Grammar that makes you cringe

[citoyen]

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.

[border-rider]

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.

[clarion]

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?

[clarion]

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?

[Cudzoziemiec]

The condition of isotropification...

[border-rider]

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

[citoyen]

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.

[Bledlow]

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.

[drossall]

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".

[mattc]

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."

[Cudzoziemiec]

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?

[clarion]

It's been outsourced?

[Cudzoziemiec]

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?

[L CC]

Even if you're talking about The Disabled Avant Garde, forefront is not a verb.

Fecking pretension.

[Ian H]

Even if you're talking about The Disabled Avant Garde, forefront is not a verb.

Fecking pretension.

Who disabled the avant garde, and when?

[citoyen]

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.

[Wowbagger]

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.

[Ian H]

... 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.

[Cudzoziemiec]

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.

[Wowbagger]

The first rhyme that occurred to me would have sent this thread straight into NSFW.

[Cudzoziemiec]

How blunt. 

[clarion]

The first rhyme that occurred to me would have sent this thread straight into NSFW.

Was it a Culture Secretary?

[Pingu]

From a thick cow-orker:

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.

[iakobski]

Well-spoken character on The Archers:

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?

[Arch]

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"