English usage rant

AKA consultant-speak.

What it is with mangling nouns to make a ridiculous verb of them, which are then used in place of a much shorter and simpler verb - from which the noun was often taken in the first place?

Case in point: some chap on the radio this morning kept insisting that people 'utilise' hospitals.

They don't. They *use* them.

'To utilise' is a distressing and pointless verb formation from utilisation, which means the amount (percentage, say) a facility is used. What it doesn't mean is 'to use'.

It was odd; in his other comments he was talking a lot of sense.

Just make sure that you have your ducks in a row and everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet

Because it makes the individual sound intellectual - Its the kind of mistake I would make coming from an education system that didn't really teach the basics of appropriate sentence construction.
It's been a long hard slog, and will continue to be for quite some time.

Sam, 'it is' or 'it's' please

That's it Joe, I'm jumping in the car and off down to stamp on your foot.

I wouldn't have even spotted that Barnacle, my educators didn't do a very good job I'm afraid.
But they did tell me to never begin a sentence with 'because'

I don't think they ever explained why though?

Myself instead of me... drives me mad or even worse "me myself decided..."

Because they didn't know why?

And shouldn't be used to start a sentence either

We've seen some bad cases of written english coming out of school teachers, they all "should of" known better

My pet hate among these is the verb to administrate; is there something wrong with administer?

Orientate instead of orient...

'Because' is forbidden by teachers because it's *usually* the second half of a clause, so things dangle: I was late today. Because a cow ate my homework.

But... I was late today. Because of that I arrived after the building blew up. <-- nothing wrong with that, and not a *lot* wrong with the first. I think teachers forbid it just because they can.

Even people like Strunk and White, and Mark Twain, accept that the good writer knows when to break the rules.

Whose coat's that jacket?

Spotted on the rear end of a learner car yesterday - "smile, your on camera"

I also find myself ranting at errant apostrophes, especially on signs - sign writers really ought to know better, or if not, employ a proof reader

I always emit a superior looking-down-my-nose tut when hotels mis spell accommodation.

It does my head in when people in my office say that they are very "weary" of something when they mean "wary".

Spotted today whilst on a jaunt through neighbouring towns.

That one is a classic, in more ways then one.

Whos trainers are these shoes. *Welsh accent

Whose boots are these shoes, English accent

Never mind about mis-spelling "miss spell" Tut tut indeed!

I stand corrected. But don't you feel superior now too? Everyone's a winner.

The misuse of the word Decimated always makes me

Should be slated for that!


Our daughter now in USA (and by the way expecting a sprog in May ) always used to say

"Me and Kirsty", "Me and Fiona" instead of "Kirsty and I" in spite of usually being quite correct about stuff. Think she still does

I suppose that while (?whilst?) language is always evolving, punctuation perhaps doesn't.

While (Whilst ) I'm not the greatest at speaking and typing the correct grammar, this really annoys me, especially when I hear it at the end of the likes of ITV's News at 10. I would expect them to speak more 'proper'.

My least favourite is.

Innit

Wtf is that all about? Usage includes:

I'm off to the shop, innit.
I was watching football, innit.
You can't say that, Bro, innit.

As you can see it is as versatile as a full stop, or even a birds eye potato waffle!

You may add 'nartamin' to that usage, BM...

Worse than me/I is me/myself; there seems to be a current usage of myself when me would be more correct: "Who did it?" "It was Kirsty and myself."

Bah.

What a classic

I believe this could be regional, the combination of "do you know what I mean" is lesser spotted up here, but I am hearing more of the words "ask" and "you" being turned into a sneeze - axe choo.

Up here you replace innit with "ken" - but heading west by the time you've reached Glasgow it's morphed into "but" or "bu' ", even "Jim"

In Falkirk you are greeted with "Your oil pressure's away doon, eh ..."

I wish I could rule the world with an iron fist for just 5 minutes.

Those who say "did good" (as in "You did good" or "I did good in English at school today") would fear my righteous wrath.

And it's not a 'big ask'. It's a difficult task; an awkward question; or even a hard decision - depending on context. But no way on this green earth is 'ask' a noun.

Verbing weirds nouns; nouning verbs is even more weirdifying.

how about the punctuation of sentences with "like", it seems to be replacing umm or errmmm as a vocal pause for thought as well as a badly placed random word.

