f92f8dce6145a1ffeb44a12ffbec4d8/0_0_5100_3391/master/5100.jpg?width=1010&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=84f39a26eb7a02574b9f243c93720852)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 01 December, 2019, 09:03:18 pm
I see the Apostrophe Society is being wound up.

That hiker's head would make a good collective plural apostrophe...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 02 December, 2019, 07:37:38 am
Terrible new's!

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/dec/01/laziness-has-won-apostrophe-society-admits-its-defeat?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other&fbclid=IwAR1K1pS1vD6x989KL6SRT3OsssA44Vh6hM-FubANtMDAYkqggVPapeEPpQs

On the day after I lead the Panzers down Whitehall it will be reëstablished, with lavish government funding.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 02 December, 2019, 03:16:56 pm
"Based off the book" and general preposition mayhem, largely Transpondian in origin but conveyed hither on Internetting wings like smallpox in reverse.  :sick:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 02 December, 2019, 03:35:02 pm
I see the Apostrophe Society is being wound up.

That hiker's head would make a good collective plural apostrophe...

I think they have always been wound up.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 02 December, 2019, 04:43:16 pm
I would be happy to see the back of apostrophes, tbh.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 December, 2019, 05:59:50 pm
I think they're useful where they indicate contractions but as The Last Remaining Declension of the English Language (do not declensh, it only makes it worse) they've probably outlived their use.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 December, 2019, 11:35:33 am
Id be happy to see the back of apostrophes, tbh.

FTFY :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 03 December, 2019, 11:49:03 am
Well, I didnt say Id stop using them, as I benefit from the finest comprehensive school education so I know my apostrophising.

But generally theyre mostly redundant, its clear from context. Theyll either die out or well end up adding them to all the plural's.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 03 December, 2019, 01:01:52 pm
Perhaps the Young People will start using them to denote passive-aggressiveness or something, causing yet more generational confusion.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 December, 2019, 01:49:53 pm
Talking of that^^, I read that "old people" have started using a "comma ellipsis" ,,, rather than ... Why? I don't know, but speculation is that it shows up better on a small screen to old eyes. Of course "young people" have started using this ironically, as a sort of punctuation pisstaking meme.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 03 December, 2019, 01:54:52 pm
Sounds like the sort of thing Gretchen McCulloch's book might cover...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 December, 2019, 02:16:47 pm
I haven't a clue who Gretchen McCulloch is but maybe that was where I read it. (!) !!! ,,,
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 03 December, 2019, 07:56:54 pm
A cunning linguist.  From the internets.

https://gretchenmcculloch.com/
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 03 December, 2019, 11:21:12 pm
I would be happy to see the back of apostrophes, tbh.

In which case you ought to be a possessive s.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 04 December, 2019, 07:54:05 am
Talking of that^^, I read that "old people" have started using a "comma ellipsis" ,,, rather than ... Why? I don't know, but speculation is that it shows up better on a small screen to old eyes. Of course "young people" have started using this ironically, as a sort of punctuation pisstaking meme.

This  seems ,, to be   a common thing,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, among    the Gammonariat,, , along  with random  numbers   of spaces  between      words,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,  and xcrable speling!!!1!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 04 December, 2019, 08:20:52 pm
Oh, I think you find that decimate means kill one in ten, says a passing pedant. No, it doesn't in the 21st century unless you're still using Julius F. Caesar's dictionary.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 December, 2019, 09:02:24 pm
A cunning linguist.  From the internets.

https://gretchenmcculloch.com/
Cats on walls! Ox heads for glottal stops! Null morpheme!  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 December, 2019, 02:22:47 pm
Oh, I think you find that decimate means kill one in ten, says a passing pedant. No, it doesn't in the 21st century unless you're still using Julius F. Caesar's dictionary.
Have you been reading this? (https://theconversation.com/apostrophes-linguistics-expert-imagines-a-happier-world-without-them-128363)
Quote
In fact, by removing apostrophes altogether, the pedantry arsenal is vastly reduced. Without their favourite punctuation mark of judgement, your average pedant will be forced to make do with old favourites such as split infinitives and insisting on the “correct” meaning of “decimate”.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 05 December, 2019, 10:32:50 pm
Oh dear. They'll have to resort to pointing out that that piece is written in the plural (Hardcore apostrophites, people, pedants), until it suddenly, randomly and for no good grammatical reason switches to the modern "false singular" pronoun usage of "their favourite..., your average pedant...", when staying in the plural with pedants would have been far more consistent and flowing.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 05 December, 2019, 10:42:31 pm
Never mind the apostrophe, the current fad for the misplaced question mark is making me annoyed?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 05 December, 2019, 10:53:17 pm
Oh, I think you find that decimate means kill one in ten, says a passing pedant. No, it doesn't in the 21st century unless you're still using Julius F. Caesar's dictionary.
Have you been reading this? (https://theconversation.com/apostrophes-linguistics-expert-imagines-a-happier-world-without-them-128363)
Quote
In fact, by removing apostrophes altogether, the pedantry arsenal is vastly reduced. Without their favourite punctuation mark of judgement, your average pedant will be forced to make do with old favourites such as split infinitives and insisting on the “correct” meaning of “decimate”.

I haven't, but the panel agrees with the sentiment. I can't remember where I saw it. A tweet somewhere I think.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 December, 2019, 09:38:32 am
Never mind the apostrophe, the current fad for the misplaced question mark is making me annoyed?
The aforementioned Gretchen McCulloch demonstrates the difference between a linguist and a grammarian:
Quote
So if you’re mentioning me somewhere, please do double-check the spelling of my name?
https://gretchenmcculloch.com/name/
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 07 December, 2019, 08:38:18 pm
Never mind the apostrophe, the current fad for the misplaced question mark is making me annoyed?

Nowhere near as annoying as using the phrase "question mark" instead of the word "question". As in "... there is still the question mark about whether A is better than B". I've not yet heard anyone say "please answer the question mark" but I'm sure it won't be long.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jakob W on 07 December, 2019, 08:54:09 pm
Presumably that's linguistic drift from 'a question mark hangs over <statement x>'?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 08 December, 2019, 04:57:27 pm
Presumably that's linguistic drift from 'a question mark hangs over <statement x>'?
Yeah, that was my first thought. But it's still wrong!

talking of which ...

"Off of"; is there any context where this 'orrible construction makes sense? Or is justified?
(I just heard it on a poem off of that Radio4, so I did wonder if it has establishment backing ... )

It's definitely used painfully whenever I hear it, but I'm open to education on possible valid usages.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 December, 2019, 05:01:00 pm
"Based off of" is now, it seems, the standard construction, which is kind of upside down compared to "based on" which I'm used to. But things change. And didn't the Rolling Stones sing "Get off of my cloud" in about 1967?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 08 December, 2019, 05:05:08 pm
It's one of those things that passes unnoticed when uttered in a strong estuary accent, but should be written with caution, and never spoken by posh people.


(Americans seem to base things off of where we base them on, in the same way that they fill things out and we fill them in.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 08 December, 2019, 05:06:55 pm
But things change.
... in which case we could decimate this thread before it got going.

Quote
And didn't the Rolling Stones sing "Get off of my cloud" in about 1967?
yes they did! Good reference (it was my in-laws favourite song - gosh, did that story improve with every telling ... )

But song lyrics are immune to grammar - if it scans, it's right!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 December, 2019, 05:08:11 pm
But song lyrics are immune to grammar - if it scans, it's right!
Agreed.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 08 December, 2019, 05:09:48 pm
But song lyrics are immune to grammar - if it scans, it's right!
Agreed.

I'd say the same goes for poetry.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 December, 2019, 05:11:55 pm
(Americans seem to base things off of where we base them on, in the same way that they fill things out and we fill them in.)
The Young British People of Today use "based off of" without any awareness that it might be of transpondian provenance. Doubtless in umpty years time they'll be grumbling about the modern habit of saying "based in" (or whatever) as opposed to the proper British tradition of "based off of".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 December, 2019, 05:13:01 pm
But song lyrics are immune to grammar - if it scans, it's right!
Agreed.

I'd say the same goes for poetry.
i wrote a po'em
about punctuation
because grammar, i kno'em!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 08 December, 2019, 05:19:39 pm
But song lyrics are immune to grammar - if it scans, it's right!
Agreed.

Lots of lines in songs don't scan, but the surplus syllables are usually got through quickly between lines while the accompaniment does a bit of twiddly.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Paul on 08 December, 2019, 10:08:50 pm
But things change.
... in which case we could decimate this thread before it got going.
Not possible.
And if we decimated it now there’d still be almost 200 pages of whittling.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 08 December, 2019, 11:59:41 pm
From a vegan Facebook friend.
(https://scontent.flhr4-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/s960x960/78850473_10156366732411503_384221056971309056_o.jpg?_nc_cat=111&_nc_ohc=eQs_e89bhukAQnpgimtehHvkb9HhuaOzr3YEByeZYqPRcy8LdKGb1l5Hg&_nc_ht=scontent.flhr4-2.fna&oh=0340e59c97eda83528ed4b3e4d82305e&oe=5E6B43B0)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 December, 2019, 10:43:10 am
Once upon a time there were three little pigs.  The first pig built his house out of cheese?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 09 December, 2019, 02:54:35 pm
I suspect AutoComplete wrote 'products' instead of 'premises' and nobody noticed the product.

I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll eat your house up!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 09 December, 2019, 03:20:48 pm
Former dairy products is worrying.  Listeria?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 09 December, 2019, 07:38:08 pm
But things change.
... in which case we could decimate this thread before it got going.
Not possible.
And if we decimated it now there’d still be almost 200 pages of whittling.
But if we use Cudzo's logic, we can use the new improved meaning => barely 20 pages to go!  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 December, 2019, 07:50:09 pm
I believe you're crediting me with ian's pearls of wisdom. Which is nice for me, but only until he sets one of his bad vampires on me.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 15 December, 2019, 01:29:17 pm
Mangled prepositions again: Graun headline "No one is immune from loneliness". Rachel Cook-with-an-E wouldn't be immune to a boot up the arse, either, if she were in my English class.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: offcumden on 15 December, 2019, 03:03:50 pm
What's more, Rachel, 'no-one' should be hyphenated. No one individual should consider herself exempt from The Rules.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 16 December, 2019, 10:54:32 am
Nah, in the grand tradition of this thread, you're both wrong. 'Immune from' is an established usage and meaning according to my OED. Slightly different emphasis to 'immune to.' That said, I'd have used 'immune to' in that headline because it sounds better. Donald Trump may think he's immune from prosecution, but he's not immune to the ongoing investigations of lawmakers.

And no one hyphenates no one.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: offcumden on 16 December, 2019, 11:55:41 am
And no one hyphenates no one.

Some people do, including my spellchecker (should that be hyphenated, I ask myself?). Anyway, just because most people don't, doesn't mean they're not wrong  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 December, 2019, 12:04:40 pm
You'd expect "no one" to have become one word, like someone, anyone, everyone. Presumably the reason it hasn't is because of the awkward "oo" that would create and perhaps also the similarity to "noon". That would indicate hyphenation as the logical compromise spelling, but hyphenation is broadly out of fashion for nouns, except a few neologisms, so two words it is. Mostly. Like "co-operative" and "cooperative" (does that mean "pertaining or relating to coopers"?), there ought to be scope for both.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 16 December, 2019, 01:04:00 pm
Nah, in the grand tradition of this thread, you're both wrong. 'Immune from' is an established usage and meaning according to my OED. Slightly different emphasis to 'immune to.' That said, I'd have used 'immune to' in that headline because it sounds better. Donald Trump may think he's immune from prosecution, but he's not immune to the ongoing investigations of lawmakers.

And no one hyphenates no one.

Harrumph.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jakob W on 16 December, 2019, 02:29:11 pm
We could go for the New-Yorker-esque noöne instead?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: offcumden on 16 December, 2019, 03:18:22 pm
We could go for the New-Yorker-esque noöne instead?
Haven’t seen that before. You could say that that no one version is more ‘correct’ than any other. Or, indeed, that no-one’s is.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jakob W on 16 December, 2019, 03:26:01 pm
(I don't think the NYer actually does that - I suspect they hyphenate - but they infamously still use the diaeresis on words like coöperate.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 16 December, 2019, 05:58:56 pm
I was going to suggest "noöne" too.  The facilities we of the Democratic Ruthless Bastards Party intend to open shortly after I lead the Panzers down Whitehall are, after all, Reëducation Camps.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 16 December, 2019, 06:41:28 pm
Where does the lead singer of Herman's Hermits fit into all this?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 16 December, 2019, 09:19:11 pm
On another topic, why are all the seasonal adverts on about "gifting"? What's that, when it's at home?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 16 December, 2019, 09:25:36 pm
On another topic, why are all the seasonal adverts on about "gifting"? What's that, when it's at home?

It's a special consumerist version of 'giving' isn't it?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 December, 2019, 09:32:21 pm
A long process of meaning shift will see us talking about "Christmas talents". 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 16 December, 2019, 09:46:43 pm
On another topic, why are all the seasonal adverts on about "gifting"? What's that, when it's at home?
It's a special consumerist version of 'giving' isn't it?
Well yes, but why? It's as circular as burglarisation.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 December, 2019, 09:52:08 pm
"Giving" carries implications of generosity and free will which are incompatible with the modern festival.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 17 December, 2019, 12:31:41 am
"Giving" carries implications of generosity and free will which are incompatible with the modern festival.

Those are still allowed.  The important thing is that you buy something in order to, erm, gift it.  'Gifting' emphasises the gift rather than the action.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 17 December, 2019, 08:02:09 am
That's a good summary of all that's wrong with it, thanks.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 December, 2019, 08:33:55 am
I'd say it's worthy of a cringe, but less 'grammar cringe' than 'oh what a fucked up society we have made' cringe. Not to be confused with 'social cringe'. Maybe 'moral cringe'?

On another circular note, expiration. I'm not sure if this is just a case of more syllables = more impressiver or if someone decided that an expiry date on your credit card was likely to put you off using it, because it would remind you of death.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moleman76 on 17 December, 2019, 08:38:42 am
You'd expect "no one" to have become one word, like
"none" ?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 17 December, 2019, 10:36:11 am
I'm sure we did gifting a while back. Gift has a verb has been around for about 400 years and appears throughout literature so complainers are a bit late to the party. So late, in fact, that there's no mini-sausage rolls left. Let's face it, you're down to a tub with the last scrapings of hummus, a lonely detumescent celery baton, and a nagging worry about just how many double-dippers have trawled it. The question you have to ask yourself is do you feel lucky, punk? It doesn't mean the same as give. You can, after all, give something benefit of your opinion without them considering it much of a gift.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 17 December, 2019, 12:36:10 pm
I'd say it's worthy of a cringe, but less 'grammar cringe' than 'oh what a fucked up society we have made' cringe. Not to be confused with 'social cringe'. Maybe 'moral cringe'?

On another circular note, expiration. I'm not sure if this is just a case of more syllables = more impressiver or if someone decided that an expiry date on your credit card was likely to put you off using it, because it would remind you of death.

I think 'expiration' is USAnian, 'expiry' is UKnian...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 17 December, 2019, 01:15:41 pm
I'd say it's worthy of a cringe, but less 'grammar cringe' than 'oh what a fucked up society we have made' cringe. Not to be confused with 'social cringe'. Maybe 'moral cringe'?

On another circular note, expiration. I'm not sure if this is just a case of more syllables = more impressiver or if someone decided that an expiry date on your credit card was likely to put you off using it, because it would remind you of death.

I think 'expiration' is USAnian, 'expiry' is UKnian...

It might also be that expiry is original UK and expiration is Johnsonian*. He started the whole 'ise/ize' thing by saying that that word ending was of French origin and should therefore be spelt Frenchly. It wouldn't surprise me if he Frenchified a bunch of other words too.

* not that one, that one.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 17 December, 2019, 01:23:39 pm
Where does the lead singer of Herman's Hermits fit into all this?

I was thinking of the bloke who played drums on the first Def Leppard EP, but the point stands  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 17 December, 2019, 02:10:47 pm
(I don't think the NYer actually does that - I suspect they hyphenate - but they infamously still use the diaeresis on words like coöperate.)

They tried to force me to judge the barrel-making but I refused to cooper rate.

Carry on.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 18 December, 2019, 10:14:28 am
IFLScience picture caption: Artistic reconstruction of "Lola", as they has been named. Tom Björklund

https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/5700yearold-chewing-gum-reveals-an-entire-human-genome/
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 December, 2019, 09:58:15 am
Hyphen time again. Caption to a photo:
Quote
Unidentified victim of sex trafficking put their hands together in a show of solidarity at an anti-human trafficking agency in Boston, Massachusetts.
The meaning is clear but only because a trafficking agency which is anti-human would hide behind a different name. No, I don't have an answer: "anti human-trafficking agency" leaves no room for ambiguity but the anti on its own looks odd, and "agency against human trafficking" would presumably be too wordy for a caption. Nor do I have an answer to the rather more serious problem of human trafficking (which might, I suppose, sometimes be better described as "trafficking which is anti-human").
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 December, 2019, 06:49:16 pm
No grammatical mistakes as such here. But wft is it about?
Quote
BRISTOL24/7 MAN OF THE YEAR 2019: JUDD TRUMP
By MARTIN BOOTH, Friday Nov 29, 2019

Judd Trump was at Heathrow Airport about to fly to China for the World Open when he spoke to Bristol24/7. Just over a week later, he was flying back to the UK the winner of that tournament; and the following week travelled the shorter distance to Belfast for the Northern Ireland Open, from which he also returned the winner.

As this magazine was going to press, the 30-year-old former Hartcliffe School pupil was preparing for the UK Championship, and he will be traveling to York as the favourite to lift yet another trophy in what has been an incredible 2019. Trump won the world title for the first time in April and has dominated the sport in the past year, winning three ranking events and a second Masters crown.

………………………………

Bristol24/7 relies on your support to fund our independent journalism and social impact projects. Become a member and enjoy exclusive perks from just £5 per month.

………………………………

So what will he remember most about 2019? “I think obviously what comes to mind is the World Championships win,” Trump said over the phone from Heathrow Terminal Two. “And also beating Ronnie (O’Sullivan) in the Masters was pretty special, giving me the confidence to do what I did in the World Championships.”
Only in the fourth paragraph is the secret revealed.
Quote
In those World Championships in Sheffield in May, Trump played some of the best snooker of his career as he beat John Higgins 18-9 to win his debut world title and take home a cheque for £500,000, making him the first player to amass more than £1m in a single season.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 30 December, 2019, 12:14:12 am
An Edinburgh restaurant announces proudly on the way in that "our policy is to cloakroom all outdoor coats."

While I don't have a problem with that policy in itself, I'm firmly of the belief that such verbing of nouns should be garbaged.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 30 December, 2019, 12:47:22 am
Verbing weirds language...

I described a dropped kerb at a pedestrian crossing as too puddly for David to use and he agreed. Puddly ought to be a real word...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 December, 2019, 09:11:44 am
An Edinburgh restaurant announces proudly on the way in that "our policy is to cloakroom all outdoor coats."

While I don't have a problem with that policy in itself, I'm firmly of the belief that such verbing of nouns should be garbaged.
Or rubbished, to use a more conventionally British verbed noun.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 30 December, 2019, 09:39:35 am
An Edinburgh restaurant announces proudly on the way in that "our policy is to cloakroom all outdoor coats."

While I don't have a problem with that policy in itself, I'm firmly of the belief that such verbing of nouns should be garbaged.
Or rubbished, to use a more conventionally British verbed noun.

Egad, Spock, they've got a Klingon cloakrooming device!  Hold on to your Crombie!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: orraloon on 30 December, 2019, 07:18:55 pm
Where does the lead singer of Herman's Hermits fit into all this?
Late catching up but still  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Beardy on 31 December, 2019, 01:24:59 am
I have to say that I never expected to post on this thread, what with me tending towards dyslexia with a total inability to decode multi-syllable words let alone spell them.

However, I’d like to think that my grammar is reasonably sharp with a tendency to use the right words in the right places.

The reason I’m posting here is people’s 1continued use of the word ran when they should have written the word run. I’m a member of a Facebook running group, the number of people that say I haven been on a ran for xxx, or has anyone ran the xyz marathon.

It really grates, but now that I type the above, I’m beginning to doubt myself. Hrumph.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 31 December, 2019, 06:34:26 pm
I have to say that I never expected to post on this thread, what with me tending towards dyslexia with a total inability to decode multi-syllable words let alone spell them.

However, I’d like to think that my grammar is reasonably sharp with a tendency to use the right words in the right places.

The reason I’m posting here is people’s 1continued use of the word ran when they should have written the word run. I’m a member of a Facebook running group, the number of people that say I haven been on a ran for xxx, or has anyone ran the xyz marathon.

It really grates, but now that I type the above, I’m beginning to doubt myself. Hrumph.

I ran the marathon is essentially the same as I have run the marathon in my personal view, although I have a tickling memory that I have run is the pluperfect rather than just the perfect.

As someone who stopped latin and english language at O-level 46 years ago to do three sciences, I am surprised i even remember that.

An expert will be along shortly
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 31 December, 2019, 11:11:54 pm
Not an expert, but trying to learn Spanish...

"to have" + "past participle" is the present perfect - it is a past tense that indicates a connection with the present.

"I ran the marathon" - implies either some time in the past or probably not going to run another one
"I have run the marathon" - implies either just finished running a marathon or expecting to run more marathons.

Past participles are tricky in English, sometimes they are exactly the same as the simple past tense (I worked/I have worked), sometimes very different (I saw/I have seen - no-one would ever say "I have saw"), and sometimes quite similar (I ran/I have run). When they are similar lots of people get confused which is which and swap them around.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 31 December, 2019, 11:13:36 pm
Quote from: Richard Osman
In 2020 my new year's resolution is to upset less grammar pedants
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 01 January, 2020, 12:27:51 am
Quote from: Richard Osman
In 2020 my new year's resolution is to upset less grammar pedants

 ;D ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 01 January, 2020, 09:12:04 am
I have to say that I never expected to post on this thread, what with me tending towards dyslexia with a total inability to decode multi-syllable words let alone spell them.

However, I’d like to think that my grammar is reasonably sharp with a tendency to use the right words in the right places.

The reason I’m posting here is people’s 1continued use of the word ran when they should have written the word run. I’m a member of a Facebook running group, the number of people that say I haven been on a ran for xxx, or has anyone ran the xyz marathon.

It really grates, but now that I type the above, I’m beginning to doubt myself. Hrumph.

I ran the marathon is essentially the same as I have run the marathon in my personal view, although I have a tickling memory that I have run is the pluperfect rather than just the perfect.

As someone who stopped latin and english language at O-level 46 years ago to do three sciences, I am surprised i even remember that.

An expert will be along shortly

I ran the marathon pins the event to some specific time, whereas I have run the marathon doesn't.

I have run is the perfect; the pluperfect is I had run.

I stopped doing English in 1961 but my teachers were finnicky buggers.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 January, 2020, 09:16:30 am
I'd think of the present perfect as a present tense which describes the past.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Paul on 01 January, 2020, 09:45:44 am
The point is that they are different tenses of an irregular verb.
I run every day.
I ran yesterday
I have run [not “ran”] today.

There are other, similarly irregular verbs https://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/grammar/unreg_verben1.htm.

The one I hear used incorrectly most often is ‘ring’, as in “I’ve rang the client”.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 January, 2020, 09:52:26 am
In Beardy's first example it was a noun: "I have been on a ran". Might just be a typo or predictive text, might not be.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 01 January, 2020, 10:18:29 am
I'd think of the present perfect as a present tense which describes the past.

They've changed the name since I learnt English. The present perfect was just the perfect when I learnt English and other grammars.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 January, 2020, 05:05:49 pm
Right, this is a grammar grumble. Not a cringe. House style explicitly states in several places not to use commas before 'and'. But you've used a comma here, and there, and somewhere else, and in every sentence, and it's not a matter of right and wrong, and it is a matter of Teh Roolz, and thank goodness for 'replace all'. ,and breathe...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 01 January, 2020, 06:38:08 pm
Right, this is a grammar grumble. Not a cringe. House style explicitly states in several places not to use commas before 'and'. But you've used a comma here, and there, and somewhere else, and in every sentence, and it's not a matter of right and wrong, and it is a matter of Teh Roolz, and thank goodness for 'replace all'. ,and breathe...

Wrong thread...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 02 January, 2020, 09:24:22 am
House style?

(https://www.justcolor.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/1/nggallery/architecture-home/coloring-house-style-alsace-france.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 13 January, 2020, 02:13:52 am
Headline on BBC News website...
Quote
The disabled teenagers who's identity crisis led them to modelling careers
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 January, 2020, 08:48:50 am
House style?
Colouring book?  :thumbsup: Which one is yours?  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 13 January, 2020, 04:09:28 pm
Headline on BBC News website...
Quote
The disabled teenagers who's identity crisis led them to modelling careers

I was far too old when I worked out when to use 'whose'.

OTOH, I'm not a journalist.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 13 January, 2020, 05:03:25 pm
House style?
Colouring book?  :thumbsup: Which one is yours?  ;D

Closest is bottom left, first complete house in, but we've five windows across the front and no dormers.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: cygnet on 16 January, 2020, 11:41:32 pm
Are you ready to Butlin's?

https://www.butlins.com/ready-to-butlins (https://www.butlins.com/ready-to-butlins)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 16 January, 2020, 11:58:56 pm
Had a Lidl booklet shoved into our letterbox today with 'Big on' as its title.

David read this as Bingo, I read it differently.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Thor on 28 January, 2020, 11:26:58 am
BBC news website headline

Quote
Can anyone call themself a therapist or a counsellor?
 

The "gender neutral" personal pronoun.  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 January, 2020, 11:57:19 am
That one's so conventional now that reading older texts with the once equally conventional "Can anyone call himself... " can be slightly jarring if you're not expecting it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andy64 on 28 January, 2020, 12:39:41 pm
There seems to be a growing trend from across the pond, in the pronunciation of:
Wouldn't - wutten
Couldn't - cutten
Didn't - ditten
Etc, etc.
My sphincter clenches every time I hear it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 28 January, 2020, 12:59:05 pm
That one's so conventional now that reading older texts with the once equally conventional "Can anyone call himself... " can be slightly jarring if you're not expecting it.

T'other day I looked for a synonym for miscreant in an on-line thesaurus. One of the answers it came up with was inside person.  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 January, 2020, 01:17:51 pm
That one had me puzzled for a minute. Is it some obscure anatomical meaning? No, is it a reference to insider trading? No, it's inside man, which could have various meanings without context to clarify. I suppose if you really wanted to use that phrase without 'man', you could say inside contact, but this is probably one of those phrases where updating just doesn't work, as translation sometimes doesn't.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 28 January, 2020, 01:35:12 pm
Or you could speak of the crime or whatever as an inside job and avoid talking about people at all.

God, all this pussyfooting* makes me sick.

* oops.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 January, 2020, 01:48:35 pm
Yep, inside job would be the best option there.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 28 January, 2020, 02:02:42 pm
Now then: in the film The Inside Man it is in fact a man who gets himself walled up in the basement of a bank*. For 2020 values of should, should the producers have titled it The Inside Person/Job?  I think not.

* having broken into a sewer that nobody smells for a week, but that's by the by.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 January, 2020, 02:04:47 pm
Imdb reveals that 2006 values of should would be more appropriate. This probably doesn't change the answer.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 28 January, 2020, 02:25:54 pm
BBC news website headline

Quote
Can anyone call themself a therapist or a counsellor?
 

The "gender neutral" personal pronoun.  :facepalm:

What's wrong with that?  There's an obvious need for gender-neutral pronouns, and it seems reasonable to use the ones that are familiar through hundreds of years of use rather than more clunky alternatives.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Thor on 28 January, 2020, 03:11:33 pm
BBC news website headline

Quote
Can anyone call themself a therapist or a counsellor?
 

The "gender neutral" personal pronoun.  :facepalm:

What's wrong with that?  There's an obvious need for gender-neutral pronouns, and it seems reasonable to use the ones that are familiar through hundreds of years of use rather than more clunky alternatives.

While the traditionally correct grammar may be sexist, the word "themself" is made up and also unsuitable, since "them" is plural, while "anyone" and indeed "self" are singular.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 28 January, 2020, 03:26:06 pm
All words are made up.  'themself' is at least 600 years old.  *shrug*

Thinking about it a bit more, unlike the BBC headline writer, I'd probably use 'themselves' for referring to a non-specific person or group and 'themself' for a known person who uses they/them pronouns.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 January, 2020, 03:29:15 pm
All words are made up.  'themself' is at least 600 years old.  *shrug*

Thinking about it a bit more, unlike the BBC headline writer, I'd probably use 'themselves' for referring to a non-specific person or group and 'themself' for a known person who uses they/them pronouns.
I  think that's Thor's point; that plural 'them' should not be joined with singular 'self'. But 'anyone' is singular, so 'themselves' doesn't entirely fit either. The best thing might be to rewrite the headline so as to avoid the problem. Maybe 'What qualifications are needed to call yourself a therapist or counsellor?'
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 28 January, 2020, 03:33:19 pm
All words are made up.  'themself' is at least 600 years old.  *shrug*


Aye, but 600 years ago nothing was standardized so precedence doesn't apply. Even pronunciation was very different from today's: it'd be halfway through the Great Bowel Shift or summat like that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 28 January, 2020, 03:36:51 pm
There doesn't seem to be anything about pronouns in the BBC News style guide, beyond:

Quote
It is increasingly common for non-binary people to use the singular pronoun “they”.

Seems like a bit of an omission.  https://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/en/collections/news-style-guide
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 January, 2020, 03:54:16 pm
For a minute, I was thinking this is actually a bigger change in grammar than we realise, because it means verbs no longer agree with their subjects. We could say "John Smith is the first non-binary person to become mayor of an English town. They were elected mayor of Piddletrenthide on Tuesday... ". But actually, I don't think that's not correct. Instead, it's more like the process by which the old plural and formal 'you (are)' replaced the old informal singular 'thou (ist[?])' giving us identical single and plural pronouns and verbs in the second person. Now we're seeing the same for the third person, and presumably someone who wants to be addressed as 'they' would refer to themself/-ves as 'we'. So we're halving the number of pronouns – a great simplification!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: orienteer on 28 January, 2020, 04:02:08 pm
There's always been the royal we.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 28 January, 2020, 04:54:31 pm
presumably someone who wants to be addressed as 'they' would refer to themself/-ves as 'we'

None of the non-binary people I know do.  Small sample, admittedly.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 28 January, 2020, 05:12:47 pm
Consistency is probably too much to expect.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 January, 2020, 05:41:33 pm
presumably someone who wants to be addressed as 'they' would refer to themself/-ves as 'we'

None of the non-binary people I know do.  Small sample, admittedly.
Okay, I suppose that's actually more sensible than we if the idea is to avoid gender in pronouns. But I'm wondering, in a grammatical rather than pobi way, what the equivalent non-binary people French people use, seeing as French only has il(s) and elle(s). Although I suppose there's on. T42, any ideas?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 28 January, 2020, 05:51:41 pm
https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/Nonbinary-pronoun-they-sparks-French-language-debate-after-Merriam-Webster-word-of-the-year-nonbinary

Of course, it's hard to be gender-neutral in a language with grammatical gender, to the point where activisim tends to take a different focus.  I think we've discussed this one before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_languages_with_grammatical_gender
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 28 January, 2020, 05:56:28 pm
For a minute, I was thinking this is actually a bigger change in grammar than we realise, because it means verbs no longer agree with their subjects. We could say "John Smith is the first non-binary person to become mayor of an English town. They were elected mayor of Piddletrenthide on Tuesday... ". But actually, I don't think that's not correct. Instead, it's more like the process by which the old plural and formal 'you (are)' replaced the old informal singular 'thou (ist[?])' giving us identical single and plural pronouns and verbs in the second person. Now we're seeing the same for the third person, and presumably someone who wants to be addressed as 'they' would refer to themself/-ves as 'we'. So we're halving the number of pronouns – a great simplification!

Thou art. Still quite common in t'Land o' t'Whippet.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 January, 2020, 07:07:06 pm
Of course, it's hard to be gender-neutral in a language with grammatical gender, to the point where activisim tends to take a different focus. 
Activism or expression?

In Polish you can't even say 'I was' without gendering yourself (oneself?) but in some other aspects it's perhaps easier. There's a neuter gender which you could use for adjectives and you could invent an obvious neuter first-person verb ending (it doesn't exist,* for obvious reasons, but would surely be -om). "It" is already used for children (the word for child is neuter, again for obvious reasons)** so that could be extended, though it does sound odd.

And, bringing us full circle, the words for himself, herself, myself, themselves/self, etc, are all the same (it's all just "self" regardless of gender or number), so that bit's much easier!

*It might be in use in certain circles for all I know.

**Ed: Just realized that might be a bit misleading. You'd only use the neuter with the word "child" or with the neuter pronoun referring back to the word, not with a named child.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: yorkie on 28 January, 2020, 10:14:40 pm
For a minute, I was thinking this is actually a bigger change in grammar than we realise, because it means verbs no longer agree with their subjects. We could say "John Smith is the first non-binary person to become mayor of an English town. They were elected mayor of Piddletrenthide on Tuesday... ". But actually, I don't think that's not correct. Instead, it's more like the process by which the old plural and formal 'you (are)' replaced the old informal singular 'thou (ist[?])' giving us identical single and plural pronouns and verbs in the second person. Now we're seeing the same for the third person, and presumably someone who wants to be addressed as 'they' would refer to themself/-ves as 'we'. So we're halving the number of pronouns – a great simplification!

Thou art. Still quite common in t'Land o' t'Whippet.


Tha's not wrong there! Sithee!  :P :P


Of course in Leeds (from whence I originate) the word "us" can be both singular and plural!


And don't get us started on "While"  :-D :-D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 28 January, 2020, 11:39:38 pm
'Whence' does not need 'from'...

<the pedant>
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 29 January, 2020, 08:13:29 am
Copious use in the 19th century, declining towards and during the 20th, with a bit of an up-tick in the 21st:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=from+whence&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cfrom%20whence%3B%2Cc0

The up-tick may be due to the use of portentous language in pseudo-mediaeval RPGs and TV series.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 29 January, 2020, 09:23:40 pm
To go back to a topic that was covered much earlier in the thread, did anyone else see this BBC report (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-51269012)? I thought that, by phrasing it in terms of whether the Oxford comma should or should not be used as a matter of course, they entirely missed the point of what Sir Philip was probably saying.

The power of the Oxford comma lies in using it appropriately, where it helps understanding, and not routinely. So neither of the two viewpoints that the BBC report pitches against each other is either correct, or even useful. Rather, we should ask what is meant by:

"Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations."

Correct use of commas will allow the words to be comprehended more quickly. Clearly there is a list of three items, and I believe that the writers mean us to associate "all nations" with "friendship" in particular. Thus, whilst they'd be happy for everyone else to have peace and prosperity as well, they don't really mean:

"Peace with all nations, prosperity with all nations and friendship with all nations" - not least because "prosperity with" is not really a meaningful expression, so suggesting it makes the phrase hard to comprehend.

To allow me to comprehend that as easily as possible in the 0.5 nanoseconds that I'm prepared to analyse to parsing the back of a 50p coin, an Oxford comma would indeed help in this instance:

"Peace, prosperity, and friendship with all nations."

But the idea that one should routinely use it is nonsense. We might also talk about playing:

"Cricket, rugby, and football with all nations" - but that would mean that we played the first two only amongst ourselves. The trick lies in using it at the right times.

Sadly, though, this little diatribe of mine is a much less interesting read than the BBC report, however much I might believe that it's more useful...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 30 January, 2020, 08:17:44 am
But by that logic, wouldn't 'cricket, rugby and football with all nations' suggest that we're keeping cricket to ourselves?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 30 January, 2020, 08:22:07 am
It's unfortunate that Pullman is likely to be dismissed as an academic twat by the yahoos who spawned the thing.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 30 January, 2020, 06:44:51 pm
But by that logic, wouldn't 'cricket, rugby and football with all nations' suggest that we're keeping cricket to ourselves?
Absolutely not. It's a list. There's no reason to distinguish between the second and first items. To do that, you'd need:
"Cricket, and rugby and football with all nations."

There's a weird reluctance to use "and" twice in such cases, but that's wrong because, in the case above, you have a list with a sublist:
Cricket, and (rugby and football with all nations).

So each list only has "and" once. The outer list has an Oxford comma in a two-item list, which is unusual but helps parsing when things get complex.

What is true is that my example:
"Cricket, rugby and football with all nations."

leaves open to the reader to work out, from the context, whether we're letting the others play one sport or three (but it can't be two). The only way I can see around that is:
"Cricket, rugby and football, with all nations."

But in any case, this is the opposite of the situation that I was talking about. The general point, as I see it, is that:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 31 January, 2020, 03:04:21 pm
But by that logic, wouldn't 'cricket, rugby and football with all nations' suggest that we're keeping cricket to ourselves?
Absolutely not. It's a list.

Of course.

What does the panel think of the following, from the Guardian? (I'm not talking about the lack of a 'that' between 'said' and 'confusing', which may have helped.) 
Quote
Britons still stranded in the Chinese city at the centre of the deadly coronavirus outbreak have said confusing messages from officials contributed to them missing an evacuation flight home.
It doesn't make me cringe, or really bother me, but it still gives me pause.

The Gaurdian's own style guide:
Quote
gerund
Nothing to be frightened of. Think of it as a verb used as a noun: I like running, smoking is bad for your health, etc. You are supposed to use a possessive: I was worried by his smoking, rather than I was worried by him smoking. In practice, many people – yes, even journalists – don’t bother
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 January, 2020, 04:41:02 pm
So is it '...them missing' rather than '...their missing' that gives you pause?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 January, 2020, 04:44:47 pm
Meanwhile, yesterday I heard a small child (about 3 years old), waiting excitedly for a train, say 'Here comes it! I see it!' No, I'm not cringing at a toddler's grammar, I'm wondering what learning process leads to 'Here comes it' rather than 'Here it comes'. Maybe just analogy with 'I see it', maybe treating it as an object, or something else?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 31 January, 2020, 05:49:13 pm
They probably have more experience of "Here comes $whatever", and are still getting the hang of pronouns.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 January, 2020, 06:03:04 pm
Guess so, word order with pronouns is one of those tricky cases in English.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 31 January, 2020, 06:16:56 pm
So is it '...them missing' rather than '...their missing' that gives you pause?

Yes.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rafletcher on 31 January, 2020, 06:41:07 pm
I think this is correct, but it’s so awkward...

“The path she had strode down”
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 31 January, 2020, 08:31:36 pm
I think this is correct, but it’s so awkward...

“The path she had strode down”

That's too horrible to use, and given that Oxford, Cambridge and Collins concur that the past participle is stridden, I don't think it's even saved by being correct.

"The path down which she had stridden" has a certain ring to it, albeit a certain pomposity as well.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 02 February, 2020, 11:08:04 pm
"The path that she strode down" would be an improvement.

Or, unless it's essential to specify that the striding had been in the distant past or whatever, simplify a bit with:

"The path down which she strode."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 03 February, 2020, 08:45:29 am
I don't think I've ever seen stridden anywhere outside a dictionary, but if you need to use the pluperfect that's the animal you want.  I'd try to re-cast the sentence to avoid it.

Some people stridulate when they stride, but that's due to the stuff of their strides and the thickth of their thighs.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 19 February, 2020, 11:39:10 am
This is just plain wrong

Quote
Dodik calls for Republika Srpska succession

Bosnian-Serb President Milorad Dodik has called for a referendum on the succession of the RS from BiH. RS succession talks have...

 :facepalm:

(From an internal news round-up)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 19 February, 2020, 02:11:40 pm
The usage "extort <name of person>" is wrong.

You can coerce or blackmail people to your heart's content, but you can't extort anybody; you have to extort some thing from them, as in that popular UK crime, extorting money with menaces.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Davef on 01 March, 2020, 09:07:21 pm
English is a wonderful language ... I don't want it to become Leftpondian or txt speak.

CNN headline today: Greece accuses Turkey of weaponizing refugees.
I don’t think it is suggesting they are being armed. I think it is suggesting the refugees are the weapon. It is suggesting that you can cripple a country by sending in tanks or sending in millions of refugees.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 02 March, 2020, 06:27:00 am
Meanwhile, yesterday I heard a small child (about 3 years old), waiting excitedly for a train, say 'Here comes it! I see it!' No, I'm not cringing at a toddler's grammar, I'm wondering what learning process leads to 'Here comes it' rather than 'Here it comes'. Maybe just analogy with 'I see it', maybe treating it as an object, or something else?

English as a second/alternate language at home possibly?
Title: Re: Grammar what makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 02 March, 2020, 07:55:35 am
Meanwhile, yesterday I heard a small child (about 3 years old), waiting excitedly for a train, say 'Here comes it! I see it!' No, I'm not cringing at a toddler's grammar, I'm wondering what learning process leads to 'Here comes it' rather than 'Here it comes'. Maybe just analogy with 'I see it', maybe treating it as an object, or something else?

English as a second/alternate language at home possibly?

Sounds like German syntax.

When I was a nipper waiting in the bus queue, my favourite line was "Here it isn't!".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 March, 2020, 09:53:40 am
Could be. Mixed language households are not rare round here (!)* but I think toddlers do go through all sorts of grammatical and syntactical trial and error phases.**

*My favourite remains the bloke I met with a broad Welsh accent and a Spanish name.
**My favourite of these is "I've got a jumper on," to which second toddler replied "I've got two jumper ons!" Both in this case fully English families.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 02 March, 2020, 10:09:05 am
Or my son as a toddler on being told to behave: "I am being have!"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: toontra on 19 March, 2020, 12:16:21 pm
Had to throw something at the radio the other day! An interviewee prefaced every single answer not only with the ubiquitous "so.." but actually took it to altogether new levels of pomposity and absurdity.

In answering the first question (about something quite banal):

"So...., let's just unpack that...."

The second question:

"So...., let's just unpack that...."

And the third, and fourth.  I couldn't bear to hear any more but assume the drivel continued.

For fuck's sake, just answer the bleedin' question if you so choose, otherwise shut the fuck up.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 23 March, 2020, 03:00:01 pm
This one is simply horrible: "UK mulls tightening restrictions further".  I've seen a lot of mulling on the Beeb recently...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 23 March, 2020, 03:22:45 pm
This one is simply horrible: "UK mulls tightening restrictions further".  I've seen a lot of mulling on the Beeb recently...

Oh, it's nothing to wine about.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 March, 2020, 04:26:40 pm
This one is simply horrible: "UK mulls tightening restrictions further".  I've seen a lot of mulling on the Beeb recently...

Oh, it's nothing to wine about.
::-) :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 03 April, 2020, 01:13:02 pm
Substitute seems to be changing its meaning. It used to mean (and still does) that if X was substituted for Y then X replaced Y. Nowadays it occasionally (often?) means that Y replaced X.  I blame soccer.

Hmmm... Mr. Chambers gives the second meaning as informal or in errors (sic).  I guess that means bloody illiterate.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 03 April, 2020, 01:45:22 pm
Substitute seems to be changing its meaning. It used to mean (and still does) that if X was substituted for Y then X replaced Y. Nowadays it occasionally (often?) means that Y replaced X.  I blame soccer.

I'll be perfectly honest, I can never remember which way round is correct. But to be even more honest, if I thought it mattered, I might make more effort to remember! The intended meaning is usually obvious from the context.

I've even been known not to give a toss when people use "evacuate" incorrectly (ie evacuating a building rather than a person).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 03 April, 2020, 02:16:47 pm
Years ago I read of a fire aboard a Eurostar during which "passengers were able to evacuate into a parallel service tunnel". Must have been a bit smelly in there.

Re substitute, the Who knew which way round. https://youtu.be/eswQl-hcvU0
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 April, 2020, 03:18:16 pm
This is why I would avoid using substitute as a verb. "Replace with" is unambiguous (so far) and doesn't attract criticism.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 03 April, 2020, 04:11:20 pm
That's what happens, in the end.  Mistakes co-exist with correct usage and meanings become woolly.  The mistakes usually appear in Guardian crosswords not long into this process.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 03 April, 2020, 04:32:17 pm
Substitute seems to be changing its meaning. It used to mean (and still does) that if X was substituted for Y then X replaced Y. Nowadays it occasionally (often?) means that Y replaced X.  I blame soccer.

I'll be perfectly honest, I can never remember which way round is correct. But to be even more honest, if I thought it mattered, I might make more effort to remember! The intended meaning is usually obvious from the context.

I've even been known not to give a toss when people use "evacuate" incorrectly (ie evacuating a building rather than a person).

Shirley a building can be evacuated, so can a person if you have a hose and a funnel
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 03 April, 2020, 04:43:43 pm
Shirley a building can be evacuated, so can a person if you have a hose and a funnel

See, I got it the wrong way round in my earlier comment - even though I do actually know the correct usage...

But I’ll try not to lose any sleep over it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 April, 2020, 09:04:26 am
That's what happens, in the end.  Mistakes co-exist with correct usage and meanings become woolly.  The mistakes usually appear in Guardian crosswords not long into this process.
The clues in Guardian crosswords seem to be made as far from the standard usage as possible without being impossible to say it's the same word. Which makes sense given their function. Though I do hope nobody's trying to learn English from them.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 07 April, 2020, 09:14:35 am
That's what happens, in the end.  Mistakes co-exist with correct usage and meanings become woolly.  The mistakes usually appear in Guardian crosswords not long into this process.
The clues in Guardian crosswords seem to be made as far from the standard usage as possible without being impossible to say it's the same word. Which makes sense given their function. Though I do hope nobody's trying to learn English from them.

I was agreeably surprised the other day when I spelt a German word with an umlaut and the crossword engine accepted it. Then I spelt an English word with a Ü and it accepted that.  Elementary character-mapping, dear Watson.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: De Sisti on 07 April, 2020, 11:02:05 am
The use of the word "brace" when someone scores two goals in a football match.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 07 April, 2020, 11:47:13 am
The clues in Guardian crosswords seem to be made as far from the standard usage as possible without being impossible to say it's the same word. Which makes sense given their function. Though I do hope nobody's trying to learn English from them.

Most crossword compilers use Chambers as their dictionary of choice - mainly because of its liberal attitude towards the inclusion of variant spellings and secondary meanings. I also have on my bookshelf a copy of the Chambers Crossword Dictionary, which includes plentiful lists of common cruciverbalisms.

The only thing you will learn from doing crosswords regularly is how to become good at solving crosswords.

Brewers Dictionary of Phrase & Fable is also a classic crossword companion.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 09 April, 2020, 10:38:16 am
The clues in Guardian crosswords seem to be made as far from the standard usage as possible without being impossible to say it's the same word. Which makes sense given their function. Though I do hope nobody's trying to learn English from them.

Most crossword compilers use Chambers as their dictionary of choice - mainly because of its liberal attitude towards the inclusion of variant spellings and secondary meanings. I also have on my bookshelf a copy of the Chambers Crossword Dictionary, which includes plentiful lists of common cruciverbalisms.

The only thing you will learn from doing crosswords regularly is how to become good at solving crosswords.

Brewers Dictionary of Phrase & Fable is also a classic crossword companion.


Yeah. In the Graun's Quick this morning they decided that specious meant deceptively pleasing, which is a bit bass-ackwards IMHO. Specious for me starts out pleasing then disappoints, rather than the other way round.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 April, 2020, 12:27:29 pm
Yesterday I was unmangling a document that had been put together by automatic speech recognition (see rants passim). One of the gems of this one was its reference to "chief Brexit negotiator Michelle Obama". It was only after I'd sent it off that I realised I'd corrected the surname but forgotten to de-feminise his first name.  ::-) The worst of it is, I'm sure nobody even noticed.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 April, 2020, 09:42:55 am
Quote
...a siphonophore measuring an estimated 150 feet (46 metres)...The research vehicle dove as deep as 4,439 metres, but the siphonophore was only discovered as the vehicle was making its way back to the surface at around 630 metres... The new siphonophore was about twice as long as many blue whales, and three times as long as a humpback whale, which usually grow to around 50ft long.
On balance I rather like this inconsistency, as it assumes the target audience (Americans, judging by the use of 'dove') will be familiar with both measurement systems.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/15/like-a-spiral-ufo-worlds-longest-animal-discovered-in-australian-waters
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 15 April, 2020, 09:28:26 pm
Quote
...a siphonophore measuring an estimated 150 feet (46 metres)...The research vehicle dove as deep as 4,439 metres, but the siphonophore was only discovered as the vehicle was making its way back to the surface at around 630 metres... The new siphonophore was about twice as long as many blue whales, and three times as long as a humpback whale, which usually grow to around 50ft long.
On balance I rather like this inconsistency, as it assumes the target audience (Americans, judging by the use of 'dove') will be familiar with both measurement systems.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/15/like-a-spiral-ufo-worlds-longest-animal-discovered-in-australian-waters
Depth in metres, length in feet. Nothing inconsistent about that. ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moleman76 on 16 April, 2020, 07:01:15 am
I can't fathom depths in metres
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 16 April, 2020, 11:58:07 am
Whereas I'm a fully paid-up member of the Metric Depth League.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 April, 2020, 01:42:40 pm
I can't fathom depths in metres
Are you a feet on the ground sort of guy?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moleman76 on 17 April, 2020, 08:48:44 am
Prodigal sheep returns after seven years in Tasmania
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/apr/16/prickles-the-sheep-home-at-last-after-fleeing-2013-tasmanian-bushfires

Well, not "cringe", but I expected to read that the sheep had gone back to Australia or NZ after sojourning in a far country and wasting substance with riotous living, and to hear what the sheep's older sibling had to say.  Perhaps something like "I've always stayed here on the home pasture, and now you're giving her a ride in your Ute?"

perhaps "After seven years, prodigal sheep returns in Tasmania" ?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 17 April, 2020, 05:25:03 pm
Quote
...a siphonophore measuring an estimated 150 feet (46 metres)...The research vehicle dove as deep as 4,439 metres, but the siphonophore was only discovered as the vehicle was making its way back to the surface at around 630 metres... The new siphonophore was about twice as long as many blue whales, and three times as long as a humpback whale, which usually grow to around 50ft long.
On balance I rather like this inconsistency, as it assumes the target audience (Americans, judging by the use of 'dove') will be familiar with both measurement systems.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/15/like-a-spiral-ufo-worlds-longest-animal-discovered-in-australian-waters

Criticizing the Graun's grammar isn't really fair. It's like criticizing your dog's cooking.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 April, 2020, 08:05:40 pm
Prodigal sheep returns after seven years in Tasmania
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/apr/16/prickles-the-sheep-home-at-last-after-fleeing-2013-tasmanian-bushfires

Well, not "cringe", but I expected to read that the sheep had gone back to Australia or NZ after sojourning in a far country and wasting substance with riotous living, and to hear what the sheep's older sibling had to say.  Perhaps something like "I've always stayed here on the home pasture, and now you're giving her a ride in your Ute?"

perhaps "After seven years, prodigal sheep returns in Tasmania" ?
Yes. That was kind of in my mind at the time.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 18 April, 2020, 05:52:12 pm
A local shop informs customers:
Quote
WE HAVE HAD TO REDUCE OUR OPENING AND CLOSING HOURS

 ???
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 19 April, 2020, 01:29:27 pm
A local shop informs customers:
Quote
WE HAVE HAD TO REDUCE OUR OPENING AND CLOSING HOURS

 ???

