Grammar that makes you cringe

[Cudzoziemiec]

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.

[T42]

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.

[citoyen]

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.

[ian]

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.

[rafletcher]

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 

[citoyen]

Yeah, except they aren't…

I realised after posting that I should have added an ’allegedly’ in there.

[hellymedic]

It wouldn't surprise me if some scrote was using something like ketamine unfortunately.

[ian]

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.

[Kim]

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.)

[Moleman76]

More correctly they're both forms of being murdered to death.

Is there any other outcome of murder than death?

[T42]

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.

[ian]

More correctly they're both forms of being murdered to death.

Is there any other outcome of murder than death?

A little bit murdered?

[Croft]

And if I understand young people's speak correctly, just below "a little bit murdered" there's "literally murdered", which translates as "figuratively murdered".

[Cudzoziemiec]

[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".

[Guy]

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.

[Mr Larrington]

“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”

[Cudzoziemiec]

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.

[T42]

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.

[Cudzoziemiec]

"We got the short end of the stick". Well, it's clear what he means. 

[Giraffe]

Yup, he's holding by the smallest half.

[Pingu]

...while descending down a steep hill...

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/richard-branson-injured-in-colossal-cycling-crash-in-british-virgin-islands

[Giraffe]

Get a lot of this sort of headline:
"Baby girl found in drain recovering in hospital"
Why was the drain in hospital?

[hellymedic]

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)...

[Cudzoziemiec]

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?

[hellymedic]

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!