Then again, there are words which can be used in a variety of modes in a sentence, all of which make perfect sense:

"F***, the f***ing f***er's f***ing f***ed! (Innit?)"

What are we supposed to be spotting here?

I think the suggestion is the second s is superfluous in possession.

That's not right, though. As a rule of thumb, if the possessive s is pronounced it should be written.

Would you pronounce it as "Dennis", or "Denniz"? No. You would pronounce it as "Dennises", so the s goes in.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/grammar/learnit/learnitv20.shtml

This is the one that irritates the tits off me. People who pause & use the above. Slightly different slant...adding an s to anway is another irritating thing that some do, or the shortening of words "footy" or "lippy" or no "probs" All this combined with either a raspy voice that young females nowadays go for & just as bad the nasal Americanised whine.

Rant over.....

It's the Americans. Trust me.

Brian, and Dennis, are both correct.

Dennis's.

"my bad" really gets my goat too

I never said it was - both Dennis' and Dennis's are acceptable versions.


On the like thing, I do agree it appears to be an American teenage TV thing but also the upward inflection seems to also be required by said user. I have banned my children from using the word like at all, they have to find different ways to express there agreement with something. Nice is also banned, I think it's rather drab, much over used to give compliment and doesn't really give a measure or feel for how much you appreciate something.

I stand corrected, still looks wrong to me though... Even when you ignore that the owners name is Sharon.

Is the other local company, Absolutely Upholstery also correct?

Currently annoying me on a daily basis:

People using "does that make sense?" at the end every sentence in place of "do you know what I mean?". I still find it insulting to have it suggested that I perhaps don't understand what they've just said, no matter how they put it.

People using "turned round" in sentences i.e. "he turned round and said...". I rarely find myself feeling the need to spin on the spot during conversations, must be some dizzy people out there. Or maybe they're all Kylie fans??

Similar to "like", the repetitive use of "you know" in sentences i.e. "so I said, you know, you can't do that it's, you know, not right, and, you know, I'd never do it..."

The use of "over" and "more than" in news reports - mainly the BBC but it seems it's not possible to be precise or at least give a close approximation, it has to be "more than 1,000" or "over 1000 people". 10,000,000 is "more than 1,000" so is that what they mean? No, clearly not, why can't they just say "1,050" or whatever the actual number is?? The icing on the cake was on BBC Radio Cambs a couple of weeks ago when the news reader said "more than 173 people" - what the fccuk?!

The use of terms such as "a little bit insane", "a little bit obsessed" or "a bit of a perfectionist" - you can't be partially insane, obsessed or a perfectionist to my mind, you either are wholly or you're something else i.e. "quirky" or "interested" or have "an eye for detail".

Rant over, I feel better for that

I find myself rather amused when people fall into the measurement conversion precision trap: The suspect was six feet (182cm) tall...

Given that the convention is for an innate precision of half the unit, the decimal conversion is thirty times as precise.

#okay, I need a life...

Come on Neil - be sensible.

"Six feet tall" means within half-an-inch of that, not half-a-foot!

Six feet one means within half an inch; six feet is within half a foot.

<looks under cushion. No, life not under here...>

People who say "of" instead of "have."

I think I might "of" farted instead of "have"'farted.

Or off instead of from. I.e. the actor "off" casualty.... instead of "from" casualty.

I think I may be guilty of doing the above

I think I may be guilty off doing the above

I think I may be guilty of having done the above

I might of done it 2. Innit.

Wel dats tipikal innit la

I seen dem ting. For real.

Me 2 bro, we is 2gever on dis

The 'of' and 'have' replacement is almost understandable: in most cases the 'have' is already abbreviated: 'I would've rather' than 'I would have' and is pronounced with a short unstressed vowel sound 'schwa' (there's probably an international phonetic symbol for the schwa - ah yes, '&#601;' - the wikipedia entry is interesting.)

In the absence of actually reading anything - or at least, anything written by a competent author - 'of', which is already unusual in that it's one of the few English words where an f is pronounced as a v, seems a logical spelling.

All hail the illiterati!

The misuse of CAN does my head too,
Can I go to toilet? YES you can, (but you may not) My teacher said that to me six decades ago

And

Don't start me on double negatives in all the songs we hear.

Nah. We dun't wanna know nuffin 'bout dat, innit!