Daylight saving...   ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 19 April, 2020, 02:18:16 pm
A local shop informs customers:
Quote
WE HAVE HAD TO REDUCE OUR OPENING AND CLOSING HOURS

 ???

This is the punchline to some kind of quantum physics joke, isn't it?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Davef on 19 April, 2020, 05:43:21 pm
A local shop informs customers:
Quote
WE HAVE HAD TO REDUCE OUR OPENING AND CLOSING HOURS

 ???
... because our opening time changing every day by 3 hours was confusing people. We have therefore reduced opening hours by 2, and closing hours by 1 and adopted a more traditional 24 hour cycle.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moleman76 on 20 April, 2020, 07:33:43 am
A local shop informs customers:
Quote
WE HAVE HAD TO REDUCE OUR OPENING AND CLOSING HOURS AND INCREASE OUR CLOSED HOURS

 ???
There, that's what they wanted to say
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 April, 2020, 05:41:49 pm
"On lean focus, seamless experience and seamless experience, we specifically haven't been specific here in terms of the points we want to mention."

A Russian trying to make a speech in public, his English is hesitant – I think we'll forgive him. Besides, he makes me laugh.  :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 April, 2020, 11:12:56 am
Discussion of oil markets:
Quote
negative prices are very unusual but they’re certainly not uncommon. 
It does make sense if you interpret unusual as not normal rather than not frequent, but it still makes me laugh.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 27 April, 2020, 08:19:20 pm
It's also not true (if about oil prices). Oil has never been priced negatively, until last week.

Other things have had negative prices, for e.g., electricity, which is slightly harder to store until prices go up. But that is neither unusual nor uncommon.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 April, 2020, 09:03:49 am
Both of those! It was about oil but followed a digression into negative prices for other commodities, specifically electricity and gas as an associated product from crude.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 28 April, 2020, 02:30:24 pm
Instructions like that are one of the most compelling arguments against taking [insert religious text] in any way seriously.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 28 April, 2020, 05:38:30 pm
Just out of curiosity, which religious texts were written by people in languages that they did not really speak?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 28 April, 2020, 07:01:13 pm
Don't know but formal Hebrew was used for written texts when and where Aramaic was the vernacular.

I think it was not uncommon for scholars to use a 'formal' language for writing and something looser for general chat.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 28 April, 2020, 07:19:36 pm
That's true, but the people who wrote the texts did speak Hebrew, and Aramaic and Hebrew are related (a lot more closely than Chinese and English). Those reading the texts would have had some Hebrew. And when they found that increasing numbers of readers no longer did know Hebrew, they translated them into Greek, which people did speak because it was the lingua franca (sorry) of the Roman Empire at that time.

On the whole, when people who do speak a language write for people who do, but not quite so well, it's likely to be more successful than the instructions mentioned, written by people who don't really speak English for people who do :)

I think it was not uncommon for scholars to use a 'formal' language for writing and something looser for general chat.
Again, kind of. At the time when the New Testament was written (in Greek), it was the custom for scholarly works to be written in older, classical Greek. Sort of like us now writing in Shakespearean English, because it seems posher.

But the point was that the New Testament writers didn't do that (because they were just communicating a message and not trying to sound grand), which confused scholars for a bit. It took archaeology a while to dig up other examples of common Greek, so it seemed like a special language for a time. Obviously there are various texts in classical Greek that have been in libraries and so on since ancient times, so the classical language was known and the common wasn't.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 April, 2020, 08:51:43 am
On behalf of T42, I'll nominate almost all of today's Grauniad quick crossword. Many of the clues have been transposed, so for instance the clue for 25 across reads "In repose (2,4)" and the answer is "Tested".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hatler on 29 April, 2020, 12:10:57 pm
A grammar/word usage question if I may. (Better than than a whole new thread.)

If I want to refer to a house the front door of which I just walked through, I would like to be able to say : -
"The house, whose door I just walked through, ..."

But the use of "whose" there is surely wrong, as 'who' indicates a person (and a house clearly isn't a person).

What word could I use ?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 29 April, 2020, 12:18:31 pm
If you tried to walk through anyone's door it'd probably hurt.

'Whose' doesn't necessary refer to the person, it can refer to any object. But, if that's what you'd done, just write that you've walked through the house doorway.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 April, 2020, 02:11:30 pm
You could say 'The house, the door of which I've just walked through' if you really want to avoid 'whose' but there's no need. Or 'The house where I've just walked through the door' informally. Depends what's appropriate for the context.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 29 April, 2020, 04:43:37 pm
On behalf of T42, I'll nominate almost all of today's Grauniad quick crossword. Many of the clues have been transposed, so for instance the clue for 25 across reads "In repose (2,4)" and the answer is "Tested".

After degrade "resolved" into expat I baled out. Thought it was yet another gratuitous slur.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: CAMRAMan on 15 May, 2020, 10:19:37 am
Chiltern Railways: the correct preposition for the verb 'to arrive' is 'at', not 'into'. So, 'we are arriving at Warwick Station', not 'we are arriving into...'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 15 May, 2020, 11:09:02 am
Mr. Peter (or possibly Paul) Cornell: you can have partially-literate characters say "like he was flying" but you should write "as if he were flying", lest you be thought less than literate yourself.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 May, 2020, 12:21:56 pm
On a similar note, the Chiltern Railways message, "This train is for Solihull/Marylebone/wherever." I keep thinking, "Well, who is against Solihull?" whereas the message is simply missing one word. It should be, "This train is heading for (or bound for) Solihull."
Ooh, it's a long list!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 15 May, 2020, 12:58:18 pm
"Well, who is against Solihull?"

Birmingham, obviously.

I once had a Chiltern announcer get confused and announce that "The plane will shortly be arriving at $station."  In their defence, it was surrounded by thick fog at the time.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Zipperhead on 15 May, 2020, 01:28:54 pm
Not bad grammar at all, but on the pre-covid tube I often think that announcements of the form "alight here for..." must confuse the hell out of foreign tourists.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 15 May, 2020, 01:52:52 pm
I may have mentioned this, but not as much as our local railways, who are always on about "boarding or alighting trains". They seem blissfully unaware that they are asking people to set their rolling stock on fire :o ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 15 May, 2020, 02:00:18 pm
I may have mentioned this, but not as much as our local railways, who are always on about "boarding or alighting trains". They seem blissfully unaware that they are asking people to set their rolling stock on fire :o ::-)

You can light something or alight from something. You can also set something alight but you can't alight anything.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: CAMRAMan on 15 May, 2020, 08:17:30 pm
On a similar note, the Chiltern Railways message, "This train is for Solihull/Marylebone/wherever." I keep thinking, "Well, who is against Solihull?" whereas the message is simply missing one word. It should be, "This train is heading for (or bound for) Solihull."
Ooh, it's a long list!
Oi, watch it! I wouldn't mind so much if people could pronounce it properly. It's so-lee-'hull with a final stressed syllable. And it could be worse, it could be Sutton Coldfield.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 15 May, 2020, 09:46:20 pm
On a similar note, the Chiltern Railways message, "This train is for Solihull/Marylebone/wherever." I keep thinking, "Well, who is against Solihull?" whereas the message is simply missing one word. It should be, "This train is heading for (or bound for) Solihull."
Ooh, it's a long list!
Oi, watch it! I wouldn't mind so much if people could pronounce it properly. It's so-lee-'hull with a final stressed syllable. And it could be worse, it could be Sutton Coldfield.

AKA The Royal Town of Not Birmingham, Either
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 15 May, 2020, 10:42:09 pm
You can also set something alight but you can't alight anything.
No, but somehow it sounds closer to setting the train on fire than to disembarking from it ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Paul on 18 May, 2020, 03:28:22 pm
Just ordered some tights from Endura. Their confirmation email says:

"Thank you for placing an order with us. We are in the process of getting your order ready for shipment and we will follow up to let you know when it is on its way. PLEASE NOTE OUR CURRENT DELIVERY TIMES OUR 10 WORKING DAYS SO PLEASE BARE WITH US."

 ::-) ;D

I think the stuff in capitals was added by someone who didn't draft the first (non-caps) sentence.

(Luckily, I haven't so completely worn the old ones that I am baring anything)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 18 May, 2020, 04:50:59 pm
Just ordered some tights from Endura. Their confirmation email says:

"Thank you for placing an order with us. We are in the process of getting your order ready for shipment and we will follow up to let you know when it is on its way. PLEASE NOTE OUR CURRENT DELIVERY TIMES OUR 10 WORKING DAYS SO PLEASE BARE WITH US."

 ::-) ;D

I think the stuff in capitals was added by someone who didn't draft the first (non-caps) sentence.

(Luckily, I haven't so completely worn the old ones that I am baring anything)

The first one is a bit prolix.  Could better be "We are getting your order ready for shipment and we will let you know when it is on its way."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 May, 2020, 06:34:32 pm
I've been editing a document about alleged fraud in an Irish bank. The Irish police are called the Garda or informally the Guards. This document referred to them as the Guardia, which made I  :D.

It's also interesting what bank investigator people say to each other when the clients have gone but they've forgotten to turn the recorder off...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Andrij on 26 May, 2020, 10:02:55 pm
I've been editing a document about alleged fraud in an Irish bank. The Irish police are called the Garda or informally the Guards. This document referred to them as the Guardia, which made I  :D.
...

Did they perhaps mean Gardaí?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 27 May, 2020, 12:44:50 am
Not Giardia...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giardiasis
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: RichForrest on 27 May, 2020, 05:26:01 am
Sign on the M6 "Corley services is still open"  :-\
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 27 May, 2020, 08:49:46 am
Funny thing is that if they left out the verb it would be acceptable.
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Davef on 27 May, 2020, 09:43:06 am
As “Corley services” is the name of the particular motorway services area, singular is probably correct. Even if it just said “services”, as an abbreviation of “motorway services area” singular would be correct, though it jars like “Solomon Islands is covid free”


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Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 May, 2020, 09:56:34 am
I've been editing a document about alleged fraud in an Irish bank. The Irish police are called the Garda or informally the Guards. This document referred to them as the Guardia, which made I  :D.
...

Did they perhaps mean Gardaí?
That's what they meant but what they wrote was closer to the parasitic disease Helly mentions. Which might have been amusing if it had been intentional, but it wasn't.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 May, 2020, 05:33:48 pm
As “Corley services” is the name of the particular motorway services area, singular is probably correct. Even if it just said “services”, as an abbreviation of “motorway services area” singular would be correct, though it jars like “Solomon Islands is covid free”


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On similar lines, today I read of "a premise" meaning a building.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 May, 2020, 06:44:21 pm
Firstly, we'd have to find that thread! The Garda one is obviously spelling, I'd say "services is" and "a premise" are both grammar. But then if we were to be pedantic about thread titles, almost the entire forum would end up here. (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=31801.0)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 28 May, 2020, 09:01:55 am
As “Corley services” is the name of the particular motorway services area, singular is probably correct. Even if it just said “services”, as an abbreviation of “motorway services area” singular would be correct, though it jars like “Solomon Islands is covid free”
Not sure I see this. The name shows that there are multiple services (which is true - food, shops, petrol, etc.) So they are open.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Davef on 28 May, 2020, 11:08:13 am
As “Corley services” is the name of the particular motorway services area, singular is probably correct. Even if it just said “services”, as an abbreviation of “motorway services area” singular would be correct, though it jars like “Solomon Islands is covid free”
Not sure I see this. The name shows that there are multiple services (which is true - food, shops, petrol, etc.) So they are open.
Corley services is a motorway service station between junctions 3 and 3A of the M6 motorway in the county of Warwickshire, England. It is close to the village of Corley, with the nearest city being Coventry. A footbridge, made of concrete but now clad in green fibreglass panelling, spans the motorway to link services on both sides.

Corley services are a motorway service station ?


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Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 28 May, 2020, 01:20:06 pm
Twenty-seven cows are a herd?

The herd is over there. All twenty-seven of it?

There are different ways of describing the same thing. Sometimes you just choose constructions that don't use more than one way at once. So,"Corley motorway services are between...", or, "Corley motorway service station is between..." removes both the problem and the unnecessary repetition of service/services. The issue arises because the station is a location comprising multiple services.

But whatever, really. It's a sunny day outside ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Davef on 28 May, 2020, 02:12:09 pm
Twenty-seven cows are a herd?

The herd is over there. All twenty-seven of it?

There are different ways of describing the same thing. Sometimes you just choose constructions that don't use more than one way at once. So,"Corley motorway services are between...", or, "Corley motorway service station is between..." removes both the problem and the unnecessary repetition of service/services. The issue arises because the station is a location comprising multiple services.

But whatever, really. It's a sunny day outside ;D
“Corley services” is the name of a particular motorway services station. It is a proper noun. “Solomon Islands” is a country. Burnham Beeches is a nature reserve. Burnham Beeches is closed. The beeches are leafy. Herd is a collective noun and would normally be used in the singular unless you were referring implicitly to the members of the collection. The word “services” in this context on its own is an abbreviation of “motorway services area” and is always plural but singular in construction. If I asked how many services there are on the m6 what would your answer be ? It is clearly ugly and best avoided.


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Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 June, 2020, 12:05:10 pm
"Towing the line" has come up here at least once before. So, I correct that: "While I was toeing the line, I was the go-to person..." (an investigation in managerial abuse of authority) and then in the next sentence: "if you're no longer towing the rope in the direction I want to go, then you get dropped."  :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 June, 2020, 06:11:46 pm
Quote
Three women were left 'embarrassed' after getting stuck in mud at Berrow Beach - despite a warning sign next to wear they had sat.
They aren't the only ones who should be embarrassed.
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/three-people-stuck-mud-after-4215079
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 11 June, 2020, 08:00:05 pm
Sign on the M6 "Corley services is still open"  :-\
I thought of you lot when I drove past that self same sign yesterday.

What bothered me more than the grammar was that the sign was positioned after the turn-off point, which seems a bit late to be useful.

That was on the southbound leg of the journey.  Having actually stopped there on the northbound leg, I would also question their definition of “open”.

(Manchester and back, from Kent, to rescue son’s stuff from his student digs. 560 miles inside 13 hours. Fucking tired today...)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rafletcher on 13 June, 2020, 04:59:56 pm
Aah, the Beeb are at it again, apparently hundreds of “mostly white men” gathered in London today.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 13 June, 2020, 05:58:25 pm
Aah, the Beeb are at it again, apparently hundreds of “mostly white men” gathered in London today.
They look mostly pink to me. A similar shade to a cured pork leg, in fact.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: De Sisti on 13 June, 2020, 06:10:07 pm
Not so much grammar, but over-use of the word absolutely, in response to a question.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 June, 2020, 09:21:50 pm
"Do you always give the temperature in degrees Kelvin?"
"Absolutely."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 13 June, 2020, 09:29:23 pm
Say after me: the words "wheelbase" and "track" do not mean the same thing.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 14 June, 2020, 07:57:22 am
The good old Graun again:

a) pic of BLACK LIVES M painted on a road, caption called it a mural.
b) headline yesterday(?) spoke of cop who "kneeled" on George Floyd's neck.

I get the impression that they're taking copy straight from the US and Oz and not fixing it before posting.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 June, 2020, 04:48:30 pm
I get the impression that they're taking copy straight from the US and Oz and not fixing it before posting.
Quite likely, but also you might be looking at the US/Aus/International edition?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: meddyg on 14 June, 2020, 09:14:09 pm
What with all these concerns about statuary , the journos first want to know
'Who is being memorialised?'  (probably 'memorialized' come to think of it !)

Perhaps they mean 'commemorated' ?

There was a perfectly good word around if only they could find it!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 15 June, 2020, 08:48:35 am
-ise often conveys a sense of being transformed into, as in "normalise". There are horror films about people being memorialised in statue form. And I've never understood being "hospitalised". I just want to be treated, not added to the NHS's property stock.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Davef on 15 June, 2020, 09:01:16 am
Burglarized


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Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 15 June, 2020, 09:04:09 am
I get the impression that they're taking copy straight from the US and Oz and not fixing it before posting.
Quite likely, but also you might be looking at the US/Aus/International edition?

International edition, right enough.  Funny: things hop around and change size when you switch from News, which gets you international news, to World
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 15 June, 2020, 12:26:32 pm
Burglarized

This one was considered shocking when I was in primary school.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 15 June, 2020, 12:59:02 pm
It's sort of recursive grammar, isn't it? Or at least recursive word construction. With the bonus of implying that the victim, or the property, is actually transformed into the criminal.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Davef on 15 June, 2020, 02:24:41 pm
When your home has been subject to a burglarization by a burglarizationist


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Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 15 June, 2020, 02:37:58 pm
When your home has been subject to a burglarization by a burglarizationist

...then you've been burglarizationistized.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hatler on 15 June, 2020, 03:01:10 pm
And such a state would be burglarizationistizedness.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Poacher on 15 June, 2020, 03:06:36 pm
The good Cap'n gets a free ride from me: I'm gonna booglarize you baby.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiJVac8bCH8
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Davef on 15 June, 2020, 03:09:10 pm
And such a state would be burglarizationistizedness.
Forgive my swearing but Himmelherrgottkreuzmillionendonnerwetter that’s a long word.


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Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 15 June, 2020, 03:13:11 pm
The good Cap'n gets a free ride from me: I'm gonna booglarize you baby.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiJVac8bCH8
:thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 15 June, 2020, 03:28:51 pm
And such a state would be burglarizationistizedness.
Forgive my swearing but Himmelherrgottkreuzmillionendonnerwetter that’s a long word.


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Showed that one to my GerMan and after umming and ahhing a bit he decided it was feasible.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jakob W on 15 June, 2020, 03:45:29 pm
And such a state would be burglarizationistizedness.
Forgive my swearing but Himmelherrgottkreuzmillionendonnerwetter that’s a long word.


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Showed that one to my GerMan and after umming and ahhing a bit he decided it was feasible.

My internal parser grumbles a bit at it - it doesn't like the 'millionen' in there but I can't quite figure out why. Possibly because it reads like there's two phrases compounded in there, rather than one object? Himmelherrgottkreuzdonnerwetter  would be fine.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: meddyg on 15 June, 2020, 03:49:01 pm
-ise often conveys a sense of being transformed into, as in "normalise". There are horror films about people being memorialised in statue form. And I've never understood being "hospitalised". I just want to be treated, not added to the NHS's property stock.

You been nounin’ when y’oughtta been verbing!

So now (and this goes back to last century) it was possible to spot in an American paper ‘they were farewelled at the airport and gifted a rose bowl.’ (Oh, spellcheck now allows ‘gifted’ and Garrison Keillor spake it on American Public Radio only last week, so maybe it’s OK now, Stateside).’

But sports journalists won’t be told *
Golf: ‘Gerry carded 6 on the last green.'
Footy: ‘I was, like, benched in the second half..’
Cricket: Ikram top-scored in the last innings.

Anything in the Olympic Games – plucky little Briton
‘medalled’ in the last few minutes of the competition.
OK, you can have ‘pedalled’ but not ‘medalled.’

* they have to sex up boring copy with neologisms...

Thank you
I will go for a lie down now.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: meddyg on 15 June, 2020, 03:52:19 pm
Quote

* they have to sex up boring copy with neologisms...


Oi ! - Hoist by your own pétard !
Using 'sex' as a verb !
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 15 June, 2020, 04:05:40 pm
* they have to sex up boring copy with neologisms...

More to do with verbal economy than "sexing up", surely? "Carded" is a lot shorter than "recorded X on his scorecard". "Medalled" is shorter than "finished among the medal-winning positions".

This kind of thing can sound a bit naff sometimes, but I find "farewelled" rather elegant (in a good way).

And I was going to let you off with "sex up" but since you mention it yourself...  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 June, 2020, 04:32:07 pm
The closest airports get to the romance of railways in their heyday is the farewelling, aurevoiring and aufwiedersehening.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 16 June, 2020, 07:26:59 am
i'm not byeng that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: De Sisti on 16 June, 2020, 07:50:53 am
"Do you always give the temperature in degrees Kelvin?"
"Absolutely." "Yes." :P
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 16 June, 2020, 10:56:18 am
Quote

* they have to sex up boring copy with neologisms...


Oi ! - Hoist by your own pétard !
Using 'sex' as a verb !

Bah! Verbing is a healthy pursuit with a noble pedigree. Thus Butler: Then did Sir Knight abandon dwelling/And out he rode a colonelling.  Not only that, but to make it scan you have to pronounce every syllable of colonelling.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: meddyg on 20 June, 2020, 08:33:47 pm
"Those songs Vera Lynn sung were very strong, very emotional."
Thus Sir Tim Rice on I think BBC World Service honouring her memory whilst
confusing his past and past perfect. Maybe he just does the music and someone else the lyrics ?

No, it's sing -sang  -sung
           ring - rang -rung !

I'd like it to be swing - swang - swung too
'Tarzan swang through the trees on a liana'
but apparently its usage is 'archaic.'
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 21 June, 2020, 08:14:07 am
"Those songs Vera Lynn sung were very strong, very emotional."
Thus Sir Tim Rice on I think BBC World Service honouring her memory whilst
confusing his past and past perfect. Maybe he just does the music and someone else the lyrics ?

No, it's sing -sang  -sung
           ring - rang -rung !

I'd like it to be swing - swang - swung too
'Tarzan swang through the trees on a liana'
but apparently its usage is 'archaic.'

Yeah, everyone knows these days that they grow up, not down, so using one that way is definitely archaic/fatal.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 21 June, 2020, 11:51:25 am
"Those songs Vera Lynn sung were very strong, very emotional."
Thus Sir Tim Rice on I think BBC World Service honouring her memory whilst
confusing his past and past perfect. Maybe he just does the music and someone else the lyrics ?

No, it's sing -sang  -sung
           ring - rang -rung !

I'd like it to be swing - swang - swung too
'Tarzan swang through the trees on a liana'
but apparently its usage is 'archaic.'

Yeah, everyone knows these days that they grow up, not down, so using one that way is definitely archaic/fatal.

Great cars*, them Lianas!  Apparently the name was an acronym for Life In A New Age :facepalm:

* lie
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 22 June, 2020, 04:02:37 pm
She will have learned her English as much from her colonially influenced parents as anyone, I would think.  Speakin' that way was usual amongst the rulin' classes, wherever they found themselves.

Still madd'nin', though!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 22 June, 2020, 04:11:08 pm
Miss!
Them last two posts should be in the 'pronunciation' fred!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 22 June, 2020, 04:22:38 pm
Miss!
Them last two posts should be in the 'pronunciation' fred!

haha so they should. 

I was so ragin I mis posted. 




Aargh! I'm sensitive to that word "posted".  18 years ago today I rode into one and my shoulder still hurts if I sleep on it the wrong way.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 22 June, 2020, 08:40:51 pm
Suggest you 'hit posted', not 'miss posted'....
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 23 June, 2020, 09:17:22 am
Yar.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 25 June, 2020, 10:18:06 pm
Quote
'Everybody replies to my questions the way they think I want them to reply. You can say that I say "everybody-they"; I hate "everybody-he". "Has everybody brought his or her slate?" a teacher of mine, a great goat of a woman, used to ask us. There is no other tongue in the world as clumsy as our is – with its back to certain corners.'
The speaker is a character in a short story by James Thurber.
My immediate thought was that I always use "everybody-they" even though "everybody" takes a singular verb. Then I realised that I was thinking of consecutive sentences: "Every does this. They all do it." If I were to actually use a pronoun to refer back to "everybody", it would probably depend on the tone of the sentence. Mostly though, it's a construction I rarely use.

It does seem superficially odd that "every" takes a singular verb, especially as we allow flexibility after "each", but it seems to be a feature of several other languages too.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 01 July, 2020, 07:57:22 pm
A Facebook friend, born in another land, has shared yet another quiz at which she excelled and commented thus:

<<**** **** I passed without a single mistake this grammar examination results. Being an avid reader,helps a lot.>>

I suppose syntax isn't grammar...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 07 July, 2020, 04:05:20 pm
Suggest you 'hit posted', not 'miss posted'....

The palindrome spoonerism(!) thread is that way... ------>

I have seen some discussion online concerning whether the expression is "for fuck sake" or "for fucks sake".

I pointed out that it is neither. It's "for fuck's sake"* with an apostrophe. "For the sake of Fuck".

This was purportedly for an official email and the individual concerned wanted to be correct.

All they had to do was consult the Official Guide to Civil Service Grammar, authorised by Lord Armstrong of Ilminster when he was Cabinet Secretary under Thatcher...

*"for fucks' sake" is also acceptable, depending on how many fucks you are intending. "Sakes" might also be plural in those circumstances.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: CrazyEnglishTriathlete on 07 July, 2020, 08:32:34 pm
Outdoor bred pork pies.

In all my years of cycling I have never seen a pork pie in a field. 

On many Audaxes I would have dreamed of such a thing, especially when riding through the night on an Arrow or a non-sleep stop 600.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 07 July, 2020, 08:34:06 pm
In all my years of cycling I have never seen a pork pie in a field.

This must have happened on at least one Derbyshire Pie Run, mustn't it?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 07 July, 2020, 09:19:56 pm
I think I've also seen 'free-range' pork pies (or was it sausages) touted somewhere...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moleman76 on 08 July, 2020, 09:22:37 am
I just purchased liquid dishwashing detergent - described as "gluten free" on the shelf label
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 08 July, 2020, 09:58:44 am
I just purchased liquid dishwashing detergent - described as "gluten free" on the shelf label

Yebbut that's not bad grammar, it's just marketing bullshit aimed at the knuckle-draggers.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 July, 2020, 06:07:23 pm
Someone has just used the word "criterion". Wow!  :D Native language isn't English, of course.  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: CrazyEnglishTriathlete on 08 July, 2020, 09:17:30 pm
Someone has just used the word "criterion". Wow!  :D Native language isn't English, of course.  :thumbsup:

I went to school in the UK at a time when grammar wasn't taught; it was assumed that we would pick it up as we went along.  Towards the end of Lower Sixth (Year 12 I think it is now), my father went to work in Australia, where the school year runs from February to November.  I persuaded the school that I could jump up half a year rather than going back half a year and had to convert my Maths, Physics, Chemistry A levels into 4 Unit Maths, 2 Unit Physics, 2 Unit Chemistry and, horror of horrors, an English course.  Given that I only had four months from starting school (6 days after I arrived in the country, the jet lag was still wearing off), they put me in the remedial English class (2 Unit A English), which I think was for those students who had difficulty trying to work out whether XXXX was a signature or a beer, as I only had to learn two books and two plays.  It was in this class that, for the first time in my life, a teacher explained to me the purpose of (and distinction between) commas and semi-colons.

So, if there are any grammatical mistakes in this account, you have to blame various Secretaries of State for Education.  (There were two notable incumbents of the role during my schooling - look up who was in the post between 20 June 1970 and 4 March 1974 and another between 10 September 1976 and 4 May 1979.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 July, 2020, 10:29:52 pm
I remember being taught how to use semi-colons at school. "If you know how to use them, use them. If you don't, don't." Very helpful.  ::-) That was around 1980.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rafletcher on 12 July, 2020, 11:08:55 am
Seen today in the Observer;

“[The photograph] alludes to the precarity of seaside towns”
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: tatanab on 12 July, 2020, 11:24:45 am
Someone has just used the word "criterion". Wow!  :D Native language isn't English, of course.  :thumbsup:
About 4 years ago I watched  a fly on the wall type TV program about teaching.  A young (about 30) teacher bounds into the classroom of young teenagers and declares "I heard something today; i heard "phenomena".  That will be the word of the day!  I am a phenomena".  He repeated this several times.  I was mentally screaming at the screen "no you are not.  Phenomena is plural, you mean phenomenon" .  Hopeless!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 25 July, 2020, 09:52:55 pm
I see these signs about, usually on motorways and A-roads:

"Take your litter home. Others do!"

Others do what? Take my litter home?  ???
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 26 July, 2020, 08:28:16 am
Someone has just used the word "criterion". Wow!  :D Native language isn't English, of course.  :thumbsup:
About 4 years ago I watched  a fly on the wall type TV program about teaching.  A young (about 30) teacher bounds into the classroom of young teenagers and declares "I heard something today; i heard "phenomena".  That will be the word of the day!  I am a phenomena".  He repeated this several times.  I was mentally screaming at the screen "no you are not.  Phenomena is plural, you mean phenomenon" .  Hopeless!

I like the bit at the beginning of a Sherlock episode where he says "no, no, Mr. <something>, you won't be hung. You'll be hanged."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 09 August, 2020, 02:20:29 pm
 ;D
I think I posted a similar mixed metaphor in the past...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 26 August, 2020, 01:27:48 pm
Not cringe inducing, more of a gentle titter:

Quote
the meetings have been simply a tick boxing exercise

Lifted from some local paper or other.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hatler on 26 August, 2020, 04:25:16 pm
"Tick boxing" ?

In a gentler world it should be possible to charge people to watch that. 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 27 August, 2020, 12:21:32 am
"Tick boxing" ?

In a gentler world it should be possible to charge people to watch that.

Spectator sport for a flea market...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 27 August, 2020, 07:13:42 am
Nike footwear packaging.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 27 August, 2020, 09:11:27 am
Graun-again grammar: "Series of animal mutilations mystify police".  Making the verb agree with the noun closest to it instead of the real subject of the sentence seems to be a new epidemic.

And I hope they mutilate the bastards who are attacking people's horses. One thought is that it's an internet challenge. :sick:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 27 August, 2020, 10:07:01 am
Making the verb agree with the noun closest to it instead of the real subject of the sentence seems to be a new epidemic.

It's something I come across in my work often. My colleague, a very experienced sub editor, seems entirely oblivious to it. It's infuriating.

That said, I will occasionally commit this offence deliberately - sometimes it just reads better that way.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 27 August, 2020, 03:50:56 pm
Nike footwear packaging.

 ;D ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 August, 2020, 05:06:20 pm
Quote
The job architecture refresh is actually one of the most important pieces of work that reflects this.
Doesn't sound any more correct than
Quote
The job architecture refresh is actually one of the most important pieces of work that reflect this.
In fact, I think it might be less correct, as the subject of "reflect" would seem to be "the most important pieces of work" rather than "the job architecture". TBH, the only way I can sort it out in my mind is to translate it into FOREIGN.  :-\ But again, it doesn't sound less correct.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 August, 2020, 09:33:30 am
When you compare two things, taking into account changed circumstances, such as financial results before and after a merger, that would be on a "like for like basis", not "I like the light basis". Galoot!

Moreover, that abbreviation you've liberally splattered throughout the document should be FY20 for financial year 2020, not FYI20. Duffer!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 28 August, 2020, 09:49:11 am
"I like the light basis"

I'd love to know how they parse that into anything that makes even the vaguest sense.

Quote
FYI20

That is priceless. Up there with tick boxing.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 28 August, 2020, 10:14:13 am
Quote
The job architecture refresh is actually one of the most important pieces of work that reflects this.
Doesn't sound any more correct than
Quote
The job architecture refresh is actually one of the most important pieces of work that reflect this.
In fact, I think it might be less correct, as the subject of "reflect" would seem to be "the most important pieces of work" rather than "the job architecture". TBH, the only way I can sort it out in my mind is to translate it into FOREIGN.  :-\ But again, it doesn't sound less correct.

You can split the sentence up two ways:

The job architecture refresh is actually one of the most important [pieces of work] that reflects this.

The job architecture refresh is actually one of the most important [pieces of work that reflect] this.

All in all, I think the second version is easier on the syntax checker.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Paul on 29 August, 2020, 08:44:05 am
The compartment that slides in and out, that you keep stuff in, is called a drawer. A DRAWER.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Davef on 29 August, 2020, 10:35:52 am
Quote
The job architecture refresh
Why the jargon ? Just call it a toilet flush like everyone else.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 August, 2020, 12:10:04 pm
"I like the light basis"

I'd love to know how they parse that into anything that makes even the vaguest sense.
I don't think they tried or cared.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 29 August, 2020, 01:34:03 pm
"I like the light basis"

I'd love to know how they parse that into anything that makes even the vaguest sense.
I don't think they tried or cared.

For many folk, I'm afraid, parsing is just a word that rhymes with what they do all the time.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: JonBuoy on 02 September, 2020, 06:43:24 am
I'm not sure that this is quite the right place but...


I thought that whoever came up with the headline for this article was having a bit of a grammatical dig: https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/no-wonder-drugs-in-remco-evenepoels-pocket-says-boonen/
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Giraffe on 02 September, 2020, 02:41:11 pm
Relative mismatch: sign on an outdoor shop: Walk      Camping       Climb
Sometimes camp is better.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 14 September, 2020, 04:54:27 pm
Just what do you say when The Client tells you "the u looks odd"? Actually, I think you'll find it looks "odd" because it's not a u, it's a µ, as in µg, the widely recognised abbreviation for micrograms.

You might think that The Client, being a retailer of nutritional supplements, would be familiar with this, but in fact they list the dosage as 50ug on their own website (even though it is correctly marked µg on the label).

Telling The Client they're an idiot would not be politically expedient.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jakob W on 14 September, 2020, 05:09:18 pm
Just what do you say when The Client tells you "the u looks odd"?

"Yes, it's all Greek to me too..."?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 14 September, 2020, 05:10:59 pm
"Yes, it's all Greek to me too..."?

Very good!  ;D

Almost tempted to try that line on them....
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 14 September, 2020, 05:12:36 pm
They're selling to cavemenpersons?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 14 September, 2020, 11:05:07 pm
Caveperchildren please!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 15 September, 2020, 08:26:37 am
The way education is going it'll be caveperchilds before long.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: quixoticgeek on 16 September, 2020, 11:00:24 pm


The video in this tweet poses an interesting question. Does anyone know the answer?

https://twitter.com/ArmyJew/status/1306336734008037379

J

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 September, 2020, 02:02:36 pm
Along the lines of "tick boxing" that was reported earlier, I've just read "hang outing". As in "They're often hang outing after work."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 22 September, 2020, 03:34:34 pm
I saw "pop corn rent" the other day. Which made oi larf.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pedaldog. on 02 October, 2020, 10:05:24 pm
"Until eternity"
I can cope with "For eternity" or "Eternally"but eternity never gets here. (Does it?)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: phantasmagoriana on 03 November, 2020, 10:33:53 am
Seen on a buy & sell FB group: "please inbox myself".  ???
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 03 November, 2020, 10:52:33 am
Seen on a buy & sell FB group: "please inbox myself".  ???

That's cos Me and Irene have gone out for the day.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 03 November, 2020, 10:58:27 am
Bruce Springsteen is on some trailer on Radio 2 saying that he's going to "administer to your soul".  I think he means "minister"...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 03 November, 2020, 11:21:57 am
Bruce Springsteen is on some trailer on Radio 2 saying that he's going to "administer to your soul".  I think he means "minister"...

I heard someone say on the radio the other day talking about the "consequence of events" - though I guess there's a kind of logic to their thinking in that case.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 03 November, 2020, 11:22:40 am
Seen on a buy & sell FB group: "please inbox myself".  ???

 :sick: :sick: :sick: :sick:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jasmine on 03 November, 2020, 01:21:07 pm
^^^ 'myself' seems to be on the increase. I think I have 2 or 3 entries in this thread bemoaning my colleagues' usage. The most common one I see at work is,"For more information, please do not hesitate to contact myself." I suspect some of my colleagues think 'myself' is a formal version of 'me'. Even worse is, "Myself and Bob are going to..."

It really is one of my pet peeves at work. Hate it, hate it, hate it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 November, 2020, 01:23:12 pm
Along with "yourself". I think, like you, that many people see it as a more formal and polite version of "me" or "you".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 November, 2020, 03:00:45 pm
I was thinking of Billie Holiday but Wikipedia says there are at least ten songs (or versions of songs) by the same name.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me,_Myself,_and_I
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 03 November, 2020, 03:05:27 pm
Then there's George Harrison's "I, Me, Mine".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 03 November, 2020, 04:02:11 pm
It's all 'myself, myself, myself' with some people.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 03 November, 2020, 06:54:12 pm
^^^ 'myself' seems to be on the increase. I think I have 2 or 3 entries in this thread bemoaning my colleagues' usage. The most common one I see at work is,"For more information, please do not hesitate to contact myself." I suspect some of my colleagues think 'myself' is a formal version of 'me'. Even worse is, "Myself and Bob are going to..."

It really is one of my pet peeves at work. Hate it, hate it, hate it.
Bonus points for "...contact myself going forwards."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 November, 2020, 08:03:24 pm
^^^ 'myself' seems to be on the increase. I think I have 2 or 3 entries in this thread bemoaning my colleagues' usage. The most common one I see at work is,"For more information, please do not hesitate to contact myself." I suspect some of my colleagues think 'myself' is a formal version of 'me'. Even worse is, "Myself and Bob are going to..."

It really is one of my pet peeves at work. Hate it, hate it, hate it.
Bonus points for "...contact myself going forwards."
Does this mean "Walking while touching my toes"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 03 November, 2020, 08:06:18 pm
I spent far too many milliseconds there wondering how someone wanks while touching their toes.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 03 November, 2020, 08:37:28 pm
Seen on a buy & sell FB group: "please inbox myself".  ???

 :sick: :sick: :sick: :sick:
The pretentious use of "myself" instead of "me" is my least favourite faux - formal.

ETA: Doh. We are as one on this, Jasmine.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Paul on 03 November, 2020, 09:08:10 pm
Myself also! It makes my toes curl, listening to someone referring to me as ‘yourself’, regardless of the hideously ugly resulting construction.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 03 November, 2020, 09:10:22 pm
I find it so objectionable that I nearly overlooked the verbificationising of 'inbox'.   :hand:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 04 November, 2020, 02:44:09 am
I once had a long phone conversation with a very Scottish lady from Horseybank's credit card fraud department who substituted “yourself” for “you” 100% of the time.  I wot not whether this is a generic Scottishism but if it is it shouldn’t be.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 04 November, 2020, 10:06:23 am
I'll let a bona fide Scotchoid confirm, but from my tenure in the Wet Place, 'yourself' seemed to be common. I lived in the posh bit they called Edinburgh, though.

You should hear what Americans do to Edinburgh though. I know how the French must feel when they visit Des Moines. (We have never been, ian!)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 04 November, 2020, 11:11:51 am
You should hear what Americans do to Edinburgh though. I know how the French must feel when they visit Des Moines. (We have never been, ian!)

I wonder if the residents of Des Moines know the name means "some monks".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 November, 2020, 11:28:52 am
I wondered how Des Moines is pronounced so checked it out on Wikipedia. Surprised not to hear any S.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 04 November, 2020, 11:31:32 am
I once had a long phone conversation with a very Scottish lady from Horseybank's credit card fraud department who substituted “yourself” for “you” 100% of the time.  I wot not whether this is a generic Scottishism but if it is it shouldn’t be.

I once corrected every "outwith" in a procedure written by a Scot, nowadays I dinnae bother, it's just the way they talk
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 November, 2020, 11:47:02 am
"There is a green hill far away outwith a city wall" Would that be more or less confusing for the kids that sing it (if they still do)?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 04 November, 2020, 12:04:07 pm
"There is a green hill far away outwith a city wall" Would that be more or less confusing for the kids that sing it (if they still do)?

Don't know about that, but you've reminded me that there's a village/suburb near Canterbury called Thanington Without. I doubt it would be any more or less confusing if it were called Thanington Outwith. (I assume there must be other places across the UK that have 'Without' in their name, for the same reason, ie being just outside the city walls, but that's the only one I know of.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 November, 2020, 12:08:19 pm
St Michael's on the Mount Without is a church and associated primary school in Bristol. Apparently the name owes its origins to it having been one of the first churches outside the old city walls.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 04 November, 2020, 12:09:10 pm
I wondered how Des Moines is pronounced so checked it out on Wikipedia. Surprised not to hear any S.

It's semi-authentic for Iowans, but everyone passing through seems to call it Dez Moins.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 04 November, 2020, 12:11:36 pm
I once had a long phone conversation with a very Scottish lady from Horseybank's credit card fraud department who substituted “yourself” for “you” 100% of the time.  I wot not whether this is a generic Scottishism but if it is it shouldn’t be.

I once corrected every "outwith" in a procedure written by a Scot, nowadays I dinnae bother, it's just the way they talk

'Outwith' is a perfectly good useful word.  'Yourself' as a substitute for 'you' is just the wrong useful word.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 04 November, 2020, 12:43:32 pm
I once had a long phone conversation with a very Scottish lady from Horseybank's credit card fraud department who substituted “yourself” for “you” 100% of the time.  I wot not whether this is a generic Scottishism but if it is it shouldn’t be.

I once corrected every "outwith" in a procedure written by a Scot, nowadays I dinnae bother, it's just the way they talk
Outwith is a perfectly cromulent word.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 04 November, 2020, 03:25:31 pm
without = lacking
outwith = outside

is my understanding, and there is no interchangeability or venn diagram alignment?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hatler on 04 November, 2020, 03:42:54 pm
But the classic carol line "... without a city wall ..." means outside too.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 04 November, 2020, 04:00:55 pm
without = lacking
outwith = outside

is my understanding, and there is no interchangeability or venn diagram alignment?

As noted earlier, without in place names and trad carols means outside.

There is no semantic distinction, any more than there is between 'built in' and the modish 'inbuilt'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 04 November, 2020, 04:13:38 pm
without = lacking
outwith = outside

is my understanding, and there is no interchangeability or venn diagram alignment?

As noted earlier, without in place names and trad carols means outside.

There is no semantic distinction, any more than there is between 'built in' and the modish 'inbuilt'.

According to Chambers', without is derived from the Anglo-Saxon withutan. I wonder if they argued over withutan versus utwithan.  I like utwithan better.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 November, 2020, 04:22:56 pm
The withutan is a species of great ape similar to an orangutan but white in colour.

According to the Great Dictionary of Lies.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 04 November, 2020, 04:24:25 pm
But the classic carol line "... without a city wall ..." means outside too.
Hymn, shirley?

There is a green hill far away
Without a city wall ect ect

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: offcumden on 04 November, 2020, 04:30:59 pm
But the classic carol line "... without a city wall ..." means outside too.
That's a good example of the word being used in that way.

But, to be a bit picky - which is sort of the point of this thread, no? - isn't a carol a Christmas song, whereas "There is a green hill far away" is usually associated with Easter?

(Another thing - and this is even further OT, being geographical rather than linguistic, wouldn't the crucifixion hill have been more brown than green?)

ETA - I now see Tim has made the same point re hymn/carol
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hatler on 04 November, 2020, 04:32:03 pm
But the classic carol line "... without a city wall ..." means outside too.
Hymn, shirley?

There is a green hill far away
Without a city wall ect ect


Ah good point. Shows how much time I spend in church.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 04 November, 2020, 04:33:20 pm
I honestly couldn't remember whether it was a hymn or carol so I just copied hatler.  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 November, 2020, 04:38:42 pm
If we're going to be really pedantic, then a carol is (I think) a song sung by different people starting from the same line but at a different time. Associated with Christmas but doesn't technically have to be. Wowbagger will probably know...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 04 November, 2020, 04:41:50 pm
Pretty sure Number 153 isn’t a carol, at least in the Christmassy sense, since the lyrical theme appears to be the DETH of J Christ rather than his birth, plus some guff about sin.  No shepherds, wise men, donkeys, turkeys, fairy lights or pine trees at all :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 04 November, 2020, 05:05:58 pm
Pretty sure Number 153 isn’t a carol, at least in the Christmassy sense, since the lyrical theme appears to be the DETH of J Christ rather than his birth, plus some guff about sin.  No shepherds, wise men, donkeys, turkeys, fairy lights or pine trees at all :demon:

Some Bad People I know sing the first verse followed by "For he's a jolly good fellow"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 04 November, 2020, 09:25:59 pm
"There is a green hill far away outwith a city wall" Would that be more or less confusing for the kids that sing it (if they still do)?

I think this should be 'outside the city wall'. Much more the language of an English 5 year old.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 05 November, 2020, 12:13:12 am



If we're going to be really pedantic, then a carol is (I think) a song sung by different people starting from the same line but at a different time. Associated with Christmas but doesn't technically have to be. Wowbagger will probably know...

Carol was originally to be danced.  There are  carols for many occasions (see Oxford Book Of Carols).  What you are describing is caNON, or round - a simple sort of fugue.




Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: fimm on 05 November, 2020, 09:52:53 am
"There is a green hill far away outwith a city wall" Would that be more or less confusing for the kids that sing it (if they still do)?

I think this should be 'outside the city wall'. Much more the language of an English 5 year old.
It is an old hymn. Their ideas of suitable language for children and ours are rather different...
<Locates and dusts off hymn book.> Words, Cecil Frances Alexander, 1818 - 1895. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Frances_Alexander she was also the author of "All Things Bright and Beautiful" and "Once in Royal David's City" from a book called "Hymns for Little Children".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 05 November, 2020, 11:35:24 am
Anyway, surely being befuddled by the weird language and spelling mistakes in hims(sic) is an important part of growing up and being BRITISH?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 05 November, 2020, 11:36:53 am
Anyway, surely being befuddled by the weird language and spelling mistakes in hims(sic) is an important part of growing up and being BRITISH?

So true!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 November, 2020, 11:44:29 am



If we're going to be really pedantic, then a carol is (I think) a song sung by different people starting from the same line but at a different time. Associated with Christmas but doesn't technically have to be. Wowbagger will probably know...

Carol was originally to be danced.  There are  carols for many occasions (see Oxford Book Of Carols).  What you are describing is caNON, or round - a simple sort of fugue.
As written by Pachelbel, famously. Thanks for the correction.  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 05 November, 2020, 11:59:51 am

As written by Pachelbel, famously.


I wish you hadn't said that. I now have a train horns earworm.  :hand:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 November, 2020, 09:50:17 am
It really annoys me when people hyphenate prepositional verbs. "I'll pick-up the rest tomorrow" or "We had to write-off the bad debt".  >:(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 November, 2020, 10:33:01 am
To balance this out, they've not hyphenated prepositional phrases when used adjectivally. So, "We're seeing interest from move up customers" rather than "move-up customers". That wouldn't really matter so much on its own – except that it's an awkward and ugly phrase regardless of hyphenation – but to cap it off, they've invented the phrase "they're are".  >:( >:(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 10 November, 2020, 05:29:48 pm
It really annoys me when people hyphenate prepositional verbs. "I'll pick-up the rest tomorrow" or "We had to write-off the bad debt".  >:(

Barakta sometimes does weird things with hyphenation (of which this is an infrequent manifestation).  I haven't quite determined the logic to it (my working theory is that where there are multiple potential hyphenation candidates in a sentence she'll nearly always pick the first, even when it results in peculiar semantics), but it's one of the symptoms of the language impairment most people don't realise she has.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 10 November, 2020, 05:39:14 pm
"HIGH RISK CRASH ROUTE", as featured on assorted, largely redundant, road signs.

Shouldn't that be "HIGH CRASH RISK ROUTE"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 November, 2020, 05:39:49 pm
I certainly wasn't aware Barakta had any language impairment other than, obviously, deafness. I do remember that some doctor or other insisted she was dyslexic, which I don't see any sign of. But there's a difference being having a job that involves writing things, as she does (?), and writing where writing is the point of the job. The fact that what's being written isn't usually worth reading (as opposed to being badly written) is not actually the writer's fault.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 November, 2020, 05:42:59 pm
"HIGH RISK CRASH ROUTE", as featured on assorted, largely redundant, road signs.

Shouldn't that be "HIGH CRASH RISK ROUTE"?
Does that mean this drug is a route to a risk of crashing while high?  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 10 November, 2020, 05:49:43 pm
"HIGH RISK CRASH ROUTE", as featured on assorted, largely redundant, road signs.

Shouldn't that be "HIGH CRASH RISK ROUTE"?

HIGH-CRASH RISK-ROUTE?

;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 10 November, 2020, 05:55:03 pm
I certainly wasn't aware Barakta had any language impairment other than, obviously, deafness.

Yeah, it's a deafness thing.  Combination of failure to acquire language fully by osmosis, and poor working memory.

Most noticeable is the way she's only got a one-word noun register[1], so will sometimes contradict herself by repeating the same one in the second half of the sentence.  "Windows has horrible fonts so I prefer to use Windows" sort of thing.  Similarly, failure to correctly apply negation, so she'll say the exact opposite of what she means.  In both cases, she won't 'hear' that she's done it and correct herself as you or I might.  Happens more frequently in speech, but sometimes creeps into her writing when tired.

She's had to work on various quirks in her formal writing over the years.  She really should have had teacher-of-the-deaf support in later years of education (she got some as a postgraduate student), but if a deaf person is likely to get a couple of GCSEs they're Not A Priority.

Obviously the problem comes when I - a product of an 80s/90s grammar-free education - have to proof-read her work.  Factual errors and typos and such are fine, but the problem comes when something feels wrong, but I struggle to tell whether it's violating an intangible grammar rule, or just not my preferred style.


[1] I'm making her sound like the Apollo guidance and navigation computer.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 10 November, 2020, 05:55:46 pm
Talking of road signs, the electronic signs on the M2 the other day were displaying "REPORT OF ANIMALS". I thought it an interesting phrase, since "report" can mean "noise", so you could take the sign as meaning "animal noises".

I didn't hear any animal noises though. Or see any animals.

