Grammar that makes you cringe

[citoyen]

"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.

[Arch]

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.

[Cudzoziemiec]

It's probably a deliberate phrase. "Saves up to 15% less energy than claimed in our advertising."   

[Ian H]

I had to turn round and go back to check whether I'd really seen it.

[mattc]

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 ... )

[mattc]

Sometimes it's just a typo.

[L CC]

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?

[Ian H]

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.

[citoyen]

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.

[nicknack]

Noone has any standards anymore.

He never did. Them Hermits were rubbish.

[Mr Larrington]

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"

[rogerzilla]

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.

[citoyen]

Noone has any standards anymore.

He never did. Them Hermits were rubbish.

 

d.

[citoyen]

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.

[Efrogwr]

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?

[SandyV]

The word is sliver not slither.

[tatanab]

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?

[Auntie Helen]

Seen at Uni today.

[SteveC]

Seen at Uni today.

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

[SteveC]

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?

[clarion]

It's PC gorn mad!

[Andrij]

Revenge, a la SMBC

[Auntie Helen]

Great video's in a learning centre!



(Sorry it's sideways on!)

And what the heck is all that about a new, welcoming building??!!! Who cares about that?!

[L CC]

[L CC]

Even aside from the irony of marketing Adnams as local to BSE, home of Greene King...