The thought also occurred to me that Report of Animals would be an excellent name for a post-rock band.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 November, 2020, 06:08:02 pm
Weather report: Thunder.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 November, 2020, 06:21:10 pm
Similarly, failure to correctly apply negation, so she'll say the exact opposite of what she means.  In both cases, she won't 'hear' that she's done it and correct herself as you or I might.  Happens more frequently in speech, but sometimes creeps into her writing when tired.
Someone was saying (in writing) something the other day about "being prosecuted for driving with undue care and attention."  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 13 November, 2020, 06:31:18 pm
Lt. Col. Larrington (retd.) has just received an apparently-genuine e-mail from MBNA telling him that his replacement credit card “is on it's way”.

Kill them.  Kill them all.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 November, 2020, 06:46:05 pm
By a thousand cuts with credit cards?

This one will annoy lots of people: anniversary as a verb. "When that anniversaries, will it fall out of next year or should we assume the same run rate?"

There might be other things in that sentence that make people cringe.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 13 November, 2020, 07:24:21 pm
Mercifully I have yet to encounter a verbed anniversary in the wild, as the police tend to take a dim view of bludgeoning apparent innocents utterly to DETH.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 November, 2020, 07:54:03 pm
I thought "fall out of next year" was quite... amusing. That it actually makes sense to BANKERS does not make it better.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 November, 2020, 09:16:57 pm
Quote
Although solar geoengineering would theoretically be able to lower temperature rise,...
Ugh!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 19 November, 2020, 10:30:07 am
Quote
This will not be delivered today as planned. Our tech team have made arrangements for correctivations today, we will ensure to keep you updated
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 19 November, 2020, 10:47:40 am
Love it. Correctivations is now my word of the day.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hatler on 19 November, 2020, 11:27:07 am
I heard 'infuriations' on the radio the other day. As opposed to 'fury'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 19 November, 2020, 11:38:19 am
Quote
This will not be delivered today as planned. Our tech team have made arrangements for correctivations today, we will ensure to keep you updated

There is so much wrong with that that "correctivations" has to struggle to get to the top/bottom of the pile.  I'm staggered that so many techies manage to reach puberty and breed.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 19 November, 2020, 11:53:13 am
I heard 'infuriations' on the radio the other day. As opposed to 'fury'.

I think I love that even more than correctivations. Surely the meaning is slightly different to fury though? I would take it to mean 'instances of being infuriated', so a quantifiable noun rather than the unquantifiable 'fury'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 November, 2020, 12:06:03 pm
I would take infuriation to mean something that infuriates. In as far as you can ever judge a word without context.

Correctivations = corrective actions autocarrotted, no?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hatler on 19 November, 2020, 12:17:08 pm
I heard 'infuriations' on the radio the other day. As opposed to 'fury'.

I think I love that even more than correctivations. Surely the meaning is slightly different to fury though? I would take it to mean 'instances of being infuriated', so a quantifiable noun rather than the unquantifiable 'fury'.

Good point. Annoyingly I can't remember the exact context.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 19 November, 2020, 12:22:19 pm
Correctivations = corrective actions autocarrotted, no?

I think so.

Quote
This will not be delivered today as planned. Our tech team have made arrangements for correctivations today, we will ensure to keep you updated

There is so much wrong with that that "correctivations" has to struggle to get to the top/bottom of the pile.  I'm staggered that so many techies manage to reach puberty and breed.

This is nothing technical. Well. Big scale technical. There is a shipping container with torn sides sitting in South Shields now waiting for 24,000 litres of pinot noir to be pumped into a tank, as they can't move the damaged container off the dock without risk of the internal bag tearing.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 19 November, 2020, 12:27:05 pm
I would take infuriation to mean something that infuriates.

I considered that as another possible meaning. But as you say, it depends on context.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 19 November, 2020, 12:33:02 pm
Correctivations = corrective actions autocarrotted, no?

I think so.

Quote
This will not be delivered today as planned. Our tech team have made arrangements for correctivations today, we will ensure to keep you updated

There is so much wrong with that that "correctivations" has to struggle to get to the top/bottom of the pile.  I'm staggered that so many techies manage to reach puberty and breed.

This is nothing technical. Well. Big scale technical. There is a shipping container with torn sides sitting in South Shields now waiting for 24,000 litres of pinot noir to be pumped into a tank, as they can't move the damaged container off the dock without risk of the internal bag tearing.
Where can I get a wine box like that?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hatler on 19 November, 2020, 12:36:53 pm
I would take infuriation to mean something that infuriates.

I considered that as another possible meaning. But as you say, it depends on context.
Given my replacement for this bastardisation was 'fury', I'm thinking that the context must have been something along the lines of "The infuriation of having to deal with ..."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 19 November, 2020, 01:22:55 pm
I heard 'infuriations' on the radio the other day. As opposed to 'fury'.

I think I love that even more than correctivations. Surely the meaning is slightly different to fury though? I would take it to mean 'instances of being infuriated', so a quantifiable noun rather than the unquantifiable 'fury'.

I rather like  the idea of suffering the infuriations of correcivitis.  Anti-inflammatory blandishments to be applied.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 19 November, 2020, 03:33:12 pm
Quote
This will not be delivered today as planned. Our tech team have made arrangements for correctivations today, we will ensure to keep you updated

There is so much wrong with that that "correctivations" has to struggle to get to the top/bottom of the pile.  I'm staggered that so many techies manage to reach puberty and breed.

To be fair to the tech team, they're evidently not the ones writing that.

Also, in light of fboab's elaboration, have you noticed that everyone who does the actual work is a technician these days?  Apart from technicans, who are engineers.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: De Sisti on 19 November, 2020, 03:34:11 pm
No space after commas and full stops.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 19 November, 2020, 03:49:08 pm
No space after commas and full stops.

I follow someone on twitter who does this.  And not in a deliberately committing crimes against typesetting in order to squeeze another word in http://t.co/eiGoo9Vo (http://t.co/eiGoo9Vo) wouldn't bother me, but twitter parses it as a URL, so when I read their tweets in a text-mode client random sentences get munged together with a nonsense redirect link.  Comme ça.

I think I prefer Dr Biggles's habit of putting a space before the punctuation mark at the end of a sentence .
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 19 November, 2020, 03:54:32 pm
Also, in light of fboab's elaboration, have you noticed that everyone who does the actual work is a technician these days?  Apart from technicans, who are engineers.
Aye.
We have
and finally
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: bhoot on 19 November, 2020, 04:28:53 pm
Love it. Correctivations is now my word of the day.
That sounds distinctly like "French English". Working with many french people (whose English is generally excellent) there are some interesting words used quite regularly. Probably "plannification" is top of the list although I think my favourite is the verb "complexify". When I was spending more time the other side of the channel and listening to more of this I started to use some of them myself...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 20 November, 2020, 08:40:59 am
Quote
This will not be delivered today as planned. Our tech team have made arrangements for correctivations today, we will ensure to keep you updated

There is so much wrong with that that "correctivations" has to struggle to get to the top/bottom of the pile.  I'm staggered that so many techies manage to reach puberty and breed.

To be fair to the tech team, they're evidently not the ones writing that.

Also, in light of fboab's elaboration, have you noticed that everyone who does the actual work is a technician these days?  Apart from technicans, who are engineers.

Bang on.  It always pisses me off to read stuff like "scientists launch probe to Mars". It's engineers all the way. Salt of the Earth, engineers.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: De Sisti on 20 November, 2020, 08:45:02 am
No space after commas and full stops.

I follow someone on twitter who does this.  And not in a deliberately committing crimes against typesetting in order to squeeze another word in http://t.co/eiGoo9Vo (http://t.co/eiGoo9Vo) wouldn't bother me,
When people do that on this forum (and others) I tend to not bother reading them.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rower40 on 20 November, 2020, 08:52:37 am
I heard 'infuriations' on the radio the other day. As opposed to 'fury'.

I think I love that even more than correctivations. Surely the meaning is slightly different to fury though? I would take it to mean 'instances of being infuriated', so a quantifiable noun rather than the unquantifiable 'fury'.
This.  With a tribute-nod to the Pratchettism "embuggerance".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: tatanab on 20 November, 2020, 09:37:54 am
Also, in light of fboab's elaboration, have you noticed that everyone who does the actual work is a technician these days?  Apart from technicans, who are engineers.
Back in 1988, a company I worked for announced a new major product.  It was reported in the newspaper that this was the work of "computer technicians".  We could not possibly be called engineers because they worked in the design office (drawing office to us old folks) and had been on strike recently, as reported in the newspaper "engineers  strike at A Company".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 20 November, 2020, 09:51:36 am
I heard 'infuriations' on the radio the other day. As opposed to 'fury'.

I think I love that even more than correctivations. Surely the meaning is slightly different to fury though? I would take it to mean 'instances of being infuriated', so a quantifiable noun rather than the unquantifiable 'fury'.
This.  With a tribute-nod to the Pratchettism "embuggerance".

Embuggerance was around pre-Pterry. Eric Partridge, author of that classic work "Name Your Child Eric Partridge", dated it back to the 1950s.

https://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-emb1.htm

Meanwhile, Neal Stephenson seems to be under the impression that a sojourn is a journey.  It ain't, it's a short stay somewhere. See The System of the World, page something or other (there's a lot of them and ICBA looking).  I've seen this in other American books too.  Maybe Webster embuggered it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 20 November, 2020, 10:31:13 am
Meanwhile, Neal Stephenson seems to be under the impression that a sojourn is a journey.  It ain't, it's a short stay somewhere. See The System of the World, page something or other (there's a lot of them and ICBA looking).  I've seen this in other American books too.  Maybe Webster embuggered it.

I've come across that one as well. It's irritating. And what's the French for journey? Travail, of course.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 20 November, 2020, 11:04:17 am
You can't blame Noah Webster for that, a sojourn is a short stay somewhere in American English too.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Paul on 20 November, 2020, 12:05:46 pm
I feel like the chum-ladler in a shark hot-spot. A colleague received this from someone she has agreed to mentor:

"I believe I have been assigned as your mentee, of which, I am extremely beholden by."

Feed away.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hatler on 20 November, 2020, 12:09:14 pm
My grammar soul is cringing. That is a shocker.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 20 November, 2020, 12:17:41 pm
Aside from the general manglification of English in that sentence, I still have issues with "mentee" - as I believe we have previously discussed in this thread. I don't have a problem with back-formations in principle but that's just ugly, as well as being redundant.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 20 November, 2020, 12:18:53 pm
And it makes me think of manatee
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 November, 2020, 12:20:58 pm
Meanwhile, Neal Stephenson seems to be under the impression that a sojourn is a journey.  It ain't, it's a short stay somewhere. See The System of the World, page something or other (there's a lot of them and ICBA looking).  I've seen this in other American books too.  Maybe Webster embuggered it.

I've come across that one as well. It's irritating. And what's the French for journey? Travail, of course.
Though both journey and sojourn have the same root as the French journée, false friend that it is.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 November, 2020, 12:21:56 pm
And it makes me think of manatee
If you get an award for mentoring, it's a dugong.




I'll get my coat...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 20 November, 2020, 12:29:08 pm
You horble GIT Cudzo! You maek Unit snort brown drink down nose!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 November, 2020, 12:32:56 pm
You horble GIT Cudzo! You maek Unit snort brown drink down nose!
My day is complete.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 20 November, 2020, 12:42:12 pm
You horble GIT Cudzo! You maek Unit snort brown drink down nose!
My day is complete.

Do it again, Cudzo. ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 November, 2020, 12:45:23 pm
I feel like the chum-ladler in a shark hot-spot. A colleague received this from someone she has agreed to mentor:

"I believe I have been assigned as your mentee, of which, I am extremely beholden by."

Feed away.
That looks a bit like the overly formal English common in India. Excusable for a second language but if it's someone who's grown up speaking English, they should be enchummerated thrown to the sharks.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 20 November, 2020, 01:14:37 pm
You horble GIT Cudzo! You maek Unit snort brown drink down nose!
My day is complete.

Do it again, Cudzo. ;D

Sorry to disappoint, Unit finished rest of brown drink…
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 20 November, 2020, 01:18:21 pm
I feel like the chum-ladler in a shark hot-spot. A colleague received this from someone she has agreed to mentor:

"I believe I have been assigned as your mentee, of which, I am extremely beholden by."

Feed away.

* sits in corner rocking *
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 November, 2020, 07:51:09 pm
Quote
"A major causation of road accidents here is drivers from Zetland Road turning right into Redland Road failing to see drivers/cyclists from South Road."
From the council's highway engineers, as quoted in the local paper.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: De Sisti on 21 November, 2020, 05:22:10 pm
Not so much grammar, but a phrase that is trotted out whenever someone (famous) dies:
"Our thoughts and prayers go out to his/her family and friends".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: quixoticgeek on 24 November, 2020, 11:38:17 am
without = lacking
outwith = outside

is my understanding, and there is no interchangeability or venn diagram alignment?

As noted earlier, without in place names and trad carols means outside.

There is no semantic distinction, any more than there is between 'built in' and the modish 'inbuilt'.

Which is why Thannington Without in Canterbury is the Thannington outside the city walls, and differentiates it from the Thannington within that is inside the walls.

It also has the bonus of allowing people to graffiti witty things on the sign below it. "Thannington Without Money" is a popular amendment to the sign...

J
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: quixoticgeek on 24 November, 2020, 11:41:38 am

There's a TV series on UK TV at the moment called "Britain's Most Historic Towns"

And because I've watched too much West Wing, it always jars.

Something is either historic, or it is not, there is no graduation. Same for Unique. Something is either unique or it isn't. It can't be very unique.

Argh. Why do they persist in this appalling English?

J
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 24 November, 2020, 11:57:03 am
without = lacking
outwith = outside

is my understanding, and there is no interchangeability or venn diagram alignment?

As noted earlier, without in place names and trad carols means outside.

There is no semantic distinction, any more than there is between 'built in' and the modish 'inbuilt'.

Which is why Thannington Without in Canterbury is the Thannington outside the city walls, and differentiates it from the Thannington within that is inside the walls.

It also has the bonus of allowing people to graffiti witty things on the sign below it. "Thannington Without Money" is a popular amendment to the sign...

J

The only time I can recall being there it was lacking a pub.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 24 November, 2020, 12:06:06 pm
The only time I can recall being there it was lacking a pub.

Still is. What used to be the nearest pub, the Hop Pole on Wincheap, has for some years now been a shit café. Carry on towards the city centre a bit and the Kings Head is still going. Used to be decent but I've not been in there for a long, long time. It's very thin pickings for drinkers on that side of Canterbury.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 24 November, 2020, 01:27:52 pm

There's a TV series on UK TV at the moment called "Britain's Most Historic Towns"

And because I've watched too much West Wing, it always jars.

Something is either historic, or it is not, there is no graduation. Same for Unique. Something is either unique or it isn't. It can't be very unique.

Argh. Why do they persist in this appalling English?

J

As people speak, so speaks the telly; and as the telly speaks, so speak the people.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Poacher on 24 November, 2020, 01:58:10 pm

There's a TV series on UK TV at the moment called "Britain's Most Historic Towns"

And because I've watched too much West Wing, it always jars.

Something is either historic, or it is not, there is no graduation. Same for Unique. Something is either unique or it isn't. It can't be very unique.

Argh. Why do they persist in this appalling English?

J
I'd be more exercised about some of the "Towns" being cities.
If I could be arsed; I don't do exercise.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 24 November, 2020, 02:08:36 pm
Something is either historic, or it is not, there is no graduation.

The name of the programme is a bit clunky (which fits with the content, based on the episode I half watched), but I don't agree with this bit.

'Historic' means more than just 'happened in the past' - because after all, not every past event is deemed worthy of being recorded in the history books. There's an element of fame (or infamy) and importance implied.

Even without that distinction, is there not also a chronological element? An event that happened last week might be considered less historic than one that happened a thousand years ago. Given that the series is looking at towns where momentous events occurred in the past, I think it's much more acceptable in this case than the normal everyday lazy hack usage you see so often, where any vaguely important current event is described as 'historic'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 November, 2020, 02:29:25 pm
Something is either historic, or it is not, there is no graduation.

The name of the programme is a bit clunky (which fits with the content, based on the episode I half watched), but I don't agree with this bit.

'Historic' means more than just 'happened in the past' - because after all, not every past event is deemed worthy of being recorded in the history books. There's an element of fame (or infamy) and importance implied.

Even without that distinction, is there not also a chronological element? An event that happened last week might be considered less historic than one that happened a thousand years ago. Given that the series is looking at towns where momentous events occurred in the past, I think it's much more acceptable in this case than the normal everyday lazy hack usage you see so often, where any vaguely important current event is described as 'historic'.
But learning how to preserve grapes by drying them, several thousand years ago, was a historic currant event.


I'll get my coat...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Paul on 24 November, 2020, 02:34:24 pm
Something is either historic, or it is not, there is no graduation.

The name of the programme is a bit clunky (which fits with the content, based on the episode I half watched), but I don't agree with this bit.

'Historic' means more than just 'happened in the past' - because after all, not every past event is deemed worthy of being recorded in the history books. There's an element of fame (or infamy) and importance implied.

Even without that distinction, is there not also a chronological element? An event that happened last week might be considered less historic than one that happened a thousand years ago. Given that the series is looking at towns where momentous events occurred in the past, I think it's much more acceptable in this case than the normal everyday lazy hack usage you see so often, where any vaguely important current event is described as 'historic'.
But learning how to preserve grapes by drying them, several thousand years ago, was a historic currant event.


I'll get my coat...
That Cudzo - always raisin the bar.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 24 November, 2020, 02:39:37 pm
But learning how to preserve grapes by drying them, several thousand years ago, was a historic currant event.

I missed that one - they must have pruned down the history books to only include the most important dates.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 24 November, 2020, 02:40:58 pm
Something is either historic, or it is not, there is no graduation.

The name of the programme is a bit clunky (which fits with the content, based on the episode I half watched), but I don't agree with this bit.

'Historic' means more than just 'happened in the past' - because after all, not every past event is deemed worthy of being recorded in the history books. There's an element of fame (or infamy) and importance implied.

Even without that distinction, is there not also a chronological element? An event that happened last week might be considered less historic than one that happened a thousand years ago. Given that the series is looking at towns where momentous events occurred in the past, I think it's much more acceptable in this case than the normal everyday lazy hack usage you see so often, where any vaguely important current event is described as 'historic'.


I don't understand either, it's the most historic towns in Britain. There are lots of historic towns. The programme is about the top ones.

Americans have disavowed all -al endings so everything that has happened ever there is historic.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 24 November, 2020, 02:44:29 pm

There's a TV series on UK TV at the moment called "Britain's Most Historic Towns"

And because I've watched too much West Wing, it always jars.

Something is either historic, or it is not, there is no graduation. Same for Unique. Something is either unique or it isn't. It can't be very unique.

Argh. Why do they persist in this appalling English?

J
I'd be more exercised about some of the "Towns" being cities.
If I could be arsed; I don't do exercise.

In the UK, "city" means it has a royal charter and a cathedral. Anywhere else it means it's got a McDonald's and a Starbucks - which, frankly, are a hell of a lot more useful.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 November, 2020, 03:58:55 pm
But learning how to preserve grapes by drying them, several thousand years ago, was a historic currant event.

I missed that one - they must have pruned down the history books to only include the most important dates.
Mainstream historians don't give a fig about the development of agriculture. 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SteveC on 24 November, 2020, 04:02:19 pm
In the UK, "city" means it has a royal charter and a cathedral. Anywhere else it means it's got a McDonald's and a Starbucks - which, frankly, are a hell of a lot more useful.
<pedant>No. It just needs the charter. Southampton is a city, no cathedral. Guildford is a town, but has a cathedral. Cambridge is a city due to the university, not a cathedral. The rule of thumb is: city - cathedral or university, town - market, village - church, hamlet - anything else, but there are exceptions to all of these. But towns and cities, historically at least, need charters.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 24 November, 2020, 04:16:37 pm
In the UK, "city" means it has a royal charter and a cathedral. Anywhere else it means it's got a McDonald's and a Starbucks - which, frankly, are a hell of a lot more useful.
<pedant>No. It just needs the charter. Southampton is a city, no cathedral.
Portsmouth is a city and has two. That must do wonders for the Southampton/Portsmouth rivalry.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 24 November, 2020, 04:25:10 pm
Portsmouth is a city and has two.

Pertinently, Portsmouth was the subject of the episode I half-watched.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SteveC on 24 November, 2020, 04:47:57 pm
Catholic cathedrals don't count--has to be CofE
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 24 November, 2020, 04:57:26 pm
Catholic cathedrals don't count--has to be CofE

Interesting. That would never have occurred to me. But it got me wondering if there are any UK towns/cities that have an RC cathedral but not an Anglican one...

Google has so far turned up Aldershot.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Poacher on 24 November, 2020, 05:21:34 pm
Catholic cathedrals don't count--has to be CofE

Interesting. That would never have occurred to me. But it got me wondering if there are any UK towns/cities that have an RC cathedral but not an Anglican one...

Google has so far turned up Aldershot.
You can add Nottingham to the list.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 November, 2020, 05:29:34 pm
It's a royal charter, so it has to be the royal religion.

As for places with an RC cathedral but not a CE one, the RC cathedral in Bristol is technically designated as Clifton.  :-\
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 24 November, 2020, 05:38:41 pm
It's a royal charter, so it has to be the royal religion.

Yes, it was obvious as soon as SteveC mentioned it, but it's not something I'd ever given much thought before. Mainly because most places with an RC cathedral do also have an Anglican one, so it's a moot point as regards city status.

I know Clifton cathedral but never realised it was designated Clifton rather than Bristol. I expect many of the residents would like to be dissociated from the rest of Bristol, but it's a bit of a cheek!

And Nottingham - yes, I remember that one too, now Poacher mentions it, but it didn't come to mind before.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Davef on 24 November, 2020, 05:52:49 pm
According to my dictionary historic means “famous or important in history”. Nothing wrong with some towns being historicer, meaning famouser or importanter than others.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: philip on 24 November, 2020, 05:58:54 pm
But it got me wondering if there are any UK towns/cities that have an RC cathedral but not an Anglican one...

Google has so far turned up Aldershot.
You can add Nottingham to the list.
And Lancaster.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 November, 2020, 06:05:08 pm
I know Clifton cathedral but never realised it was designated Clifton rather than Bristol. I expect many of the residents would like to be dissociated from the rest of Bristol, but it's a bit of a cheek!
They probably would, but I doubt that was going through the mind of the Catholic hierarchy back in the 19th century! I've no idea why it's not just designated Bristol.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 24 November, 2020, 06:18:47 pm
I've no idea why it's not just designated Bristol.

Different diocese areas, I imagine.

London is in Canterbury as far as Anglicans are concerned, but Canterbury is in London (Southwark) for Catholics.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SteveC on 24 November, 2020, 06:33:56 pm
I've no idea why it's not just designated Bristol.
When Catholics were allowed to have a hierarchy in the UK again, mid-nineteenth century1, part of the agreement was that no RC diocese would have the same name as a CofE one. That is no longer the case (Portsmouth as quoted up thread being an example).
However, in order to really hack of the establishment, the mother church of English Roman Catholicism is Westminster Cathedral (as opposed to Westminster Abbey).

[1] - it had been perfectly legal to practice Catholicism for some time, but there was no diocesan structure.

(very) lapsed Catholic with far too much of an interest in historical trivia
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 November, 2020, 06:41:22 pm
I've no idea why it's not just designated Bristol.
When Catholics were allowed to have a hierarchy in the UK again, mid-nineteenth century1, part of the agreement was that no RC diocese would have the same name as a CofE one.
Ah! A reason that makes sense! Thanks.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: yorkie on 25 November, 2020, 02:10:28 pm
But it got me wondering if there are any UK towns/cities that have an RC cathedral but not an Anglican one...

Google has so far turned up Aldershot.
You can add Nottingham to the list.
And Lancaster.


...and Leeds. The RC Cathedral on Great George St. has been designated such for many years, but the CofE Leeds Parish Church on Kirkgate has only recently been renamed Leeds Minster.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Rod Marton on 25 November, 2020, 06:53:48 pm
But it got me wondering if there are any UK towns/cities that have an RC cathedral but not an Anglican one...

Google has so far turned up Aldershot.
You can add Nottingham to the list.
And Lancaster.


...and Leeds. The RC Cathedral on Great George St. has been designated such for many years, but the CofE Leeds Parish Church on Kirkgate has only recently been renamed Leeds Minster.
And Arundel.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 25 November, 2020, 07:05:03 pm
...and Leeds. The RC Cathedral on Great George St. has been designated such for many years, but the CofE Leeds Parish Church on Kirkgate has only recently been renamed Leeds Minster.

I had to do a street view to remind myself where the cathedral was - it's a few years since I lived there and now I hardly recognise the place. The road layout in the city centre seems to have changed pretty radically.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moleman76 on 26 November, 2020, 07:25:44 am

There's a TV series on UK TV at the moment called "Britain's Most Historic Towns"

At least the series is not called "Britain's Historicest Towns"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 26 November, 2020, 08:46:16 am

There's a TV series on UK TV at the moment called "Britain's Most Historic Towns"

At least the series is not called "Britain's Historickest Towns"

FTFY
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 27 November, 2020, 10:14:15 pm
Not really grammar but I really don't like it when technical terms are a mixture of Latin and Greek.

David gave a talk on the Society for Popular Astronomy's live lockdown show this evening  He was in a shed so we couldn't communicate directly. He points out the dark patch on Mars, known as the Mare Erythraeum and knows mare = sea (Latin) but is stuck on erythraeum (Greek, Latinised).

I posted in the 'Chat'...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Giraffe on 28 November, 2020, 08:43:45 am
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erythraean_Sea
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 28 November, 2020, 09:45:18 am
Not really grammar but I really don't like it when technical terms are a mixture of Latin and Greek.

I remember John Wyndham remarking on that in a 1960 novel, Trouble with Lichen.

I got annoyed yesterday with a YT chappie who explained terms such as hypokalaemia in detail then talked about "a bacteria".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: quixoticgeek on 28 November, 2020, 10:31:20 am
Not really grammar but I really don't like it when technical terms are a mixture of Latin and Greek.

David gave a talk on the Society for Popular Astronomy's live lockdown show this evening  He was in a shed so we couldn't communicate directly. He points out the dark patch on Mars, known as the Mare Erythraeum and knows mare = sea (Latin) but is stuck on erythraeum (Greek, Latinised).

I posted in the 'Chat'...

I'm reminded of the old classic

"Polyamory is wrong! you Shouldn't mix latin and greek like this..."

J
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 28 November, 2020, 10:47:01 am
According to my dictionary historic means “famous or important in history”. Nothing wrong with some towns being historicer, meaning famouser or importanter than others.
This is why I am troubled by the word used in front of "sex crimes".  :-\
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Paul on 28 November, 2020, 07:06:34 pm

There's a TV series on UK TV at the moment called "Britain's Most Historic Towns"

At least the series is not called "Britain's Historicest Towns"
Now “Britain’s Most Hysteric Towns”, I’d watch that.

(ETA: I do actually watch Britain’s Most Historic Towns, almost as much for the content as for the presenter)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 28 November, 2020, 10:35:40 pm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erythraean_Sea

Given that an erythrocyte is a red blood cell and we docs use the term a fair bit, I didn't need to look anything up...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 28 November, 2020, 10:49:26 pm
According to my dictionary historic means “famous or important in history”. Nothing wrong with some towns being historicer, meaning famouser or importanter than others.
This is why I am troubled by the word used in front of "sex crimes".  :-\

I gave a slightly more expansive definition:
'Historic' means more than just 'happened in the past' - because after all, not every past event is deemed worthy of being recorded in the history books. There's an element of fame (or infamy) and importance implied.

Besides, 'famous' and 'important' don't necessarily always have positive connotations.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 29 November, 2020, 11:41:29 am
'Unbeknownst'

How has this ugly, unwieldy archaicism endured? It conveys no meaning that is not contained within the perfectly functional everyday word 'unknown' in half as many syllables. I can't think of an instance I have ever encountered where 'unbeknownst' could not be replaced with 'unknown'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 November, 2020, 11:54:30 am
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erythraean_Sea

Given that an erythrocyte is a red blood cell and we docs use the term a fair bit, I didn't need to look anything up...
I like the idea of the name being Latinized-Greekified Tamil though!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 29 November, 2020, 05:13:05 pm
'Unbeknownst'

How has this ugly, unwieldy archaicism endured? It conveys no meaning that is not contained within the perfectly functional everyday word 'unknown' in half as many syllables. I can't think of an instance I have ever encountered where 'unbeknownst' could not be replaced with 'unknown'.

I quite like the word. If you look at it for a bit, what a collection of letters they are. Each of them swaggering like an expanded version of alphabetty Reservoir Dogs.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 November, 2020, 05:26:43 pm
Good point there. You've got a rare 4-letter consonant cluster backed up by two 3-ers.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: offcumden on 29 November, 2020, 05:35:21 pm
Not sure that this belongs here, but it does seem eminently cringeworthy, so just to get it off my chest...

Recently I saw an email where one francophone was seeking to assure a colleague, also a francophone, of his readiness to tackle a job - "Je suis dans les starting-blocks ...".  Surely, to French ears, that must sound, well, foreign? I doubt the Académie Française would approve.

I suppose we might say (not quite synonymously) 'on the qui vive' . . .
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 November, 2020, 05:39:11 pm
Possibly sounds less foreign to them.
Quote
Locution verbale dérivée de l'anglais. Employés en athlétisme, les startings blocks désignent un appareil où les pieds des sprinteurs sont disposés, de façon à pouvoir réagir immédiatement après le top départ. Par extension, cette expression signifie qu'une personne se tient à l'affût pour réagir le plus vite possible après un signal.
http://www.linternaute.fr/expression/langue-francaise/14434/etre-dans-les-starting-blocks/
Many examples here: https://www.linguee.com/french-english/translation/dans+les+starting+blocks.html
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: offcumden on 29 November, 2020, 07:47:42 pm
Thanks, Cudzo.  It does look as if its use is quite common in French, although I'd never seen it written down before. Shouldn't surprise me really, although you'd think maybe there'd be scope to create a word using the resources of their own language? 

On the other hand:  peloton, domestique, savoir faire (and many others) are quite handy in English, and I've made good use of schadenfreude recently when looking across the pond . . .  ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 30 November, 2020, 11:02:51 pm
'Unbeknownst'

How has this ugly, unwieldy archaicism endured? It conveys no meaning that is not contained within the perfectly functional everyday word 'unknown' in half as many syllables. I can't think of an instance I have ever encountered where 'unbeknownst' could not be replaced with 'unknown'.

There are unbeknownst instances to you - how would you know  ???
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Zipperhead on 02 December, 2020, 01:56:55 pm
And better make sure you have a good dump - if it's captured then the probing will be less messy.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rafletcher on 02 December, 2020, 03:32:43 pm
Heard from an American colleague this morning, the verb  "taxonomize", not related to anything biological. Classify would have worked.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 02 December, 2020, 03:45:13 pm
That's what taxonomologists do.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hatler on 02 December, 2020, 04:02:48 pm
And surely the results of their work will be taxonomologisations.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 02 December, 2020, 09:54:11 pm
"Taxonomy" carries an implication of the structure being composed of meaningful words. Classification systems can be )alpha-numerical or otherwise devoid of inherent meanings. I started working on taxonomies and classification systems as a young information scientist, but find them still important now in Web sites.

However, I'm not convinced that "taxonomise" is itself a meaningful word. I'm not sure how you could convert something into a taxonomy if it were not one in the first place. Unless of course the speaker were confusing the items that were being classified with the taxonomy structure itself, and suggesting that the former were being "taxonomised". But that's rather the same point as about "hospitalisation" which, logically, does not mean "being taken to hospital", but "being converted into a hospital."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 02 December, 2020, 10:01:53 pm
Sometimes, I like to sit back and ontologificate things.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 03 December, 2020, 10:13:52 am
"Taxonomy" carries an implication of the structure being composed of meaningful words. Classification systems can be )alpha-numerical or otherwise devoid of inherent meanings. I started working on taxonomies and classification systems as a young information scientist, but find them still important now in Web sites.

However, I'm not convinced that "taxonomise" is itself a meaningful word. I'm not sure how you could convert something into a taxonomy if it were not one in the first place. Unless of course the speaker were confusing the items that were being classified with the taxonomy structure itself, and suggesting that the former were being "taxonomised". But that's rather the same point as about "hospitalisation" which, logically, does not mean "being taken to hospital", but "being converted into a hospital."

In a wee while hospitalize will also mean go to hospital, as the passive is gradually ironed out of the language. "Where's Fred?" "Oh, he hospitalized with the Rona".  A bit after that he'll be crematorializing.  Of course, he might avoid all that by vaccinating.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 December, 2020, 10:19:05 am
"Taxonomy" carries an implication of the structure being composed of meaningful words. Classification systems can be )alpha-numerical or otherwise devoid of inherent meanings. I started working on taxonomies and classification systems as a young information scientist, but find them still important now in Web sites.

However, I'm not convinced that "taxonomise" is itself a meaningful word. I'm not sure how you could convert something into a taxonomy if it were not one in the first place. Unless of course the speaker were confusing the items that were being classified with the taxonomy structure itself, and suggesting that the former were being "taxonomised". But that's rather the same point as about "hospitalisation" which, logically, does not mean "being taken to hospital", but "being converted into a hospital."

In a wee while hospitalize will also mean go to hospital, as the passive is gradually ironed out of the language. "Where's Fred?" "Oh, he hospitalized with the Rona".  A bit after that he'll be crematorializing.  Of course, he might avoid all that by vaccinating vaccinationalizing.

FTFY :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 03 December, 2020, 10:34:40 am
he might avoid all that by vaccinating vaccinationalizing.

FTFY :demon:

IRTA vacci-nationalizing rather than vaccination-alizing and thought that at least there's a place for the NHS ...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 December, 2020, 10:41:58 am
he might avoid all that by vaccinating vaccinationalizing.

FTFY :demon:

IRTA vacci-nationalizing rather than vaccination-alizing and thought that at least there's a place for the NHS ...
Vacci-nationalizing: appointing a state cow.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 03 December, 2020, 10:42:08 am
"Taxonomy" carries an implication of the structure being composed of meaningful words. Classification systems can be )alpha-numerical or otherwise devoid of inherent meanings. I started working on taxonomies and classification systems as a young information scientist, but find them still important now in Web sites.

However, I'm not convinced that "taxonomise" is itself a meaningful word. I'm not sure how you could convert something into a taxonomy if it were not one in the first place. Unless of course the speaker were confusing the items that were being classified with the taxonomy structure itself, and suggesting that the former were being "taxonomised". But that's rather the same point as about "hospitalisation" which, logically, does not mean "being taken to hospital", but "being converted into a hospital."

In a wee while hospitalize will also mean go to hospital, as the passive is gradually ironed out of the language. "Where's Fred?" "Oh, he hospitalized with the Rona".  A bit after that he'll be crematorializing.  Of course, he might avoid all that by vaccinating vaccinationalizing vaccinationalizating.

FTFY :demon:

FTFY :demon: :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 03 December, 2020, 11:27:56 am
I think I'm an anti-vaccinationalizatingor. Grammatically speaking.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 03 December, 2020, 07:11:55 pm
In a wee while hospitalize will also mean go to hospital, as the passive is gradually ironed out of the language.
It's not about the active and passive voice; it's about the subject and object of verbs, in particular nouns constructed from verbs. If I normalise, then I am taking something else and making it fit the norm. The something is normalised, because it's the object of the verb. I can use a passive construction, but the roles of actor and target of the action are not changed. The same is true with standardising, and so on.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 December, 2020, 01:24:44 pm
Quote
Mount Everest was thought to be 8,848,86 metres before the new measurement.
Mixed Anglo-Euro punctuation in a caption from the Gurniad.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 08 December, 2020, 01:31:10 pm
Quote
Mount Everest was thought to be 8,848,86 metres before the new measurement.
Mixed Anglo-Euro punctuation in a caption from the Gurniad.

That bunch. They were busy wrecking havoc this morning, can't remember where.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 09 December, 2020, 01:23:23 pm
Quote
According to the report, the fire started on October 20 and burned uncontrolled for three days, effectively destroying the entire factory, which products various audio chip components used by ‘most Japanese camera makers.’
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 09 December, 2020, 03:32:42 pm
They were busy wrecking havoc this morning ...

Not just havoc but wrecking the havoc must be really wreaking havoc! I hope they were not all sweaty and reeking after their wrecking.

Google Ngrams is interesting on the wrought/wreaked/wrecked (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=wrought+havoc%2Cwreaked+havoc%2Cwrecked+havoc&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=29&smoothing=3#) theme.

If you filter successively by British English then American you can see where US media imports began to dominate British English.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 09 December, 2020, 06:16:42 pm
Always been a “wrought”.  “Wreaked” sets my teeth on edge.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: meddyg on 11 December, 2020, 08:57:32 pm
Radio advert urging (unimaginative) listeners to

"Gift your relatives scratch cards !" *

'Gift' isn't the imperative form of the verb , now is it ?


I think I saw a Christmas shelf piles with chocolate labelled 'Gifting'
Fraid so.

* once you've checked they are over 18,
aware of the addiciton risk and 'to stop when the fun stops.'
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 11 December, 2020, 09:06:57 pm
Gifting has already been done, and you're as wrong as everyone else in this thread, so you don't get a prize. Next!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Paul on 11 December, 2020, 11:24:16 pm
Gifting has already been done, and you're as wrong as everyone else in this thread, so you don't get a prize.
Much less a gift.

Perhaps someone can prize meddyg something, hmm?

Just because it's been done, doesn't make it fewer horrible.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 12 December, 2020, 09:20:39 am
Always been a “wrought”.  “Wreaked” sets my teeth on edge.

Ditto. I do like the thought of wreaking some iron, though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: pcolbeck on 12 December, 2020, 06:38:33 pm
DHL Track Your Parcel web site says mine is "at sortation facility"

Is sortation even a word ?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Paul on 12 December, 2020, 06:43:10 pm
No, it's when 'or' crashes into 'station'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 12 December, 2020, 06:56:32 pm
DHL Track Your Parcel webs site say mine is "at sortation facility"

Is sortation even a word ?

Sorting automation, innit.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 December, 2020, 10:28:40 pm
No, it's when 'or' crashes into 'station'.
Guffaw!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 December, 2020, 10:30:17 pm
Quote
Tailfin increases versatility with modularly designed Cargo Cage
Tailfin, quite appropriate. Or rather, a headline in road.cc about Tailfin. You can't say it's actually grammatically wrong but it certainly is clumsy. Wouldn't "...modular Cargo Cage design" sound better?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rafletcher on 24 December, 2020, 09:48:29 am
Bonus two-in-one from the BBC website today..

"Brexiteer Tories poised to pour over trade deal"

Closely followed by..

"When the detail of the deal comes out - hopefully later today - there will be many across the UK and EU pawing over the content."

 ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 24 December, 2020, 02:17:52 pm
Insane meaning rather remarkable.  :sick:

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 December, 2020, 05:27:19 pm
"We share information on a need-to-know basis." Okay.
"You need-to-know that I am a committed staff member." Ouch! No!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 09 January, 2021, 11:11:04 pm
"We share information on a need-to-know basis." Okay.
"You need-to-know that I am a committed staff member." Ouch! No!

I like the idea of need-to-know as a compound verb. Sounds quite French.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 11 January, 2021, 05:18:51 pm
Headline on the Guardian today:
"Police arrest man who carried Pelosi lectern and horned Capitol intruder"

A classic example of what the scholars at Language Log call a crash blossom (https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?cat=118). (Is 'horned' a verb or an adjective here?)

Although it's not nearly as amusing as this one:
https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=44683
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jasmine on 11 January, 2021, 05:29:48 pm
Bleugh. In addition to the interpretation you have suggested, using 'horned' as a verb, I initially read that sentence as the arrested man had been carrying both the lectern and the man with the horns.

My contribution today isn't really grammar; it's just using the wrong word, but I thought it might be appreciated here. An advert for a virtual running event invites participants to 'select 8 concurrent days' and run a particular distance on each of them. I think that's a much harder challenge than they intended.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 11 January, 2021, 05:36:27 pm
It looked the same to me as it did to Jasmine, although of course it's obvious he wasn't carrying the "horned intruder" (who looks to me as if he's part of a rather tacky Village People tribute band).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 11 January, 2021, 05:37:34 pm
I initially read that sentence as the arrested man had been carrying both the lectern and the man with the horns.

Yes, that too! It's a gift of a headline.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 January, 2021, 10:17:24 am
The meaning of the word "traffic" has switched through 180 degrees from "things moving" to "things not moving".
Quote
Councillors hope that traffic caused by the level crossing in Ash will be eased in future after approving a plan to build a road bridge over the railway.
https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/news/surrey-news/level-crossing-ash-station-replaced-19601746
This probably belongs in the "Not news" thread.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 12 January, 2021, 09:09:08 pm
Just flicking through the channels and I noticed a programme called 'Giant Lobster Hunters'. It's not what I hoped it might be.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 January, 2021, 08:06:35 pm
"A lot of work was around defining that scope boundary as to what it is, and that was a clear area where there was no clarity... "
 ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 15 January, 2021, 09:01:15 pm
"A lot of work was around defining that scope boundary as to what it is, and that was a clear area where there was no clarity... "
 ;D

Y*A Ronald Dumsfeld AICMFP.

* the author, not Cudzo
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 15 January, 2021, 09:56:26 pm
The word "must" is getting redefined. There's been a lot of reporting recently in the BBC (not their fault, they are just reporting) of various politicians saying that other politicians "must" do things. What they mean by "must" is "We'd really like them to do this, but we know there is not a chance." This is a new usage of "must" that I have not previously encountered.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 17 January, 2021, 03:34:52 pm
I imagine we've already had this but I don't get out much.

Was in the NatWest the other day for a standard forty minute wait.  Looking around, I noticed the 6 foot distance stickers on the floor and the huge printed placards by the cash machines exhorting customers to "practice social distancing".  I pointed out jocularly to a clerk that practice is practise when it's a verb.  None of the clerks seemed sure, so one went to see the manager who confirmed and said that I was the first person to notice (but no cigar - or overdraft).  So, I'm guessing that one of our major banks has furnished every single branch in Britain with these notices.  Is NatWest now actually American and we haven't been told?

Please, nobody come back and say this is now cool and an accepted alternative because YOU ARE WRONG AND ALWAYS WILL BE!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 17 January, 2021, 03:38:24 pm
Nope, you’re right, it’s completely WRONG AND ALWAYS WILL BE
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 17 January, 2021, 03:45:16 pm
Bestimmt!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 17 January, 2021, 09:49:26 pm
I can never remember which one is which, which is annoying because it's completely WRONG AND ALWAYS WILL BE.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 17 January, 2021, 09:52:05 pm
I imagine we've already had this but I don't get out much.
Was in the NatWest the other day for a standard forty minute wait.  Looking around, I noticed the 6 foot distance stickers on the floor and the huge printed placards by the cash machines exhorting customers to "practice social distancing".  I pointed out jocularly to a clerk that practice is practise when it's a verb.  None of the clerks seemed sure, so one went to see the manager who confirmed and said that I was the first person to notice (but no cigar - or overdraft).  So, I'm guessing that one of our major banks has furnished every single branch in Britain with these notices.  Is NatWest now actually American and we haven't been told?
Please, nobody come back and say this is now cool and an accepted alternative because YOU ARE WRONG AND ALWAYS WILL BE!

I try to think my way out of getting license/licence and practice/practise usage right by substituting advice/advise and asking myself which is right.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hatler on 17 January, 2021, 09:57:35 pm
'c' comes before 's' in the alphabet.
'Noun' (practice) comes before verb (practise) in the alphabet.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 17 January, 2021, 10:17:54 pm
I've remembered since primary 7 that practICE is the noun, just like ICE is a noun.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 17 January, 2021, 10:22:40 pm
It's one of a number of word pairs that I never got wrong until my English teacher told us never to mix them up. Now I have to think hard. Like stationery and stationary.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 18 January, 2021, 09:32:15 am
Or just move to the US where it's, erm, always (noun and verb) practice but also always license.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 18 January, 2021, 10:18:26 am
I've remembered since primary 7 that practICE is the noun, just like ICE is a noun.

You can ice a cake, J.  Unless someone else has already done it.

Ian, the United Ctatec is even crazier than I thought!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 18 January, 2021, 04:47:50 pm
Or just move to the US where it's, erm, always (noun and verb) practice but also always license.
I was going to say, 'And yet they all seem to understand each other despite these solecisms', but probably now is not the best of times to make that point.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 18 January, 2021, 05:22:22 pm
I'll admit I always use "practice" for both noun and verb but I'm going to stop from now on.

But I always use "advice/advise" and "licence/license" "correctly".

I have noticed here that it's mostly "license" in the thread about the TV licence. It could be because of auto-complete though.

Apparently US English has "advice/advise", and if US English spelling really is more logical and consistent, then they should use "practise" not "practice".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 18 January, 2021, 05:52:54 pm
This reminds me of the time I taught m'colleague a simple trick to help her remember when to use while and when to use whilst...

(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 18 January, 2021, 05:55:06 pm
Having lived in The People's Republic of South Yorkshire, I reckon it's a pretty good idea to never use 'while', either.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moleman76 on 19 January, 2021, 08:47:14 am
and if US English spelling really is more logical and consistent,
:D :D :D :D :D :D
sez an USanian ....
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 19 January, 2021, 11:08:54 am
My bugbear is doubled consonants, not just since Noah Webster buggered them up but also because French doesn't double them in some words such as mariage. Ditto words ending in -ible which are identical but for taking an -able in French. Make me 'ead feel even more geriatric than it already is.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 January, 2021, 11:36:39 am
If we're doing Americanisms v Britishisms, I'll declare my preference for -ize over -ise. It just looks better to me. Probably because I grew up reading Puffins and Penguins and other followers of OED-type spelling. So when people say they want "British spellings" I know they mean -ise instead of -ize and I give them that – even though they're wrong!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 19 January, 2021, 11:51:36 am
The sise of the problem can be surprizing!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 19 January, 2021, 03:45:36 pm
If we're doing Americanisms v Britishisms, I'll declare my preference for -ize over -ise. It just looks better to me. Probably because I grew up reading Puffins and Penguins and other followers of OED-type spelling. So when people say they want "British spellings" I know they mean -ise instead of -ize and I give them that – even though they're wrong!

AIUI both spellings are British.  English was all -ize until Dr. Sam'l Halitosis Johnson decided that such endings were of French origin, and since in French only -ise is used we should use it in English too. So unless you're a Johnsonite, -ize is correct except in words whose roots  contain ise or an ancestral form thereof, e.g. excise from Latin excidere, excisum to cut out.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: offcumden on 19 January, 2021, 04:06:09 pm
I've had a few Specialized tyres, but never a Specialized bike. But each of my bikes is designed for a specific purpose, and so could fairly be described as specialised.

Boom, boom!

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 19 January, 2021, 04:28:43 pm
There goes a Johnson supporter ^^^. ;)  :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 19 January, 2021, 04:41:57 pm
If we're doing Americanisms v Britishisms, I'll declare my preference for -ize over -ise. It just looks better to me. Probably because I grew up reading Puffins and Penguins and other followers of OED-type spelling. So when people say they want "British spellings" I know they mean -ise instead of -ize and I give them that – even though they're wrong!

AIUI both spellings are British.  English was all -ize until Dr. Sam'l Halitosis Johnson decided that such endings were of French origin, and since in French only -ise is used we should use it in English too. So unless you're a Johnsonite, -ize is correct except in words whose roots  contain ise or an ancestral form thereof, e.g. excise from Latin excidere, excisum to cut out.
British in origin, yes, but nowadays when people say "British English" they tend to mean -ise instead of -ize as well as -our instead of -or. Occasionally they're bothered about date formats (19th January or January 19th) but only very rarely about phrases or words which are distinct to one or other variety.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 19 January, 2021, 06:12:14 pm
I'm a defiant -izer but good god, I hate analyze It sounds like shooting a frikkin' laser up someone's enteric fundament.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moleman76 on 20 January, 2021, 12:59:43 am
My bugbear is ... Noah Webster

I read that Noah W. is one one who took the "u" out of colour and behaviour when he published his first dictionary.  Or was that a diction - ery ?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 20 January, 2021, 09:43:07 am
He actually proposed many more exciting changes to spelling to which everyone else said 'I don't think so, Noah.'
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 20 January, 2021, 02:00:31 pm
He actually proposed many more exciting changes to spelling to which everyone else said 'I don't think so, Noah.'

Maybe that's why the consonants didn't go in two by two.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 20 January, 2021, 02:07:50 pm
Noah Webster was a count... no, that doesn't really work, does it?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 20 January, 2021, 02:20:43 pm
It's a shame, I would have liked a soop-making masheen.

It's true, I've been to Noah Webster's house. He wasn't home though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 20 January, 2021, 04:24:41 pm
Having lived in The People's Republic of South Yorkshire, I reckon it's a pretty good idea to never use 'while', either.

West Yorkshire's habit of using 'while' to mean 'until' is confusing...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 20 January, 2021, 04:41:38 pm
West Yorkshire's habit of using 'while' to mean 'until' is confusing...

They're the same word in quite a few languages.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 20 January, 2021, 05:41:06 pm
Having lived in The People's Republic of South Yorkshire, I reckon it's a pretty good idea to never use 'while', either.

West Yorkshire's habit of using 'while' to mean 'until' is confusing...

See also the urban legend about Yorkshire folk getting run down on level crossings: “Wait while lights are flashing”.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 20 January, 2021, 06:54:07 pm
Having lived in The People's Republic of South Yorkshire, I reckon it's a pretty good idea to never use 'while', either.

West Yorkshire's habit of using 'while' to mean 'until' is confusing...

See also the urban legend about Yorkshire folk getting run down on level crossings: “Wait while lights are flashing”.

Or what actually happened when my Sheffield driving instructor told me to "Stop in this lane."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: yorkie on 20 January, 2021, 07:25:42 pm
Having lived in The People's Republic of South Yorkshire, I reckon it's a pretty good idea to never use 'while', either.

West Yorkshire's habit of using 'while' to mean 'until' is confusing...


I resemble that remark!!  :-D :-D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: yorkie on 20 January, 2021, 07:30:37 pm
Having lived in The People's Republic of South Yorkshire, I reckon it's a pretty good idea to never use 'while', either.

West Yorkshire's habit of using 'while' to mean 'until' is confusing...

See also the urban legend about Yorkshire folk getting run down on level crossings: “Wait while lights are flashing”.


The version I was told as a kid in South Leeds was when the first Pelican Crossing was installed in the old West Riding and the (London based) authorities put big signs up saying:


"Do not cross while Red Man shows!"  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rafletcher on 20 January, 2021, 08:11:12 pm
Having lived in The People's Republic of South Yorkshire, I reckon it's a pretty good idea to never use 'while', either.

West Yorkshire's habit of using 'while' to mean 'until' is confusing...

Or the Irish habit of using “bring” for “take”.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 21 January, 2021, 01:01:07 am
Having lived in The People's Republic of South Yorkshire, I reckon it's a pretty good idea to never use 'while', either.
West Yorkshire's habit of using 'while' to mean 'until' is confusing...
I resemble that remark!!  :-D :-D

I worked in Leeds for long enough to be safe...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 21 January, 2021, 01:08:11 am
Having lived in The People's Republic of South Yorkshire, I reckon it's a pretty good idea to never use 'while', either.

West Yorkshire's habit of using 'while' to mean 'until' is confusing...

Or the Irish habit of using “bring” for “take”.

'I doubt that' in Shetland means the opposite...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 January, 2021, 09:12:55 am
Like in French "je m'en doute" meaning "I expect so".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 21 January, 2021, 10:30:28 am
Graun headline the other day mentioned "two National Guard troops" being chucked out of the Inauguration patrol.  Thought bloody hell, that's a lot, but it turned out they just meant troopers. Twats.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 January, 2021, 11:14:13 am
Graun headline the other day mentioned "two National Guard troops" being chucked out of the Inauguration patrol.  Thought bloody hell, that's a lot, but it turned out they just meant troopers. Twats.
Yebbut it's the Graun. You're lucky they didn't call them troops. :)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 21 January, 2021, 02:55:26 pm
Quote
The pig had lied down in its sty but got stuck in the mud could not get herself up," crew manager Lewis Black said.

From https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-55750456 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-55750456)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 21 January, 2021, 02:57:33 pm
Graun headline the other day mentioned "two National Guard troops" being chucked out of the Inauguration patrol.  Thought bloody hell, that's a lot, but it turned out they just meant troopers. Twats.

You should stop reading the Guardian. It's obviously bad for your blood pressure.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 21 January, 2021, 06:01:55 pm
West Yorkshire's habit of using 'while' to mean 'until' is confusing...
Funnily enough, two colleagues from Yorkshire (I was also born in Leeds) just did that in a meeting of my London-based employer:
"How long is it since you've been in Yorkshire?"
(meaning, "For how long have you been basing yourself there for home working?" as opposed to the usual meaning). But none of the southerners present seemed to notice. I might not have done either, but for this thread.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 25 January, 2021, 07:10:11 pm
Quote
Movistar Team, one of the most successful and storied teams on the UCI World Tour, need no introduction

What the fuck is storied?
I'm not sure if this is grammar, me not knowing some pro cycling term, or some marketing person just writing shite.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: tatanab on 25 January, 2021, 07:23:21 pm
What the fuck is storied?
I'm not sure if this is grammar, me not knowing some pro cycling term, or some marketing person just writing shite.
It is good old English.  Admittedly not often used in these days of txt spk.  Means a long or interesting history.  In this case, your marketing person comment is probably near the truth.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 25 January, 2021, 07:51:10 pm
That's perfectly correct usage, assuming the Movistar team has ended a long and celebrated history as a team on the UCI World Tour.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 25 January, 2021, 08:21:49 pm
Most of the recent stories have centred on the bizarre and inexplicable behaviour of Movistar's Strategic Turing Machine, which makes HAL look normal.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 25 January, 2021, 08:30:49 pm
That's perfectly correct usage, assuming the Movistar team has ended a long and celebrated history as a team on the UCI World Tour.

It is correct usage, in a deliberately obscure Anthony Burgess-type of way, but I expect it's a typo and they meant to write "stoned".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 25 January, 2021, 09:53:03 pm
If they do it many times, will they be multi-storied?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 26 January, 2021, 08:38:44 am
That's perfectly correct usage, assuming the Movistar team has ended a long and celebrated history as a team on the UCI World Tour.

It is correct usage, in a deliberately obscure Anthony Burgess-type of way, but I expect it's a typo and they meant to write "stoned".

RI always did have that effect on me.  And a while back it happened to a couple of diagonalistes riding through Montpellier.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 26 January, 2021, 09:45:06 am
Come on, we should use betterer words.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 26 January, 2021, 09:56:58 am
Come on, we should use betterer words.

The words I use are always the betterest.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 February, 2021, 12:44:01 pm
Quote
The paramount objective, was to stop them doing that, to cause them to pause and think.
There's a bit of a trend to put commas between subjects and verbs whenever the subject is more than one word. It, annoys me a lot. I, am grumbling about this.

(From an interview with Wrong Hammond linked to by Mrs Pingu: https://ukandeu.ac.uk/interview-pdf/?personid=42190)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Davef on 04 February, 2021, 06:56:23 pm
Quote
The paramount objective, was to stop them doing that, to cause them to pause and think.
There's a bit of a trend to put commas between subjects and verbs whenever the subject is more than one word. It, annoys me a lot. I, am grumbling about this.

(From an interview with Wrong Hammond linked to by Mrs Pingu: https://ukandeu.ac.uk/interview-pdf/?personid=42190)
A comma can be used to indicate a pause, possibly for dramatic effect. I, am happy with that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 04 February, 2021, 07:07:27 pm
The paramount objective was to stop them doing that. To cause them to, pause, and think.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 04 February, 2021, 07:16:31 pm
Peddling for pedalling - as in latest CTC magazine.  If it's a pun it's certainly not clear from the article; readers are just going to think they can't spell.  Pace if I've missed something - it happens!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 04 February, 2021, 09:42:20 pm
Peddling for pedalling - as in latest CTC magazine.  If it's a pun it's certainly not clear from the article; readers are just going to think they can't spell.  Pace if I've missed something - it happens!

I have whinged about this in both this, and its sister thread...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 05 February, 2021, 12:44:58 am
Helly, it turns out it was indeed intended as a pun........ Maybe I could be forgiven for being too quick off the mark!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 05 February, 2021, 01:25:25 am
I think the last Arrivée had this, where it might not have been a pun...

Thing is, it's worn so thin on me that I don't find it funny...

Looking at my posting history here, it seems to have been a BMJ obituary two weeks ago, not Arrivée.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 27 February, 2021, 08:51:46 am
Quote
It's picked up since then, but now the week-on-week increase is only incremental."

From this BBC articke. To be fair to the reporter, it appears to be a quote from someone else.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/56201463
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 27 February, 2021, 12:56:47 pm
And to be fair to Jaded, “articke” is an off-by-one error :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 27 February, 2021, 04:08:20 pm
I hate auto-cirrect and I also hate having it tuned off, but not arse much.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 27 February, 2021, 04:19:21 pm
The problem is mobile phones with their tiny keyboards and tiny cursors.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 02 March, 2021, 09:02:03 am
Graun headline this morning: "Khashoggi was killed in cold-blood". Ignorant-hyphen-idiots are putting gratuitous-hyphen-hyphens in everywhere these-hyphen-days.  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: offcumden on 02 March, 2021, 12:26:01 pm
Graun headline this morning: "Khashoggi was killed in cold-blood". Ignorant-hyphen-idiots are putting gratuitous-hyphen-hyphens in everywhere these-hyphen-days.  :facepalm:

Pig-ignorant.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 02 March, 2021, 05:14:40 pm
Graun headline this morning: "Khashoggi was killed in cold-blood". Ignorant-hyphen-idiots are putting gratuitous-hyphen-hyphens in everywhere these-hyphen-days.  :facepalm:

Pig-ignorant.

Not gratuitous.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 03 March, 2021, 12:03:58 am
Graun headline this morning: "Khashoggi was killed in cold-blood". Ignorant-hyphen-idiots are putting gratuitous-hyphen-hyphens in everywhere these-hyphen-days.  :facepalm:

Pig-ignorant.

If that's from the Graun, they were probably trying to write "pig-iron gnat".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 03 March, 2021, 08:10:36 am
Graun headline this morning: "Khashoggi was killed in cold-blood". Ignorant-hyphen-idiots are putting gratuitous-hyphen-hyphens in everywhere these-hyphen-days.  :facepalm:

Pig-ignorant.

If that's from the Graun, they were probably trying to write "pig-iron gnat".

Which might describe the stuff of some of their opinion columns.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 03 March, 2021, 08:21:33 am
T42, you clearly have a real problem with the Guardian. Maybe it would be better for your blood pressure if you stopped buying it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 03 March, 2021, 09:37:55 am
I have a problem with language-mangling and they're all tarred with the same brush. My blood pressure is fine.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 03 March, 2021, 10:07:42 am
From a Scottish Fight report on The BBC:

"Ms Sturgeon is facing calls to quit from Scottish Conservatives after new documents released on Tuesday evening raised further questions about her involvement in the saga."

I thought she was leader of the SNP?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Davef on 03 March, 2021, 10:09:13 am
Normally “cold-blooded” is hyphenated but not “in cold blood” which is odd. French hyphenate “sang-froid”.

“He was drowned in cold blood” could be ambiguous.
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Davef on 03 March, 2021, 10:13:03 am
I thought she was leader of the SNP?
is......
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 03 March, 2021, 10:40:51 am
Normally “cold-blooded” is hyphenated but not “in cold blood” which is odd.

Fwiw, the first is an adjective, the second an adverb. I think a hyphen would look odd in the latter.

Quote
“He was drowned in cold blood” could be ambiguous.

True.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 March, 2021, 11:52:05 am
Some people habitually hyphenate phrases like "day to day" regardless of whether it's an adjective or adverb. "A day-to-day increase in Covid cases" and "Covid cases are increasing day-to-day". I'll accept the first though I'd prefer it without, but the second is just wrong.

Today I'm wondering whether to hyphenate "time stamping". It looks wrong as one word: "timestamp" is okay but "timestamping" looks a bit clumsy. I could leave as separate words but I don't think I've used it as a noun yet, it's all "time-stamping technology" and "time-stamping service".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hatler on 03 March, 2021, 11:58:57 am
Normally “cold-blooded” is hyphenated but not “in cold blood” which is odd.

Fwiw, the first is an adjective, the second an adverb. I think a hyphen would look odd in the latter.

Quote
“He was drowned in cold blood” could be ambiguous.

True.

He was drowned cold bloodedly ?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 03 March, 2021, 12:50:36 pm
He was drowned cold bloodedly ?

Not exactly idiomatic, is it? Also v.clunky.

Cold-blooded tends to be used literally*, eg when talking about reptiles, whereas "in cold blood" is figurative and a set phrase.


*ETA: except in "cold-blooded murder", of course, which I think also counts as a set phrase
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hatler on 03 March, 2021, 01:08:25 pm
I should have stuck a smiley in there perhaps to indicate its clunkworthinessability.  :-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 03 March, 2021, 01:39:28 pm
The point is to make it easier to read, and to show how the words relate to each other in a string of words. Even where the same words are used in different contexts, it's that aim that determines what should happen. Therefore, the same words may or may not be hyphenated according to context.

So, roughly (like many rules of grammar, these are somewhat more like guidelines, so there will be exceptions):

Thus "in cold blood" has no hyphen (rule 1, only two words in the actual concept), but "cold-blooded murder" (three words, cold-blooded describes the murder but cold modifies blooded, rather than murder).

And "high-power networks" means networks carrying high power (high modifies power), whereas "high power networks" means power networks located at altitude (both high and power modify networks). Which ambiguity is the point of the rule, and the reason why it's important to get it right. Again though, there will be borderline cases where you could make a case for doing it either way. Language is like that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 03 March, 2021, 01:47:49 pm
Language is like that.

Just as well or I would be out of a job.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hatler on 03 March, 2021, 01:52:53 pm
All hail lexical and grammatical ambiguity !!   Anything that keeps a yacfer in a job has to be welcome.  :-D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 March, 2021, 03:27:24 pm
And "high-power networks" means networks carrying high power (high modifies power),
Or networks of high power (as in corridors – a word whose spelling always looks curious to me*) not that it makes much difference.

*Because I feel it should have something to do with doors, though of course that's only a later application.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 March, 2021, 01:47:25 pm
Today's example of hyphenophilia: "Did you talk to her over the phone or in-person?"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 24 March, 2021, 12:36:49 pm
OK, I know, you can verb any noun. Here's two I read/heard recently: provision, maintainence.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 March, 2021, 12:40:15 pm
"To provision" has been around for ages, meaning "to supply with provisions". You provision a ship before it sets sail, for example.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: graculus on 24 March, 2021, 02:01:30 pm
You provision a ship before it sets sail, for example.
And add a bit extra for just in case it gets stuck en-route.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: De Sisti on 24 March, 2021, 03:02:57 pm
Not so much grammar, but radio interviewees; when introduced, they say; "Thanks for having me".
FFS, the interviewer should be thanking the interviewees for making themselves available.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 24 March, 2021, 04:12:04 pm
Be nice if the interviewer then replied "yes, you've been had all right".

Interviewers here used to have the annoying habit of saying something like "and I remind you that you are the managing director of Peugeot" when getting rid of their victim, as if they might have forgotten in the interim.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 24 March, 2021, 04:14:58 pm
The verb "must" seems to be changing its meaning. When I were young, it meant something that you didn't really have any option over doing. Now, it seems to mean something that I'd really like you to do, but know perfectly well you won't, as in every second news report lately of impassioned pleas from campaigners earnestly saying things such as:

Quote
The government must double the pensions of everyone with a Q in their surname.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: eckagain on 24 March, 2021, 04:17:22 pm
OK, I know, you can verb any noun. Here's two I read/heard recently: provision, maintainence.

Podium.  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 24 March, 2021, 06:18:28 pm
OK, I know, you can verb any noun. Here's two I read/heard recently: provision, maintainence.

Podium.  :facepalm:

That, along with “medal”, has been around at least since the Beijing Olympics.  This is not an excuse, BTW.  Nor is the fact that Victoria Pendleton once said it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 24 March, 2021, 08:06:47 pm
"To provision" has been around for ages, meaning "to supply with provisions". You provision a ship before it sets sail, for example.

And by direct analogy, 'provisioning' is standard computing jargon for setting up a network client with the relevant configuration and authentication credentials.  (Eg. activating a SIM so you can use a cellular network, or an embedded device automagically obtaining its configuration from some server.)

I'm generally in favour of this sort of metaphorical jargon, because the alternative is acronym soup.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 24 March, 2021, 09:10:22 pm

That, along with “medal”, has been around at least since the Beijing Olympics.  This is not an excuse, BTW.  Nor is the fact that Victoria Pendleton once said it.

It serves a purpose:

I came 4th in the egg and spoon race but would have won if it hadn't been for those medalling kids.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 24 March, 2021, 11:41:43 pm

That, along with “medal”, has been around at least since the Beijing Olympics.  This is not an excuse, BTW.  Nor is the fact that Victoria Pendleton once said it.

It serves a purpose:

I came 4th in the egg and spoon race but would have won if it hadn't been for those medalling kids.

(Adds Nuncio's name to The List)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 25 March, 2021, 09:42:02 am
"To provision" has been around for ages, meaning "to supply with provisions". You provision a ship before it sets sail, for example.

I don't think I've seen that usage, perhaps that's more jargon than everyday language.

Yes, it's in the OED as a verb but states it's less common than the noun.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hatler on 25 March, 2021, 09:43:12 am
Surely, for complete reprehensibility, that should have read : -

I came 4th in the egg and spoon race but would have podiumed if it hadn't been for those medalling kids.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 25 March, 2021, 09:45:45 am
The verb "must" seems to be changing its meaning. When I were young, it meant something that you didn't really have any option over doing. Now, it seems to mean something that I'd really like you to do, but know perfectly well you won't, as in every second news report lately of impassioned pleas from campaigners earnestly saying things such as:

Quote
The government must double the pensions of everyone with a Q in their surname.

Mmm...how about "you must be really tired". "Must" as a suggestion must have been around for a long time, I would have thought.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hatler on 25 March, 2021, 10:02:31 am
Or even every football pundit now where the stock phrase is "he must score there" as opposed to "he really should have scored there".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 25 March, 2021, 10:15:09 am
Irritating turns of speech N°531002 (or thereabouts): "go ahead".  Some technical whizz is showing you how to reconnect your furdle to your gnumpf: "and when you've got the nargle screw started in the hole, go ahead and push it through. I'll just go ahead and do that now. And now I'm going to go ahead and put the nut on the other end, so I'll just... go ahead... and do that now." And so on until the desire to go ahead and crucify the numbskull upside-down over the Falgbagdrafaffjallajøkul caldera becomes overwhelming.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 25 March, 2021, 11:48:56 am
Surely, for complete reprehensibility, that should have read : -

I came 4th in the egg and spoon race but would have podiumed if it hadn't been for those medalling kids.

Your nem vill also be on ze list!

Bugger, my pen's run out…
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 25 March, 2021, 03:09:08 pm
Or even every football pundit now where the stock phrase is "he must score there" as opposed to "he really should have scored there".
TFL's exhortation at the top and bottom of every escalator that "Dogs must be carried" is worth a mention too.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: bhoot on 25 March, 2021, 03:46:59 pm
TFL's exhortation at the top and bottom of every escalator that "Dogs must be carried" is worth a mention too.
I seem to remember that features in one of the Paddington films.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 April, 2021, 11:38:13 am
Who the hell hyphenates a phrase like this? "Budgets were offset by a month generally-speaking." I wish this were an April fool but no, just a writing fool.  :o
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ravenbait on 01 April, 2021, 03:08:55 pm
Or even every football pundit now where the stock phrase is "he must score there" as opposed to "he really should have scored there".
TFL's exhortation at the top and bottom of every escalator that "Dogs must be carried" is worth a mention too.

Must is for giving orders and advice, or expressing obligation. "Dogs must be carried" is an example of giving an order. I've got nothing on the "must score there" if it's being used to refer to something that has already happened. It can only be used for present and future circumstances. Unless the commentator is watching the game on replay, is treating it as if it is happening in real time (not strictly grammatically correct, but it's a valid stylistic choice for dramatic purposes), and is exhorting the player to make a successful shot at the goal (in the sense of, "the opportunity is wide open, he must score there if we are to consider his skillset equal to his having a place on this team"), it's just weird.

It can also be used to speculate about the truth of something, but I don't think that's what's happening in the football example.

Sam
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ravenbait on 01 April, 2021, 03:09:31 pm
Who the hell hyphenates a phrase like this? "Budgets were offset by a month generally-speaking." I wish this were an April fool but no, just a writing fool.  :o
There's a missing comma, as well.

Sam
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Davef on 01 April, 2021, 03:26:30 pm
Or even every football pundit now where the stock phrase is "he must score there" as opposed to "he really should have scored there".
TFL's exhortation at the top and bottom of every escalator that "Dogs must be carried" is worth a mention too.

Must is for giving orders and advice, or expressing obligation. "Dogs must be carried" is an example of giving an order. I've got nothing on the "must score there" if it's being used to refer to something that has already happened. It can only be used for present and future circumstances. Unless the commentator is watching the game on replay, is treating it as if it is happening in real time (not strictly grammatically correct, but it's a valid stylistic choice for dramatic purposes), and is exhorting the player to make a successful shot at the goal (in the sense of, "the opportunity is wide open, he must score there if we are to consider his skillset equal to his having a place on this team"), it's just weird.

It can also be used to speculate about the truth of something, but I don't think that's what's happening in the football example.

Sam
Perhaps the intent was to say that it was necessary for the player to score (in order not lose).

I don’t mind the word so I must be very tolerant.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: tiermat on 01 April, 2021, 03:37:31 pm
Yet another one of those self driving crashing cars https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-56602502
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hatler on 01 April, 2021, 03:56:35 pm
Or even every football pundit now where the stock phrase is "he must score there" as opposed to "he really should have scored there".
TFL's exhortation at the top and bottom of every escalator that "Dogs must be carried" is worth a mention too.

Must is for giving orders and advice, or expressing obligation. "Dogs must be carried" is an example of giving an order. I've got nothing on the "must score there" if it's being used to refer to something that has already happened. It can only be used for present and future circumstances. Unless the commentator is watching the game on replay, is treating it as if it is happening in real time (not strictly grammatically correct, but it's a valid stylistic choice for dramatic purposes), and is exhorting the player to make a successful shot at the goal (in the sense of, "the opportunity is wide open, he must score there if we are to consider his skillset equal to his having a place on this team"), it's just weird.

It can also be used to speculate about the truth of something, but I don't think that's what's happening in the football example.

Sam
Good analysis there. Which makes me realise that use of this phrase only really grates when it is being deployed after the event, eg in the post-match summary.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 01 April, 2021, 04:30:20 pm
It can also be used to speculate about the truth of something

eg: "You must be fun at parties"

 ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ravenbait on 01 April, 2021, 04:35:07 pm
eg: "You must be fun at parties"

 ;)
:demon:

I don't go to parties because I have crippling social anxiety, as well as a weird form of synaesthesia that makes the noise feel like being in a jaccuzzi filled with rocks. That said, if someone held a party for grammar pedants to sit around with drinks and snacks to gripe about their pet hates in a mutually supportive environment before squeezing back into their respective "language is dynamic and evolving, and prescriptivism is classist and ableist" outfits, I'd be there.

Sam
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 01 April, 2021, 05:17:28 pm
I don't go to parties because I have crippling social anxiety, as well as a weird form of synaesthesia that makes the noise feel like being in a jaccuzzi filled with rocks.

Yikes! That sounds like no fun at all. I don't go to parties much myself, but that's because I'm a miserable git.

Quote
That said, if someone held a party for grammar pedants to sit around with drinks and snacks to gripe about their pet hates in a mutually supportive environment before squeezing back into their respective "language is dynamic and evolving, and prescriptivism is classist and ableist" outfits, I'd be there.

 :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 01 April, 2021, 05:48:52 pm
Yet another one of those self driving crashing cars https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-56602502

House in collision with a car.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 01 April, 2021, 05:52:57 pm
Yet another one of those self driving crashing cars https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-56602502

House in collision with a car.

Was it wearing high-vis?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moleman76 on 02 April, 2021, 07:16:09 am
Not so much grammar, but radio interviewees; when introduced, they say; "Thanks for having me".

I hear this as kissing up to the interviewer, with the thought that "if I am pleasant, they will interview me again, and I will gain credence and displace others' opinions on the matter"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 April, 2021, 10:51:51 am
Or "Thank you for giving me the opportunity to broadcast my opinion/publicise my business/etc".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 02 April, 2021, 11:28:55 am
Not so much grammar, but radio interviewees; when introduced, they say; "Thanks for having me".

I'd love to hear the interviewer reply "Aye, you've been had all right".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 16 April, 2021, 02:08:38 pm
On a packet of chicken wings*: sans additifs ajoutés.  Without added additives, well I never.

BTW, ye punctuation mavens, should the asterisk go before or after the colon?

* yes, I know. Sad, isn't it?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 16 April, 2021, 06:12:43 pm
Is tautology poor grammar?

I think the asterisk precedes the colon...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ravenbait on 17 April, 2021, 11:42:12 am
Tautology is a pleonasm, therefore a question (not necessarily a failure) of style, not grammar. From a purely linguistic point of view, there might be circumstances in which this construction is arguably warranted, in that there may be additives that are necessary, and the "added" may refer to additives that a different manufacturer might have included. For instance, there may be be flavouring (pepper is an additive) but not preservatives. If they're just raw chicken wings then I would agree it is an unnecessary tautology.

The asterisk precedes the colon, as it is indicating additional information that can be read immediately following "wings", just as you would put the asterisk before the full stop if the sentence ended there.

Sam
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 17 April, 2021, 12:47:38 pm
Tautology is a pleonasm, therefore a question (not necessarily a failure) of style, not grammar.

I don’t think I’ve come across that term before. Useful.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 17 April, 2021, 08:21:41 pm
On the subject of pleonasm, I read a very good book about rhetoric many years ago (about the same time as my dabble with Louis de Bernières during the Age of Living with BBC Continuity Announcers) which, of course, I can't now remember the title of.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 17 April, 2021, 08:26:34 pm
According to the Mega-Global Big River Corporation of Seattle, USAnia it was probably this:

Quote

Best Sellers in Rhetoric. #1. The Ultimate Dad Joke Book

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 17 April, 2021, 09:38:14 pm
Hmm, I'm pretty sure it wasn't that, but google tells me it was The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 18 April, 2021, 01:34:14 am
Hmm, I'm pretty sure it wasn't that, but google tells me it was The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth

Unlikely to be the Mark Forsyth wot I knew.  Aka The Hairless Scotsman, my former The Boss and the Millwall of the BigCo's management.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 18 April, 2021, 09:56:22 am
Tautology is a pleonasm, therefore a question (not necessarily a failure) of style, not grammar.

I don’t think I’ve come across that term before. Useful.

IIRC it was one of Captain Haddock's better insults. Bashibazouk! Pléonasme!

Re grammar vs style, we don't have a thread for stylistic sins so this one's next best.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ravenbait on 18 April, 2021, 04:26:58 pm
Hmm, I'm pretty sure it wasn't that, but google tells me it was The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth
I have the box set of The Elements of Eloquence, The Etymologicon, and The Horologicon on one of my bookshelves, nestled comfortably between The Penguin Dictionary of Language and Attack of the Copula Spiders.

Sam
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 18 April, 2021, 05:16:11 pm
Oh, that Mark Forsyth... I read the Etymologicon. Found it very irritating... <checks notes> main complaint was that it read like it was all cribbed off wikipedia, with no primary research (which the author confesses to). Interesting but superficial. I have the Horologicon on my Kindle but have never got round to reading it.

For matters of rhetoric, I've always found the Silva Rhetoricae website a good source:
http://rhetoric.byu.edu

On pleonasm, I have a vague recollection of reading the phrase "pleonastic orgy" but a quick google doesn't turn up a source for that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ravenbait on 18 April, 2021, 05:22:53 pm
Michael Barrier on Donald Phelps?

http://www.michaelbarrier.com/Commentary/Warshow_and_Phelps/Warshow_and_Phelps.htm (http://www.michaelbarrier.com/Commentary/Warshow_and_Phelps/Warshow_and_Phelps.htm)

Phelps has, indeed, done the work, but he is, alas, an undisciplined writer whose perceptions are buried in dense verbal undergrowth. If one word will not quite serve, he piles on others, in a pleonastic orgy—hoping, I suppose, that the right word will eventually turn up, or perhaps that the sheer bulk of a dozen not-quite-right words will fill the void left by the absence of the right one.

I quite like the Forsyth books for a brief skip through to find a technical term for something I wish to read about elsewhere, but for which I can't remember the name.

Sam
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 18 April, 2021, 05:59:15 pm
I think it might be one of those phrases that someone used once and several other people liked the way it sounded... no idea who was the originator.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 18 April, 2021, 06:24:52 pm
Is it just me who thinks “pleonasm” ought to be an ailment afflicting the lungs then ???
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 18 April, 2021, 07:50:00 pm
Neoplasm = new growth ~= cancer innit?

Pleonasm = overuse of more words than is necessary.
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 18 April, 2021, 08:36:28 pm
Pleonasm = overuse of more words than is necessary.
I see what you did there.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 18 April, 2021, 10:49:36 pm
Pleonasm = overuse of more words than is necessary.
I see what you did there.

Me too also as well.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 19 April, 2021, 01:18:42 am
Pleonasm = overuse of more words than is necessary.
I see what you did there.

Me too also as well.

Helly's after that coveted position at the Department of Redundancy Department (prop. Captain Obvious).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 19 April, 2021, 09:40:29 am
Oh, that Mark Forsyth... I read the Etymologicon. Found it very irritating... <checks notes> main complaint was that it read like it was all cribbed off wikipedia, with no primary research (which the author confesses to). Interesting but superficial. I have the Horologicon on my Kindle but have never got round to reading it.

For matters of rhetoric, I've always found the Silva Rhetoricae website a good source:
http://rhetoric.byu.edu

On pleonasm, I have a vague recollection of reading the phrase "pleonastic orgy" but a quick google doesn't turn up a source for that.

I think I liked it because it wasn't a hefty tome that spent it all its time quoting the classics, here's what Cicero said, basically a quick top-deck tour of the rhetorical landscape with modern examples. We didn't really cover this kind of thing in my comprehensive school. It was interesting how many we pick up through osmosis by reading, but I didn't have names for (or often realise they were rhetorical tricks). Of course, I've forgotten the names now.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ravenbait on 19 April, 2021, 11:30:33 am
Is it just me who thinks “pleonasm” ought to be an ailment afflicting the lungs then ???
Do we need a Meaning of Liff thread somewhere? Or is there one already?

Sam
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 19 April, 2021, 12:35:30 pm
Is it just me who thinks “pleonasm” ought to be an ailment afflicting the lungs then ???
Do we need a Meaning of Liff thread somewhere? Or is there one already?

Sam

Picture my disappointment on learning that a “shibboleth” is not in fact a huge hairy shambling monster from the fevered imaginings of LP Hovercraft.

[“Who he?” – Ed.]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 19 April, 2021, 01:17:35 pm
Wait till you find out it's a federated authorization and authentication middleware system based on SAML.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 19 April, 2021, 01:39:14 pm
Trample all over my dreams, why don’t you :'(
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Basil on 20 April, 2021, 10:12:38 pm
"Derek Chauvin the former white police officer."

Heard several times last week.  Heard again tonight by the BBC.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 20 April, 2021, 10:37:29 pm
Yes, Basil, that's a cracker, isn't it?  Actually, with today's verdict, he might feel safer if he was actually a "former white".  So much so, that I wonder if he'll actually get a custodial sentence.  I'm not exactly surprised at the verdict but how on earth you can lean on somebody's neck for nine minutes, watching him fading away and not at some point release the pressure without it becoming "intentional" murder, I don't know.  Is there a special case in US Law for "unintentional murder" - or is it something that has been invented for this particular case when it seemed that there was no way he could be found not guilty without the country going up in flames?  I admit I don't know the law in this case.  It just seems odd.

Edit:  Has Chauvin appeared in the "nominative determinism" thread?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 21 April, 2021, 12:01:54 am
Oooh yes, “the former $NATIONALITY $PROFESSION” really gets on my pecs, at least when used to describe people who ate'nt dead.  Wikinaccurate is full of examples, but there’s a curse that says if you change it the subject of the article will die PDQ.  At least, it did with Niki Lauda.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bledlow on 21 April, 2021, 12:25:43 am
Hmm, I'm pretty sure it wasn't that, but google tells me it was The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth
I have the box set of The Elements of Eloquence, The Etymologicon, and The Horologicon on one of my bookshelves, nestled comfortably between The Penguin Dictionary of Language and Attack of the Copula Spiders.

Sam
£782.99 on Amazon - used hardback.   :o

Paperback set £16.99.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 21 April, 2021, 01:33:57 am
There are an awful lot of optimists flogging used books via the auspices of the Mega-Global Big River Corporation of Seattle, USAnia.  Back in 2014 I spotted someone asking £4,500 for a copy of Mark L. Dees' "The Miller Dynasty".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 21 April, 2021, 07:05:35 am
Algorithms, innit.

It’s a quirk in the system - the prices are automatically generated, with a mark-up based on a price shown elsewhere. No human involvement, and what’s more the seller probably doesn’t even have the book in stock.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 21 April, 2021, 09:50:41 am
"Derek Chauvin the former white police officer."

Heard several times last week.  Heard again tonight by the BBC.

"White former" sounds a bit awkward too.  And if you put "sacked" in place of "former"  you get "sacked white police officer" which to my ear sounds OK. "White sacked police officer" sounds as if someone's been painting his nethers.

They'd have done better with "ex-police officer". Oh well.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ravenbait on 21 April, 2021, 01:43:06 pm
Hmm, I'm pretty sure it wasn't that, but google tells me it was The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth
I have the box set of The Elements of Eloquence, The Etymologicon, and The Horologicon on one of my bookshelves, nestled comfortably between The Penguin Dictionary of Language and Attack of the Copula Spiders.

Sam
£782.99 on Amazon - used hardback.   :o

Paperback set £16.99.
JFC WHAT? Surely some mistake?

My mum gave it to me for my Christmas a few years back. Looks like it was around £35 when she got it.

Sam
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ravenbait on 21 April, 2021, 02:05:35 pm
"Derek Chauvin the former white police officer."

Heard several times last week.  Heard again tonight by the BBC.

"White former" sounds a bit awkward too.  And if you put "sacked" in place of "former"  you get "sacked white police officer" which to my ear sounds OK. "White sacked police officer" sounds as if someone's been painting his nethers.

They'd have done better with "ex-police officer". Oh well.
The Royal Order of Adjectives specifies the categories in order:


I think the issue is that the phrase elides "person who is a" after "white". Police officer is a job, not a flavour of human being. The phrase "white person who is a former police officer" is accurate and not awkward. If I'd been the editor, I'd probably have reworded it as "the white man, who is now a former police officer," which has the added bonus of hooking in the underlying story, although considerably longer. Brevity is not always best.

Sam
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 21 April, 2021, 04:16:33 pm
Glass houses and stones in your erudition, there, Sam!

Added bonus - just NO!

Edit:  Just been doing a little research.  It seems some think this is ok.  I uterly diskard them but in my defence cite the thread title!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ravenbait on 23 April, 2021, 12:45:24 pm
Not entirely sure what I am being accused of there, Peter. But no bother, I was treating it merely as an editorial exercise.

Sam
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 27 April, 2021, 02:06:30 pm
Punctuation that makes me cringe -

Quote from: Random PR
Hi Amy,
 
Hope you are well? ...

Yes, I do hope I am well!

The unnecessary question mark makes it read more like a threat than a polite enquiry after my health.

PS my name is not Amy. Except at weekends.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 April, 2021, 05:55:47 pm
Quote
In a groundbreaking ruling, the judges of the Karlsruhe court, Germany’s highest, said the government now had until the end of next year to improve its Climate Protection Act, passed in 2019, and to ensure it met 2030 greenhouse gas reduction goals more immediately.
Next time I'm late with something I'll say "I did it immediately, but less immediately".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 30 April, 2021, 09:52:33 am
Punctuation that makes me cringe -

Quote from: Random PR
Hi Amy,
 
Hope you are well? ...

Yes, I do hope I am well!

The unnecessary question mark makes it read more like a threat than a polite enquiry after my health.

PS my name is not Amy. Except at weekends.

Somebody somewhere has told 'people' of a certain age (they're always in their 20s) that professional emails should start with a health enquiry.

I'm so tempted to answer them.  :demon:

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Regulator on 30 April, 2021, 09:57:09 am
Punctuation that makes me cringe -

Quote from: Random PR
Hi Amy,
 
Hope you are well? ...

Yes, I do hope I am well!

The unnecessary question mark makes it read more like a threat than a polite enquiry after my health.

PS my name is not Amy. Except at weekends.

Somebody somewhere has told 'people' of a certain age (they're always in their 20s) that professional emails should start with a health enquiry.

I'm so tempted to answer them.  :demon:

I have to admit, now that we're back into contracting round and I'm dealing with people I haven't spoken to/corresponded with for a while, I do sometimes ask after their health in relation to the Covid pandemic.  But normally I'd never do this.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 03 May, 2021, 10:41:37 am
So, many, commas, (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/03/receding-glaciers-causing-rivers-to-suddenly-disappear)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 May, 2021, 11:06:18 am
OT: I'm sure I read an information board wossname at Kluane Lake stating that a few centuries ago (but before the white man showed up in tha 'hood) the said lake used to drain south into the Gulf of Alaska until a landslide blocked the exit and forced the water to find a new route via the Mighty Yukon.  Must have been confusing for the migratory fishies.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: De Sisti on 05 May, 2021, 01:47:39 pm
In response to an online enquiry about the availability of items, the response was:


we do sale Altberg Boots and some of the models come in various width fittings I would suggest that you visit are website to view are collection

kind regards Steve
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 05 May, 2021, 02:27:42 pm
Given the punctuation and capitalisation, that shows all the signs of being written by autocomplete, if not speech-to-text.

That said, I've seen 'sale' used to mean 'sell' a few times, and wonder if it's more than just pseudo-homophonic spelling mistake.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 05 May, 2021, 03:29:17 pm
Nah. People are thick. Or more likely don't care about spelling and grammar. It's not as if you couldn't understand what Steve meant, is it?

My daughter quotes her (Yorkshire) supplier.

"you'll after order it seprit"

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 05 May, 2021, 06:28:23 pm
It's not as if you couldn't understand what Steve meant, is it?

My daughter quotes her (Yorkshire) supplier.

"you'll after order it seprit"

I understand both Steve and Fboab's daughter's (Yorkshire) supplier. Which is, at the risk of undermining the raison d'etre of this whole topic, the main thing. Ain't it?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: cygnet on 06 May, 2021, 10:52:58 pm
I'll suggest that fboab's daughter's supplier is dialect and that "Steve"'s reply is poor grammar (or spelling) due to the repeated "are". Or S/he's taking the piss, for giggles.

But both could be speech:text software problems
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 09 May, 2021, 08:46:52 pm
Quote
...Jim Laker, who still holds the record for the most number to wickets taken in a test match...

Michael Rosen on Facebook yesterday.

I do hope the Covid hasn't affected his writing...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ravenbait on 12 May, 2021, 06:49:52 pm
Quote
Gone are all the extra bells and whistles, anything that adds extra weight. The only thing you’ll find are functional lightweight solutions. In true X-Bionic® style everything is functional and engineered to allow you to perform at your best. The internal structure of the board, has been totally re-designed. We are using a technique that has never been used before in SUP race board, the details, remain our secret. Equipped with a variety of innovative technologies, the board is truly one of a kind and lets you reach new performance heights effortlessly.

Underwear manufacturer builds a piece of watersports (hush!) kit. One of its features is too, many, commas.

Sam
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: French Waffles on 12 May, 2021, 07:11:28 pm
Grammar which makes me cringe? That would be my own. It's never perfect but since I switched to a French keyboard, it's even worse. Far too many errors slip through.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 13 May, 2021, 09:47:37 pm
Grammar which makes me cringe? That would be my own. It's never perfect but since I switched to a French keyboard, it's even worse. Far too many errors slip through.
I'm not sure I'd cope with a AZERTY keyboard or if I'd bother if I migrated. I can do accents with my UK English keyboard.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: neilrj on 13 May, 2021, 10:32:45 pm
Grammar which makes me cringe? That would be my own. It's never perfect but since I switched to a French keyboard, it's even worse. Far too many errors slip through.

Oh I've suffered french keyboards, no use for WWW addresses with shifting needed just for a .
Get a UK keyboard that you can plug in, or use BT or wiffy (see what I did there?).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 13 May, 2021, 11:52:02 pm
Grammar which makes me cringe? That would be my own. It's never perfect but since I switched to a French keyboard, it's even worse. Far too many errors slip through.
I'm not sure I'd cope with a AZERTY keyboard or if I'd bother if I migrated. I can do accents with my UK English keyboard.

Miss von Brandenburg used, in the days before she emigrated for good, to bring her German keyboard with her when a-visiting.  It used to drive me carpet-chewingly bonkers.  These days she’s Gorn Native in the keyboard department, but natch she’s one of the Worshippers at the Altar of the Fruit God too.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 14 May, 2021, 08:00:25 am
Grammar which makes me cringe? That would be my own. It's never perfect but since I switched to a French keyboard, it's even worse. Far too many errors slip through.

Un homme AZERTY en vaut deux.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: French Waffles on 17 May, 2021, 01:54:19 pm


Oh I've suffered french keyboards, no use for WWW addresses with shifting needed just for a .
Get a UK keyboard that you can plug in, or use BT or wiffy (see what I did there?).

I am keeping with the French keyboard, given that I live in France and have more than the odd occasion to have to use one outside of home. I am almost used to it. Almost but not quite.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 May, 2021, 02:34:40 pm
We will work with the commercial customer, be they an institute, a country or a consortia...

Not so much cringe as surprise. The speaker was someone quite big in academic publishing.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cackle
Post by: T42 on 05 June, 2021, 10:56:38 am
Chum of MrsT's reports with pride on FB that her son has just graduated as a US marine with a meretricious promotion to private 1st class.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cackle
Post by: citoyen on 05 June, 2021, 06:58:16 pm
Chum of MrsT's reports with pride on FB that her son has just graduated as a US marine with a meretricious promotion to private 1st class.

Are you sure that's a mistake?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 05 June, 2021, 07:38:21 pm
Do you remember Gore Vidal's retort to a critic who described one of his books as meretricious?  "And a meretricious to you, too".  Reviewing his books must have been a thankless task!

Citoyen - nice one!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Asterix, the former Gaul. on 05 June, 2021, 08:20:02 pm
It’s a Trojan horse kind of word. Or timeo Danaos et dona ferentes as Moggsie baby would have it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cackle
Post by: ravenbait on 06 June, 2021, 04:27:51 pm
Chum of MrsT's reports with pride on FB that her son has just graduated as a US marine with a meretricious promotion to private 1st class.

Are you sure that's a mistake?

If they're using the archaic definition, it's possibly some kind of pun.

Sam
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cackle
Post by: citoyen on 06 June, 2021, 09:22:42 pm
If they're using the archaic definition, it's possibly some kind of pun.

I had to look that up... crumbs! But, yes!  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rafletcher on 10 June, 2021, 12:13:45 pm
Heard at the tail end of a news article yesterday...

"The forty year old Olypian came out of retirement to have three children in order to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 10 June, 2021, 12:37:06 pm
This from West Midlands Police today:-

"....they found the bank card missing."

reminds of Flanders & Swann's wonderful skit on Mozart's Eb (I think) Horn Concerto  - "I found my horn, found my horn, found my horn......gorn."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 10 June, 2021, 12:57:16 pm
It’s a Trojan horse kind of word. Or timeo Danaos et dona ferentes as Moggsie baby would have it.

Didn't they win the ice dancing championships in the 1964 Winter Olympics?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cackle
Post by: T42 on 10 June, 2021, 01:00:04 pm
Chum of MrsT's reports with pride on FB that her son has just graduated as a US marine with a meretricious promotion to private 1st class.

Are you sure that's a mistake?

If they're using the archaic definition, it's possibly some kind of pun.

Sam

What happens in the barracks stays in the barracks?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 16 June, 2021, 10:17:56 am
Notice in Tesco:
"It is mandatory that a face covering is to be worn in store"

 :sick: :sick: :sick:

I much prefer the alternative version by the entrance:
"No face covering, no entry"

Do you really need any more words than that?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: cygnet on 16 June, 2021, 11:04:00 pm
Well yes, you do.
Unless you refuse entry to people who are mandatorily exempt from having to wear one.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 17 June, 2021, 03:13:17 pm
Well yes, you do.
Unless you refuse entry to people who are mandatorily exempt from having to wear one.

My point is about the grammar. If you want to add extra information to the message, that's a separate matter.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 June, 2021, 06:46:43 pm
Quote
Unanimously most of you feel that there's a phenomenal opportunity to...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ravenbait on 18 June, 2021, 07:52:42 pm
Today I was reminded of this gem, collected in East Lothian somewhere some years ago.

(https://live.staticflickr.com/3032/2457429590_6a3059a6aa_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/4K9YcG)

Sam
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 June, 2021, 01:58:40 pm
This is an interesting one:
Quote
Most of these intellectual property assets are unique and therefore there isn't many genuine market observable data points available for benchmarking or comparison purposes.

"There" is being treated as a full, not simply dummy, subject rather than "data points". Or simply "there is" has become a fixed phrase. This is from an Australian presentation so possibly a regionalism but I think it's a wider trend.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 21 June, 2021, 02:01:11 pm
The ceaseless rise of unneccessary words in a sentence.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 21 June, 2021, 02:07:48 pm
Quote from:  Strunk & White
Omit needless words
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ham on 26 June, 2021, 07:13:44 am
Did you know, oranges can have conservatories (https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5910688,0.2158032,3a,52.4y,13.97h,85.22t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sWKo_qVSzcNdinLzBUQxO2A!2e0!7i16384!8i8192)?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jaded on 29 June, 2021, 11:59:38 pm
A very, very old man. Possibly the oldest ever!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-57658859

(He is 5000 years old, apparently)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 08 July, 2021, 03:51:23 pm
I've just seen this gem in an email:

(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ravenbait on 08 July, 2021, 04:32:25 pm
I've just seen this gem in an email:

(click to show/hide)

Every time I see something like this, I am reminded (painfully) of being in my German class (only four students, it was not a popular class) when I was 11, and our German teacher -- an egotistical, self-congratulatory, moustachioed Scot with a Lothian accent, who insisted he'd been in the German army (only much later did I come to wonder which army) -- wrote "awry" on the blackboard and asked each of us in turn to pronounce it. He came to me last, as even then I had a reputation for being au fait with words and grammar. I remember his utter disappointment awhen I, too, mispronounced it. That was somehow worse than the scorn he meted out to those he did not expect to get it right. I knew the word and what it meant, but had only ever seen it written down.

But this is the reverse, of course — someone who has heard the words, but never seen them written down or, perhaps, not recognised them in writing.

Sam
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 08 July, 2021, 04:51:21 pm
I've just seen this gem in an email:

(click to show/hide)

I am 100% for this.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 July, 2021, 05:00:15 pm
I've just seen this gem in an email:

(click to show/hide)

I am 100% for this.
In languages with stricter rules (or conventions) governing the relationship between pronunciation and spelling, foreign words tend to follow a process of having either their spelling changed to match to the original pronunciation, or being pronounced in a way that matches the local spelling rules. This is a pretty good example of the first process.  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 July, 2021, 01:01:15 pm
Great example today of how automatic speech recognition learns. On Wednesday I corrected one such presentation on behalf of a "great Australian firm" which began as is the current Australian custom by "acknowledging the ancestral lands we are meeting on". In this case, the lands of the Dharawal people. I can't remember what the ASR had put in place of Dharawal, if anything, but I definitely needed to look it up. Today, same firm, same acknowledgment, and there it is "Dharawal Land". I'll be able to retire soon, or would be if I'd actually started working.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 09 July, 2021, 01:33:13 pm
Reminds me of the time someone stood up as they graciously acknowledged those ancestral lands and asked them to stop doing so 'unless you're planning to give them back.'

Awkward.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 July, 2021, 01:36:54 pm
The software has learned "Dharawal" but still can't cope with the name of the firm. Odd.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 July, 2021, 03:54:40 pm
This doesn't make me cringe (and it's not grammar) but I do think it's a needless and vaguely dislikable word: a 12-page magazine has come through our door, full of glossy photos of desirable properties. It looks like one of those publications that mixes a little bit of local what's-on type news with a lot of estate agents' adverts, except that this is actually produced by one estate agency. But it doesn't have any adverts for specific properties: they're trying to make it about design and possibly even architecture. Anyway, they include an article about working from your shed, which uses the word 'shedio'. A portemanteau of shed and studio which sounds uncomfortably like 'cool, daddio!'
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 21 July, 2021, 02:40:14 pm
'shedio'

BURN THEM!

Quote
A portemanteau of shed and studio which sounds uncomfortably like 'cool, daddio!'

Either that or Man United's new Brazilian wonderkid.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 22 July, 2021, 10:46:58 am
Just overheard a colleague on the phone:

"We don't want to hero that..."

Made me flinch involuntarily.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ravenbait on 22 July, 2021, 12:36:11 pm
Just overheard a colleague on the phone:

"We don't want to hero that..."

Made me flinch involuntarily.

I did, too, just reading it.

Sam
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Zipperhead on 22 July, 2021, 02:29:36 pm
From an article, Alabama doctor on treating unvaccinated, dying COVID patients (https://www.al.com/news/2021/07/im-sorry-but-its-too-late-alabama-doctor-on-treating-unvaccinated-dying-covid-patients.html)

"Dr. Brytney Cobia is a hospitalist at Grandview Medical Center in Birmingham."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 22 July, 2021, 02:34:25 pm
From an article, Alabama doctor on treating unvaccinated, dying COVID patients (https://www.al.com/news/2021/07/im-sorry-but-its-too-late-alabama-doctor-on-treating-unvaccinated-dying-covid-patients.html)

"Dr. Brytney Cobia is a hospitalist at Grandview Medical Center in Birmingham."

A friend also shared that on Facebook. My first thought was is that someone who hospitalises people?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 22 July, 2021, 03:32:07 pm
No, that's a motorist.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 July, 2021, 03:43:08 pm
I'd like you to join me in heroing all the hospitalists who, due to cut backs, are medicking from a shedspital.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Paul on 22 July, 2021, 03:57:33 pm
No, that's a motorist.
Most excellent.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 22 July, 2021, 06:43:05 pm
Whilst it is cringeworthy, it is accepted American English. We would call them a general medicine consultant.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 July, 2021, 06:49:17 pm
Whilst it is cringeworthy, it is accepted American English. We would call them a general medicine consultant.

FSVO “we”.  Most people would call them “a doctor” ;)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: De Sisti on 22 July, 2021, 10:15:36 pm
Not so much grammar, but radio interviewees, who, when introduced to give their piece/opinion, they reply;
"Thanks for having me". :hand:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moleman76 on 23 July, 2021, 07:38:09 am
Whilst it is cringeworthy, it is accepted American English. We would call them a general medicine consultant.

Medical doctors whose practice is limited to within hospitals; no other office for their practice.  Versus medical doctors who see patients in a clinic as well as in a hospital setting, or who only see patients in a clinic.

This 'Murrican English speaker figured it out.  Such medical doctors see patients who are hospitalized hospitalised very sick.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 23 July, 2021, 08:14:35 am
Again, not really grammar but...

Quote
As the Guardian reported last year, an Arizona fire was sparked in 2017 after an off-duty US border patrol agent shot at an explosive that sent blue smoke into the air to dramatically announce that his baby would be born as a boy.

Makes you wonder why they didn't shove a mike up his wife and interview the foetus.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 July, 2021, 09:29:43 am
"Gender reveal" stupidity could fill one of our larger threads all on its own.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ravenbait on 23 July, 2021, 10:00:48 am
Not so much grammar, but radio interviewees, who, when introduced to give their piece/opinion, they reply;
"Thanks for having me". :hand:

Are you concerned about the double entendre? This is a common speech form where I'm from. I frequently say this to my mum when she says, "Thanks for visiting," although I normally use "Thank you for having me," rather than "thanks".

Sam

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 23 July, 2021, 10:42:06 am
Sod that, it's people who answer every question by starting with 'that's a really good question.'
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Paul on 23 July, 2021, 12:25:15 pm
Or those who think that every sentence can start with “So”.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 23 July, 2021, 01:04:01 pm
Or those who think that every sentence can start with “So”.
John Finnemore (https://youtu.be/txX4Y18vvNI?t=1197) has some info about that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 23 July, 2021, 01:17:19 pm
Whilst it is cringeworthy, it is accepted American English. We would call them a general medicine consultant.

Medical doctors whose practice is limited to within hospitals; no other office for their practice.  Versus medical doctors who see patients in a clinic as well as in a hospital setting, or who only see patients in a clinic.

Oh, a hospital doctor.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 23 July, 2021, 01:36:32 pm
Or those who think that every sentence can start with “So”.
John Finnemore (https://youtu.be/txX4Y18vvNI?t=1197) has some info about that.

Spot on!  John Finnemore is very good, which isn't always the case with the Footlights "graduates".  Sadly the BBC invariably gives the latest ones a series before finding out!

So, "Cabin Pressure" is great!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 26 July, 2021, 10:07:34 pm
Workflow used as a verb  :hand:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 August, 2021, 10:07:49 am
Two words or phrases I rather like in here: https://www.bristol247.com/culture/music/paraorchestra-to-parade-through-streets-of-knowle-west/
Quote
Residents will be invited out to their doorsteps to dance and sing along to the parade in what the organisers hope will be a massive community singalong – a “masseoke”.
In a way a silly word, but it made me smile and I like the process of taking a word from another language then playing with it in your own.

Quote
“We have really lucked in with this opportunity to share the first outing of SMOOSH! with the community at Knowle West.
I've generally heard "lucked out" in this meaning but "lucked in" is a better fit, to my mind. If you've lucked in, you're in luck. Whereas if you've lucked out, you're also in luck although the juxtaposition implies you should be out of luck.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 03 August, 2021, 01:09:08 pm
Yes.  See also the USAnian habit of 'filling out' forms, which is becoming more prevalent over here.  [Possibly because the form designers don't give you enough space to write in - Ed]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 August, 2021, 01:13:40 pm
I also understand some of the youngper sons and daughters are using "I'm down for that" to express agreement to a proposed activity, whereas I'd use "I'm up for that". Except of course, being an oldper son, I'm probably not upfrit (does this mean frightened? Ed.) unless it's a cup of tea and maybe a cheese and onion toasty.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 03 August, 2021, 01:19:44 pm
Wonder if that's related to the fascinating leftpondian convention of using down arrows to mean straight on on road signs, rather than the up-arrows we use.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 August, 2021, 01:25:15 pm
I'm evidently not familiar with Usanian road signs but "down the road" or "up the road" to mean straight on? I'm not sure which, if either, of these is UK v US. Or indeed old v young. I don't think they're regional either, at least not distinctly so. Maybe just a matter of personal perspective, either mental or visual.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moleman76 on 04 August, 2021, 08:08:50 pm
Wonder if that's related to the fascinating leftpondian convention of using down arrows to me[an] [?] straight on on road signs, rather than the up-arrows we use.

I think the sign making over here is driven, at least for USAnians and (possibly by osmosis across the border) those north of us in Canuckistan by the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices, "MUTCD". 

I think the idea is to point out which lane to be in, versus where to go to get to the destination.  It's a small distinction, but given the limited training and skills of many motor vehicle operators here, every little bit helps.  Or, could help.

Or, downers versus uppers, choose your pill.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 04 August, 2021, 08:49:55 pm
Wonder if that's related to the fascinating leftpondian convention of using down arrows to me[an] [?] straight on on road signs, rather than the up-arrows we use.

I think the sign making over here is driven, at least for USAnians and (possibly by osmosis across the border) those north of us in Canuckistan by the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices, "MUTCD". 

I think the idea is to point out which lane to be in, versus where to go to get to the destination.  It's a small distinction, but given the limited training and skills of many motor vehicle operators here, every little bit helps.  Or, could help.

Or, downers versus uppers, choose your pill.

Hold on, I'll ask Alice…

(http://legslarry.org.uk/BikeStull/coat_48.png)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Paul on 09 August, 2021, 10:58:41 am
“Screenshotted”!

My own son  :facepalm:

Led to a discussion about nouns and verbs. But the best bit was when I asked him to have another go. In all seriousness, he ventured “screenshat?”

Which, actually, could become a thing.

A little while later I was driving when a bird crapped on the windscreen. “Now that’s a screenshat!” said I, hilariously.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 09 August, 2021, 12:57:41 pm
I shat the sheriff could be perfectly acceptable in some USAnian accents.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 09 August, 2021, 01:13:24 pm
Screenshit v. tr. To share an image on social media by uploading a screenshot of it being displayed on your device, complete with browser chrome, status bars, mouse pointers, etc.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 August, 2021, 01:18:11 pm
tr. and intr. surely? "He's always screenshitting. Yesterday he screenshat some tweets, today he's been screenshitting from Instagram."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 09 August, 2021, 01:37:11 pm
.(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20210809/075e952295a17ab011f1c685bd36ca3e.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 09 August, 2021, 02:06:53 pm
tr. and intr. surely? "He's always screenshitting. Yesterday he screenshat some tweets, today he's been screenshitting from Instagram."

GPWM.

Now all we need is the equivalent term for sharing video by recording it being displayed on the screen of another device.  (Bonus points for shaky handheld camera, oblique angles, reflections and aspect ratio mismatch.)

I propose 'moirécasting'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 09 August, 2021, 03:16:11 pm
tr. and intr. surely? "He's always screenshitting. Yesterday he screenshat some tweets, today he's been screenshitting from Instagram."

GPWM.

Now all we need is the equivalent term for sharing video by recording it being displayed on the screen of another device.  (Bonus points for shaky handheld camera, oblique angles, reflections and aspect ratio mismatch.)

I propose 'moirécasting'.

But that should be caveated with the fact that for some content, that's *exactly* the right level of effort that the content deserves.

Without wishing to denigrate the words of wisdom uttered by my brother some weeks ago when he was vox-popped on the streets of Edinburgh about Scotland's chances in the Euros, a WhatsApp message with a phone video of him on the telly is an appropriate level of effort, and can easily be forwarded to minimally interested friends and relatives.

Attempting to persuade STV to let us have a copy of the clip - their news bulletins vanish from the STV Hub less than 24 hours after broadcast, so in this case before I knew he'd been on - would have been quite disproportionate, and probably doomed to failure.

(In the spirit of the thread, of course, I should note that 'vox-popped' is a bit of an abomination.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 09 August, 2021, 05:02:02 pm
I don't much care for 'caveated' either.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 09 August, 2021, 05:25:04 pm
IRTA 'cavitated'
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 10 August, 2021, 01:43:10 pm
I don't much care for 'caveated' either.

Fair point - I verbed that noun without really thinking about it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 August, 2021, 02:00:55 pm
Just as a verb that has been nouned is a gerund, so we ought to have a name for a noun that has been verbed. Or maybe we've already got one – it's a verb.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 10 August, 2021, 03:04:03 pm
It gets worse when you consider that caveat is a verb anyway, albeit in Latin.  Could also be a Stone-Age refectory.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 10 August, 2021, 09:56:09 pm
I like caveated, so I'm running with it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 10 August, 2021, 10:22:25 pm
When I used to avoid work in the office rather than avoiding it from home there was a small team sat not far from me whose job appeared to be loudly advising people to caveat things. Just about every single phone call they had (and there were many) involved caveating. That was after they'd spent the first hour of the morning shouting at each other about Bake Off, obv.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 11 August, 2021, 08:46:59 am
I like caveated, so I'm running with it.

It's where Cav gets his sprinting mojo after all.  ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Salvatore on 11 August, 2021, 11:06:22 am
It gets worse when you consider that caveat is a verb anyway, albeit in Latin.  Could also be a Stone-Age refectory.

Quite. It's using caveat as a noun which makes me cringe. 3rd person singular subjunctive of cavere (jussive subjunctive in this case), 'to be wary of'. As in 'cave canem nocte'  the family motto of the Baskervilles*, or 'cave' as public school slang, or 'caveat emptor'.

* the fictional Baskervilles in the 1959 film with Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee etc, not any real Baskervilles.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 11 August, 2021, 01:24:57 pm
'caveat emptor'

I presume that's where the current use of caveat as a noun stems from. This is a common side effect of popular set phrases where some or all of the constituent parts are uncommon and/or foreign words. Something gets lost in translation.

'Treasure trove' is another example - 'trove' being an adjective, not a noun (though the original meaning has long since been abandoned as a lost cause).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 11 August, 2021, 04:21:34 pm
'caveat emptor'

I presume that's where the current use of caveat as a noun stems from. This is a common side effect of popular set phrases where some or all of the constituent parts are uncommon and/or foreign words. Something gets lost in translation.

Not so sure. I did an ngram (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=caveat%2Ccaveat+emptor&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Ccaveat%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ccaveat%20emptor%3B%2Cc0) of caveat and caveat emptor, and caveat on its own appears to be much more frequent. Of course the caveat dataset will contain the caveat emptor data as well, but the simple caveat graph isn't in step with it.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 11 August, 2021, 05:02:49 pm
'caveat emptor'

I presume that's where the current use of caveat as a noun stems from. This is a common side effect of popular set phrases where some or all of the constituent parts are uncommon and/or foreign words. Something gets lost in translation.

Not so sure. I did an ngram (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=caveat%2Ccaveat+emptor&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Ccaveat%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ccaveat%20emptor%3B%2Cc0) of caveat and caveat emptor, and caveat on its own appears to be much more frequent. Of course the caveat dataset will contain the caveat emptor data as well, but the simple caveat graph isn't in step with it.

That ngram suggests caveat became really popular as a standalone word in the 1960s, and has continued to grow in popularity since then. I imagine that's when it became detached from its original source and meaning to take on a life of its own.

As to what that original source was, I can't claim to know, but I still feel it's most likely to have been abstracted from a set phrase, such as caveat emptor. Or it could be a bit of legal jargon that has made the transition into mainstream language. Legalese is often the original source for this kind of thing.

Anyway, it's clear that something happened in the 1960s to help it gain a foothold in everyday use. I bet it's all that swinging that went on then. Bloody hippies. No respect for standards.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rafletcher on 22 August, 2021, 11:47:36 am
Today on the BBC “Don Everly… the last surviving member of the rock ‘n roll duo…”.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 August, 2021, 03:40:41 pm
From a podcast: "Ultimately, my initial reaction was... "
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 14 September, 2021, 09:34:14 am
We could almost split off a usage/malapropism thread.  In a YT history documentary I watched the other day the narrator kept saying "exasperate" instead of "exacerbate", as in "this only exasperated the situation".  Oh joy.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 16 September, 2021, 11:33:39 pm
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-58585603

Quote from: Auntie Beeb
Two people were in the lorry's cab, and one was able to get out themselves...

Also, it was a self-driving vehicle again  :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 September, 2021, 08:35:56 am
With a self-extricating passenger (who obviously can't have been driving).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 September, 2021, 09:11:50 am
Quote
Four amateur astronauts blasted off from Florida on a private SpaceX mission, paid for by billionaire Jared Issacman. But to which of the following were they aiming to reach a similar altitude?
Ugh!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-58555204
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 17 September, 2021, 02:22:18 pm
The other day I was typoing something into WhatsApp on my phone. The sentence included the works "thinks", to which the phone (unhelpfully) suggested "think's" as an alternative.

Two things struck me:

1.   I didn't mean "think's" thanks very much.

2.  What valid use is there for the word "think's" anyway?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 22 September, 2021, 09:21:13 pm
When did "change" mutate into "change up"?  It was cute when my daughter, then 3, said it.  It sounds moronic when adults say it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: PhilO on 24 September, 2021, 08:43:36 am
Probably about the same time that 'swap out' became a thing...  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 September, 2021, 01:39:43 pm
What do people think of the word 'precautious'? OED records it from 1713  (https://www.oed.com/oed2/00186433#:~:text=precautious%2C%20a.,1713%20Steele%20Guardian%20No.) but it seems to be undergoing an increase in use currently.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 24 September, 2021, 04:30:57 pm
What do people think of the word 'precautious'? OED records it from 1713  (https://www.oed.com/oed2/00186433#:~:text=precautious%2C%20a.,1713%20Steele%20Guardian%20No.) but it seems to be undergoing an increase in use currently.

Probably acceptable on the basis that it implies anticipating specific problems, ie acting with foresight, hence is sufficiently nuanced to justify existence as a separate word to cautious, which indicates more general wariness.

Whether or not people actually use it that way is another matter.

If I encountered it in copy I was working on, I would very likely change it to cautious.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 September, 2021, 05:54:54 pm
The context in which I encountered it today was Covid in Auckland. There is one case so the city is being shut down. Could be precautious or cautious, depending on your Corona-risk tolerance...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 24 September, 2021, 06:06:49 pm
Probably about the same time that 'swap out' became a thing...  :facepalm:

Hmm, I reckon that's legitimate jargon when virtual memory is involved, a playful metaphor when used to refer to replacing computing hardware (especially temporarily for diagnostic purposes), and an abhorrent Americanism in most other contexts...

Interestingly, its counterpart 'swap in' doesn't seem to have escaped far beyond computing and perhaps ballsports.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 September, 2021, 05:26:07 pm
Or build out, which seems like it should mean extend – and perhaps it originally did – but now is used to mean simply 'build from the ground up' but in a non-physical building sense.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 September, 2021, 02:54:38 pm
"We can start and stop either at the top of the hour or the bottom of the hour." To me that suggests something like 12:01 or 12:59, give or take. But in this context (programming firewall rules) it apparently means 12:00 or 12:30 respectively. The logic is clear but it's the first time I've heard "the bottom of the hour" in this meaning. Usanian, which usually makes a difference when talking about time and dates, but probably not in the computer context. I might start trying the phrase out on people.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 29 September, 2021, 03:00:38 pm
"We can start and stop either at the top of the hour or the bottom of the hour." To me that suggests something like 12:01 or 12:59, give or take. But in this context (programming firewall rules) it apparently means 12:00 or 12:30 respectively. The logic is clear but it's the first time I've heard "the bottom of the hour" in this meaning. Usanian, which usually makes a difference when talking about time and dates, but probably not in the computer context. I might start trying the phrase out on people.

I don't think it's a computer-ism.  The Hunt For Red October is that way  -->

Quote
Jack Ryan : Has he made any Crazy Ivans?
Capt. Bart Mancuso : What difference does that make?
Jack Ryan : Because his next one is going to be to starboard.
Capt. Bart Mancuso : Why? Because his last was to port?
Jack Ryan : No. Because he always goes to starboard in the bottom half of the hour.
[Mancuso looks at a clock, and sees it's near the half-hour mark]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 September, 2021, 03:08:51 pm
I meant the other way round. Being a Usanianism, it would have or is likely to have become a computerism. But a Usanianism first.

I wonder if it possibly originates in eg German, where Uhr means both hour and clock?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moleman76 on 30 September, 2021, 10:33:09 am
Or build out

In Usanian retail development-speak, to "build out" means to construct tenant improvements within a "shell building" or vacant space.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moleman76 on 30 September, 2021, 10:38:53 am
Back in the days of vacuum tube radios over here in Leftpondia, it was common to hear that a few minutes of news coverage was about  to be broadcast at the top or bottom of the hour.  Typically, headlines at the bottom of the hour, with more coverage at the top of the hour.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 September, 2021, 10:46:14 am
Or build out

In Usanian retail development-speak, to "build out" means to construct tenant improvements within a "shell building" or vacant space.
If it's within a shell building, that's back to front – you're actually building in from the outside! But at the same time it makes perfect sense.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 30 September, 2021, 11:42:01 am
Back in the days of vacuum tube radios over here in Leftpondia, it was common to hear that a few minutes of news coverage was about  to be broadcast at the top or bottom of the hour.  Typically, headlines at the bottom of the hour, with more coverage at the top of the hour.

While the Weather Channel used to give local forecasts “on the eights”, this being of some importance to folks at Battle Mountain on account of streamlined bicycles not liking rain and/or wind and sleep-deprived volunteers not liking near-zero temperatures out in the boonies at sunrise.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 October, 2021, 12:45:10 pm
PUB LANDLORD PENS SIGNS TO PERSUADE PUNTERS TO PURCHASE PINTS
https://www.bristol247.com/food-and-drink/news-food-and-drink/pub-landlord-pens-signs-to-persuade-punters-to-purchase-pints/

9/10, had to dock a point for missing the opportunity to use "publican" in place of "pub landlord".  ;D

I've never been to the Bag Of Nails, but I knew as soon as I saw the headline that was the pub referred to. Other signs on the door or in the window include "No stag parties" and "No stupid fancy dress".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 October, 2021, 09:05:32 pm
Okay, this one does make me cringe. And vomit. Even though it's grammatically flawless.
"Sexually challenged people" as a euphemism (or rather a dysphemism – I'd like to say "cacophemism") for gay, bi, otherwise non-heterosexual people.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: cygnet on 04 October, 2021, 09:34:12 pm
Or build out

In Usanian retail development-speak, to "build out" means to construct tenant improvements within a "shell building" or vacant space.
If it's within a shell building, that's back to front – you're actually building in from the outside! But at the same time it makes perfect sense.

It's like fit out, but with structure and not just interior design.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 05 October, 2021, 12:44:43 am
Okay, this one does make me cringe. And vomit. Even though it's grammatically flawless.
"Sexually challenged people" as a euphemism (or rather a dysphemism – I'd like to say "cacophemism") for gay, bi, otherwise non-heterosexual people.

I think I remember that one from The Official Politically Correct Dictionary & Handbook, a problematic piece of satire I encountered at a formative age.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 October, 2021, 11:04:42 am
I don't remember The Official Politically Correct Dictionary & Handbook but I do remember a fashion in the 90s for describing all sorts of characteristics as "... challenged" eg "vertically challenged" for short. Perhaps that originated with this book? It could also be somewhere like that that this person got the "sexually challenged" phrase, as he was using it in a way which indicated he thought it was a good way to refer to people, and English is not his first language.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 05 October, 2021, 11:57:58 am
"Sexually challenged" is one of those phrases that says more about the person using it than the people it purports to describe.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hatler on 05 October, 2021, 12:03:44 pm
See also "woke".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 October, 2021, 12:42:48 pm
This is interesting. From a Graun article about Korean words included in the OED:
Quote
The inclusion of “skinship” is more surprising. Commonly used in South Korea, where it is rendered as seukinsip, and Japan (sukinshippu) it captures the emotional bond that comes from close physical contact between a parent and child, lovers and friends, the dictionary said.
When does a word become Korean (or Japanese or French or whatever)? Do Koreans consider seukinsip to be a Korean word or an English one? Or maybe just a Korean word of foreign origin? See intelligentsia, cul-de-sac, etc. Also, we have ways of expressing the idea of skinship in English, but only in a phrase. Why have we never developed a single word for it on our own?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 05 October, 2021, 01:18:47 pm
Meanwhile, a New Scientist entry in FB reveals a less-than-PC attitude towards the people who kept up their gout supplies when Napoleon put his foot on the claret pipeline:

"The Azores, some 1400 kilometres off the west coast of Europe, were settled by the Portuguese in the 1400s, but now there’s evidence people had lived there 700 years earlier" (my italics).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 October, 2021, 01:38:42 pm
I don't think there's anything wrong with that. It just says the first people to settle in the Azores were not the Portuguese around 1400 but some other people around 700.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 05 October, 2021, 03:45:58 pm
Other makes a difference. But what the hell, PC is a straitjacket anyway.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 05 October, 2021, 04:12:26 pm
Other makes a difference.

I'm with Cudzo on this - I think that's implicit.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Bluebottle on 09 October, 2021, 12:36:02 am
249 pages in, and I have not read them all (so cannot guarantee that this has not been metioned before*), but I have always assumed that this thread shoul dhave been titled "grammar what makes you cringe."




*probably has...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 09 October, 2021, 08:42:31 am
Other makes a difference.

I'm with Cudzo on this - I think that's implicit.

Yeah. Tend to agree but it was a dull day.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 October, 2021, 10:45:21 am
The Oxford comma is a stylistic thing. It's part of the house style of OUP, hence its name. All three of your lists above are correct (IMO), use whichever you prefer – or whichever is the preference of whoever is paying you – just be consistent (within any one text).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 12 October, 2021, 11:54:32 am
Classic example for use of Oxford comma is in a book dedication:

To my parents, the Queen and God.
To my parents, the Queen, and God.

The second shows you are not a deity/monarch.

Other than that, I don’t like the Oxford Comma at all as it breaks the flow when reading.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 12 October, 2021, 12:40:13 pm
The Oxford comma is a stylistic thing. It's part of the house style of OUP, hence its name. All three of your lists above are correct (IMO), use whichever you prefer – or whichever is the preference of whoever is paying you – just be consistent (within any one text).

ISTR that Inspector Morse favoured it. That probably didn't come across on TV.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 12 October, 2021, 01:37:04 pm
I agree with Cudzo.

Slightly different point on use of commas but this has reminded me of the popular beat combo called Let’s Eat Grandma, whose name is a grammatical joke.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 12 October, 2021, 10:23:28 pm
I reckon the Slovak approach is much more sensible, but the Oxford comma is a mostly harmless and occasionally necessary disambiguation hack.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 12 October, 2021, 10:48:37 pm
I like and use Oxford commas.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hatler on 13 October, 2021, 08:46:04 am
"I like, and use Oxford commas", surely ?  :-D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 13 October, 2021, 09:44:08 am
I may be wrong but I'd have thought it only comes into play when you have a list of 3 or more things. There can be no ambiguity - of the type which the Oxford comma aims to avoid - when there are only two items.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 13 October, 2021, 11:22:50 am
The Gammon  comma ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, on the other hand ,,,,,,,,, should make everyone cringe.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: The French Tandem on 13 October, 2021, 12:18:14 pm
Have you heard of the Oxford comma?

I learned to speak english in far-northern America, but never heard of this Oxford comma, I rather learned to list things like the way you call British. Maybe it's a relatively new thing?


Apparantly, without the Oxford comma Americans are uncertain as to whether there are three or four items in the list.

For me, there are three items in A, B, C or D, but four items in A, B, C and D, with or without an extra comma. Are the Americans confused between the meanings of "and" and "or" ?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: The French Tandem on 13 October, 2021, 12:54:47 pm
Your example is perfectly clear for me. How can "A, B, C and D" mean 3 items for some people is not clear.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 13 October, 2021, 01:26:28 pm
Your example is perfectly clear for me. How can "A, B, C and D" mean 3 items for some people is not clear.

To use a notation that avoids the ambiguity, it's the difference between {"A", "B", "C", "D"}  and  {"A", "B", "C and D"}


"For dessert we have ice-cream, CAKE, cheese and biscuits."  Are cheese and biscuits two items, or one item consisting of two parts?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 October, 2021, 09:00:05 am
It's possible to have ambiguity with only two items. "I like macaroni and cheese. But I don't like macaroni and cheese." Though in this example you can avoid the ambiguity by being American and calling the dish "mac and cheese".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 14 October, 2021, 09:48:11 am
It's possible to have ambiguity with only two items. "I like macaroni and cheese. But I don't like macaroni and cheese." Though in this example you can avoid the ambiguity by being American and calling the dish "mac and cheese".
But then you would have to be killed utterly to DETH. Even worse is "mac 'n' cheese".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 14 October, 2021, 11:17:52 am
Macaroni cheese=macncheese=/=macaroni and cheese.

The 'and' in English is only used for separate items, surely?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 14 October, 2021, 11:30:38 am
Macaroni cheese=macncheese=/=macaroni and cheese.

The 'and' in English is only used for separate items, surely?

Good point. But what of fish and chips?  Presumably in Scotland confusion is avoided by having a fish supper.

When I was learning Lat. at school, it turned out the Romans had "et" for "and" and "que" for "and", as a suffix, when things often went together. The Senate and People of Rome, (SPQR, Senatus Populusque Romanus, for example. My Lat. teacher gave "fish chipsque" as an example of its use.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 October, 2021, 11:35:04 am
We could I suppose use "with" in English to avoid this. "I like fish and chips but I don't like fish with chips." But we don't actually say that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Croft on 14 October, 2021, 07:40:23 pm
For me, there are three items in A, B, C or D, but four items in A, B, C and D, with or without an extra comma. Are the Americans confused between the meanings of "and" and "or" ?

I think there are several valid interpretations of "A, B, C or D":

{A} OR {B} OR {C} OR {D} : "Would you like red wine, white wine, orange juice or water?" (not an invitation to be greedy)
{A,B,C} OR {D} : "Rock, paper, scissors, or toss a coin?" (don't think I'd want to play a game of "scissors or toss a coin")
{A,B, {C OR D}} : "Lasagna, seasonal vegetables, chips or boiled potatoes" (A favourite of all pubs before they went gastro)

I would tend to assume the first unless context suggests otherwise.

With "and", there is little ambiguity as conjunction is associative: {{A AND B} AND C} is equivalent to {A AND {B AND C}}
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Salvatore on 14 October, 2021, 09:32:51 pm
Macaroni cheese=macncheese=/=macaroni and cheese.

The 'and' in English is only used for separate items, surely?

Hendiadys - "one through two". My latin teacher used to use 'bread and butter' as an example.

And he referred to -que as an enclitic.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 14 October, 2021, 10:41:53 pm
We could I suppose use "with" in English to avoid this. "I like fish and chips but I don't like fish with chips." But we don't actually say that.
Except in degree course titles, where "Midwifery with Astrophysics" means you're almost qualified to deliver a baby and looked at a telescope once, but "Midwifery and Astrophysics" means an equal split and you shouldn't be trusted with either.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 15 October, 2021, 11:59:05 am
To use a notation that avoids the ambiguity, it's the difference between {"A", "B", "C", "D"}  and  {"A", "B", "C and D"}

You're thinking of it like a computer programmer.

Communication between humans is more open to nuance. In real life, your cheese and biscuits example isn't ambiguous because we commonly understand cheese and biscuits as a composite menu item. You'd only read them as two separate items if you're being wilfully pedantic. Or wilfully American.

We shouldn't pay heed to Americans on punctuation rules anyway. They stupidly insist on putting all punctuation inside quote marks, even when it is syntactically not part of the quoted phrase.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 15 October, 2021, 12:05:16 pm
I checked up what Fowler had to say on the matter...

"The more usual way of punctuating such an enumeration as was used as an example in the preceding section is French, German, Italian and Spanish; the commas between French and German and German and Italian take the place of ands; there is no comma after Italian because, with and, it would be otiose. There are, however, some who favour putting one there, arguing that, since it may sometimes be needed to avoid ambiguity it may as well be used always for the sake of uniformity."

Uniformity is overrated. I prefer to judge each case on its merits and only add the serial comma if it is genuinely necessary.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 October, 2021, 12:23:58 pm
Talking of computer programming, last week I was editing captions for a series of videos that were to form a course for a particular software. Needless to say, I knew nothing about the programme beforehand and very little afterwards, but I did gather that it's important to distinguish between, say, Reward Account, RewardAccount and rewardAccount. One is a generic idea, one a particular database and one a method. Or something. I really, really hope someone who understands this is going to go over it before it's released on students, but somehow I doubt that's going to happen.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 15 October, 2021, 12:27:37 pm
Indeed, I'm minded that all grammar rules should be ignored, if the results are clear and easy to read and there's no unnecessary ambiguity, who cares where the comma should be inserted. I'll insert an Oxford comma if it aids that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 15 October, 2021, 01:23:21 pm
Talking of computer programming, last week I was editing captions for a series of videos that were to form a course for a particular software. Needless to say, I knew nothing about the programme beforehand and very little afterwards, but I did gather that it's important to distinguish between, say, Reward Account, RewardAccount and rewardAccount. One is a generic idea, one a particular database and one a method. Or something. I really, really hope someone who understands this is going to go over it before it's released on students, but somehow I doubt that's going to happen.

Fairly standard problem in object-oriented programming:

Quote from: Ian Utting
And then you can have a class called Object which is an object of class Class.
<bemused looks>
I can't do uppercase and Courier font when I'm speaking. I try, but I can't get the serifs right.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 October, 2021, 01:28:36 pm
Yeahbut Ian Utting at least knows the difference!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 15 October, 2021, 01:35:03 pm
Quite.  I think you're well into the realm of requiring expert knowledge to get that sort of thing right.  And in an educational context, it matters.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 October, 2021, 03:39:58 pm
The annoying thing is they knew how much it would matter, because they specifically instructed that certain phrases would be entered by students into the command line and therefore must be captioned exactly as they appear on screen but in single quotes, but they didn't think to apply that to stuff that doesn't appear on screen. I've done previous work for other elements of this same course and that has been much easier, because it was more "how to use this" rather than how to programme it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 October, 2021, 03:41:03 pm
Anyway I was going to go back to "and". "I like lentils and parmesan but I don't like lentils and parmesan." See the Random Food thread!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 15 October, 2021, 03:59:04 pm
Anyway I was going to go back to "and". "I like lentils and parmesan but I don't like lentils and parmesan." See the Random Food thread!

If you like peas and you like cheese...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 15 October, 2021, 04:34:54 pm
Anyway I was going to go back to "and". "I like lentils and parmesan but I don't like lentils and parmesan." See the Random Food thread!

If you like peas and you like cheese...
I had to google that. A little before my time...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hatler on 15 October, 2021, 04:40:56 pm
Why do we say "Shot dead", but "Stabbed to death" ?

Why not "Shot to death" and "Stabbed dead" ?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 15 October, 2021, 05:57:12 pm
More correctly they're both forms of being murdered to death.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 15 October, 2021, 06:16:03 pm
I've seen “shot to DETH” crop up occasionally but sounds Wrong/FOREIGN/both to this Unit.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 15 October, 2021, 07:20:46 pm
I've seen “shot to DETH” crop up occasionally but sounds Wrong/FOREIGN/both to this Unit.
Yes, it's lacking the word UTTERLY
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: cygnet on 15 October, 2021, 11:01:56 pm
Why do we say "Shot dead", but "Stabbed to death" ?

Why not "Shot to death" and "Stabbed dead" ?
Is there a technical difference (linguistic and/or legal) that's combining with "usage frequency"?

"To death" suggests multiple (and not individually fatal) wounds.  Perhaps it also includes number of assailants. A firing squad shoots someone to death, they don't shoot someone dead. Stabbing dead could be a single fatal action. Stabbed to death - be bleeding out from multiple injuries.

I think it's generally imagined (expected) that being stabbed is more survivable than being shot. Being stabbed dead is less common than being shot dead, and so the phrase is used more often.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 16 October, 2021, 09:24:10 am
An Ngram of shot to death vs shot dead (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=shot+to+death%2Cshot+dead&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=29&smoothing=3) shows that shot to death is mainly American usage (you can flip between US & UK at the top).  Funnily enough, both terms are in decline in Britain, probably since extreme PC kicked in.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 16 October, 2021, 10:05:53 am
There, you see.  FOREIGN.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 16 October, 2021, 11:55:08 am
Why do we say "Shot dead", but "Stabbed to death" ?

Why not "Shot to death" and "Stabbed dead" ?
Is there a technical difference (linguistic and/or legal) that's combining with "usage frequency"?

"To death" suggests multiple (and not individually fatal) wounds.  Perhaps it also includes number of assailants. A firing squad shoots someone to death, they don't shoot someone dead. Stabbing dead could be a single fatal action. Stabbed to death - be bleeding out from multiple injuries.

I think it's generally imagined (expected) that being stabbed is more survivable than being shot. Being stabbed dead is less common than being shot dead, and so the phrase is used more often.
I'd had much the same thought, though it hadn't occurred to me to link it with a legal distinction, but then dismissed it as just a personal association.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 21 October, 2021, 10:12:58 am
Definition creep: it used to be that you spiked someone's drink to get them drunk but now, after seeing Ian's new thread and doing a bit of googling, it appears that it's the people who get spiked.  Well, well, dearie me, what a wonderful modern world we live in.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 21 October, 2021, 05:16:08 pm
Definition creep: it used to be that you spiked someone's drink to get them drunk but now, after seeing Ian's new thread and doing a bit of googling, it appears that it's the people who get spiked.  Well, well, dearie me, what a wonderful modern world we live in.

It's not really a change in definition, it's that the people who are doing the spiking are now doing it directly (and literally, ie with a needle) into their victim, rather than indirectly via their drink.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 21 October, 2021, 07:02:26 pm
Definition creep: it used to be that you spiked someone's drink to get them drunk but now, after seeing Ian's new thread and doing a bit of googling, it appears that it's the people who get spiked.  Well, well, dearie me, what a wonderful modern world we live in.

It's not really a change in definition, it's that the people who are doing the spiking are now doing it directly (and literally, ie with a needle) into their victim, rather than indirectly via their drink.

Yeah, except they aren't, hence the topic that I won't rehash here.

It's totes true though that people might inject you with AIDs in Asda though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rafletcher on 21 October, 2021, 07:07:24 pm
In a BBC article I read the the victim of a crime had been “allegedly stabbed”. You know, the one that died from stab wounds  ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 21 October, 2021, 07:35:20 pm
Yeah, except they aren't…

I realised after posting that I should have added an ’allegedly’ in there.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 21 October, 2021, 07:39:38 pm
It wouldn't surprise me if some scrote was using something like ketamine unfortunately.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 21 October, 2021, 08:05:59 pm
It wouldn't surprise me if some scrote was using something like ketamine unfortunately.

No, not that either, the only thing you have to worry about is being injected with AIDs in Asda. It's the truth. Sometimes they put it in fish fingers too.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 21 October, 2021, 09:41:12 pm
In a BBC article I read the the victim of a crime had been “allegedly stabbed”. You know, the one that died from stab wounds  ::-)

IIRC a PSO was 'allegedly stabbed' up the road from here a few years back.  Turned out the knife wounds were self-inflicted.  (Unsure if this was deliberate self-harm, or a Hananananah the Astronononomer style unfortunate accident.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moleman76 on 22 October, 2021, 07:52:14 am
More correctly they're both forms of being murdered to death.

Is there any other outcome of murder than death?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 22 October, 2021, 08:31:30 am
Definition creep: it used to be that you spiked someone's drink to get them drunk but now, after seeing Ian's new thread and doing a bit of googling, it appears that it's the people who get spiked.  Well, well, dearie me, what a wonderful modern world we live in.

It's not really a change in definition, it's that the people who are doing the spiking are now doing it directly (and literally, ie with a needle) into their victim, rather than indirectly via their drink.

Which is just what I said: the definition has been blurred to cover both iniquities. There's quite a big difference, come to that: in the one case you slip a vodka into someone's beer to get them a bit drunk(er) than they were probably going to get anyway, and in the other you attack them with a poison-bearing weapon.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 22 October, 2021, 09:25:11 am
More correctly they're both forms of being murdered to death.

Is there any other outcome of murder than death?

A little bit murdered?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Croft on 22 October, 2021, 04:18:20 pm
And if I understand young people's speak correctly, just below "a little bit murdered" there's "literally murdered", which translates as "figuratively murdered".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 October, 2021, 11:28:10 am
[Global alcohol brand] has launched a series of pop-up stores in China, at which they host events for "opinion leaders" to review in order to "attract netizens". Ugh! That word is almost as ugly as "brifter".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 26 October, 2021, 11:39:02 am
I have heard, and cringed at, "netizens" before, but what on earth is a "brifter"? It sounds like a portmanteau word to describe Farage, Johnson, Handcock etc etc - British grifter. Whatever it is, it sounds bloody horrible.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 26 October, 2021, 12:02:21 pm
“Brifter” is an appalling neologism coined for those combined brake/gear lever contraptions, and should be Uterlye Cryéd Down in the same way as those who refer to well-known Italian bicycle components as “Campy” :sick:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 October, 2021, 12:20:19 pm
I have heard, and cringed at, "netizens" before, but what on earth is a "brifter"? It sounds like a portmanteau word to describe Farage, Johnson, Handcock etc etc - British grifter. Whatever it is, it sounds bloody horrible.
It is as Mr Larrington has already said, but as combined brake levers and gear shifters are not in themselves an ugly or bad thing, the meaning of the extremely ugly word "brifter" should be what you have said.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 26 October, 2021, 01:09:49 pm
Meanwhile, the dreaded "**** had landed" trope à la Mr. N. Armstrong made a pleasing appearance in my mailbox yesterday in the title "The Jary has landed".  Not their fault they can't spell jarrie, and the thought of a Glaswegian cludge soft-landing on the Moon is rather appealing.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 October, 2021, 07:55:01 pm
"We got the short end of the stick". Well, it's clear what he means. 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Giraffe on 30 October, 2021, 08:58:33 am
Yup, he's holding by the smallest half.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 11 November, 2021, 10:25:20 pm
Quote
...while descending down a steep hill...

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/richard-branson-injured-in-colossal-cycling-crash-in-british-virgin-islands
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Giraffe on 18 November, 2021, 04:50:34 pm
Get a lot of this sort of headline:
"Baby girl found in drain recovering in hospital"
Why was the drain in hospital?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 18 November, 2021, 05:05:18 pm
I have been perusing Mr Sainsbury's website (again).

WTF are 'accompliments' in the Meat and Fish Christmas list?

Accompaniments maybe. Trimmings might be too plain a term.

I don't do neologisms for Christmas (nor any other time)...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 November, 2021, 05:56:07 pm
They are accompaniments which complement the main dish. Or maybe which compliment it.

Then again, does it mean all the little bits and pieces you can put together to make something larger? You know, the accomponents?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 18 November, 2021, 08:27:38 pm
They are accompaniments which complement the main dish. Or maybe which compliment it.

Then again, does it mean all the little bits and pieces you can put together to make something larger? You know, the accomponents?

<pedant>

I think you mean 'complement'…

I am warming to the term 'trimmings'.

Simple, unpretentious English is best!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 November, 2021, 08:51:58 pm
They are accompaniments which complement the main dish. Or maybe which compliment it.

Then again, does it mean all the little bits and pieces you can put together to make something larger? You know, the accomponents?

<pedant>

I think you mean 'complement'…

I am warming to the term 'trimmings'.

Simple, unpretentious English is best!
<super annoying pedant>
Complement is in the first sentence, compliment in the second.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 18 November, 2021, 09:16:36 pm
Yeah, you win!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 21 November, 2021, 10:46:10 am
ISTR someone, possible not OTP, disparaging (or even deprecating) the use of the word decade.  Does anyone know why?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 29 November, 2021, 08:24:42 pm
Dear fellow member of the Narrow Gauge Enthusiasts FB group, while I really liked your video of 90cm gauge electrics working heavy mineral trains, did you really have to describe your video as "very unique"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: cygnet on 29 November, 2021, 08:38:46 pm
ISTR someone, possible not OTP, disparaging (or even deprecating) the use of the word decade.  Does anyone know why?

Was it along the lines that a decade is a ten year period, and not necessarily the period of years with nY as the last two digits, where n is a constant and Y is a variable?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 November, 2021, 02:53:00 pm
We are "working hand and love" with our partners.  :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 30 November, 2021, 03:15:12 pm
We are "working hand and love" with our partners.  :D
It's when they say "towards a happy ending" that you might want to get worried.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 30 November, 2021, 03:33:07 pm
ISTR someone, possible not OTP, disparaging (or even deprecating) the use of the word decade.  Does anyone know why?

Was it along the lines that a decade is a ten year period, and not necessarily the period of years with nY as the last two digits, where n is a constant and Y is a variable?

No idea. AFAIK it can even mean a group of 10 things, although you almost never see it used that way.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 December, 2021, 08:15:30 pm
"Minimalistic" is oxymoronic.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 December, 2021, 09:50:51 am
The Graun writing what they don't mean:
Quote
Smoking has already been widely replaced by vaping among teenage New Zealanders, and is also attracting many young people who would never have taken up smoking – according to surveying of 19,000 high school students this year, nearly 20% were vaping daily or several times a day, the majority with high nicotine doses.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 09 December, 2021, 12:39:40 pm
That's just word salad, as well as being wrong.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 December, 2021, 12:45:34 pm
I wouldn't call it word salad, it's just the transferred subject that's annoying. All it needs is to replace the "and" after New Zealanders with "which". As for being factually wrong, casual observation and anecdote suggest it might well be correct for the UK, which probably isn't that different in this respect.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 09 December, 2021, 12:47:36 pm
They are accompaniments which complement the main dish. Or maybe which compliment it.

Then again, does it mean all the little bits and pieces you can put together to make something larger? You know, the accomponents?

<pedant>

I think you mean 'complement'…

I am warming to the term 'trimmings'.

Simple, unpretentious English is best!

Trimmings - no, never, ever.... aaaagh!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 13 December, 2021, 09:18:58 pm
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FGcPAZEXMAQExOX?format=jpg&name=900x900)

From that there Twitter.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 13 December, 2021, 09:51:43 pm
Shouldn't that word be 'licenCe'?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hatler on 13 December, 2021, 09:54:54 pm
Shouldn't that word be 'licenCe'?
That was my first thought too. She could be USAnian though, and they use 'license' for both the noun and the verb (weirdos).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 13 December, 2021, 10:20:19 pm
The response that comes to mind starts "People who live in glass houses....".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 December, 2021, 10:23:13 pm
Twitter says that account has not tweeted. https://twitter.com/yeswehomeschool
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mrs Pingu on 13 December, 2021, 10:27:35 pm
Draw: to sketch with a pen or pencil
Drawer: those box shaped things for keeping stuff in that slide in and out of a chest

Yes, this one has been getting on my wick of late.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 14 December, 2021, 01:16:24 am
Also:
The back bit of one's foot vs. making the sick well again, and
Masculine vs. letters and postcards.

Grr.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 14 December, 2021, 01:39:18 am
kerb/curb
peddle/pedal
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: FifeingEejit on 14 December, 2021, 03:24:31 am
Using ran as the past participle of run.

No you didn't feckin ran it.

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 14 December, 2021, 03:39:26 am
Using ran as the past participle of run.

No you didn't feckin ran it.

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

Imperfect imperfect...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 14 December, 2021, 09:42:58 am
Draw: to sketch with a pen or pencil
Drawer: those box shaped things for keeping stuff in that slide in and out of a chest

Yes, this one has been getting on my wick of late.

Me too, me too, me too.

(But I think it's spelling rather than grammar #pedant  ::-) )
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 14 December, 2021, 10:25:34 am
Draw: to sketch with a pen or pencil
Drawer: those box shaped things for keeping stuff in that slide in and out of a chest

Yes, this one has been getting on my wick of late.

Me too, me too, me too.

(But I think it's spelling rather than grammar #pedant  ::-) )
"Chester draws". A thing often seen in small ads.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 December, 2021, 10:48:04 am
If you had written "authentification" just once, it would probably have been a typo. But using it at every opportunity suggests you believe it is a real word. It is not, so please don't use it again.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: offcumden on 20 December, 2021, 11:18:07 am
As a soft core user of Strava I've just received my stats for the past year, with the statement:

"In a year like this the wins you got shined brighter than ever."

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 20 December, 2021, 12:00:44 pm
If you had written "authentification" just once, it would probably have been a typo. But using it at every opportunity suggests you believe it is a real word. It is not, so please don't use it again.

Non-native English speakers seem to use it often enough that I assume it takes that form in other languages.

ETA: Just looked it up and it's legitimate French.

Just a matter of time before we get 'authentificationize', obviously.  Probably in a Java library.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 20 December, 2021, 04:31:16 pm
Authentify would be a great word, shorter than authenticate and has a reflexive feel to it.

In a vaguely similar vein, if someone who receives is a recipient, should someone who gives be a gipient?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 December, 2021, 04:33:15 pm
And a thing given would be a gipt?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hatler on 20 December, 2021, 04:35:05 pm
You're trying to apply consistent patterns to English ??

Lost cause.

It does however give us the ability to create a word based upon two or three known and understood parts and come up with something that has never existed before, and yet is instantly understood by anyone. I rather enjoy that aspect of this language.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 20 December, 2021, 04:55:41 pm
It does however give us the ability to create a work based upon two or three known and understood parts and come up with something that has never existed before, and yet is instantly understood by anyone. I rather enjoy that aspect of this language.

Aren't German-speakers able to do that with up to eleventy-seven parts?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 20 December, 2021, 05:23:03 pm
I think most of the world's languages can do that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 20 December, 2021, 06:01:45 pm
It does however give us the ability to create a work based upon two or three known and understood parts and come up with something that has never existed before, and yet is instantly understood by anyone. I rather enjoy that aspect of this language.

Aren't German-speakers able to do that with up to eleventy-seven parts?
Yes but sometimes the add-ons behave differently than when they are separate words. Which gets one confused.

Hören = to hear
Zuhören = to listen to (zu is often ‚to‘ in English)
Weghören = stop listening (weg is go away)
abhören =overhear
Überhören = to not hear something
Hinhören = to listen carefully
aufhören = to stop. Nothing to do with hearing.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 December, 2021, 08:41:50 pm
Authentify would be a great word, shorter than authenticate and has a reflexive feel to it.
I think the thing here is that with 'authentication' the root of both noun and verb is an adjective, whereas with say 'verification' the noun is derived from the verb.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: bhoot on 20 December, 2021, 10:17:30 pm
If you had written "authentification" just once, it would probably have been a typo. But using it at every opportunity suggests you believe it is a real word. It is not, so please don't use it again.

Non-native English speakers seem to use it often enough that I assume it takes that form in other languages.

ETA: Just looked it up and it's legitimate French.

Just a matter of time before we get 'authentificationize', obviously.  Probably in a Java library.

I work a lot with French colleagues and some of my favourites are "plannification" and "robustify". Not sure I have heard "robustification" yet but it's probably out there.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: FifeingEejit on 20 December, 2021, 10:39:59 pm
If you had written "authentification" just once, it would probably have been a typo. But using it at every opportunity suggests you believe it is a real word. It is not, so please don't use it again.

Non-native English speakers seem to use it often enough that I assume it takes that form in other languages.

ETA: Just looked it up and it's legitimate French.

Just a matter of time before we get 'authentificationize', obviously.  Probably in a Java library.
I once had a dig around a database written in Canadian-French, was fine until I came across Anathesiologist.
Wtaf?

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Paul on 21 December, 2021, 09:45:44 am
You're trying to apply consistent patterns to English ??

Lost cause.

It does however give us the ability to create a word based upon two or three known and understood parts and come up with something that has never existed before, and yet is instantly understood by anyone. I rather enjoy that aspect of this language.
I’m always impressed when very young children do this with irregular verbs, making up words they will not have heard, applying the rules they haven’t been expressly taught, but which they have already assimilated: runned, thinked, doed etc.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hatler on 21 December, 2021, 09:56:36 am
'Tangentialising' is one of my own favourite creations.  Very appropriate for this place.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 December, 2021, 09:58:54 am
You're trying to apply consistent patterns to English ??

Lost cause.

It does however give us the ability to create a word based upon two or three known and understood parts and come up with something that has never existed before, and yet is instantly understood by anyone. I rather enjoy that aspect of this language.
I’m always impressed when very young children do this with irregular verbs, making up words they will not have heard, applying the rules they haven’t been expressly taught, but which they have already assimilated: runned, thinked, doed etc.
Yes, it's a fun and interesting look at how we learn language. Not just verbs, of course. One of my favourites was a friend's little boy, who in reply to another child's "I've got a jumper on" said "I've got two jumper ons".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 21 December, 2021, 11:32:12 am
I’m always impressed when very young children do this with irregular verbs, making up words they will not have heard, applying the rules they haven’t been expressly taught, but which they have already assimilated: runned, thinked, doed etc.

Saw that and immediately thought “Newspeak”.  Still, oldthinkers unbellyfeel IngSoc, so that's alright.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 21 December, 2021, 01:25:02 pm
I once had a dig around a database written in Canadian-French, was fine until I came across Anathesiologist.
Wtaf?

Isn't that just a spelling mistake?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 21 December, 2021, 01:38:03 pm
I’m always impressed when very young children do this with irregular verbs, making up words they will not have heard, applying the rules they haven’t been expressly taught, but which they have already assimilated: runned, thinked, doed etc.

Saw that and immediately thought “Newspeak”.  Still, oldthinkers unbellyfeel IngSoc, so that's alright.
vented,
My favourite is one of my nephew's (when a child).  He introduced (effortlessly) the very useful verb "unbeableto", which is much more poetic than "won't be able to"!   Grammar that makes me proud!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 21 December, 2021, 02:08:31 pm
I’m always impressed when very young children do this with irregular verbs, making up words they will not have heard, applying the rules they haven’t been expressly taught, but which they have already assimilated: runned, thinked, doed etc.

Saw that and immediately thought “Newspeak”.  Still, oldthinkers unbellyfeel IngSoc, so that's alright.
vented,
My favourite is one of my nephew's (when a child).  He introduced (effortlessly) the very useful verb "unbeableto", which is much more poetic than "won't be able to"!   Grammar that makes me proud!

Reminds me of my infant son who, on being told to behave, replied "but I am being have" (to rhyme with wave).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 21 December, 2021, 03:42:09 pm
Reminds me of my infant son who, on being told to behave, replied "but I am being have" (to rhyme with wave).

I think this is my all-time favourite child's neologism.  'Mistake agent' is a runner-up.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 23 December, 2021, 12:19:43 am
Yes, those are both terrific - but there is a poetry about my nephew's that is worthy of Woody Guthrie!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ElyDave on 23 December, 2021, 06:07:09 am
If you had written "authentification" just once, it would probably have been a typo. But using it at every opportunity suggests you believe it is a real word. It is not, so please don't use it again.

Non-native English speakers seem to use it often enough that I assume it takes that form in other languages.

ETA: Just looked it up and it's legitimate French.

Just a matter of time before we get 'authentificationize', obviously.  Probably in a Java library.

I work a lot with French colleagues and some of my favourites are "plannification" and "robustify". Not sure I have heard "robustification" yet but it's probably out there.

It is already out there, I won't name and shame the company, but my previous division (definitely not the joy division) of my company  performed robustification audits for said company.

Luckily I was busy enough not to receive robustification training to work on that job
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 December, 2021, 09:18:21 pm
Oh look! Five ways the internet has changed English! https://theconversation.com/five-ways-the-internet-era-has-changed-british-english-new-research-172432
The one that surprises me a little is the decline in use of modals. I can't imagine they could die out completely as that would leave us unable to express certain ideas.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 29 December, 2021, 09:24:04 pm
Not sure I'd trust anything about internet linguistics from someone who can't spell LOL properly and thinks that 'app' and 'software' mean the same thing, but the decline in modals is interesting.  I suppose if nothing else they'll live on in technical documents like RFCs and the Highway Code.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 29 December, 2021, 09:27:30 pm
My guesses before reading the article:
gotten,
protest without "against".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 29 December, 2021, 09:30:05 pm
'Gotten' is surely standard USAnian?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 December, 2021, 09:34:58 pm
someone who can't spell LOL properly
I'm not sure whether "Im" is meant to "IM" as in an abbreviation for something like "instant message" or "I'm" without punctuation. Awesome, fab, congrats and omg were all pretty popular before the internet took off as well. In fact journalists, of all people, were moaning about the overuse of "awesome" back in the late 1980s.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 29 December, 2021, 09:36:51 pm
'Gotten' is surely standard USAnian?

Quote
Five ways the internet era has changed British English

Anyway, it's just saying written UK English has become more informal. I would think that's because of online forums, social media, blogs etc being more chatty. Pre-internet, published informal texts would be much less common, maybe almost non existent.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 29 December, 2021, 09:43:24 pm
'Gotten' is surely standard USAnian?

Quote
Five ways the internet era has changed British English

Anyway, it's just saying written UK English has become more informal. I would think that's because of online forums, social media, blogs etc being more chatty. Pre-internet, published informal texts would be much less common, maybe almost non existent.

Exactly.

British English has been steadily becoming more American since the invention of the GI, so that's hardly a new phenomenon, and I'd class the use of 'gotten' by Brits as part of that.  (I remember people using 'gotten' in the 80s.)

What the internet's brought is vast swathes of informal writing, hence the drifts in modals, punctuation habits, etc.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 29 December, 2021, 09:47:01 pm
someone who can't spell LOL properly
I'm not sure whether "Im" is meant to "IM" as in an abbreviation for something like "instant message" or "I'm" without punctuation.

I was wondering about that too.  The inclusion of "Ive" suggests it might be "I'm" without an apostrophe (which is surely a significant linguistic drift getting lost in a list of brand names, abbreviations and technical terms).  Also, nobody talks about IMs any more, do they? (Even though they're alive and well, and mostly owned by Facebook.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 29 December, 2021, 10:41:34 pm
Did someone say "forums"?

 ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 December, 2021, 12:45:24 pm
someone who can't spell LOL properly
I'm not sure whether "Im" is meant to "IM" as in an abbreviation for something like "instant message" or "I'm" without punctuation.

I was wondering about that too.  The inclusion of "Ive" suggests it might be "I'm" without an apostrophe (which is surely a significant linguistic drift getting lost in a list of brand names, abbreviations and technical terms).  Also, nobody talks about IMs any more, do they? (Even though they're alive and well, and mostly owned by Facebook.)
I think George Bernard Shaw never used apostrophes and advocated their abolition, on the grounds that they confuse people. It didn't stop him getting a Nobel Prize (maybe even helped) but I don't think it's his influence leading to their decline now.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 30 December, 2021, 02:43:24 pm
someone who can't spell LOL properly
I'm not sure whether "Im" is meant to "IM" as in an abbreviation for something like "instant message" or "I'm" without punctuation.

I was wondering about that too.  The inclusion of "Ive" suggests it might be "I'm" without an apostrophe (which is surely a significant linguistic drift getting lost in a list of brand names, abbreviations and technical terms).  Also, nobody talks about IMs any more, do they? (Even though they're alive and well, and mostly owned by Facebook.)
I think George Bernard Shaw never used apostrophes and advocated their abolition, on the grounds that they confuse people. It didn't stop him getting a Nobel Prize (maybe even helped) but I don't think it's his influence leading to their decline now.

It's interesting, because you'd expect autocarrot to insert the apostrophe automagically on a fondleslab, which is surely the place where most lazy typing takes place.

I've just checked on my phone and the suggestions are "ive" "I've" "ice" and "im" "I'm" "immediately" respectively.  You'd think the lazy option would be to take the prominent, grammatically correct, suggestion.  Are people deliberately using the lower-case version for linguistic reasons (cf. Gretchen McCulloch)?  Or taking the leftmost suggestion, even though it's further to reach with your right hand?  Do people genuinely not know how to use contractions properly?  Or is it purely a hardware keyboard phenomenon?

Abolishing apostrophes is an interesting idea.  It's a bit like USAnian spelling, in that it's clearly inevitable.  Which doesn't make it any less cringe-worthy for those of us who've been brought up to use them correctly.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 30 December, 2021, 03:09:55 pm
My fondleslab only gives three alternatives for any given word and at least one of them is often something it’s learned from P@nd3m1c Pr0duckt10nzTM® and therefore of limited utility when typing for the Rest Of The World.  Perhaps if I try it in portrait…
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: FifeingEejit on 30 December, 2021, 03:18:03 pm
'Gotten' is surely standard USAnian?

Quote
Five ways the internet era has changed British English

Anyway, it's just saying written UK English has become more informal. I would think that's because of online forums, social media, blogs etc being more chatty. Pre-internet, published informal texts would be much less common, maybe almost non existent.
A fair whack of "Americanisms" come from Scottish Standard English or Hiberno-English

Gotten is perfectly legit here as it is the past-participle of "get" in Scots, SSE is modern English mangled with Scots and Gaelic, Scots is of course middle english mangled with Gaelic and then presented to a different set of trading partners from what middle English and Northumbric were.

See also Halloween.

British English is a fallacy created by the ruling class to attempt to present the UK as a single homogenous thing rather than the inherent multi-cuktural thing it is, feck Scotland has 4 distinct high-level cultures as it was (lowland, Highland, hebridean and norse), England has an imperial fuck ton of them, as can easily be seen by putting a Geordie in the same room as a Cornish.

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 December, 2021, 04:53:56 pm
someone who can't spell LOL properly
I'm not sure whether "Im" is meant to "IM" as in an abbreviation for something like "instant message" or "I'm" without punctuation.

I was wondering about that too.  The inclusion of "Ive" suggests it might be "I'm" without an apostrophe (which is surely a significant linguistic drift getting lost in a list of brand names, abbreviations and technical terms).  Also, nobody talks about IMs any more, do they? (Even though they're alive and well, and mostly owned by Facebook.)
I think George Bernard Shaw never used apostrophes and advocated their abolition, on the grounds that they confuse people. It didn't stop him getting a Nobel Prize (maybe even helped) but I don't think it's his influence leading to their decline now.

It's interesting, because you'd expect autocarrot to insert the apostrophe automagically on a fondleslab, which is surely the place where most lazy typing takes place.

I've just checked on my phone and the suggestions are "ive" "I've" "ice" and "im" "I'm" "immediately" respectively.  You'd think the lazy option would be to take the prominent, grammatically correct, suggestion.  Are people deliberately using the lower-case version for linguistic reasons (cf. Gretchen McCulloch)?  Or taking the leftmost suggestion, even though it's further to reach with your right hand?  Do people genuinely not know how to use contractions properly?  Or is it purely a hardware keyboard phenomenon?
I've just checked on mine and the options it gives are slightly different but always include both the correct form and the incorrect one I've entered. Interestingly, typing "ive" gives "i've" as an option. Also, I'm so used to MS Word and its equivalents autocorrecting "i" to "I" that I'm caught out when my phone doesn't do this for me.

Quote
Abolishing apostrophes is an interesting idea.  It's a bit like USAnian spelling, in that it's clearly inevitable.  Which doesn't make it any less cringe-worthy for those of us who've been brought up to use them correctly.
I don't think they will be formally abolished, because English doesn't do things like that, nor am I sure they will die out. Rather, I think their use will probably alter to become something else. Perhaps apostrophe s being how you form a plural unless the word ends in a vowel, or something just as silly as the mess we have now.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 30 December, 2021, 06:43:39 pm
'Gotten' is surely standard USAnian?

Quote
Five ways the internet era has changed British English

Anyway, it's just saying written UK English has become more informal. I would think that's because of online forums, social media, blogs etc being more chatty. Pre-internet, published informal texts would be much less common, maybe almost non existent.
A fair whack of "Americanisms" come from Scottish Standard English or Hiberno-English

Gotten is perfectly legit here as it is the past-participle of "get" in Scots, SSE is modern English mangled with Scots and Gaelic, Scots is of course middle english mangled with Gaelic and then presented to a different set of trading partners from what middle English and Northumbric were.

See also Halloween.

British English is a fallacy created by the ruling class to attempt to present the UK as a single homogenous thing rather than the inherent multi-cuktural thing it is, feck Scotland has 4 distinct high-level cultures as it was (lowland, Highland, hebridean and norse), England has an imperial fuck ton of them, as can easily be seen by putting a Geordie in the same room as a Cornish.


Gotten is standard English in several parts of the UK, and the standard in the US, never sure why it keeps being highlighted as some symptom of creeping Americanism). I think it sounds nice than the rather curt got.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rafletcher on 30 December, 2021, 07:26:25 pm
See also “bring” for “take”, and “brought” for “taken”.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: FifeingEejit on 30 December, 2021, 08:46:01 pm
See also “bring” for “take”, and “brought” for “taken”.
Sentences please?

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: FifeingEejit on 30 December, 2021, 08:47:42 pm
'Gotten' is surely standard USAnian?

Quote
Five ways the internet era has changed British English

Anyway, it's just saying written UK English has become more informal. I would think that's because of online forums, social media, blogs etc being more chatty. Pre-internet, published informal texts would be much less common, maybe almost non existent.
A fair whack of "Americanisms" come from Scottish Standard English or Hiberno-English

Gotten is perfectly legit here as it is the past-participle of "get" in Scots, SSE is modern English mangled with Scots and Gaelic, Scots is of course middle english mangled with Gaelic and then presented to a different set of trading partners from what middle English and Northumbric were.

See also Halloween.

British English is a fallacy created by the ruling class to attempt to present the UK as a single homogenous thing rather than the inherent multi-cuktural thing it is, feck Scotland has 4 distinct high-level cultures as it was (lowland, Highland, hebridean and norse), England has an imperial fuck ton of them, as can easily be seen by putting a Geordie in the same room as a Cornish.


Gotten is standard English in several parts of the UK, and the standard in the US, never sure why it keeps being highlighted as some symptom of creeping Americanism). I think it sounds nice than the rather curt got.
Aye you may note i led to that in my rant.
At what point does English split into another language must it be like Dutch to hoch deutsch or like Norwegian to Danish.

(to take examples from close relatives)

Or must the language have an army, thus Scots is just out of date English and we can claim Northumberland, land grab sorted.

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rafletcher on 30 December, 2021, 08:52:32 pm
See also “bring” for “take”, and “brought” for “taken”.
Sentences please?

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

“Did I you bring the food with you?” instead of “Did you take the food with you?”  A construction I’ve heard in Ireland and in the US.

And it’s brought in place of took, not taken  :)

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 December, 2021, 08:55:14 pm
Or must the language have an army, thus Scots is just out of date English and we can claim Northumberland, land grab sorted.

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk
The old saying, "a language is a dialect with its own flag".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 30 December, 2021, 09:14:19 pm
“Did I you bring the food with you?” instead of “Did you take the food with you?”  A construction I’ve heard in Ireland and in the US.

Surely those denote different scenarios, with the first question being asked in the presence of the food in order to determine its origin, and the second being asked in order to determine what happened to the food when the person left?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 30 December, 2021, 09:33:11 pm
I presume that in Irish English it's standard to use bring for both situations. It's not something I've noticed but then I've never been to Ireland (maybe I should make that a plan for 2022).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 30 December, 2021, 10:05:32 pm
I cringe when a website asks for the expiration date of my credit/debit card, not its expiry date.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 30 December, 2021, 10:29:35 pm
I cringe when a website asks for the expiration date of my credit/debit card, not its expiry date.

I have a sharp intake of breath.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: FifeingEejit on 30 December, 2021, 11:03:44 pm
See also “bring” for “take”, and “brought” for “taken”.
Sentences please?

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

“Did I you bring the food with you?” instead of “Did you take the food with you?”  A construction I’ve heard in Ireland and in the US.

And it’s brought in place of took, not taken  :)

Yeah so that's normal to me... probably Gaelic grammar applied to English.
Although IIRC you would ask someone if they have the food at them, and they'd either say they have the food at them or they don't have the food at them

Google translate job:
A bheil am biadh agad?
Tha am biadh agam
or
Chan eil am biadh agam

Ever noticed you struggle to get a Yes/No question or answer out of people from Gaelic speaking areas?

A much more subtle one to listen for.
SSE grammar says that if there is food on the table it needs Eaten.
SE English grammar says that if there's food on the table then it needs earing.
Not sure about Hiberno
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Giraffe on 31 December, 2021, 08:42:16 am
See also “bring” for “take”, and “brought” for “taken”.
Sentences please?

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

“Did I you bring the food with you?” instead of “Did you take the food with you?”  A construction I’ve heard in Ireland and in the US.

And it’s brought in place of took, not taken  :)

Some time ago a friend 'phoned to ask for help with a job on his house and said "will you fetch a saw?" instead of bring a saw. I didn't ask from whereabouts I should collect it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 31 December, 2021, 08:45:10 am
Where/when did "have got to" meaning "must" come into things?

(I do cringe when someone sprinkles both liberally in a sentence: " you've got to get a <blah> to get this right "
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 December, 2021, 10:16:08 am
A much more subtle one to listen for.
SSE grammar says that if there is food on the table it needs Eaten.
SE English grammar says that if there's food on the table then it needs earing.
Not sure about Hiberno
I wouldn't have called that a particularly subtle difference. I hadn't linked it directly to any particular area either.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 31 December, 2021, 12:15:10 pm
Whereas in That Yorkshire it'd be “that wants eatin'”.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Salvatore on 31 December, 2021, 03:20:21 pm
I cringe when a website asks for the expiration date of my credit/debit card, not its expiry date.

I don't cringe, but I was somewhat alarmed to see that my AUK life membership has an Expiration date. Do they know something I don't?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 31 December, 2021, 03:38:10 pm
I cringe when a website asks for the expiration date of my credit/debit card, not its expiry date.

Expiry is a nice word, but somewhat irregular, whereas expiration is both valid and boringly regular.  It'd be nice to think, though, that we could replace that cumbersome -ation with -y everywhere: nation would become ny and ration would atrophy to ry, which is OK with enough butter. Station would become sty, a fair description of the Underground. Lots of other cases may be found, collect the full set.

I think my blood sugar is too high again.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 31 December, 2021, 06:50:24 pm
It'd be nice to think, though, that we could replace that cumbersome -ation with -y everywhere: nation would become ny and ration would atrophy to ry, which is OK with enough butter. Station would become sty, a fair description of the Underground. Lots of other cases may be found, collect the full set.

I vaguely recall that Grade 2 Braille actually does this.  But possibly only at the end of words.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 31 December, 2021, 07:04:45 pm
It's not only tricky for grammar - lack of expiration can, perversely, lead to ...... expiration.  I'n't Inglish grate?! (nods to Fast Show).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 01 January, 2022, 10:37:13 am
Have we done the use of "must..." to mean "I really, really want..."? Seems to be becoming ever-more prevalent, but just exemplified in this from Cycling UK:
"Govt must promote Highway Code changes..."

Now that's a really good idea, but nothing in the message explains why the Government "must" do it - only why they really should and CUK really, really hopes that they will (as indeed do I). Not getting at CUK for this, as everyone is doing it, but it's logically impossible for any Government to do everything that they now "must" do, and the word is losing its force as a result.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 January, 2022, 10:40:26 am
I cringe when a website asks for the expiration date of my credit/debit card, not its expiry date.

Expiry is a nice word, but somewhat irregular, whereas expiration is both valid and boringly regular.  It'd be nice to think, though, that we could replace that cumbersome -ation with -y everywhere: nation would become ny and ration would atrophy to ry, which is OK with enough butter. Station would become sty, a fair description of the Underground. Lots of other cases may be found, collect the full set.

I think my blood sugar is too high again.
We hereby heartily congratulate and recommend T42 as the reincarnation of Noah Webst.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 01 January, 2022, 10:55:15 am
Have we done the use of "must..." to mean "I really, really want..."? Seems to be becoming ever-more prevalent, but just exemplified in this from Cycling UK:
"Govt must promote Highway Code changes..."

Now that's a really good idea, but nothing in the message explains why the Government "must" do it - only why they really should and CUK really, really hopes that they will (as indeed do I). Not getting at CUK for this, as everyone is doing it, but it's logically impossible for any Government to do everything that they now "must" do, and the word is losing its force as a result.
That one's an arms race. It's been common usage for years when stating policy opinions.

If you say anything less strong about government, you'll look uncommitted and feeble compared to all those shouting
"This government MUST change their policy on ... blah blah ..."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 01 January, 2022, 11:25:15 am
Which goes back to that useful book on why language changes. Speakers and writers look constantly for ways to emphasise their points, and so choose words that are not strictly appropriate, such as "must" when they mean, "in my opinion, should". So, the perceived meaning of must is in fact weakened over time, until no-one remembers it ever meaning anything more than a mere statement of opinion, and one opinion clamouring among many at that.

At that point, having collectively wrecked that word, the same speakers and writers (or rather, their successors) abandon it and move on to vandalise the next :demon:

Of course, in this sense, we are all speakers and writers.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 01 January, 2022, 11:43:11 am
Which goes back to that useful book on why language changes. Speakers and writers look constantly for ways to emphasise their points, and so choose words that are not strictly appropriate, such as "must" when they mean, "in my opinion, should". So, the perceived meaning of must is in fact weakened over time, until no-one remembers it ever meaning anything more than a mere statement of opinion, and one opinion clamouring among many at that.

At that point, having collectively wrecked that word, the same speakers and writers (or rather, their successors) abandon it and move on to vandalise the next :demon:

Of course, in this sense, we are all speakers and writers.
I agree 110%
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 01 January, 2022, 11:55:51 am
Which goes back to that useful book on why language changes. Speakers and writers look constantly for ways to emphasise their points, and so choose words that are not strictly appropriate, such as "must" when they mean, "in my opinion, should". So, the perceived meaning of must is in fact weakened over time, until no-one remembers it ever meaning anything more than a mere statement of opinion, and one opinion clamouring among many at that.

At that point, having collectively wrecked that word, the same speakers and writers (or rather, their successors) abandon it and move on to vandalise the next :demon:

Of course, in this sense, we are all speakers and writers.
I agree literally 110%

FTFY :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 January, 2022, 01:11:42 pm
Quote
The Guardian says it’s fine to split infinitives because “stubbornly to resist so can sound pompous and awkward”.

But "stubbornly to so resist" can also sound pompous and awkward. I've nothing against splitting infinitives, nor in favour of it, but the problem with that sentence is the "so" not the unsplit infinitive IMO.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/01/different-from-is-correct-and-iconic-is-meaningless-what-i-know-after-two-decades-as-a-subeditor
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: liam_whippet on 02 January, 2022, 04:59:09 pm
And "stubbornly so to resist" can sound pompous and natural, if you are naturally pompous ...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moleman76 on 03 January, 2022, 04:32:17 am
See also “bring” for “take”, and “brought” for “taken”.

Several decades ago I heard a fellow USAnian, born and raised in the northeastern part of the land, but by then a resident of the southeast for many years, state that he had "carried my pickup truck over to my brother-in-law".  "Carry" in this context meaning "take".

The Appalachian region of USAnia was originally settled by persons of Scots and Irish descent, and it is said that some of their peculiarities of dialect are remnants of the language of the 1700s. 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: meddyg on 03 January, 2022, 08:34:40 am
'Early doors' when people mean 'early.'

Romesh Ranganathan on telly the other night-
well he has to be down with the kids !
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Paul on 03 January, 2022, 08:52:08 am
Have we had “Back in [date]” yet?

I can’t put my finger on why it bothers me so much, but it has an irk-level approaching the unnecessary use of “So” at the start of sentences.

I think it’s its ubiquity that’s the problem. It almost seems that radio presenters (particularly) can’t refer to any period before the current month without adding “back”. I wonder if it is intended to signify great change? I suspect so. And perhaps because of some significant changes, its use has become more common but, like swearing, it loses its impact when overused.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Salvatore on 03 January, 2022, 09:16:57 am
'Early doors' when people mean 'early.'

Romesh Ranganathan on telly the other night-
well he has to be down with the kids !

Presumably you object to early 20th century theatre posters?
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51796269208_e3c2788b0e_n.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2mV4qhh)

If you wanted to watch from a part of the theatre where seat reservation wasn't possible, you could pay extra to get in early. Known as 'early doors'.

Edit: Some references from that time suggest that there were separate entrances if you paid extra. Presumably signed 'Early Door'.

Whole poster from 1912 can be seen  here (https://flic.kr/p/fiVWfw).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 03 January, 2022, 09:21:08 am
I like 'early doors'. From its sketchy etymology to its leaching from 90s football circles into more common usage. I'd be surprised if Romesh Ranganathan used it to curry favour with the kids: it doesn't sound like a phrase they'd use.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 03 January, 2022, 10:30:51 am
In the commentary in a YT video on the Art Nouveau illustrations of Alphonse Mucha, "these were created as goulash paintings" instead of gouache.

Of course, maybe there is a technique using beef stew as a medium.  My mum once told me that when I was a baby I used to throw spoonfuls of mashed potato at the window.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 January, 2022, 11:02:57 am
I'm sure some Turner Prize hopeful has used spicy cow-based foodstuff as a medium.  It's a metaphor, or something.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 January, 2022, 11:33:39 am
In the commentary in a YT video on the Art Nouveau illustrations of Alphonse Mucha, "these were created as goulash paintings" instead of gouache.

Of course, maybe there is a technique using beef stew as a medium.  My mum once told me that when I was a baby I used to throw spoonfuls of mashed potato at the window.
Load of old pollocks!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: meddyg on 03 January, 2022, 12:22:40 pm
Quote
Presumably you object to early 20th century theatre posters?

Of course not, Salvatore - and it's interesting to find where it arose - but it doesn't seem to have persisted in common usage since 1912.
When it pops up in the media - e.g Guardian columnist
"Jeremy Vine, hosting Radio 2's music industry debate last night, got a dig in early doors about his hallowed predecessor on the station." it's not adding anything over 'early.'

likewise footballer-speak

"We’ve got to make sure we don’t concede, especially early doors, but I think it’s definitely game on if we score first.

Sporting Life, 3 Jan. 2010."

One definition  says 'it's Cockney rhyming slang!'
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 January, 2022, 12:30:10 pm
It doesn't add any meaning but it does add style or "attitude" just as "got a dig in" takes four words to add no meaning to "criticised". Whether you like that style is another question.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: meddyg on 03 January, 2022, 12:33:17 pm
Early doors again....
One definition  says 'it's Cockney rhyming slang!'*


*"women's drawers" apparently...

If however you're saying 'better get to the pub early doors, 'cos the rugby boys pile in at 6pm'
it makes (perfect) sense.

But I don't have to include it in my own vocabulary
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 03 January, 2022, 04:02:50 pm
Twitter today.
Doctor discussing Nigella's Clementine cake:
Quote
This is a brilliant and easy cake I have made for years
My one tip:
Don’t forget to keep an eye on the simmering clementines …I ruined a (wedding present) Le Creuset pan
Thankfully my (late) wife was understanding and I found a replacement on eBay

I trust he didn't find a replacement for his late wife on ebay...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Salvatore on 03 January, 2022, 07:04:14 pm
Quote
Presumably you object to early 20th century theatre posters?

Of course not, Salvatore - and it's interesting to find where it arose - but it doesn't seem to have persisted in common usage since 1912.

From a quick scan of the BNA, it was in use in theatres (as on the poster) from the early 1890s until the practice died out in the 1960s. But by that time the phrase was well established and was used in other contexts, for instance for people who went into pubs as soon as the doors opened. It seems to have been especially common in the midlands.

Coventry Evening Telegraph - Tuesday 22 August 1978
Quote
A clued-up retailer would be mad if he didn't listen to the weather forecast all day. "if it sets In to rain," one wholesaler told me, "we'll have retailers arriving early doors to buy up more shiny wellies. And if he's got any sense, he'll have them displayed outside the shop."
and Staffordshire Sentinel - Saturday 30 September 1989
Quote
By an amazing coincidence, the subject of violins came up early doors in The Winghouse. Richard, one of the younger regulars, said he had come across his old school fiddle while tidying up the loft.

Quote
But I don't have to include it in my own vocabulary

Don't worry, I'll make sure I use it more often to make up the shortfall.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 03 January, 2022, 08:04:04 pm
Staffordshire Sentinel - Saturday 30 September 1989
Quote
By an amazing coincidence, the subject of violins came up early doors in The Winghouse. Richard, one of the younger regulars, said he had come across his old school fiddle while tidying up the loft.

Surely that's an early Humphrey Lyttleton quote?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 03 January, 2022, 10:47:21 pm
It doesn't add any meaning but it does add style or "attitude" just as "got a dig in" takes four words to add no meaning to "criticised". Whether you like that style is another question.

It's arguable that the extra syllable of 'got a dig in' adds more meaning than the scare quotes around "attitude".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 03 January, 2022, 10:48:01 pm
Staffordshire Sentinel - Saturday 30 September 1989
Quote
By an amazing coincidence, the subject of violins came up early doors in The Winghouse. Richard, one of the younger regulars, said he had come across his old school fiddle while tidying up the loft.

Surely that's an early Humphrey Lyttleton quote?

What's Samantha got to do with it?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 January, 2022, 08:53:44 am
It doesn't add any meaning but it does add style or "attitude" just as "got a dig in" takes four words to add no meaning to "criticised". Whether you like that style is another question.

It's arguable that the extra syllable of 'got a dig in' adds more meaning than the scare quotes around "attitude".
If the quotes add anything, it should be uncertainty, not scariness.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 04 January, 2022, 11:15:33 am
It seems to have been especially common in the midlands.
That perhaps explains why Ron Atkinson was such a proponent.

I've just been thinking about idioms associated with football (association), but not necessarily originating with it:
Hat-trick
Over the moon
Sick as a parrot
Parking the bus
Missing a sitter
Nutmeg
Clean sheet
Handbags
Hairdryer treatment

And, I don't know if this counts, but it's good.
On a cold, wet night in Stoke

What have I missed?

Ain't language wonderful?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 January, 2022, 12:13:15 pm
A game of two halves
Moving the goalposts
Over the line
The man in black
An early bath
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 04 January, 2022, 01:35:12 pm
A game of two halves
Moving the goalposts
Over the line
The man in black
An early bath

I wouldn't necessarily associate 'Man in Black' just with football. It was Glenn Campbell who was a linesman at Notts County, not Johnny Cash. Coat please.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 04 January, 2022, 02:15:04 pm
Early bath is pure Eddie Waring, along with "can't run baht legs".  I was never much bothered by rugby league or union, but his commentaries were worth listening to for the idiom.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Salvatore on 04 January, 2022, 02:42:05 pm
It seems to have been especially common in the midlands.
That perhaps explains why Ron Atkinson was such a proponent.

<speculation>And although it was in common use in the midlands, he as a TV pundit had a national TV audience, so it became associated with football managers. </speculation>

I also found a quote from Coventry-born Bobby Gould football manager in the Kingston Informer - Friday 19 August 1988
Quote
Things have certainly changed since the days when his blind father, Roy Gould, used to follow son Bobby's every game, using his ears and imagination, and, "early doors", said Bobby, "he would have someone commentating for him."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Salvatore on 04 January, 2022, 02:45:37 pm

And, I don't know if this counts, but it's good.
On a cold, wet night in Stoke

Or as they say in Germany, on a windy night in Stoke

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B8R2jp_D88
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hatler on 04 January, 2022, 03:03:14 pm
'Back to square one' is very much a football phrase. 'Square one' is where the goalie spends most of his time and an early guide for football commentary on the radio provided the listeners with a map (in the Radio Times I presume) showing a series of numbered squares on the pitch so that the commentator could inform the listeners more easily as to where the ball was.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 January, 2022, 03:07:13 pm
'Back to square one' is very much a football phrase. 'Square one' is where the goalie spends most of his time and an early guide for football commentary on the radio provided the listeners with a map (in the Radio Times I presume) showing a series of numbered squares on the pitch so that the commentator could inform the listeners more easily as to where the ball was.
I did not know that. Thank you for the information.  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 04 January, 2022, 03:10:34 pm
I always thought that one came from Snakes and Ladders.  Both of which have the potential for making football more interesting.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 04 January, 2022, 03:18:38 pm
I'd heard the footballing etymology, but it doesn't sound right to me. Wouldn't the goalkeeper be more likely to be in square 2? Snakes and ladders (or hopscotch) sound more plausible. ngram is no help because it only really started to (erm..) kick off in the late 1950s.  Any old newspaper references that can help, Salvatore?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hatler on 04 January, 2022, 03:28:03 pm
Guardian has a bit on it which throws the lie to the story - apologies for the fake news.


https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-1811,00.html
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 January, 2022, 03:28:09 pm
I can imagine you might have a plan where each half of the pitch was divided into, say, 12 squares, with the goal as number one, then 2 and 3 being either side of the goal, 4, 5 and 6 in the next row, and so on. Thus approximately reflecting conventional shirt numbering.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 January, 2022, 03:30:33 pm
Guardian has a bit on it which throws the lie to the story - apologies for the fake news.


https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-1811,00.html
Pah! Well it was a nice story while it lasted.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 04 January, 2022, 03:58:55 pm
I always thought that one came from Snakes and Ladders.  Both of which have the potential for making football more interesting.

+1

I reckon that football commentators have such large and uncritical audiences that any old crap they come out with more than once will eventually be attributed to them, even if it can be traced back to Æthelred the Unready.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 04 January, 2022, 06:18:06 pm
Æthelred the Unready is widely* acknowledged as the originator of the phrase “That was offside by a fucking mile, ref!”.

* Lie
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 04 January, 2022, 09:17:07 pm
I did hear that he was a prolific user of Anglo Saxon language.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: FifeingEejit on 04 January, 2022, 11:24:29 pm
See also “bring” for “take”, and “brought” for “taken”.

Several decades ago I heard a fellow USAnian, born and raised in the northeastern part of the land, but by then a resident of the southeast for many years, state that he had "carried my pickup truck over to my brother-in-law".  "Carry" in this context meaning "take".

The Appalachian region of USAnia was originally settled by persons of Scots and Irish descent, and it is said that some of their peculiarities of dialect are remnants of the language of the 1700s.
Weel wi de caw "take away" a carry oot

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 05 January, 2022, 12:16:57 am
Weel wi de caw "take away" a carry oot

This was famously misheard by my cousin when he was small, and takeaway was henceforth known as "a curry out" by that side of the family.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 January, 2022, 08:46:48 am
That's almost as good as "mistake agent".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mllePB on 05 January, 2022, 06:45:24 pm
Local Co-op is selling a bakery product called Pains au chocolate
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: spesh on 05 January, 2022, 06:54:43 pm
Æthelred the Unready is widely* acknowledged as the originator of the phrase “That was offside by a fucking mile, ref!”.

* Lie

Damn right it's a lie. As ani fule kno, Æthelred was always complaining1 about the other team taking a penalty or a free kick before the ref blew their whistle.



1 May also contain traces of LIE...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 09 January, 2022, 08:59:20 pm
Apparently 'showcasing' now means 'showing'...

Via this thread: https://twitter.com/thegyth/status/1479519308120305664
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 09 January, 2022, 10:39:51 pm
May contain instances of redacting fail.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moleman76 on 22 January, 2022, 03:39:00 am
seen in a social media post today: 'to calendar' as a verb:

" Did you calendar a follow up call? "
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 22 January, 2022, 06:51:39 am
Diaried.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: cygnet on 22 January, 2022, 07:08:21 am
Diarized
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: offcumden on 22 January, 2022, 03:00:20 pm
The business of 'verbing' has come up here before (p.228 above).

Goes back a long way - at least to Willy the Shake "Where are the hearts that spaniel'd me at heels?" - probably from Richard II.

I cycled to town, shopped for food, booked a train ticket, chaired a meeting, videoed a bike race in which none of the favourites medalled/podiummed.

Admittedly, sometimes new 'verbings' do sound clunky and contrived - eg podiummed (to my ears, at least) - but they can be handy, and often bring freshness and energy to the language.

Cringe ye not; can't do without them really.  This evening I might do some turboing (must remember not to pig out at dinner), whereas others might feel incentivised to eyeball a bit of wayside dogging.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 January, 2022, 09:00:35 pm
Adamate, autometry, biophilia, collachrymate, mesology. Also respair and kempt but oddly not gruntled. (https://theconversation.com/five-life-affirming-words-we-should-bring-back-into-use-174848)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: offcumden on 22 January, 2022, 09:14:46 pm
I read something today that suggested that Johnson might survive 'unscathed' following Sue Gray's report later this week. I am rather hoping that the report will not only be scathing, but that our PM will be scathed to within an inch of his life.  The form 'scathed' seems to have fallen out of use recently, and is listed in some dictionaries as 'archaic'. We should resurrect it for the occasion  :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 January, 2022, 09:43:16 pm
Adamate, autometry, biophilia, collachrymate, mesology. Also respair and kempt but oddly not gruntled. (https://theconversation.com/five-life-affirming-words-we-should-bring-back-into-use-174848)

No “molish” or “mantle” either.  Tch!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 30 January, 2022, 10:41:25 am
Cremains, meaning ashes. Saw this in an article about launching Star Trek deaders' ashes into space.  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: robgul on 30 January, 2022, 12:02:52 pm
Two recent crackers in language terms that I've been on the receiving end of recently:

chester draws . . .  chest of drawers   AND  a message from an ebayer in response to a question saying that she wasn't   " . . . o fay . . . "   with ebay.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 30 January, 2022, 12:42:54 pm
Aye, a nice chester draws in the drawring room.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 30 January, 2022, 02:28:50 pm
"Ofay" for "au fait" seems to be increasingly common, presumably because the term is pretty much unknown outside USAnia.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 30 January, 2022, 02:37:56 pm
When I first encountered “ofay” I thought it was a mispring for “oafy” which in turn was a Wrong version of “oafish” :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mattc on 30 January, 2022, 02:40:32 pm
I was today years old ...

... when I finally looked up the history of this terrible phrase.

It MAKES NO SENSE!!!

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 30 January, 2022, 04:53:22 pm
When I first encountered “ofay” I thought it was a mispring for “oafy” which in turn was a Wrong version of “oafish” :facepalm:

I thought it was Igpay Atinlay, but outside "eefay iefay ofay umfay" it doesn't mean anything.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: robgul on 30 January, 2022, 07:24:58 pm
When I first encountered “ofay” I thought it was a mispring for “oafy” which in turn was a Wrong version of “oafish” :facepalm:

I thought it was Igpay Atinlay, but outside "eefay iefay ofay umfay" it doesn't mean anything.

That wasn't  a fo par  was it?  ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 February, 2022, 04:57:31 pm
elite-sec.com, who specialise in security systems (!) are, according to one of their vans, “hiring for engineer's”.  I feel like e-mailing them to tell them they probably need a poof-reedre two.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 17 February, 2022, 08:37:37 am
Paypal: "€€€ will charge to the card ending in <number>". No it bloody won't, you numbskulls: it will be charged.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Guy on 17 February, 2022, 10:30:43 am
Where do you start with this? From a local FB group


Quote
Hello, I just get my provision license, is there any driver couch may get some space still?

I do hope their English teacher isn't a member of this group.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 February, 2022, 10:35:26 am
Here's something better than a driver couch; a pedal sofa:
(https://inhabitat.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2011/06/SofaBike1-e1307991257294.jpg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: De Sisti on 17 February, 2022, 06:54:58 pm
Weather forecaster: "And the temperature tonight will be sixty eight degrees".


I thought: "wtf".


He actually said: "And the temperature tonight will be six-to-eight degrees.


It would have been easier to understand if he would have said: "And the temperature tonight
will be between six and eight degrees.


All BBC weather forecasters use the same parlance.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 18 February, 2022, 12:52:53 pm
NCE Headline
Quote
Engineers begin reassembly of 200-year-old bridge spanning England and Scotland

Spanning? Really? Spanning a river that forms the border between England and Scotland is more likely I feel. "Linking" would be a better choice.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 February, 2022, 01:02:56 pm
It's one of Boris's daydreams shifted in time.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 March, 2022, 09:36:22 am
Quote
Inger Andersen, the director of the UN Environment Programme, tweeted: “We have just gavelled the resolution paving the way for global action to #BeatPlasticPollution. The most important environmental deal since the Paris accord.”
I approve of the verbing of nouns – I also like medalling and podiuming (probably better as words than activities) – but know many here will cringe and probably make puns about it being UN-English.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Rod Marton on 03 March, 2022, 10:16:46 am
Quote
Inger Andersen, the director of the UN Environment Programme, tweeted: “We have just gavelled the resolution paving the way for global action to #BeatPlasticPollution. The most important environmental deal since the Paris accord.”
I approve of the verbing of nouns – I also like medalling and podiuming (probably better as words than activities) – but know many here will cringe and probably make puns about it being UN-English.

And I see that you have also created a new verb - to verb.

One of the useful features of English is that words are not clearly defined as nouns or verbs and it is easy to use one as the other - although it must be admitted that the results can grate sometimes. Much easier than German, where you have to add the suffix -ieren, or Russian, where you need the suffix -irovat' and some fiddly declensions.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 March, 2022, 10:51:26 am
And I see that you have also created a new verb - to verb.
I'm afraid I can't take the credit for that. Here's a fairly well known example, but I don't think it's even the original of this particular phrase, let alone using "verb" as a verb:
https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1083802055146434560
Quote
In English, any noun can be verbed
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 03 March, 2022, 04:21:44 pm
Quote
Inger Andersen, the director of the UN Environment Programme, tweeted: “We have just gavelled the resolution paving the way for global action to #BeatPlasticPollution. The most important environmental deal since the Paris accord.”
I approve of the verbing of nouns – I also like medalling and podiuming (probably better as words than activities) – but know many here will cringe and probably make puns about it being UN-English.

I don't see how anyone could be against it - well, not logically - when verbs such as pillory, iron, axe, boycott, bloody, bollix and stone have been part of the language since <then>.

That said, some of the more recent inventions such to podium are graceless, and when I see or hear them being used my immediate thought is "what an arsehole".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 03 March, 2022, 05:14:25 pm
Arseholing.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Ham on 24 March, 2022, 05:59:06 pm
(https://comicoftheapesdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2020/11/grammar-nazi-comic.png?w=1009)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 April, 2022, 03:26:33 pm
Quote
From Stephen and I's perspective
:sick: :facepalm:
Perhaps no surprise that the speaker was an HR rep.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: SteveC on 17 April, 2022, 03:50:46 pm
Quote
From Stephen and I's perspective
:sick: :facepalm:
Perhaps no surprise that the speaker was an HR rep.
John Masterchef Torode is always doing this, e.g. 'feed Greg and I'. Drives MrsC up the wall.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 April, 2022, 04:13:29 pm
"Feed Greg and I" is so common as to be almost usual, but this is the first time I've heard "from I's".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 17 April, 2022, 06:05:44 pm
The classic linguistic hypercorrrection. People bend over backward to avoid saying 'me'. Not something you'd find myself doing.

And it's 'Gregg' btw - 3G Gregg.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 17 April, 2022, 09:13:14 pm
The classic linguistic hypercorrrection. People bend over backward to avoid saying 'me'. Not something you'd find myself doing.

And it's 'Gregg' btw - 3G Gregg.

 ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 April, 2022, 10:51:10 am
It does make sense if you're a Rastafarian. Probably. At least I don't think I've heard "me and me" or "my and my" but I probably haven't spent enough time with Rastas.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 18 April, 2022, 11:07:20 am
Some eejit cook on YouTube continually placing stuff into receptacles instead of in them.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: bhoot on 18 April, 2022, 12:27:50 pm
Like trains arriving into stations?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 18 April, 2022, 02:08:16 pm
Exactly: the to is superfluous.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 18 April, 2022, 09:17:53 pm
I just listened to a piece of Bach played very well on an interesting 11-string guitar by one Paulo Martelli. I found the chap on Wikipedia and was treated to the cringeworthy word "concertized".

I'm tempted to edit it to translate it into English.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulo_Martelli
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: tonyh on 19 April, 2022, 06:29:46 am
You might do something about "unusual non-standard" while you're there.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 20 April, 2022, 07:53:17 pm
“Phenomenons”, TV's Symeon Brown?  Get in the cattle truck…
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 21 April, 2022, 08:09:03 am
Was greatly tickled in the middle of the night by considering the difference between a sacoche de selle and a sacoche de selles.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 21 April, 2022, 08:54:42 am
You’re going to have to enlighten me, coz Mr Google doesn’t know the difference.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rafletcher on 21 April, 2022, 09:52:12 am
You’re going to have to enlighten me, coz Mr Google doesn’t know the difference.

Saddle bag vs bag of shit?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 21 April, 2022, 10:58:53 am
You’re going to have to enlighten me, coz Mr Google doesn’t know the difference.

Saddle bag vs bag of shit?

Zackly, selle being the polite way of saying turd in French.  Mind you, in English there are stools and stools.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 April, 2022, 01:04:42 pm
Not exactly grammar but: we're used to companies using camel case such as iPhone or WeCare, but the latest trend seems to be running words together with only a single capital and no punctuation. For example Jobandtalent. (https://www.jobandtalent.com/uk)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 21 April, 2022, 04:47:04 pm
I first ran across what's now called camel case back in the 90's, when it was supposedly invented by a Hungarian Microsoft programmer who would put the type of a variable in lower case and the name of it in upper, as in twatBoris. With a nod to Polish notation they called it Hungarian notation, which is how I knew it until now.  A couple of years after I saw it, companies began running their names together, but since e.g. the Harper bit of Harper Collins got p'ed off at being minuscule so it became HarperCollins.

---o0o---

Anyway, wandering the fetid feeds of Netflux just now I saw a film hight Pentaverate in their Upcoming Repulsions backwater. Had a gander at the trailer: apparently it's about a secret society formed by five sages in the distant past.  Illiterate sods these producers are: if it's 5 blokes (and it is) then it should be Pentavirate and since vir is Latin it should then be Quintavirate.  Honestly, what do they teach them in school these days? What's that? How to strip down and reassemble an AR-15? One is not surprised. And one will not be watching. No bloody wonder they're losing members by the boatload.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 April, 2022, 05:01:32 pm
Might it not be ver from veritas or verum? I'm not going to attempt to decline those cos I aint Boris. Your quint v pent point still stands of course.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 21 April, 2022, 05:15:59 pm
I reckon they'd heard the word triumvirate on TV and gone on from there.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 24 April, 2022, 09:31:57 am
Some eejit cook on YouTube continually placing stuff into receptacles instead of in them.
Like trains arriving into stations?
Personally I've always arrived at stations. Not sure into receptacles is wrong, as it conveys a sense of movement - after the stuff has been put into the receptacle, then it is in that receptacle. Although I'd probably put the receptacle in the cupboard afterwards, which is a bit inconsistent. Is this a distinction that would have been rigorous previously and is now falling out of use? Some languages use different cases, if I recall correctly, to reflect the distinction between being in a place and moving into that place.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 25 April, 2022, 10:01:18 am
Prepositional and dative cases would be two such examples. I'm sure there are plenty of others.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 25 April, 2022, 11:39:43 am
Not sure into receptacles is wrong, as it conveys a sense of movement - after the stuff has been put into the receptacle, then it is in that receptacle.

That's not my quibble: I didn't like place into. Place in would be fine, ditto put into, but the to in place into is redundant.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 26 April, 2022, 07:36:01 pm
From Sainsbury's website:
<<Customer Information: Due to the current conflict in Ukraine, it may be necessary to substitute sunflower oil for other oils in some products. Rapeseed oil is the most likely replacement, but other oils may be used. Customer safety is very important to us, and we have taken care to ensure that there is no allergen risk from any of the substituted oils.>>

I think this back to front. I presume there is a  shortage of Ukrainian sunflower oil, in which case they might need to substitute rapeseed for sunflower oil.

Is this just me?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 April, 2022, 07:38:58 pm
You're right. But I think this is a "yourself" or "him and I" type of usage – "substitute for" is treated as a "more sophisticated" way of saying "replace with".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rafletcher on 26 April, 2022, 07:43:52 pm
Yebbut then it should be “with” not “for”.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 26 April, 2022, 08:09:29 pm
Yebbut then it should be “with” not “for”.

True; substance, not word.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 April, 2022, 08:26:54 pm
You're thinking way too consistently, not like someone who says "This belongs to yourself and I".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: cygnet on 26 April, 2022, 09:06:57 pm
Maybe it's a sportsball usage

[Player X taken off] is substituted for [Player Y replacing them] vs [Player Y] is a substitute for [Player X]
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Feanor on 26 April, 2022, 09:25:20 pm
My understanding is:

"I'm substituting X for Y"

means I'm giving you X in place of Y.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 26 April, 2022, 10:24:50 pm
Quote
it may be necessary to substitute sunflower oil for other oils in some products

For the intended meaning, it should be: it may be necessary to replace sunflower oil with other oils in some products.

As it is, it means: the "other oils" are in short supply and sunflower oil is the replacement.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: chrisbainbridge on 27 April, 2022, 12:25:49 pm
Quote
it may be necessary to substitute sunflower oil for other oils in some products

For the intended meaning, it should be: it may be necessary to replace sunflower oil with other oils in some products.

As it is, it means: the "other oils" are in short supply and sunflower oil is the replacement.
Agreed. As I started to read it my assumption was that they had made a mistake and reversed the oils.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 May, 2022, 11:46:46 am
Quote
The signees urged Scholz to heed Germany’s “historic responsibility” by helping the two sides find a “compromise that both can accept”.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/06/german-thinkers-war-of-words-over-ukraine-exposes-generational-divide

Aren't the people who sign a letter signatories? Or if you don't like that, then signers rather than signees? They've done the signing not been signed. (This is like "attendee" isn't it?)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 06 May, 2022, 01:18:00 pm
They've done the signing not been signed. (This is like "attendee" isn't it?)
Yes. And like "retiree", who is, linguistically, somebody who has been forcibly retired :o
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 May, 2022, 02:20:07 pm
Retiree makes sense viewed from that angle, as does employee of course. But attendee still seems an oddity to me. As does signee.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 06 May, 2022, 06:41:36 pm
It's just that, when it comes to me (not that long now), I'm hoping to take the initiative...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 06 May, 2022, 08:57:40 pm
I nearly sent an email today which included the phrase '... which should qualm some concerns'.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 May, 2022, 06:04:07 pm
Quote
The English slang word “peeved” is sometimes used to refer to someone who has drunk too much alcohol and is again derived from a Romany word. The European Romany word “pijav” means “drink” and shows a direct connection with the English slang.
https://theconversation.com/six-english-words-borrowed-from-the-romany-language-179869

I've never heard 'peeved' used to mean 'drunk'. It does seem possible that 'peeved' might come from 'peed off' but whether that shares a root with pijav I don't know. OED says 'peevish' is from 'late Middle English (in the sense ‘perverse, coy’): of unknown origin.'

Quote
According to the online source the urban dictionary the word “chingering” means to caress another person’s chin in a sensual way. This is quite far removed from the meaning of the word chingering used amongst speakers of Anglo-Romany. This word is used to refer to quarrelling or to the act of insulting someone. The word again derives from the Romany words “čhinger” and “čhingerel” meaning to quarrel or shout.
I've never heard this word, but if the English meaning is so different from the Romany, is the one really derived from the other?

Quote
You may be surprised by some of the words that have been incorrectly labelled as colloquial or slang in English, which are in fact words that have crossed over from Anglo-Romany.
Why incorrectly? They may be standard vocabulary in Anglo-Romany but that doesn't stop them being slang in English. It's quite common for words to change register when they're adopted from one language into another.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 08 May, 2022, 09:58:45 pm
I'm sure Urban Dictionary is all user generated, ie readers can enter whatever meaning/origin they like and it all goes on the website.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 08 May, 2022, 10:30:38 pm
Peeved means annoyed, OED says

Quote
Originally U.S.

  Irritated, annoyed; put into a peevish mood.

1908   G. V. Hobart Go to It 31   It may be interesting to some people, but it gets me peeved.
1913   C. E. Mulford Coming of Cassidy iv. 71   Jimmy..regarded the peeved proprietor, shaking his head sorrowfully.
1929   A. Conan Doyle Maracot Deep 264   What is up, Jack? You seem peeved this morning.
1975   Daily Mail 13 June 7/4   The agency won't talk about the work; its executives are rather peeved that the news has got out.
2001   T. H. Culley Immortal Class (2002) x. 265   Can a handful of mildly peeved code crunchers constitute a riot?


Derived from peeve:

Quote
Origin: Formed within English, by back-formation. Etymon: peevish adj.
Etymology: Back-formation < peevish adj.
Originally U.S.

 1. transitive. To make peevish; to irritate, annoy.

1901   Naugatuck (Connecticut) Daily News 28 June 1/3   Though it breaks our hearts to go; Our departure should not peeve you, For we're out here to row.
1934   R. Macaulay Going Abroad xvii. 139   I suppose he'd peeved me in some way.
1966   I. Jefferies House-surgeon v. 101   ‘They were peeved, like little school-kids.’.. ‘Who peeved them, Harry?’
2004   Sun (Nexis) 24 Jan.   That's the thing that peeves me whenever they show Besty's six goals. They never show mine as well!


 2. intransitive. To grumble, complain petulantly.
1912   G. Ade Knocking Neighbors 10   The Waiter peeved at being slipped a paltry $1.60.
1923   U. L. Silberrad Lett. Jean Armiter xi. 227   He has a gift of peeving on paper.
1999   J. Crace Being Dead (2000) xii. 98   The committee drifted off, peeving and frowning at the secretary as they passed through her room to collect their coats.

Peevish:

Quote
Forms:  late Middle English peuysche, late Middle English pevys, late Middle English peyuesshe, late Middle English–1500s pevysh, late Middle English–1500s pevyshe, late Middle English (in a late copy)– peevish, late Middle English (in a late copy)– pevish (now nonstandard), 1500s peeuesh, 1500s peeuishe, 1500s penysshe (transmission error), 1500s peuess, 1500s peuissh, 1500s peuisshe, 1500s peuyche, 1500s peuysh, 1500s peuyshe, 1500s peuysshe, 1500s pevysshe, 1500s pieuish, 1500s pieuishe, 1500s piuish, 1500s piuishe, 1500s piuisshe, 1500s pyuyshe, 1500s pyuysshe, 1500s–1600s peeuish, 1500s–1600s peevishe, 1500s–1600s peuish, 1500s–1600s peuishe, 1600s pievish; also Scottish pre-1700 peuische, pre-1700 pevach, pre-1700 pevech, pre-1700 pevis, pre-1700 pevych, pre-1700 pevyche, pre-1700 pewech. (Show Less)
Frequency (in current use):  Show frequency band information
Origin: Of uncertain origin. Perhaps a borrowing from Latin. Etymon: Latin perversus.
Etymology: Origin uncertain; perhaps ultimately < classical Latin perversus via an unattested Old French continuation of the Latin word (which, if it existed, was superseded early in French by the Latin borrowing Old French pervers perverse n.), although this presents some formal difficulties.
An alternative suggestion links the word to classical Latin expavidus startled, shy ( < ex- + pavidus pavid adj.) via an unrecorded variant with -ai- of Middle French espave (of an animal) stray, (of a person) foreign, (as noun) lost property, flotsam (1283 in Old French; French épave ).The semantic connection is thought to be the behaviour of stray animals. Compare -ish suffix1.
 
The exact sense of the adjective in many of the early quots. is difficult to establish.(Show Less)
 A. adj.
Thesaurus »
 

†1. Perverse, refractory; headstrong, obstinate; capricious, skittish; (also) coy. Obsolete.
c1400  (▸?a1387)    W. Langland Piers Plowman (Huntington HM 137) (1873) C. ix. 151   Thenne gan wastour to wratth..And to peers plouhman proferede to fighte, And bad hym go pisse with hus plouh, peyuesshe [v.r. peuysche; c1400 A text pilide; c1400 B text forpynede] shrewe!
1472   J. Paston in Paston Lett. & Papers (2004) I. 576   Item, the prowd, pevyshe, and euyll dysposyd prest to vs all, Syr Jamys, seyth þat ye comandyd hym to delyuer þe book of vij Sagys to my brodyr Water, and he hathe it.
1539   Bible (Great) Cranmer Pref.   Not onely foolyshe frowarde and obstinate but also peuysshe, peruerse and indurate.
a1556   N. Udall Ralph Roister Doister (?1566) iii. iii. sig. E.j   These women be all suche madde pieuish elues, They will not be wonne except it please them selues.
1589   T. Nashe Anat. Absurditie sig. Eii   Nothing is so great an enemie to a sounde iudgment, as the pride of a peeuish conceit.
a1616   W. Shakespeare Two Gentlemen of Verona (1623) v. ii. 47   This it is, to be a peeuish Girle, That flies her fortune when it followes her.  View more context for this quotation
a1669   H. Foulis Hist. Romish Treasons (1671) i. iii. 26   Birds were not so shie and peevish formerly.

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†2.
Thesaurus »
 

 a. Silly, senseless, foolish. Obsolete.
1519   W. Horman Vulgaria ii. f. 21v   Some make serche and dyuynacion by water, some by basyns,..some by coniuryng of a soule, and suche other: and al be acurst or pyuysshe [L. partim execrabilia, partim mera ludibria].
1567   J. Jewel Def. Apol. Churche Eng. vi. xii. §2. 669   That whole tale..is nothing els, but a peeuishe fable.
1633   J. Ford 'Tis Pitty shee's Whore v. sig. I2 v   This is your peeuish chattering weake old man.
1676   Doctr. of Devils 56   Christ did his Miracles among a peevish, foolish, sottish people, (as the World accounted them).

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Thesaurus »
Categories »
 

 b. Beside oneself; out of one's senses; mad. Obsolete.
1523   J. Skelton Goodly Garlande of Laurell 266   Some tremblid, some girnid, some gaspid, some gasid, As people halfe peuysshe, or men that were masyd.
1548   N. Udall et al. tr. Erasmus Paraphr. Newe Test. I. Acts xii. 15   [They] aunswered to the mayden, Surely thou arte peuyshe.
1591   J. Lyly Endimion i. i. sig. B   There was neuer any so peeuish to imagin the Moone eyther capable of affection, or shape of a Mistris.

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Thesaurus »
 

†3. Spiteful, malignant, mischievous, harmful. Obsolete.
a1522   G. Douglas tr. Virgil Æneid (1960) xi. xiv. 111   This ilk Aruns..thys pewech man of weir..schuke in hand hys oneschewabill speir.
1569   R. Grafton Chron. II. 176   In derision of the king, they made certaine peeuishe and mocking rymes which I passe ouer.
1601   J. Marston et al. Iacke Drums Entertainm. ii. sig. D2v   This crosse, this peeuish hap, Strikes dead my spirits like a thunderclap.

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Thesaurus »
 

†4. Hateful, distasteful, horrid. Obsolete.Used to express a feeling of dislike, hostility, or contempt on the part of the speaker, not necessarily inspired by any quality of the object referred to.
a1522   G. Douglas tr. Virgil Æneid (1960) xi. viii. 78   For thou sal neuer los..Be my wappin nor this richt hand of myne, Sik ane pevyche and cative saule as thyne [L. Nunquam animam talem dextra hac..amittes].
a1535   T. More Dialoge of Comfort (1553) ii. xiiii. sig. H.vii   The woulfe..spied a fayre cowe in a close...as for yonder peuishe cowe semeth vnto me in my conscience worthe not past a grote.
1563   T. Becon Displaying Popish Masse (1637) 299   The Lords Supper and your peevish, popish private masse doe agree together..as the common proverbe is, like harpe and harrow, or like the hare and the hound.

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 5. Irritable, querulous; childishly fretful; characterized by or exhibiting petty bad temper.
Thesaurus »
 

 a. Of people.In early quots. often referred to as the result of fasting or performing a religious observance of similar rigour.
c1530   Hickscorner D iij   And I sholde do after youre schole, To lerne to patter to make me peuysshe [?1515 peuysse].
1600   W. Shakespeare Merchant of Venice i. i. 86   Why should a man whose blood is warme within, Sit like his grandsire, cut in Alablaster?..And creep into the Iaundies By beeing peeuish?
1653   Bp. J. Taylor Ενιαυτος: Course of Serm. xxxix   Some men fast to mortifie their lust: and their fasting makes them peevish.
1655   in E. Nicholas Nicholas Papers (1897) III. 128   He is uery peuish to Mr. Ouerton and will tell him uery litle.
1702   J. Floyer Anc. Ψυχρολουσία Revived iii. 71   The People grew peevish with all Ancient Ceremonies.
1759   S. Fielding Hist. Countess of Dellwyn I. i. xiv. 149   Now when he was peevish with Pain, and ready to take fire at every the least Provocation, this spirited Reply of his Lady's roused him to Anger.
1786   A. M. Bennett Juvenile Indiscretions V. 216   A peevish discontented sister and her cormorant companion.
1824   W. Irving Tales of Traveller II. 30   A terrible peevish fractious fellow.
1862   B. Brodie Psychol. Inq. II. iii. 77   One whose state of health renders him fretful and peevish in his own family.
1948   ‘R. Crompton’ Family Roundabout xxii. 248   I'm sorry, Arnold, I'm a little peevish today. Yes, I'll go with you.
1956   R. Macaulay Towers of Trebizond xxv. 282   People got peevish, they began hooting and cutting in.
1983   E. Figes Light i. 2   She turned in the bed, sighing, slightly peevish and resentful.

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Thesaurus »
 

 b. Of personal qualities, actions, behaviour, etc.
1577   W. Fulke Answer True Christian 89 in Two Treat. against Papistes   Without any contention of peuishe enuie.
1650   T. Fuller Pisgah-sight of Palestine iv. iii. 57   Gods providence on purpose permitted Moses to fall into this peevish passion [at Kadesh].
a1677   I. Barrow Serm. Several Occasions (1678) 28   A peevish crosness and obstinate repugnancy to received laws.
1711   R. Steele Spectator No. 107. ⁋1   Unapt to vent peevish Expressions.
1768   D. Garrick Let. 19 Feb. (1963) II. 595   I am Surpriz'd that You have not thank'd the Managers for their kindness instead of writing so peevish a Letter.
1822   W. Hazlitt Table-talk II. iv. 73   With a peevish whine in his voice like a beaten school-boy.
1891   Harper's Mag. Dec. 123/2   His tone was so peevish and impatient that I thought discussion was injudicious.
1922   M. Sinclair Life & Death Harriett Frean xiv. 171   She no longer enjoyed visiting her friends. She set out in peevish resignation.
2003   Daily Mail (Nexis) 9 Dec. 28   Her peevish tone quite spoiled the effect of a comic costume she had selected for the day.

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†6. English regional (northern). Clever, expert. Obsolete.
1673   J. Ray N. Countrey Words in Coll. Eng. Words 37   Peevish, witty, subtill.
1710   T. Ruddiman in G. Douglas tr. Virgil Æneis (new ed.) Gloss. (at cited word)   The word peevish among the vulgar of Scotland is used for niggardly, covetous; in the North of England, for witty, subtile.

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 7. Canadian and English regional (northern). Of the wind: sharp, piercing, bitter. Of the weather: windy, blustery.
1744   J. Armstrong Art of preserving Health i. 17   The ridge..defends you from the blust'ring north, And bleak affliction of the peevish east.
1828   W. Carr Dial. Craven (ed. 2)    Peevish, piercing, very cold; a peevish wind.
1863   Mrs. Toogood Specim. Yorks. Dial.   The wind is very peevish to night.
1927   L. M. Montgomery Emily's Quest 174   Something has happened to sour February's temper. Such a peevish month.
1990   D. McIntosh Visits 119   It was dark when the train arrived in Charlottetown... It was raw and blustery—peevish, they say on the island.

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†B. adv.
Thesaurus »
Categories »
 

  = peevishly adv. Obsolete. rare.
a1529   J. Skelton Tunnyng of Elynour Rummyng in Certayne Bks. (?1545) 589   She was not halfe so wyse As she was peuysshe nyse [= foolishly particular].
1602   W. Shakespeare Richard III iv. iv. 348   Be not peeuish fond in great designes. [1597 pieuish, fond; 1598 peeuish, fond; Malone conjectured peevish-fond, the reading adopted in many modern editions; the Arden ed. prefers ‘peevish found’.]



Or log in with a library card number, https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/139746?

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 May, 2022, 08:08:25 am
I'm sure Urban Dictionary is all user generated, ie readers can enter whatever meaning/origin they like and it all goes on the website.
Yes. There is an up and down-voting system but people might upvote (or downvote) a word for all sorts of reasons other than accuracy.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 June, 2022, 08:19:39 pm
There is a part of Bristol called Troopers Hill. Or is it Troopers' Hill? Or maybe Trooper's Hill? The answer is predictably yes, yes and yes:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FUJ3khSXoAAXwZj?format=jpg&name=small)
 :),  :D and  ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 08 June, 2022, 08:41:44 pm
I'm sure Urban Dictionary is all user generated, ie readers can enter whatever meaning/origin they like and it all goes on the website.
Yes. There is an up and down-voting system but people might upvote (or downvote) a word for all sorts of reasons other than accuracy.

I should probably ask you all to vote this one down (for those that don't know me my name IRL is Simon Spooner) but I quite like it.

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Simon%20Spooner (https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Simon%20Spooner)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 09 June, 2022, 10:50:02 am
Or log in with a library card number, https://www.oed.com/view/Entry/139746?

I've not been into my actual local library for some years, but I keep up my membership for access to the OED alone. It's brilliant.

Apparently, several local authorities have cancelled their subscription lately, but according to a friend who has done this, there's nothing to stop you signing up to library membership with a different LA (my LA (Kent) still subscribes, if anyone needs to know).

Re Peeve, Tees who sets crosswords in the Independent had a clue last year: Vex Gove (5)

Took me a lot of head-scratching to crack that one.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 09 June, 2022, 11:16:53 am
Re Peeve, Tees who sets crosswords in the Independent had a clue last year: Vex Gove (5)

Took me a lot of head-scratching to crack that one.

 :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 11 June, 2022, 02:01:52 pm
Headline in the Guardian today:

“50 best summer dresses to buy, rent or thrift”
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: spesh on 11 June, 2022, 02:30:35 pm
I suspect the latter term is being used as a catch-all for the sources of second-hand clothing  - charity shops, eBay/Gumtree et al or sites such as https://thrift.plus/ , but yes, it looks horrible and smacks of creeping Americanisation.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 11 June, 2022, 02:54:45 pm
The intended meaning is obvious enough. That doesn’t mean I have to like it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 11 June, 2022, 06:51:35 pm
The intended meaning is obvious enough. That doesn’t mean I have to like it.
I'm guessing the meaning of the second term isn't this one either

 
Quote
And behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom;
although it could be.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 11 June, 2022, 09:08:16 pm
There is a part of Bristol called Troopers Hill. Or is it Troopers' Hill? Or maybe Trooper's Hill? The answer is predictably yes, yes and yes:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FUJ3khSXoAAXwZj?format=jpg&name=small)
 :),  :D and  ;D

Elsewhere in these parts, is an Audax named Drover's Roads.
I object...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 23 June, 2022, 08:31:19 pm
"Get go" or should it be "get-go"?

Whatever.

Just fucking stop it.

"Start" or "beginning" are perfect good English words. Use them.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 23 June, 2022, 08:37:09 pm
🎵
Get up and go 🎶
Get up and go 🎶
Get up and go back home!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 August, 2022, 08:02:30 am
I've got to put myself in this thread. Well, vocabulary not grammar, but close enough. I arrived early for a hot date (weeding an allotment) so texted the allotment owner that I had "underestimated the time it would take to get here". I had, of course, overestimated it.  :facepalm:

(I went on to compound the stupid by looking in the wrong shed. "The watering can's not in the shed." "Are you sure?" "Nothing there, see." "That's not our shed.")
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: liam_whippet on 12 August, 2022, 11:10:07 am
 ;D

"Does your dog bite?"

asked Clouseau-ziemiec, yesterday.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 15 August, 2022, 05:14:21 pm
Mrs Legs and I are watching every episode of Silent Witness.  From Series 9 Episode 1:

(https://www.cyclechat.net/attachments/1660579777724-png.657484/)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 17 August, 2022, 10:03:55 am
After the sad death of Darius Danesh, we were discussing the diverse destinies of the Pop Idol cohort.  For the first time I noticed the ungrammatical title of Gareth Gates' Anyone Of Us (I'd always thought it was Any One Of Us, which would have made sense).  It's a really annoying song because of weird juxtaposition of the soppy upbeat melody, and the horrible gaslighting #sorrynotsorry lyrics.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 August, 2022, 07:50:00 pm
Stopped by an American couple in their 60s and asked for directions this morning. "Is there a food market along this road?" "A market?" "Yeah, just a small one." Oh, a shop! There is a food market a few roads away but it's only on Saturday mornings. Two little grocery shops up here and then left though.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 17 August, 2022, 09:25:11 pm
It was lucky they asked someone as international as you! Market/Markit/Minimarket are fairly ubiquitous across E Europe for what in internationalese is referred to as "convenience store". In the UK we only have "supermarket", totally different to a "market", leading to they abomination "mini supermarket". Then again, I know plenty of British people who don't know the difference between "grocers" and "greengrocers".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 18 August, 2022, 01:01:43 pm
Then again, I know plenty of British people who don't know the difference between "grocers" and "greengrocers".

Now there's a neuron that hasn't fired for quite some time.  Though in my vocabulary it was always "greengrocers" and "grocery shop".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 18 August, 2022, 01:06:25 pm
I read somewhere, some time ago (possibly in Language Log? maybe not) that forms such as grocery, bakery, when referring to a shop, were American formations under the influence of German (Bakerei, etc) and only became common in GB English in the late 20th century.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Salvatore on 20 August, 2022, 10:22:43 am
Stopped by an American couple in their 60s and asked for directions this morning. "Is there a food market along this road?" "A market?" "Yeah, just a small one." Oh, a shop! There is a food market a few roads away but it's only on Saturday mornings. Two little grocery shops up here and then left though.

They should go to Finland. One of the biggest supermarket chains is K-Market. And that's the name which is proudly displayed above their premises. Except their really really big ones which call themselves K-Supermarket.

Wherever you are in Finland, you can find the K-Market. It's opposite the S-Market, its big rival.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 September, 2022, 09:03:06 am
Not at all cringe, but I'm wondering if 'out-migration' and 'in-migration' are standard Australian usage in place of 'emigration' and 'immigration'?
Quote
It is certainly true that the coups have led to a massive out-migration of Fijian Indians, whose share in the population has fallen from 50% in the late 1980s to only about 34% now.
Or perhaps there's a subtle difference between the original emigration from India to Fiji and the later out-migration from Fiji to (Australia, US, etc)?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 06 September, 2022, 10:12:56 am
Not at all cringe, but I'm wondering if 'out-migration' and 'in-migration' are standard Australian usage in place of 'emigration' and 'immigration'?
Quote
It is certainly true that the coups have led to a massive out-migration of Fijian Indians, whose share in the population has fallen from 50% in the late 1980s to only about 34% now.
Or perhaps there's a subtle difference between the original emigration from India to Fiji and the later out-migration from Fiji to (Australia, US, etc)?

My guess is that there's an editor somewhere who's thinking "I know what the real words mean but the plebs won't".

Meanwhile, I need the brain sanitation dept.'s attention after listening to 5 minutes of the Artemis would-be launch commentary the other day. It went something like this: "the LOX-tank team communicate that they are holding in a liquid-oxygen-flow-suspended situation. They are currently not flowing oxygen into the tank."  :sick:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Salvatore on 06 September, 2022, 10:31:33 am
Stopped by an American couple in their 60s and asked for directions this morning. "Is there a food market along this road?" "A market?" "Yeah, just a small one." Oh, a shop! There is a food market a few roads away but it's only on Saturday mornings. Two little grocery shops up here and then left though.

They should go to Finland. One of the biggest supermarket chains is K-Market. And that's the name which is proudly displayed above their premises. Except their really really big ones which call themselves K-Supermarket.

Wherever you are in Finland, you can find the K-Market. It's opposite the S-Market, its big rival.

I should add that the Finnish for market is tori, whence torille, roughly translated as "Let's all go to the market place to celebrate our victory against Sweden at ice hockey".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 06 September, 2022, 02:30:54 pm
Meanwhile, I need the brain sanitation dept.'s attention after listening to 5 minutes of the Artemis would-be launch commentary the other day. It went something like this: "the LOX-tank team communicate that they are holding in a liquid-oxygen-flow-suspended situation. They are currently not flowing oxygen into the tank."  :sick:

I don't envy the job those commentators have, though.  Following a stream of technical jargon (which in NASA circles leans heavily in the acronym soup direction) that they may only be partially familiar with in one ear, and a director's instructions in the other, while trying to translate it into something the lay person can understand.  Crimes against grammar are to be expected.

More international missions have the added bonus of people speaking technically in different languages for them to make sense of, which can be fun.


(I've always been impressed by SpaceX's ability to find some of their engineers with knowledge of the subject matter and actual presentation skills to do the commentary on their live streams.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 06 September, 2022, 03:28:28 pm
I suppose.  Also, NASA-speak is also determined by the need to be unambiguous, à la affirmative/negative rather than yes/no.  All the same I reckon they've got a department somewhere devoted to coining new and longer ways of stating things that can be conveyed with a single word.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 06 September, 2022, 05:02:04 pm
Hanananananah the astrononononomer, who spent some time in South Africa herding a spectrograph named GIRAFFE, assures me that one of the key stages of designing a new scientific instrument is coming up with an appropriately cute and/or clever acronym for it.  I reckon the rocket engineers share the same philosophy.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 06 September, 2022, 05:14:21 pm
I once wrote a programming system called John's Own Keyboard System To Rapidly Assemble Programs.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 06 September, 2022, 05:39:25 pm
My brief, and notably unsuccessful, foray into rocket engineering featured a piece of software called Bristol Rocket Enthusiasts' Altitude Speed and Trajectory Simulation.  It may have needed a re-write to account for negative altitude at the end of flight.  (I was a lowly E&EE first year, and therefore given the minor task of making the parachutes deploy without using any stuff-wot-goes-BOOM.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 07 September, 2022, 10:49:29 am
My brief, and notably unsuccessful, foray into rocket engineering featured a piece of software called Bristol Rocket Enthusiasts' Altitude Speed and Trajectory Simulation.  It may have needed a re-write to account for negative altitude at the end of flight.  (I was a lowly E&EE first year, and therefore given the minor task of making the parachutes deploy without using any stuff-wot-goes-BOOM.)

Betcha enjoyed it though.

What's the Law got so say about amateur rocketry?  You can get done here for owning a gas-powered drainpipe spud-bazooka.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 07 September, 2022, 01:37:59 pm
My brief, and notably unsuccessful, foray into rocket engineering featured a piece of software called Bristol Rocket Enthusiasts' Altitude Speed and Trajectory Simulation.  It may have needed a re-write to account for negative altitude at the end of flight.  (I was a lowly E&EE first year, and therefore given the minor task of making the parachutes deploy without using any stuff-wot-goes-BOOM.)

Betcha enjoyed it though.

What's the Law got so say about amateur rocketry?  You can get done here for owning a gas-powered drainpipe spud-bazooka.

This was why we weren't able to use explosive bolts to split the rocket in half[1] and let the parachute fall out.  Too many new regulatory hurdles (this was the late 1990s, when terrorists were still Irish) and not enough time to jump through them.  Instead we devised a spring-loaded mechanism that would pop the end off a side pod, with the drogue parachute following.  Worked well enough in the lab (indeed, it made a dent in the wall), but we suspect that the heat from the rocket motor bent something out of shape and caused it to jam.

The organisation overseeing the competition (in which several universities entered teams, but only a handful successfully completed a rocket) were responsible for installing the ~1kg solid fuel rocket motor and launchpad operations, so we didn't have to worry about (or get to test) that bit.

I think the competition died a death soon after due to lack of enthusiasm on the part of the military firing range for student rockets making random craters.


AIUI amateur rocketry is fine if you use those little rocket motors from model shops.  Larger rockets are presumably treated like other model aircraft / drones, with a requirement for liability insurance, private land and staying below 400ft.  Once you're into several kilos and thousands of feet, like ours was, you must need CAA approval.


[1] Blowing the nosecone off would be traditional, but ours was full of sensors, because SCIENCE.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hatler on 07 September, 2022, 01:52:47 pm
Neat. I had the job of testing a bunch of detonators in a chunk of rocket-a-like metal to see if they could withstand vibration and a series of hot and cold cycles. All with the aim of having the option of blowing the rocket motor up if it went haywire on trials.  Great fun.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 11 September, 2022, 07:30:53 pm
Plan ahead

As in "Mourners warned to plan ahead on train journeys".  Yes, it's that protector of the mother-tongue (yes, I know) the BBC.  There's another kind of planning?  And it's compounded by having plan and rail journey in the same sentence - and on a Sunday!
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 11 September, 2022, 07:45:04 pm
It’s like those signs that say “advance warning” to differentiate from a warning after the event.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 11 September, 2022, 11:44:20 pm
I dunno, a warning during or after an event is certainly a thing, and depending on the nature of the event, potentially useful.  Fire alarms, for example.

Whereas I don't think there's another kind of planning (unless you count the stuff that teachers spend every waking moment doing, and I'm fairly sure that's spelled with an upper-case 'P' and a sigh).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 12 September, 2022, 01:13:07 am
Sadlier, if some of the whiteboards I see in my travels round local primary schools are an indication, it's often spelt "planing".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 12 September, 2022, 07:45:05 am
For me, there are three items in A, B, C or D, but four items in A, B, C and D, with or without an extra comma. Are the Americans confused between the meanings of "and" and "or" ?

I think there are several valid interpretations of "A, B, C or D":

{A} OR {B} OR {C} OR {D} : "Would you like red wine, white wine, orange juice or water?" (not an invitation to be greedy)
{A,B,C} OR {D} : "Rock, paper, scissors, or toss a coin?" (don't think I'd want to play a game of "scissors or toss a coin")
{A,B, {C OR D}} : "Lasagna, seasonal vegetables, chips or boiled potatoes" (A favourite of all pubs before they went gastro)

I would tend to assume the first unless context suggests otherwise.

With "and", there is little ambiguity as conjunction is associative: {{A AND B} AND C} is equivalent to {A AND {B AND C}}

Ugh

{A} OR {B} OR {C} OR {D} : "Would you like red wine, white wine, orange juice or water?" (not an invitation to be greedy)
{A,B,C} OR {D} : "Rock, paper, scissors; or toss a coin?" (don't think I'd want to play a game of "scissors or toss a coin")
{A,B, {C OR D}} : "Lasagna, seasonal vegetables; chips or boiled potatoes" (A favourite of all pubs before they went gastro)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 12 September, 2022, 07:57:37 am
{A,B, {C OR D}} : "Lasagna, seasonal vegetables; chips or boiled potatoes" (A favourite of all pubs before they went gastro)

Whatever it means in the UK, gastro in France is short for gastroenteritis.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 12 September, 2022, 09:45:32 am
I can confirm that pubs in the East Midlands are still serving chips with salads (or boiled potatoes to cater for the weirdoes).

People can read statements with commas using an internal logic, it's like adjective stacking (you always write 'big red' and never 'red big'), something our brains magically do. Once you think about it, it stops happening though, so don't.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 September, 2022, 10:36:51 am
Planning in response to an event that's currently occurring is also a thing. Planning ahead differentiates this. "The building's on fire! How shall we escape? We could jump out of the window or climb into the loft and get out through the crawl space, but which is best?"
"If we'd planned ahead, we would know."

Ed: But I agree that in practice, "plan ahead" is usually just "plan".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 12 September, 2022, 12:10:24 pm
My brief, and notably unsuccessful, foray into rocket engineering featured a piece of software called Bristol Rocket Enthusiasts' Altitude Speed and Trajectory Simulation.  It may have needed a re-write to account for negative altitude at the end of flight.  (I was a lowly E&EE first year, and therefore given the minor task of making the parachutes deploy without using any stuff-wot-goes-BOOM.)
During my YinI at BNFL Magnox Generation, I grappled with a FORTRAN-based code known as PWR and AGR Neutronic and Thermal Hydraulics Evaluation Route, or PANTHER for short.  There was a sequel to PANTHER called Panther Update for Magnox Application.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 12 September, 2022, 05:37:06 pm
I think there are several valid interpretations of "A, B, C or D":
I don't understand that argument at all. The list construction is separate from the choice of "and" or "or". That choice tells you how you are combining the list elements. The list construction is there to make clear what the elements are. If you want three choices, such as:

* red
* yellow
* green or blue

then you need "red, yellow, or green or blue".

A more common example is where the list is with "and". Here, an imaginary rule seems to be emerging that you can only have one "and" (before the last element in the list), but that's not true at all; you need an additional "and" if one of the list elements involves more than one item/person. Imagine for example that Uncle Henry is giving gifts to three nephews and nieces, but John, who is married, gets a gift shared with his wife Sally. So the gifts are for "Mary, Peter, and John and Sally". That's the same logical approach as for the colour list above. Indeed, if Uncle were deciding whether to give a single gift to "Mary, Peter, or John and Sally", it would be exactly the same construction.

There are Oxford commas in my examples because those are used where they make scanning the list easier; "Mary, Peter and John and Sally" means exactly the same, but is just plain harder to read. Even without the Oxford comma, it cannot mean that Peter, John and Sally are themselves all receiving one joint gift, because then you'd need another "and" before them. At that point, the whole thing would become so complex and ambiguous to parse that you'd have to do something different - assuming, of course, that your aim was to convey meaning clearly.
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 12 September, 2022, 09:04:55 pm
I dunno, a warning during or after an event is certainly a thing, and depending on the nature of the event, potentially useful.  Fire alarms, for example.

Warning is explicitly defined in dictionaries as something that comes before the event.

I suppose you could argue that a fire alarm is warning you that if you don’t leave the building right now, you will die in the near future.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 12 September, 2022, 09:43:28 pm
Warning is explicitly defined in dictionaries as something that comes before the event.

I didn't know that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: cygnet on 13 September, 2022, 09:03:24 am
So this
Quote
Warning, this vehicle is reversing

Should be "will be reversing"?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 13 September, 2022, 09:56:43 am
So this
Quote
Warning, this vehicle is reversing

Should be "will be reversing"?
"Warning, this vehicle will be reversing and no one shall save me"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 13 September, 2022, 04:07:12 pm
So this
Quote
Warning, this vehicle is reversing

Should be "will be reversing"?

A warning suggests imminent danger. It's not the vehicle reversing per se, which is a bald fact, it's the implicit coda to the announcement: "...and you will regret it if you don't get out of the way."

Grammatically speaking, a warning is in the subjunctive.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 September, 2022, 02:25:29 pm
She reigns, she has reigned, she reigned. The parsing of Queen Elizabeth.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moleman76 on 30 September, 2022, 09:21:24 am
In a spam notice telling me that my email address was about to be removed from my email server,
" [ my email address here ] removal from [my email server here] server has been approved and initiated, Due to ignorance of last verification warning."

that's an interesting conjugation of "to ignore"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 October, 2022, 04:03:46 pm
From a style guide:
Quote
Do not use any contradictions (it’s=it is).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 07 October, 2022, 04:12:44 pm
From a style guide:
Quote
Do not use any contradictions (it’s=it is).

 ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: TheLurker on 07 October, 2022, 04:41:35 pm
Quote from: citoyen
It’s like those signs that say “advance warning” to differentiate from a warning after the event.
I can live with that as a concise way of expressing the idea of a, "warning well in advance" rather than one immediately or very shortly before the event, but what *really* irritates are those signs saying, "advanced warning". Advanced, eh?  Does it have a first degree or a PhD perhaps?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Slave To The Viking on 08 October, 2022, 01:01:50 am
Some eejit cook on YouTube continually placing stuff into receptacles instead of in them.

Go on then, I'll bite, what's the issue with this?

"In" tends to denote position or location. "I am in my house."

"Into" tends to indicate that something is being moved from outside to inside - it is being moved "into" position. "I walked into my house."

So...from outside the pan to inside the pan: what's your rationale for its not not being "into"?

By all means use "in" for that - in some cases, either is now fine. Maybe, if desperately pedantic, you could think about calling out "in" as incorrect, as it invokes no sense of transition. But to proscribe "into"?

Show your working...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Slave To The Viking on 08 October, 2022, 01:20:01 am
"Get go" or should it be "get-go"?

Whatever.

Just fucking stop it.

"Start" or "beginning" are perfect good English words. Use them.

Why?

At some point, "'start' or [sic] 'beginning'" weren't "perfect [sic] good" English words. At some point, "get go" and "get-go" will be.

Bearing in mind I have the entire concept of language on my side, I feel reasonably justified in calling on YOU to just fucking stop it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: TheLurker on 08 October, 2022, 06:50:38 am
Quote from: Slave To The Viking
At some point, "get go" and "get-go" will be.
Doesn't make it any less ugly and cringe inducing so NickNack is quite entitled to his express his ire, but, given the way language works, there is every reason to hope that it, like many other fashionable, slang even "formal" words and phrases before, will wither and die. 
 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Slave To The Viking on 14 October, 2022, 01:49:08 am
Quote from: Slave To The Viking
At some point, "get go" and "get-go" will be.
Doesn't make it any less ugly and cringe inducing so NickNack is quite entitled to his express his ire, but, given the way language works, there is every reason to hope that it, like many other fashionable, slang even "formal" words and phrases before, will wither and die.

Doesn't make it any more ugly and cringe inducing either. Only NickNack's unqualified opinion does that.

NickNack's misplaced assertion that some phrasings are objectively less valid than others - with no reason quoted - does not entitle him to express his ire. Saying what the problem actually is - rather than simply stating that there is a problem - is required for that.

My ire, on the other hand, comes from witnessing empty snobbery that masquerades as taste. From the impugning of a richer pool from which to draw a variety of expression, for the supposed reason that it is, supposedly, wrong.

Heaven forfend we should have a choice of phrases! Let's all speak using only the words which are arbitrarily determined to be the pinnacle of correctness, despite the non-existence of that concept! There was an exact point in history when we got it right, and it's a travesty to use any coinages dating from after that sacred moment! Burn the thesaurus, for only the pure core of meaning (which is somehow inherent within the words I like but not the ones I don't) shall be allowed to exist! Slay the poets, for expression must be limited and formalised!

Cobblers. Say "get-go" if you like. Or "outset". Or "off". Or "inception". Or so many more things.

And don't try to be a snob about semantics on a grammar forum.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 14 October, 2022, 06:45:59 am
NickNack is the best judge of what makes him cringe - they don't need a qualification.

How come you've got this far and only just noticed it's all 'empty snobbery masquerading as taste'? I thought that was the point.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 October, 2022, 08:12:19 am
For some reason, I woke up this morning thinking about jumperons. Or jumper-ons. Maybe jumper ons. The origin of this word, phrase or expression, is that one toddler said "I've got a jumper on" to which a second toddler replied "I've got two jumper ons." This not only gives us a fascinating insight into language learning and creating processes, and indeed into infantile competitiveness, it is breakthrough in physics which will revolutionise our world, not least in cycling. A jumperon is a particle of athletic prowess about to be discovered at CERN, soon thereafter to be banned by WADA.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 14 October, 2022, 08:49:11 am
Quote from: Paul Weller
No matter where I roam
I will return to my English rose
For no bonds can ever tempt me from she.

Grates every time.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 14 October, 2022, 01:36:56 pm
How come you've got this far and only just noticed it's all 'empty snobbery masquerading as taste'? I thought that was the point.

I mostly stopped contributing to this thread when I had a brief moment of self-awareness... and cringed at myself.

(Mostly. Sometimes I still can't help myself.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 14 October, 2022, 03:24:16 pm
My rule for this thread, as stated somewhere above, is that every complaint in this thread is proved wrong within a few follow-ups. Plus the original poster will be judged to have made a grammatical error of their own in their complaint about someone else's grammar and thus be besoiled in their own incongruent filth.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 14 October, 2022, 04:26:51 pm
Meh and bah. There is cringing in this thread but there is even more laughter, and just plain curiosity. Why do we say that? What does this mean? And why do some people dislike it? And why do others dislike that some dislike it? Etc and moreover ect.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: TheLurker on 14 October, 2022, 05:03:33 pm
NickNack is the best judge of what makes him cringe - they don't need a qualification.

How come you've got this far and only just noticed it's all 'empty snobbery masquerading as taste'? I thought that was the point.

Thank you. I had considered a far less polite response, but I think you've dealt with it quite nicely. 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: nicknack on 14 October, 2022, 05:30:21 pm
NickNack is the best judge of what makes him cringe - they don't need a qualification.
Indeed.
Thank you.  :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 October, 2022, 04:02:14 pm
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52434139902_8e9da5a506_c.jpg)

Surly riders (it was a Cross Check) get nominatively determinate when "less" is used in place of "fewer".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 26 October, 2022, 08:06:53 pm
For want of a better thread, I'm in a Zoom conference with a bandwidth-impaired presenter and someone just reported it as "sound is pixelating"

It's technically wrong, but also pleasingly succinct.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: TheLurker on 26 October, 2022, 08:48:15 pm
Kim> ....sound is pixelating...

Russ Conway & his Penguin got there first... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gPrvoN4c7g
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 November, 2022, 12:35:30 pm
It’s like those signs that say “advance warning” to differentiate from a warning after the event.
There's warning, advance warning and now pre-warning:
Quote
Programme Yarrow prepares for a situation where power is unavailable, without any pre-warning, to all premises without backup generators during winter.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/nov/01/government-tests-energy-blackout-emergency-plans-as-supply-fears-grow

Whereas a can see a use for "advance warning", "pre-warning" is just wrong. Do they mean "prior warning" (in which case, we're back to "advance warning")? "Pre-warning" sounds like something that comes before a warning. But what would that be?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Giraffe on 02 November, 2022, 04:44:17 pm
It's a result of global warning.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 02 November, 2022, 05:59:10 pm
Whereas a can see a use for "advance warning", "pre-warning" is just wrong. Do they mean "prior warning" (in which case, we're back to "advance warning")? "Pre-warning" sounds like something that comes before a warning. But what would that be?

Fire alarms have the concept of 'pre-alarm', which implies an elevated level of whatever-the-sensor-is-measuring but not (with a strongly implied 'yet') high enough to justify sounding the alarm.  It's reasonable jargon in that context, where you might use that condition to start releasing fire doors or set something beeping at the security desk or whatever.

It's clearly useful to have different confidence-level warnings, which might or might not progressively increase as the probability of and/or proximity to the event increases.  But that sort of thing is best expressed quantitatively in a way that makes sense in the given context - different colours of weather warnings for example.  Otherwise you get into pre-pre-warnings, which is clearly silly.

It also suggests the existence of post-warnings, which are more correctly described as "I told you so"s.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 November, 2022, 06:17:33 pm
Post warnings: tomorrow the DPD driver will pause briefly outside your gate, take a photo of your front door without leaving his van and say 'We tried to deliver but you were out.'
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: TheLurker on 06 November, 2022, 10:38:04 am
Not grammar, but this seems the best home for this piece of nonsense.

Independent's web site, today.

(https://i.ibb.co/W0X5wwt/Idiots-At-Indy.png)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 06 November, 2022, 10:44:12 am
Not grammar, but this seems the best home for this piece of nonsense.

Independent's web site, today.

(https://i.ibb.co/W0X5wwt/Idiots-At-Indy.png)

"Coronated" doesn't make you cringe? It does me.  Back in 1953 Lizzie was crowned.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: TheLurker on 06 November, 2022, 10:49:43 am
> "Coronated" doesn't make you cringe?"
That's exactly why it I posted it, but I can't nail it as grammatically incorrect, merely ugly and stupid.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 06 November, 2022, 06:47:30 pm
> "Coronated" doesn't make you cringe?"
That's exactly why it I posted it, but I can't nail it as grammatically incorrect, merely ugly and stupid.
That's no way to speak of your King.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hatler on 06 November, 2022, 06:53:26 pm
"... is due be coronated ..."

Where's the 'to' ?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 November, 2022, 07:09:08 pm
Quote
The relevance of the witness can only be assessed, against what you pre-announce that potentially could be heard.
Perhaps the relevance could be post-announced after the witness has been heard?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: TheLurker on 06 November, 2022, 07:58:31 pm
> "Coronated" doesn't make you cringe?"
That's exactly why it I posted it, but I can't nail it as grammatically incorrect, merely ugly and stupid.
That's no way to speak of your King.
Waves Tim in the general direction of the, "Monty Python Quotes for all Occasions" thread.  :)

"... is due be coronated ..."
Where's the 'to' ?
Bristol?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 07 November, 2022, 08:31:59 am

"... is due be coronated ..."
Where's the 'to' ?
Bristol?
;D :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rogerzilla on 08 November, 2022, 11:40:32 am
The OED only gives "coronate" and "coronated" in the wider context of coronas, apparently.

It's CROWN and CROWNED, and people are trying to appear educated.  It's like the erroneous use of "myself" instead of "me", or random use of "whom".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Slave To The Viking on 10 November, 2022, 07:05:27 pm
Hell's chuff. I'd been saying "coronated" as a joke. Like..."pronunciated".

I'll have to see how much mileage I can get out of "encoronationed" before that becomes real.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 10 November, 2022, 08:19:23 pm
"King Charles's encoronisationment will take place on 5th May."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 10 November, 2022, 11:34:02 pm
Careful now!  That’s straying into Ronspeak territory!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 21 November, 2022, 06:00:02 pm
Quote
poultry farmers face rising costs for chicken feed
Economic developments that might have larger impact on the language we use....
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-63708155
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 November, 2022, 10:46:47 am
Quote
There are situations where you have to share information in a non-paperless way, so I do feel they still serve a purpose.
I feel there has to be a situation in which 'non-paperless' does not necessarily mean 'on paper' but I can't think of it. I'm going to look for the answer in the posts below...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Slave To The Viking on 23 November, 2022, 10:19:57 pm
Quote
There are situations where you have to share information in a non-paperless way, so I do feel they still serve a purpose.
I feel there has to be a situation in which 'non-paperless' does not necessarily mean 'on paper' but I can't think of it. I'm going to look for the answer in the posts below...

It's probably more that "on paper" tends to be used figuratively, so it would require an explanation that it was to be taken literally, rather than meaning "in theory, but not necessarily in practice".

"Paperless", however, means "electronic, in a situation where paper traditionally would have been used", so "non-paperless" means "using traditional paper methods rather than the electronic methods now commonly employed".

On paper, at least.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 November, 2022, 08:25:58 am
As in "We're a paperless office on paper... "
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 24 November, 2022, 09:53:45 am
"King Charles's encoronisationment will take place on 5th May."

A shame it's not a day earlier and then they could have used a light sabre.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 November, 2022, 06:19:06 pm
Quote
...a photo of a staff member wearing a name tag “Gemma” followed by “she/her/hers” (grammarians generally add the possessive to pronoun groups, though most badges use only two).
This could got complicated. "Where's Gemma?" "I haven't seen them, but she's left his phone on the desk."
But it probably won't. Apart from anything else, it would make the badges too big!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/26/pronouns-gendered-language-revolution-britain
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 28 November, 2022, 03:25:42 pm
Background: Canada's coach (this is bootfall talk) said his team would "eff Croatia". After Croatia won the match, one of their players responded thus:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fil8_CBXoAE3pmn?format=jpg&name=900x900)
https://twitter.com/CBSSportsGolazo/status/1596944983118184448

Yes, that's "whom". Not only do Croats play better football than Canadians, they even talk better English!

But if it had been ice hockey of course...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 09 December, 2022, 10:34:36 pm
https://inews.co.uk/news/train-strikes-this-week-next-rail-strike-dates-december-2022-trains-affected-2009750
Quote
When are the next train strikes?
Staff at Network Rail represented by the RMT are set to walk out on Saturday 24 December at 6pm. They will remain on strike through Tuesday 27 December.

This strike involves workers who maintain railways, such as signallers and maintenance workers.


American English. Unless it actually means on strike only during that day of Tuesday 27 December.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 09 December, 2022, 11:51:34 pm
I'm sure we've done commas before but, given the approaching season, this seemed worth a mention: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxfxy-3dGz0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxfxy-3dGz0)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 13 December, 2022, 04:12:31 pm
Not grammar but...

This came up in an online training course I'm having to do for work:

"the offeror or giver must intend the offeree or recipient to act as a result of the bribe"

 :sick:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 13 December, 2022, 04:44:06 pm
Not grammar but...

This came up in an online training course I'm having to do for work:

"the offeror or giver must intend the offeree or recipient to act as a result of the bribe"

 :sick:
Bung the author (or authorer?) a fiver to get them not to do it again.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 13 December, 2022, 06:17:47 pm
Not grammar but...

This came up in an online training course I'm having to do for work:

"the offeror or giver must intend the offeree or recipient to act as a result of the bribe"

 :sick:
Bung the author (or authorer?) a fiver blow to the skull with your stoutest knobkerrie to get them not to do it again.

FTFY :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Slave To The Viking on 17 December, 2022, 01:03:50 am
I may have to start a Semantics That Make(s?) You Cringe thread, for this is not grammar. For now though, I'll put this here.

There's an Amazon ad knocking about, in which Romeo buys Juliet a set of walkie-talkies for Christmas. The reason? Glad you asked. When she asks "Wherefore art thou Romeo?", he can tell her where he is.

"WHEREFORE" MEANS "WHY", NOT "WHERE", DAMN YOU ALL TO BOLLOCKS.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 17 December, 2022, 01:14:20 am
This ^^^^.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rafletcher on 17 December, 2022, 09:28:50 am
Something that always grates with me, is things ‘going extinct’. What’s wrong / incorrect about them ‘becoming extinct’? 
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 17 December, 2022, 09:58:36 am
Something that always grates with me, is things ‘going extinct’. What’s wrong / incorrect about them ‘becoming extinct’?

Especially if applied to Elon Musk and the Tory party.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Slave To The Viking on 17 December, 2022, 10:37:07 am
Something that always grates with me, is things ‘going extinct’. What’s wrong / incorrect about them ‘becoming extinct’?

I'm not sure there's anything wrong or incorrect about it. "Going" is figurative - obviously things don't literally go to a state of extinction, physically shifting their location - but figurative alternative coinages don't mean there's anything wrong with more literal ones. "Becoming extinct" hasn't gone extinct.

I guess "going" can also mean "leaving, disappearing", so there's maybe a sort of (unintentional) poetic suggestion of that within the "going extinct" construction too.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Sergeant Pluck on 23 December, 2022, 05:55:57 pm
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/dec/23/oldham-woman-dies-after-collision-with-police-car

Quote
Greater Manchester police said it was about 10am that officers started a pursuit of the vehicle.

Am I justified in being unimpressed by that?


Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 30 December, 2022, 07:27:25 am
The Graun just loves amid:

Quote
Pelé, who had a colon tumour removed in 2021, was readmitted to Albert Einstein hospital in São Paulo in November amid deteriorating health.

Any time you visit a hospital you're amid deteriorating health.  Whatever became of with?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Clare on 04 January, 2023, 11:08:05 pm
Quote
The Library of the Lace Guild needs your help!
We have several copies of the Fuselliamo Magazine that we don't have,

 ???
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 05 January, 2023, 12:02:29 am
Quote
The Library of the Lace Guild needs your help!
We have several copies of the Fuselliamo Magazine that we don't have,

 ???
Is Fuselliamo FOREIGN for piling swivel, which in their case they have not got?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Clare on 05 January, 2023, 12:30:55 am
I want it to refer to pasta weaponry.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 05 January, 2023, 11:28:22 am
It's a little-known fact* that the Italian army had a Regiment di Fusilli during the early part of WW2 but it was disbanded after a heavy defeat by the Duke of Rutland's Own Suet Puddingers outside Tobruk in 1941.

* Alright, lie
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 05 January, 2023, 05:25:13 pm
They should have thrown in the Regiment di Penne, who would have been mightier
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 12 January, 2023, 08:39:58 pm
Anyone else find this BBC headline befuddling?

Quote
Wales weather: Avoid water plea after rain and flood warnings

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 13 January, 2023, 11:47:17 am
Anyone else find this BBC headline befuddling?

Quote
Wales weather: Avoid water plea after rain and flood warnings
Not particularly, but maybe I would if I haven't been forewarned. Headlines have their own particular grammar anyway, only loosely related to that of English.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 09 February, 2023, 09:15:02 am
Quote
In China, parts of the Yangtze River, whose surrounding provinces produce 45% of the country's economic output, were closed to ships because water levels were more than 50% below average.
Wouldn't "less than 50% of average" be clearer than "more than 50% below average"?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64553079
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 February, 2023, 06:13:30 pm
Okay, this one, unusually, I'm nominating not because it's a laugh but because it really does make me cringe. And it's from someone on here. Same on them! The offending sentence is:
Quote
I haven't yet, and might well not, searched for this.
Ugh! What a fugly, badly written sentence. Time to shame the guilty:
(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 20 February, 2023, 08:49:24 pm
I don't know if anyone's been playing Wordiply, but I've noticed that I rarely get the longest word. Instead I either get "more than 100% of the longest word" or miss it. Well, today's letters are JOY so my first guess was UNENJOYABLE. And the response is "rare long word found". If "unenjoyable" is rare than the Graunaid must be using some rather disappointing dictionaries.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 20 February, 2023, 10:33:21 pm
I used to watch that Pointless that was on the telly once (it may still be for all I know). There was a round in which contestants were invited to make the longest word they could from three given letters, and the letters had to appear in the word in the order that they were given, but not necessarily adjacent to one another.

In the case in point, the letters were HMS and I instantly produced
(click to show/hide)
.

I felt quite smug.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 22 February, 2023, 08:34:35 pm
1/64th note in YankSpeak!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 23 February, 2023, 04:19:34 pm
If "unenjoyable" is rare than the Graunaid must be using some rather disappointing dictionaries.

In the OED, it says:
"This word belongs in Frequency Band 3. Band 3 contains words which occur between 0.01 and 0.1 times per million words in typical modern English usage. These words are not commonly found in general text types like novels and newspapers, but at the same time they are not overly opaque or obscure. Nouns include ebullition and merengue, and examples of adjectives are amortizable, prelapsarian, contumacious, agglutinative, quantized, argentiferous. In addition, adjectives include a marked number of very colloquial words, e.g. cutesy, dirt-cheap, teensy, badass, crackers. Verbs and adverbs diverge to opposite ends of the spectrum of use encompassed by this band. Verbs tend to be either colloquial or technical, e.g. emote, mosey, josh, recapitalize."

There are eight frequency bands. Band 8 words "occur more than 1000 times per million words in typical modern English usage".
More information on word frequency here: https://public.oed.com/how-to-use-the-oed/key-to-frequency/

So it's relatively rare in terms of actual usage - and rightly so, since it's an ugly word.

My word is in the OED but not as a headword so doesn't get a frequency score. It's...

(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 February, 2023, 04:39:29 pm
There was an article describing how they invented Wordiply, in which it said they decided to accept words which occurred in at least three out of six dictionaries. They said this was to rule out things like names of chemicals. But the implication was a word which only occurs in, say, two out of the six, would not be accepted at all. So I don't know what their criteria are for designating something a rare word. I would have thought "unenjoyable" was a far more common word than any of the examples of Band 3 words in the OED. But perhaps it's not actually more commonly used, just simpler.

Anyway, today's letters are "RIVA" so my first guess was "derivativeness", which is also a "rare word" – and in this case, I'd agree. In fact I'm surprised they accepted it, as they often don't accept words which are, erm, derivations of root words. And it's ugly too!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 February, 2023, 09:52:25 am
Actually, I think it's that "unenjoyable" and "derivativeness", although they might be infrequently used, are basically simple. If you know the word "joy" you'll understand "unenjoyable" on first encountering it, and be able to make other derivations as well: there might be only two other people in the world who use the word "unenjoyability" and it might make billions wince, but it's pretty clear what you're trying to say – whereas there's nothing simple or common about "ebullition" or "argentiferous".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 24 February, 2023, 11:02:11 am
Actually, I think it's that "unenjoyable" and "derivativeness", although they might be infrequently used, are basically simple. If you know the word "joy" you'll understand "unenjoyable" on first encountering it, and be able to make other derivations as well: there might be only two other people in the world who use the word "unenjoyability" and it might make billions wince, but it's pretty clear what you're trying to say – whereas there's nothing simple or common about "ebullition" or "argentiferous".

Yes, but that's precisely what they mean by "rare" - that people don't actually use the word. Nothing to do with it being abstruse.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 24 February, 2023, 11:11:35 am
Sure, but that doesn't stop me being surprised that unenjoyable is in the same usage-frequency category as ebullition or "derivativeness".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: TheLurker on 25 February, 2023, 02:53:12 pm
Not grammar and more, "want to hurl a brick at the speaker" than cringe, but this seems to the most appropriate thread. 

"One year anniversary, two year anniversary." instead of "first", "second" etc.   "Anniversary".  The annual* recurrence of a day or date made notable in some way.

The BBC is a particularly notable offender.

There are variations of this such as, "two time X", "three time X" instead of "double X", "triple X" which also irritate, but that's a grumble for another day.

*Of or pertaining to a year.  As any fule kno.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 February, 2023, 10:19:22 pm
They accept "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" as a word!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 17 March, 2023, 02:42:39 pm
The "less" versus "fewer" ship has probably sailed, and as my son says "Dad, was the meaning clear?", suggesting I should move on.

But today I was on a book search website where I recived this error message:
Quote
Sorry, no results as this time. Please double check your spelling or consider less search terms.

A book site. Harrumph.

(If anyone has Hand Dryers by Samuel Ryde and want to off load it, drop me a line)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 17 March, 2023, 05:41:32 pm
The ghastly "double check" as well.  :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 18 March, 2023, 09:42:10 pm
Jacqueline Gold, CEO of Ann Summers has died after 7 years with breast cancer.

The news in the Jewish Chronicle includes this paragraph
Quote
It is her vision and creativity that saw Ann Summers grow from an unknown brand to a British household name and stable of the British high street.

More usage/wrong word choice than grammar.

I think they meant 'staple'...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 April, 2023, 10:05:57 am
From a page about recycling on the council's website:
Quote
The paper is pulped and then injected between two wire meshes to make it paper thin.
I don't know if 'paper thin' is a conscious choice, which at least means one person is laughing, or just lazy fall-back.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 May, 2023, 01:09:14 pm
Quote
King Charles Coronation: George VI's chair recycled for enthronement
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65447193

It's not recycled, it's reused FFS!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 01 May, 2023, 01:26:11 pm
Quote
King Charles Coronation: George VI's chair recycled for enthronement
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65447193

It's not recycled, it's reused FFS!

Or even just "used". Like most chairs, it can be sat on more than once.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 01 May, 2023, 01:31:42 pm
I think the word they're looking for is 'reupholstered'.  Which it may or may not have needed.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 May, 2023, 01:37:16 pm
'Reupholstered' is four syllables and thirteen letters, thereby probably breaking a BBC editorial rule.

The chair can be sat on many times but I expect there's a rule, or protocol, that they aren't sat on except at Royal Occasions. Maybe the Royal Grandchildren sit on it and giggle when they're feeling naughty. "Ooh! You sat on Grandad's Special Chair!"
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 01 May, 2023, 01:40:45 pm
Prime opportunity to install a royal whoopee cushion, anyway...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 01 May, 2023, 01:51:25 pm
 :D :D :D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moleman76 on 01 May, 2023, 06:49:17 pm
Prime opportunity to install a royal whoopee cushion, anyway...

Time to start a "truly terrific jokes" thread
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 May, 2023, 05:57:15 pm
Apparently even the crowns are "recycled".
Quote
Previous consorts have always had a new crown commissioned, but Buckingham Palace is keen to emphasise the decision to recycle one from the family’s sprawling collection “in the interests of sustainability and efficiency”.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/may/02/charles-ping-pong-ball-crown-shocking-history-royal-headwear-bling

Quote
Camilla to wear recycled crown without Koh-i-Noor diamond at coronation
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/feb/14/camilla-wear-queen-mary-crown-coronation
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 02 May, 2023, 06:26:22 pm
So using something you've been keeping in the cupboard is recycling now?   ::-)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 02 May, 2023, 06:44:06 pm
On that basis, making lunch is recycling!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 02 May, 2023, 06:45:21 pm
Eating lunch, meanwhile, is composting.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rafletcher on 03 May, 2023, 09:31:12 am
The Australians have an interesting way with words, apparently (it’s on the BBC website but I’m being generous and assuming it’s verbatim from the original) two salt water crocodiles were “euthanised” so they could be cut up and the body parts of a missing fisherman recovered.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 03 May, 2023, 10:19:15 am
The Australians have an interesting way with words, apparently (it’s on the BBC website but I’m being generous and assuming it’s verbatim from the original) two salt water crocodiles were “euthanised” so they could be cut up and the body parts of a missing fisherman recovered.

I wouldn't blame the Ozzies for that one; I've seen it many a time in UK & US articles.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: toontra on 18 May, 2023, 06:54:11 pm
Quote
No disrespect, but - going forward - it would be advisable not to start sentences with the word "So".
This has been pissing me off for years (see upthread) and has reached epidemic status.  It's not just a filler word - "umm" would do just fine for that.  It's pretentious and deeply irritating.  It's even regularly cropping up in the written form.  Why?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65634829 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65634829)
Title: Re: Grammar what makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 19 May, 2023, 08:21:08 am
Quote
No disrespect, but - going forward - it would be advisable not to start sentences with the word "So".
This has been pissing me off for years (see upthread) and has reached epidemic status.  It's not just a filler word - "umm" would do just fine for that.  It's pretentious and deeply irritating.  It's even regularly cropping up in the written form.  Why?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65634829 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65634829)

When I was learning German the teacher told us that if we ever saw a car pull up and the occupants climb out, look round and exclaim "SO!" I could be sure they were German.  That was around 1968.

It's obviously a powerful meme with a long life.  Resistance is probably futile.

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: toontra on 19 May, 2023, 09:05:26 am
It started big-time in the UK only a few years ago, inspired by US tech MD's (forget who but I think Gates was one of them).  Then came the emulation, percolating further and further down the tech hierarchy and then spreading contagiously throughout middle-management everywhere

This more or less sums up my opinion:

Quote
Why do we start a sentence with so?
Some people start a sentence with "so" to indicate that the listener is a bit of a simpleton, so the speaker will use appropriately uncomplicated words. If this is so, more people should be annoyed. "So" may also indicate that the speech that follows has been rehearsed.

https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2019/may/13/so-starts-sentences-must-stop-20190513/#:~:text=Some%20people%20start%20a%20sentence,that%20follows%20has%20been%20rehearsed. (https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2019/may/13/so-starts-sentences-must-stop-20190513/#:~:text=Some%20people%20start%20a%20sentence,that%20follows%20has%20been%20rehearsed.)
Title: Re: Grammar what makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 19 May, 2023, 11:10:31 am
Oh well. I started doing it back in the late 70s when I worked in Stuttgart.  Coincidentally, at around that time I bought a pair of Eurofisk wellies to go mushrooming in. When UK chums came to stay N years later they happily sneered "ooh, he's got green wellies!", much to my bemusement.  HTF could I know what the Windsor-worshippers were wearing back "home"? Dry eyes all round when they buggered off.  To be fair, the woman was OK but the bloke worked in marketing. And now my speech habit of 50-odd years reaps opprobrium? Piss on that. No, not from a great height: you can soak it more effectively if you're close enough to aim properly.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 28 May, 2023, 11:09:01 am
It seems the Post Office thinks that one of their greatest achievements is a racist document:

Quote from: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65730464
A Post Office spokesperson described it as a "historic document" but said the organisation did not tolerate racism "in any shape or form" and condemned the "abhorrent" language.

Though I wouldn't put it past the Beeb's editing, they have form for this, cf. "historic child abuse".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Slave To The Viking on 02 June, 2023, 12:17:18 am
Quote
No disrespect, but - going forward - it would be advisable not to start sentences with the word "So".
This has been pissing me off for years (see upthread) and has reached epidemic status.  It's not just a filler word - "umm" would do just fine for that.  It's pretentious and deeply irritating.  It's even regularly cropping up in the written form.  Why?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65634829 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65634829)

Idly inserting "so" as a vocal tic is maybe irritating and can sound a bit vapid, maybe, but only if delivered in a vapid voice. Pretentious though? Not really. At the very least, I'd say its fair to ask for a justification for that assertion.

Unfortunately, sentence-initial "so" has become one of those things that people are supposed to hate - and therefore openly and unthinkingly deride, to ensure they're identified among the ranks of the intelligentsia - like the addition of qualifiers to "unique" or the reverting to the traditional British spelling of "ize" (the one that the Americans never replaced with "ise").

There are various ways to announce that we're entering into a summation of what's been explained or discussed. One could say "All that being as it is, the following is probably worth considering", or a conversational "Right then, it appears we can conclude that..."

So, it would appear that - despite its harmlessness and semantic equivalence to acceptable turns of phrase - we must not begin a sentence thus.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rafletcher on 02 June, 2023, 10:01:12 am
We've been watching Springwach. They seem to have schooled Gillian Burke from starting virtually every sentence with "So..."

Now she (along with the other presenters, to be fair) just does the "go extinct" rather than "become extinct" thing (it may be grammatically correct, I'm no expert, but it grates) and "provision" and "provisioned" in place of "feed" and "fed".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 02 June, 2023, 09:51:15 pm
And why can't they say nommed instead of predated, hmm?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hubner on 02 June, 2023, 10:15:42 pm
Conversation amongst inmates in a prison (UK film):

Quote
- Yes, but...
- Look, Kelly's a wrong 'un.


That's enough.


Yeah, but he's a marshal, ain't he?


So he gets a posse together, like.


And they all go up to this, um,
canyon sort of thing.


You know, up in the hills, like.


Clobber, I wonder if you could try
a wee experiment for me.


Oh, yeah, I'll do anything
for you, like, Pauley.


I mean, you're my mate, ain't you, like?


Well... Well, would you just try to complete
a sentence without saying "like".


You mean, like, uh...


- you don't want me to say "like"?
- Aye. Aye.

That's a 1960 film, The Criminal.

OED:
Quote
6. colloquial.

  a. Used conversationally to qualify a preceding (or in later use also following) statement, suggesting that the statement is approximate, or signifying a degree of uncertainty on the part of the speaker as to whether an expression is pertinent or acceptable: ‘as it were’, ‘so to speak’, ‘in a manner of speaking’. Also used simply as a filler, or as an intensifier used to focus attention on the statement retrospectively.
Overlapping with sense B. 6b   when used as an intensifier or filler.

1778   F. Burney Evelina II. xxiii. 222   Father grew quite uneasy, like, for fear of his Lordship's taking offence.
1801   ‘Gabrielli’ Mysterious Husband III. 252   Of a sudden like.
1815   W. Scott Guy Mannering I. vi. 96   The lady, on ilka Christmas night..gae twelve siller pennies to ilka puir body about, in honour of the twelve apostles like.
1840   T. De Quincey Style: No. II in Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Sept. 398/1   Why like, it's gaily nigh like, to four mile like.
1929   ‘H. Green’ Living vi. 57   'E went to the side like and looked.
1966   Lancet 17 Sept. 635/2   As we say pragmatically in Huddersfield, ‘C'est la vie, like!’
1981   W. Russell Educating Rita ii. iii. 44   There's always a like—erm—erm..a like vein.
2003   C. Birch Turn again Home x. 142   ‘'Preciate your concern, Nelly,’ he said, ‘only it's easier said than done, like.’


 

  b. Originally U.S. Used as a marker, intensifier, or filler in conversation or spoken discourse to introduce or focus attention on a following statement or question. Also used in written discourse which has an informal, conversational tone.

1950   Neurotica Autumn 45   Like how much can you lay on [i.e. give] me?
1959   She May 21/2   Like wow…wonderful.
1971   Black Scholar Apr. 26/1   Man like the dude really flashed his hole card.
1976   National Observer (U.S.) 17 July 1/3   Like, this was at 11 or 12 years old.
2011   S. Webb Love & Other Drama Ramas (2014) iii. 28   ‘Everyone, like, back,’ Annabelle,..commands in her recently acquired quasi-Californian accent.


 

  c. spec. Used with a verb introducing reported speech or thoughts reported as if speech (cf. think v.2 1b). Now esp. in to be like at Phrases 8.
Often presented as distinctive of the speech of Valley Girls (see valley n. Compounds 1a(b)   and cf. quot. 1982 at Phrases 8).

1970   Time 31 Aug. 19   Afterward, a girl came up to me and said, ‘You kinda look interested in this; did you know there are civil rights for women?’ And I thought like wow, this is for me.
1978   Proc. 6th Southwest Areal Lang. & Linguistics Workshop 71   She goes like, ‘Yeah, you got one minute.’
1993   J. Deppa Media & Disasters i. ii. 53   I said like ‘No, no way,’ and he said, ‘Yes.’
2003   A. G. Koss Cheat 162   But I go, like, ‘Get a life, twit. It's got nothing to do with you!’
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: toontra on 02 June, 2023, 10:30:18 pm
Idly inserting "so" as a vocal tic is maybe irritating and can sound a bit vapid, maybe, but only if delivered in a vapid voice. Pretentious though? Not really. At the very least, I'd say its fair to ask for a justification for that assertion.


Perhaps patronising would be a better description than pretentious.  It implies that the user is about to impart information that may need to be simplified in order for the listener to comprehend.  That is certainly its origin in the tech industry.

 BTW, it's clearly not used as "a summation of what's been explained or discussed" when it's used at the start of any and every answer to any question about anything.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rafletcher on 03 June, 2023, 09:18:26 am
And why can't they say nommed instead of predated, hmm?

 ;D  Worse still, they say “predated on”   :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rafletcher on 03 June, 2023, 09:22:37 am
Idly inserting "so" as a vocal tic is maybe irritating and can sound a bit vapid, maybe, but only if delivered in a vapid voice. Pretentious though? Not really. At the very least, I'd say its fair to ask for a justification for that assertion.


Perhaps patronising would be a better description than pretentious.  It implies that the user is about to impart information that may need to be simplified in order for the listener to comprehend.  That is certainly its origin in the tech industry.

 BTW, it's clearly not used as "a summation of what's been explained or discussed" when it's used at the start of any and every answer to any question about anything.

Whether it’s just a verbal tic - as with the example I gave of Gillian Burke - or patronising surely depends on the tone and body language employed. It can be either. And if stressed can be used as a similarly stressed “right”.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: toontra on 03 June, 2023, 10:16:58 am
It may be a tic, acquired by repeated parroting, but that doesn't lessen its impact on the listener.  It is a word, after all, with meaning and associations.  It has no relevance in 99% of its current usage and shouldn't be tacked on meaninglessly to the start of every answer to every question.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 03 June, 2023, 08:01:56 pm
People don't like silence between the question and answer, but you need a second or two to gather your thoughts. This is especially true in a group setting where someone else might jump in if you haven't started saying something. So filler words are used, like "Well, " or "Right, " or nowadays, "So, ".

It's mildly irritating, but not as irritating as the Q&A session I attended recently where the person preceded every single answer with "That's a really good question, ". Every single answer, for an hour.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: toontra on 03 June, 2023, 08:13:52 pm
It's mildly irritating, but not as irritating as the Q&A session I attended recently where the person preceded every single answer with "That's a really good question, ". Every single answer, for an hour.

For some reason "well" and "right" don't bother me nearly as much because they don't have the slightly patronising air of "so".  But I completely agree - "That's a really good question" takes it to a whole new level of irritation.   ;D
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: ian on 03 June, 2023, 09:14:17 pm
“That’s a really good question” seems to be everywhere. I even caught myself saying it the other days. I stuck a pencil in my eye as penance.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 June, 2023, 09:48:14 pm
"That's a really good question" tends to mean "I have no idea how to answer that question, so I'm going to talk about something else."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 03 June, 2023, 10:27:46 pm
...I stuck a pencil in my eye as penance.

I don't see the point in that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 03 June, 2023, 10:46:14 pm
"That's a really good question" tends to mean "I have no idea how to answer that question, so I'm going to talk about something else."
Or even "I have no idea how to answer that question. So, I'm going to talk about something else."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 June, 2023, 10:50:33 pm
...I stuck a pencil in my eye as penance.

I don't see the point in that.

2B or not 2B?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Wowbagger on 04 June, 2023, 11:53:43 am
...I stuck a pencil in my eye as penance.

I don't see the point in that.

POTD!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 05 June, 2023, 09:11:32 pm
Quote from: redacted
...5am in the morning...

Well it wouldn't be in the ruddy afternoon, would it?  :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 05 June, 2023, 09:31:35 pm
Quote from: redacted
...5am in the morning...

Well it wouldn't be in the ruddy afternoon, would it?  :demon:

Oh yes, that one grates.  Now, TV's David Addison, motor racing colemantator, who compounds the sin of stating that Stuart Graham is the only person to have won a TT on both two and four wheels with the insertion of a superfluous “line” every time he uses the words “inside” and “outside”.  Please cease the trait.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 05 June, 2023, 10:38:26 pm
Today's grammar whinge from a grumpy old bastard man with a wealth of experience is the apparent inability of people to use the humble question mark correctly.

"Are you well?" Correct.

"I hope you are well?" Wrong. Stop it.

(Waits to be told he's wrong.)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 06 June, 2023, 09:47:18 am
I suppose you can turn pretty much any statement into a question by (rising) intonation. How would you denote that in writing other than by a question mark?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 07 June, 2023, 01:06:23 am
According to TV's Cam Donald we could visually see how hard $RIDER was trying during the Superbike TT.  I'll cut Mr Donald some slack just this once, since he’s a Colonial, but do it again, laddie, and it's a Reëducation Camp for you.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Moleman76 on 08 June, 2023, 09:22:39 pm
the reverting to the traditional British spelling of "ize" (the one that the Americans never replaced with "ise").

What? there's an instance of "ize" that we missed over here?  I never realized that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 08 June, 2023, 11:46:15 pm
According to TV's Cam Donald we could visually see how hard $RIDER was trying during the Superbike TT.  I'll cut Mr Donald some slack just this once, since he’s a Colonial, but do it again, laddie, and it's a Reëducation Camp for you.

Right, you Aussie oik!  Get in the cattle truck :demon:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 09 June, 2023, 07:39:05 am
So, it would appear that - despite its harmlessness and semantic equivalence to acceptable turns of phrase - we must not begin a sentence thus.

When I lived in Embra and dinosaurs ruled the Earth the usual attention-demanding blip at the start of a sentence was "now" ("nar" in NI (with the R pronounced properly)).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 09 June, 2023, 09:56:30 am
the reverting to the traditional British spelling of "ize" (the one that the Americans never replaced with "ise").

What? there's an instance of "ize" that we missed over here?  I never realized that.

You're none the wizer, then.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Legs on 22 June, 2023, 09:37:39 am
BBC News is reporting that the missing submarine 'has only several hours of oxygen remaining'.  Is it just me who thinks that 'several' is a really clunky word to use in this instance?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 27 June, 2023, 08:49:06 pm
I couldn't decide if this should be here or in the spelling thread, but here it is.

The rather wonderful butcher's shop in my Rural Idyll scatters apostrophes over its notices and signs with impunity.

Sandwich's is a staple, as are sausage's. Nothing too challenging there.

However, last weekend I noticed the sign advertising their opening hours had "Close's".  I think this is taking apostrophe misuse to new, untold heights. I salute them.   
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 27 June, 2023, 08:54:23 pm
Got spammed just now on Farcebok by some clod from a village near King's Lynn who will clean you're Gutters.  I don’t know whether the grammar or the geography is more deserving of being set ablaze.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 29 June, 2023, 12:06:01 pm
Quote from: the Graun
the people who taxidermy their pets

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jun/28/pet-taxidermy-cats-dogs
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 June, 2023, 12:10:21 pm
Yes, it oughtta be 'taxidermify' if it's a verb.

I'll get my dog-skin coat.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 29 June, 2023, 12:17:34 pm
BBC News is reporting that the missing submarine 'has only several hours of oxygen remaining'.  Is it just me who thinks that 'several' is a really clunky word to use in this instance?

No, it is not just you.  I think a lot of the BBC news website is written by very, very young, people who are both linguistically and generally ignorant. It has really taken a dive (sorry about that!).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 29 June, 2023, 12:26:22 pm
I think I found the all-time greatest apostrophail ever in a Farcebok comment just now:

Quote
Mr's Thatcher

 :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hatler on 29 June, 2023, 12:30:10 pm
My brother is a journo who has retired and been tempted back. He works for a fairly sizeable international news org (not the Beeb) and has been bemoaning the appalling levels of basic linguistic and grammatical competence of first-jobbers for at least the last 20 years.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 29 June, 2023, 12:39:33 pm
Not just I, then!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 29 June, 2023, 01:02:51 pm
I think I found the all-time greatest apostrophail ever in a Farcebok comment just now:

Quote
Mr's Thatcher

 :facepalm:
Zoinks. I'd like to suspect a deliberate act.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: FifeingEejit on 29 June, 2023, 02:13:39 pm
Yes, it oughtta be 'taxidermify' if it's a verb.

I'll get my dog-skin coat.
Greyhound fur tuxedo?

Sent from my IV2201 using Tapatalk

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 July, 2023, 08:44:14 pm
“Super” – meaning “very” – appears to have infected the world of tennis.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 03 July, 2023, 10:33:28 pm
Agreed. As any fule kno (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_spectrum#ITU), "super" means "very very very" like "tremendously" means "very very very very very".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 03 July, 2023, 10:42:54 pm
“Super” – meaning “very” – appears to have infected the world of tennis.

Won't be long before they'll be going full gas, for sure.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 03 July, 2023, 11:02:32 pm
“Super” – meaning “very” – appears to have infected the world of tennis.

Won't be long before they'll be going full gas, for sure.

Though they don’t actually go anywhere, so there isn’t a long way to go.  Still, anything can happen.  We will see.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 03 July, 2023, 11:09:11 pm
“Super” – meaning “very” – appears to have infected the world of tennis.

Won't be long before they'll be going full gas, for sure.

Though they don’t actually go anywhere, so there isn’t a long way to go.  Still, anything can happen.  We will see.

Yeh.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 26 July, 2023, 09:35:38 am
Quote
...An anonymised witness...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jul/26/uk-inaction-let-wagner-group-flourish-and-grow-say-mps
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 26 July, 2023, 09:53:31 am
Not sure there's anything wrong in that. They might not have been anonymous at the time of giving evidence but have had identifying details removed for the purpose of the report.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Nuncio on 26 July, 2023, 02:07:43 pm
When I was a comparatively old man in a primarily young team, about 12 years ago, I used to keep a secret list of things that my colleagues had described as 'awesome', most of which I would have thought of as barely 'good' let alone awe-inspiring (though there was a fair bit of obviously ironic use as well). I don't think I've heard it for a while now but am no longer in that setting. Has it gone completely?

Also, 'absolutely' for 'yes' or 'certainly' or 'that's true' or 'I agree' does not seem to be as prevalent as back then; though '100%' seems to have replaced it. Anyone else noticed lots of '100%s'?

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 26 July, 2023, 08:35:20 pm
Apparently Unilever is a Consumer Group:

Quote from: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jul/23/unilever-comply-russian-conscription-law-staff-called-up
The consumer group Unilever, which owns brands including Cornetto ice-cream and Dove soap

Are you sure, the Guardian?

Quote from: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/consumer-group#
consumer group
noun
an organization that works to protect the rights and interests of people who buy things or use services, especially by making sure that businesses act fairly, that products are safe, and that advertising is honest
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 27 July, 2023, 01:08:18 pm
When I was a comparatively old man in a primarily young team, about 12 years ago, I used to keep a secret list of things that my colleagues had described as 'awesome', most of which I would have thought of as barely 'good' let alone awe-inspiring (though there was a fair bit of obviously ironic use as well). I don't think I've heard it for a while now but am no longer in that setting. Has it gone completely?

I believe 'awesome' was replaced by the short-lived 'mega' in about 1991.

The current term appears to be 'sick' or possibly 'dank' (with the disclaimer I'm far too old to get this right).

I reckon 'cool' is old enough to be universal, though I recall an ancient maths teacher being bemused by it when I was at secondary school.  I can only assume he was so engrossed in differential equations or something that he completely missed the 50s.


Quote
Anyone else noticed lots of '100%s'?

This one's so prevalent it's got its own de-facto unicode code point (https://emojipedia.org/hundred-points/) (U+1F4AF for those playing along at home):  💯

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 27 July, 2023, 01:21:35 pm
When I was a comparatively old man in a primarily young team, about 12 years ago, I used to keep a secret list of things that my colleagues had described as 'awesome', most of which I would have thought of as barely 'good' let alone awe-inspiring (though there was a fair bit of obviously ironic use as well). I don't think I've heard it for a while now but am no longer in that setting. Has it gone completely?

I believe 'awesome' was replaced by the short-lived 'mega' in about 1991.

The current term appears to be 'sick' or possibly 'dank' (with the disclaimer I'm far too old to get this right).

'Insane' seems to be the favourite awesome-equivalent on YouTube at present. Back in the 80s it was aMAY-zing.  I gather that it means "not bad".

Another idiotic meme (is it a meme as Dorkins defined them?) in YT titles is "...you never heard of", e.g.  "Insane XYZ you never heard of", where XYZ is anything from quantum physics to bog roll.  Insults you even before you've clicked on the damned thing.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 27 July, 2023, 03:53:53 pm
The phrase that I don't like is "Here's how" or "We show you how". As in, "Want to build your own hadron collider? We show you how" or "Are you using the right bog roll? Here's how to tell."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 27 July, 2023, 04:10:09 pm
"Are you using the right bog roll? Here's how to tell."

Funny, that. Just now I was over in the workshop, putting a rear-view mirror on the beater.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 04 August, 2023, 10:42:54 am
Not an error, but it made me laugh: a sign outside a shop, advertising "pre-loved kids' clothes". Suitable for believers in reincarnation?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rafletcher on 05 August, 2023, 04:03:40 pm
“Someone is using my department to circumnavigate due process”. Whatever happened to proof readers - I’d certainly have used “circumvent”.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 14 August, 2023, 01:24:32 pm
“Once fully charged, all lights [on a cordless screwdriver] will distinguish”.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 26 August, 2023, 12:19:18 am
Quote from: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-66616022
non life-threatening electrocution injuries
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 22 September, 2023, 09:50:45 am
Articles go in the article, not in the headline!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 23 September, 2023, 08:26:13 pm
I couldn't find a Vocabular That Makes You (not) Cringe thread, so this one will do.

Quote
The sounds of American suburbia now featuring the falling kleen canteen/hydroflask 1L as it pachinkos down from the top row of aluminum bleachers.

Pachinko, as you probably know, is a sort of Japanese pinball machine in which metal balls bounce around a vertical pattern of bumpers, tracks and so on. So to use pachinko as a verb suggesting something falling, bouncing down steps as it does, and making a lot of metallic noise in the process, is a brilliant use of the word. That it includes the English word 'chink', descriptive of a metallic noise, is an additional happiness.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 30 October, 2023, 07:27:47 am
Oi, Graun!  Maroon does not mean wreck or run aground. See Treasure Island, Ben Gunn.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 31 October, 2023, 05:37:59 pm
Do you remember Rolodex? Apparently the item is still in manufacture but the name is rarely used, I think, to refer to the actual object, nowadays. Which might explain why I've just heard someone say "My new boss is very disappointing in terms of client relationships; she brought very, very little in terms of a client Rolodeck."
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 17 November, 2023, 05:11:19 pm
Hampshire villagers bring street’s apostrophe catastrophe to a full stop (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/nov/17/hampshire-villagers-bring-streets-apostrophe-catastrophe-to-a-full-stop)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 November, 2023, 06:14:31 pm
Hampshire villagers bring street’s apostrophe catastrophe to a full stop (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/nov/17/hampshire-villagers-bring-streets-apostrophe-catastrophe-to-a-full-stop)
Quote
He set out the position thus: “Clear and unambiguous street and place names are vital for postal and other delivery services and also for the emergency services, and punctuation can make that more difficult, particularly with modern computer systems.”
True. But meh. Is any 999 driver or postie going to ignore St Marys Terrace because they're looking for St Mary's Terrace, or vice versa? I think not. I'm sure that county councils have enough real needs to spend their insufficient funds on without dealing with grumpy grammarians.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 17 November, 2023, 07:28:59 pm
Hampshire villagers bring street’s apostrophe catastrophe to a full stop (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/nov/17/hampshire-villagers-bring-streets-apostrophe-catastrophe-to-a-full-stop)
Quote
He set out the position thus: “Clear and unambiguous street and place names are vital for postal and other delivery services and also for the emergency services, and punctuation can make that more difficult, particularly with modern computer systems.”
True. But meh. Is any 999 driver or postie going to ignore St Marys Terrace because they're looking for St Mary's Terrace, or vice versa? I think not. I'm sure that county councils have enough real needs to spend their insufficient funds on without dealing with grumpy grammarians.

Delivery people don't use street names, as evidenced by all the post we get for Perpendicular Road and Other Side Of The Block Road.

It's going to be crap database software that'll have an issue.  Which means the $FrenchCar satnav will deny that the road exists, the council will refuse your pothole reports and you'll end up thousands of pounds in arrears because $EnergyCo can't find your meter.  None of which will be remotely improved by what's written on the road sign.  At least until the self-driving cars come along.  Assuming they can get past that tricky left turn on '); DROP TABLE Destinations;-- Avenue.

Anyway, there's a tried and tested solution to gramatical errors on road signs: Petty vandalism.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 November, 2023, 07:34:46 pm
Perpendicular Road has to be a real name somewhere. We have a Circular Road in Bristol (which no one lives on) but if you google "perpendicular road bristol" it gives you this (https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/vale-street).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 17 November, 2023, 07:41:55 pm
Perpendicular Road has to be a real name somewhere. We have a Circular Road in Bristol (which no one lives on) but if you google "perpendicular road bristol" it gives you this (https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/vale-street).

Ah yes, the Z-axis.

Searching Google Maps for "Perpendicular Road" leads me to Perpendicular Monkey Limited, a web design company near Bournmouth with an expired SSL certificate.  Remember when Google used to be good?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 17 November, 2023, 07:43:43 pm
I'm wondering whether Perpendicular Road should cross Parallel Avenue at right angles or run alongside it. Either combination is likely to result in Tardis geometry.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: TheLurker on 17 November, 2023, 08:00:20 pm
Quote from: Cudzoziemiec
Quote
He set out the position thus: “... punctuation can make that more difficult, particularly with modern computer systems.”
Phew!  What a relief. All we have to do to prevent the machines taking over is use punctuation marks correctly. 



We're doomed, aren't we?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 17 November, 2023, 09:16:44 pm
I'm wondering whether Perpendicular Road should cross Parallel Avenue at right angles or run alongside it. Either combination is likely to result in Tardis geometry.

Or worse, Runcorn.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 17 November, 2023, 10:17:35 pm
[Not Grammar]
Some map databases contain total garbage for certain entries.

I ordered something from a local Screwfix and wanted to pick up this Click & Collect package on my return from a visit to my Mum, using my Taxicard for two concatenated journeys.

Cab driver rather puzzled by the Google Maps address. Road given TOTALLY wrong though postcode OK. We both knew the actual location of said shop & picked up package fine but…

Screwfix Colindale is NOT on Colindale Avenue. It's on Capitol Way…
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Screwfix+Colindale/@51.5941685,-0.2659666,17z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x4876118ca87ed625:0x81d0c353f91dee36!8m2!3d51.593502!4d-0.2646791!16s%2Fg%2F1ptwk1rvs?entry=ttu (https://www.google.com/maps/place/Screwfix+Colindale/@51.5941685,-0.2659666,17z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0x4876118ca87ed625:0x81d0c353f91dee36!8m2!3d51.593502!4d-0.2646791!16s%2Fg%2F1ptwk1rvs?entry=ttu)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 17 November, 2023, 11:11:54 pm
'Twas ever thus.

In the before times lived in a flat on Northfield Place which some taxi drivers assumed was in Northfield and then got grumpy when it wasn't  :facepalm:
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 26 November, 2023, 05:20:38 pm
Not grammer but didn't want to let this go:-

"Good play from Everton that's what I expect to see. Trying to attack with a bit of fast play and not working, reverberating the ball, regenerating it and moving it into wide positions."

Leon Osman,  BBC stundit on Everton v Manchester United.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 26 November, 2023, 05:56:29 pm
Not grammer but didn't want to let this go:-

"Good play from Everton that's what I expect to see. Trying to attack with a bit of fast play and not working, reverberating the ball, regenerating it and moving it into wide positions."

Leon Osman,  BBC stundit on Everton v Manchester United.

https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=38327.0
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Peter on 26 November, 2023, 06:55:21 pm
Well, he didn't spell anything wrong, whereas I did.  But I'll leave it there as a reference to my almost life-long love affair with Down With Skool!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 26 November, 2023, 09:36:13 pm
I'm hoping for poor grammar in the spelling thread...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Morat on 05 December, 2023, 09:04:26 am
When did "Can I get?" replace "Please may I have" when talking to salespersons in retail/catering?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: L CC on 05 December, 2023, 09:37:15 am
When did "Can I get?" replace "Please may I have" when talking to salespersons in retail/catering?

26th Nov 2010 in this thread.

Me: "Would you like a cuppa?"

Colleague: "Yeah. Can I get no sugar?"

Me: "Er... I don't know. Can you?"

However, linguist Gareth Rees put us all right on 26th November (coincidence!) 2013
Start here (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2205.msg1600762#msg1600762)

I'm hitting Peak Pedantry here  ;D

Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 December, 2023, 12:16:50 pm
"Can I get no sugar?" sounds like an attempt at being Nina Simone.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: tonyh on 05 December, 2023, 03:06:50 pm
However, linguist Gareth Rees put us all right on 26th November (coincidence!) 2013
Start here (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2205.msg1600762#msg1600762)

Thanks L CC - what a feast!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Giraffe on 05 December, 2023, 05:19:28 pm
Winchester YH: USAnian at hatch "Say, can I get  more water in this?" (teapot). I'm next " Please may I have some more water for this, when you have time?" 2 min later, warden brings me a fully refreshed teapot. USAnian still waiting.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 05 December, 2023, 05:23:28 pm
And I thought the stereotype of grumpy YH wardens acting on prejudices was unfounded.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Giraffe on 06 December, 2023, 06:20:57 pm
She wasn't grumpy - just objected to the lack of "please"; I didn't like "can" - the kitchen was private and so he couldn't.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pickled Onion on 06 December, 2023, 07:26:51 pm
She wasn't grumpy - just objected to the lack of "please"; I didn't like "can" - the kitchen was private and so he couldn't.

Like this?

(http://handsonit.co.uk/photos/2023/UnaArepa.jpeg)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 08 December, 2023, 04:32:30 pm
When did "Can I get?" replace "Please may I have" when talking to salespersons in retail/catering?

26th Nov 2010 in this thread.

Me: "Would you like a cuppa?"

Colleague: "Yeah. Can I get no sugar?"

Me: "Er... I don't know. Can you?"

However, linguist Gareth Rees put us all right on 26th November (coincidence!) 2013
Start here (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=2205.msg1600762#msg1600762)

I'm hitting Peak Pedantry here  ;D

Ha!

My problem with "Can I get no sugar?" wasn't really with the use of get, more the brain-mangling use of the negative.

I still don't like "I'm good" but I don't think I would argue the toss so strongly these days. Gareth was essentially correct.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 12 December, 2023, 10:41:23 am
More vocabular than grammar, but this sentence seems back to front to me:
Quote
Not least because of the way he has broadened out his generic criticism to specific broadcasters, who have then had to face the wrath of his 2.7 million social media followers.
Surely going from generic to specific is narrowing down not broadening out?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 January, 2024, 11:42:54 am
I can't make the link to the photo work directly, but if you follow this link and scroll down to the photo of "wall decoration" you'll see what I'm talking about.
https://www.gapminder.org/dollar-street/families/family-72

The word "prebelated" is interesting. No, not in a cringing way. There's presumably an element of using fancy language for an occasion, but is it also bet-hedging? Maybe "I missed your birthday this year but I'm early for next year"? Or "I'm writing this in advance so it's early even if I give it to you late"? Maybe it's actually a recognised word in Liberian English?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 08 January, 2024, 11:53:22 am
It's here and it's ready for you, but you're unable to receive it until after the due date?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 08 January, 2024, 01:20:18 pm
AKA "We've dispatched it and now it's in the warehouse of <Hermes/DPD/DHL/FedEx/UPS/FarcelPorce/Hobbling Pigeon>".
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 11 January, 2024, 02:02:17 pm
New! Shiny! window graphics have been applied at my place of work, with company branding, line drawings of products ect ect. They look very nice.

Except two office doors are being labelled up with the names of the occupants like this:  "Bob's Office".  Except there's no apostrophe. It'll make my teeth itch every time I look at it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jurek on 11 January, 2024, 02:42:00 pm
New! Shiny! window graphics have been applied at my place of work, with company branding, line drawings of products ect ect. They look very nice.

Except two office doors are being labelled up with the names of the occupants like this:  "Bob's Office".  Except there's no apostrophe. It'll make my teeth itch every time I look at it.
Chewing some sand paper should help with that.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 11 January, 2024, 02:53:37 pm
New! Shiny! window graphics have been applied at my place of work, with company branding, line drawings of products ect ect. They look very nice.

Except two office doors are being labelled up with the names of the occupants like this:  "Bob's Office".  Except there's no apostrophe. It'll make my teeth itch every time I look at it.
Chewing some sand paper should help with that.

Through gritted teeth.

As an aside, is that the sort of thing you're involved in? The window graphics that is, not abrasive tooth treatment.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 11 January, 2024, 03:12:36 pm
Maybe that's the office where they store Bobs? So you know where to go when you need to replenish your supply.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Regulator on 11 January, 2024, 04:24:26 pm
New! Shiny! window graphics have been applied at my place of work, with company branding, line drawings of products ect ect. They look very nice.

Except two office doors are being labelled up with the names of the occupants like this:  "Bob's Office".  Except there's no apostrophe. It'll make my teeth itch every time I look at it.

Change your name to Bob and lay claim to the office.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: CAMRAMan on 11 January, 2024, 04:39:59 pm
The University of Warwick spent £000s on etched windows as a global map for the post building. They spelled Antarctic correctly, but Artic was used instead of Arctic. Maybe they wanted lorries to use it?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jurek on 11 January, 2024, 09:35:03 pm
New! Shiny! window graphics have been applied at my place of work, with company branding, line drawings of products ect ect. They look very nice.

Except two office doors are being labelled up with the names of the occupants like this:  "Bob's Office".  Except there's no apostrophe. It'll make my teeth itch every time I look at it.
Chewing some sand paper should help with that.

Through gritted teeth.

As an aside, is that the sort of thing you're involved in? The window graphics that is, not abrasive tooth treatment.
My bold.
Very much so. Probably 60% - 70% or more of what I deal with .
ETA - without stating the obvs. your cock-ups appear to be down to the artworker/designer rather than the printer.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 11 January, 2024, 10:22:01 pm
Some enterprising person with a vinyl cutter must make stick-on apostrophe kit's for pedants, shirley?
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 11 January, 2024, 10:29:05 pm
I hope so. Although an apostrophe will spoil the line of the lettering.   

The grahpics people were in again today, applying a small arc of sticky stuff to fix an error in a line drawing representation. Invisible mending.

I think the apostrophe thing was down to my teenaged boss. Nice enough but spelling and punctuation are not his strong points.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 11 January, 2024, 10:52:32 pm
I hope so. Although an apostrophe will spoil the line of the lettering.   

Talking of which…

From our 8th floor office window, we have an excellent view of the new Sadler’s Wells building going up in Stratford. You can tell it’s Sadler’s Wells because it says so in very large letters on the side.

The designers on our team have been gnashing their teeth for weeks over the appalling kerning of the sign - there’s a massive gap between the apostrophe and the s in Sadler’s.

I’m not a designer but even I find it really glaring and grating.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Pingu on 15 January, 2024, 10:15:36 pm
Unusual apostrophe use (amongst other things).

(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53466391404_f3cbf043cb_z.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2psDeqy)
PXL_20240111_115916699 (https://flic.kr/p/2psDeqy) by The Pingus (https://www.flickr.com/photos/the_pingus/), on Flickr
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: fimm on 18 January, 2024, 10:02:18 am
Is it just me, or would others prefer "associated with" over "associated to"? I have a colleague who does stuff "associated to" other stuff all the time and it annoys me...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 18 January, 2024, 02:24:20 pm
Is it just me, or would others prefer "associated with" over "associated to"? I have a colleague who does stuff "associated to" other stuff all the time and it annoys me...

Associated to is clueless bollocks, so you'll be hearing it on the Beeb any day now.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: drossall on 18 January, 2024, 05:43:15 pm
Association is usually a bidirectional relationship. "To" does not really convey that. There again, the origins of "different" lie in "carrying away", which is why "different to" i.e."carrying away to" jars so much - it's another prepositional oxymoron.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 07 February, 2024, 01:20:30 pm
The plural noun premises used as a singular, as in "police were called to a premises", which I have even seen used by lawyers who should know better.  Plural nouns take plural grammar.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Tim Hall on 07 February, 2024, 04:04:49 pm
The plural noun premises used as a singular, as in "police were called to a premises", which I have even seen used by lawyers who should know better.  Plural nouns take plural grammar.
I was watching one of those rubbish Police Knicking Villains programmes the other day. One of the Boys in Blue kept referring to "a premise", which caused cringing.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Regulator on 07 February, 2024, 05:05:26 pm
The plural noun premises used as a singular, as in "police were called to a premises", which I have even seen used by lawyers who should know better.  Plural nouns take plural grammar.

As far as I am aware, whilst 'premises' is plural it can be used with a singular verb.  I've seen it used quite frequently in planning applications.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: cygnet on 07 February, 2024, 11:50:46 pm
I hope so. Although an apostrophe will spoil the line of the lettering.   

Talking of which…

From our 8th floor office window, we have an excellent view of the new Sadler’s Wells building going up in Stratford. You can tell it’s Sadler’s Wells because it says so in very large letters on the side.

The designers on our team have been gnashing their teeth for weeks over the appalling kerning of the sign - there’s a massive gap between the r and the apostrophe in Sadler’s.

I’m not a designer but even I find it really glaring and grating.

Inevitably
There's a thread for that sort of thing (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=125125.0)
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 08 February, 2024, 08:05:32 am
The plural noun premises used as a singular, as in "police were called to a premises", which I have even seen used by lawyers who should know better.  Plural nouns take plural grammar.

As far as I am aware, whilst 'premises' is plural it can be used with a singular verb.  I've seen it used quite frequently in planning applications.

Ignorance of grammar is no longer a surprise these days.  I was pleased yesterday to see the preposition outside used without a following of. Mind you, the book was from 1984.
Title: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: citoyen on 08 February, 2024, 09:36:25 pm
Inevitably
There's a thread for that sort of thing (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=125125.0)

How did I not see that thread before? Excellent. I shall have to take a picture and share it there.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Auntie Helen on 09 February, 2024, 07:00:40 am
Looking at property listings on Zoopla and Rightmove and almost every house comprises of…
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 09 February, 2024, 08:05:06 am
A real cringifyer being should/could/would of.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 14 February, 2024, 04:25:37 pm
Quote
let me get back to you momentarily

Seems in the USA momentarily means 'at any moment'.

Reading it is like chewing on a pumice stone.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: jsabine on 14 February, 2024, 06:30:20 pm
The plural noun premises used as a singular, as in "police were called to a premises", which I have even seen used by lawyers who should know better.  Plural nouns take plural grammar.

Standard Irish usage that, I thought. At any rate, where in the UK you might get "No Trespassing" in Ireland it's common to see signs nailed to decrepit doors or rural gateposts informing you that "This is a premises" within the meaning of whatever act.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 21 February, 2024, 12:52:19 pm
Quote
Survivors of the attack say they were hit by two HIMARS missiles, seen here being launched in May 2023

I thought these missiles are fast.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Kim on 05 March, 2024, 06:24:29 pm
Quote
Chinese boats fire water at a Philippine vessel

Is that really the best verb?  I'd accept 'shoot', and recognise that 'squirt' doesn't really convey the pressure involved (firefighting equipment being used as an offensive weapon).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 March, 2024, 03:09:12 pm
Quote
Chinese boats fire water at a Philippine vessel

Is that really the best verb?  I'd accept 'shoot', and recognise that 'squirt' doesn't really convey the pressure involved (firefighting equipment being used as an offensive weapon).
Fire as a verb is not necessarily connected with conflagration. It was used in archery contexts before the arrival of gunpowder in Europe. Nevertheless, "shoot" would seem more appropriate in this context.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Jasmine on 06 March, 2024, 03:39:55 pm
Hmm, conflagration is a new word for me. Which is odd, because I do know deflagration.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 March, 2024, 03:40:50 pm
Deflagration is a new word for me. Win-win!
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: rr on 06 March, 2024, 03:41:06 pm
Quote
let me get back to you momentarily

Seems in the USA momentarily means 'at any moment'.

Reading it is like chewing on a pumice stone.
As it has for many years in Somerset.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Cudzoziemiec on 06 March, 2024, 04:05:54 pm
I thought it meant "in a moment" in USA.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 18 March, 2024, 03:46:29 pm
Fed up reading and hearing people say "passed" when they mean "died".  I want "croaked" in my death notice if in English and "crevé" if in French.  The latter also applies to a flat tyre, so it'll be appropriate.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: hellymedic on 18 March, 2024, 09:16:35 pm
Oooohh…. JPFROG in polite terms!
(click to show/hide)

Edited because I ‘lost’ my J...
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 19 March, 2024, 11:12:44 am
Not if you're on metformin.

PFROG is nice, though - looks like a qualification.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: barakta on 20 March, 2024, 02:26:19 pm
I hate "passed" and "passed away" too but I've had people (young) specifically ask me to replace "died" with passed away when I did some sharing of news about a disabled mutual dying suddenly a few years back. They felt "died" was too harsh and didn't like to read it.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: mrcharly-YHT on 20 March, 2024, 02:56:20 pm
Quote
Chinese boats fire water at a Philippine vessel

Is that really the best verb?  I'd accept 'shoot', and recognise that 'squirt' doesn't really convey the pressure involved (firefighting equipment being used as an offensive weapon).
Fire as a verb is not necessarily connected with conflagration. It was used in archery contexts before the arrival of gunpowder in Europe. Nevertheless, "shoot" would seem more appropriate in this context.

Really?

Consensus among archery community is that 'loose' was the term used.

'fire' really doesn't make any sense in this context.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: T42 on 20 March, 2024, 04:21:55 pm
I hate "passed" and "passed away" too but I've had people (young) specifically ask me to replace "died" with passed away when I did some sharing of news about a disabled mutual dying suddenly a few years back. They felt "died" was too harsh and didn't like to read it.

When the hospital called to tell us MrsT's mum had died the bloke was so flustered with trying to break it gently that he told me we could come when we liked to see her and collect her bougies (candles or spark-plugs) instead of bijoux (jewellery).
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: barakta on 20 March, 2024, 04:30:40 pm
I don't envy anyone who has to break death news regularly, cos you probably do have to use shitty euphemisms otherwise you'd upset already distressed people.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 March, 2024, 04:44:56 pm
Just ordered some Perfectly Good Gentleman's Mountain Bicycling shoes from (whisper it) Halfrauds*.  On their order tracking page:

Quote
On it's way

Garrotting is too good for them.

* if they turn out to be a Rubbish TV's Nice C Boardman is in a world of hurt, or at least libel
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Paul on 22 March, 2024, 05:06:44 pm
Just ordered some Perfectly Good Gentleman's Mountain Bicycling shoes from (whisper it) Halfrauds*.  On their order tracking page:

Quote
On it's way

Garrotting is too good for them.

* if they turn out to be a Rubbish TV's Nice C Boardman is in a world of hurt, or at least libel

These ones (https://www.halfords.com/cycling/cycling-clothing/cycling-shoes/boardman-mtb-cycle-shoes-231710.html?stockInventory=undefined&_gl=1*l6xx87*_up*MQ..*_ga*MTE3MDEyMTg0NS4xNzExMTI2NDgy*_ga_EG1MQMYCLS*MTcxMTEyNjQ4Mi4xLjEuMTcxMTEyNjU1OC4wLjAuMA..*_ga_VK44BRER97*MTcxMTEyNjQ4Mi4xLjEuMTcxMTEyNjU1OS4wLjAuMA..&gclid=Cj0KCQjw2PSvBhDjARIsAKc2cgM04li0w7ixS8MbLV2Xn2nQPTtmoDjodJqehsJTqSTYfSXTtFs-N64aAgxaEALw_wcB)? Please let me know how you get on with them. I bought these ones (https://www.halfords.com/cycling/cycling-clothing/cycling-shoes/ridge-leisure-cycle-shoes-231358.html?stockInventory=undefined&_gl=1*2772jf*_up*MQ..*_ga*MTE3MDEyMTg0NS4xNzExMTI2NDgy*_ga_EG1MQMYCLS*MTcxMTEyNjQ4Mi4xLjEuMTcxMTEyNjUxOC4wLjAuMA..*_ga_VK44BRER97*MTcxMTEyNjQ4Mi4xLjEuMTcxMTEyNjUxOC4wLjAuMA..&gclid=Cj0KCQjw2PSvBhDjARIsAKc2cgM04li0w7ixS8MbLV2Xn2nQPTtmoDjodJqehsJTqSTYfSXTtFs-N64aAgxaEALw_wcB) (review here (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=127409.msg2857538#msg2857538)), but I think I prefer the look of the Boardman ones.
Title: Re: Grammar that makes you cringe
Post by: Mr Larrington on 22 March, 2024, 06:10:00 pm
Yes, the very orange ones.  Interzen sotp would approve.  They’re not going to see strenuous use, though.

Edit: they’re less thoroughly Trumpian in colour than I expected.  And each shoe weighs about 20g more than the pair they’re replacing.  Which probably explains a lot.