We all need to try AND stop saying 'try and'. It's TRY TO!

What about the case where a v is pronounced as an f?

To make an omelette, firstly we have to break some eggs.

But do I really haff to break them?

Why do we do that?

Because we are lazy, it's a bit like french, they make words fit so they flow. Haff flows, if you're like me and from Yorkshire then you're looking at 'aff't.

your going aft' break (yes wrong spelling but right pronunciation) eggs. You try finding 'alifax ont map or an 'oss to ride there on.

Why when I quote do I get going, yet it shows as going?
Have we gone mad on here???

Well I'll go t'foot a stairs"

Surely that should be "I'll go t'foot a wor stairs" should it not?

I forgot one - when did "sandwich" become "samwidge"?

At least sixty years ago!

This thread is rapidly proving why getting worked up about language usage is a fool's errand.

Language is constantly changing and will continue to do so. It's fine to be cross about "incorrect" usage, as long as you realise that you will get angrier and angrier the longer you hang around this planet - and the language will carry on changing regardless!
In 30 years, today's teenagers will be bemoaning the younger generation's linguistic abuses!

I get wound up over incorrect use of "there", "their" and "they're"

A chap I used to work for always used "their", regardless of the context. Even after I explained the three applications, he just carried on as before....

I was also glad to hear my two year old grand-daughter saying "yes please" and "thankyou, grandma" yesterday. My son is adamant that she will understand the basics of correct (and polite) language BEFORE she goes to school and picks up the rubbish from all the other kids.

And finally....

There are generally three meals in a day - breakfast, lunch and dinner - NOT, breakfast, dinner and tea.

I suspect I'm out of touch on this one though, as modern convention seems to accept that "dinner ladies" serve a meal in the middle of the day, and "tea-time" is accepted to be early evening

Thoughts?

Nigel, I think school dinner, as served by Dinner Ladies (capitals essential) has been common usage for at least the last 50 years. In state schools at any rate.
To an extent, this is a class thing, though fairly loosely.
High tea is acceptable as a substitute for dinner in the evening and many would say that supper, rather than the more formal dinner, is the usual name for an evening meal.
It's all grub.

I say breakfast, dinner and tea

Early morning cuppa.
First breakfast.
Second breakfast.
Elevenses.
Lunch.
Afternoonses.
Tea.
Dinner.
Supper.
Midnight snack.

That sounds about right... But I reckon 'dinner' is the cooked meal, irrespective of when (after breakfast) it happens, so I'm having too dinners today! Woohoo!

Abbreviations and slang really wind me up, il list a few

Abbreviations.

"sorry" Sorry

"Init" Isn't it

"An all" As well

"Totes" Totally

Slang.

Sick: Very good

Bad: Good

"Safe" How are you? (I think)

"What you say'n" what are you upto?

I'm looking to loose my text spk & literally get my ducks in a row, before I take them over the wall and manage the client interface.

Now that's the kind of blue sky thinking that we need more of around here. Someone who's prepared to get all the heavy lifting done.

Check! The low-hangers are for you!

You Sir are a gentleman.

This one's a north of England dialect, rather than slang or abbreviation per se, I think. We used it as kids fifty years ago, in Yorkshire.

Also used in Leicestershire, where majority of my co-workers are from.

I often find myself correcting them.

Which reminds me of one particular worker who has said numerous times "that'll learn you"

No, I'll give you that one! Absolutely sh1te

T'further north you go this is the norm.

In Edinburgh....."You'll have had your tea?"




Thank god the "Not three bad" died a death

interesting conversation. Being a Dutchman and a teacher of two languages, English and German, much of the above is very recognisable.

Some comments though: Dennis's is correct (because it is singular, people like to write Dennis' because they feel it looks better. See Bridget Jones's Diary as an example.

The handbag becoming the "hambag" is caused by a phenomenon called assimilation (of vowels and consonants). This causes them to be pronounced differently because the speaker already more or less anticipates the next letter. A clear example of that can be heard in the beatles song A Day in the Life. Listen to the phrase "I saw a film today..." There you can clearly hear a kind o "r" where the w is written.

I always tell my pupils this assimilation is important, becuase so many English do it.

Henk

And every day, in every way, the English languages loses just a little more redundancy.

I remember the arguments inside the BBC when, in the mid-80s, a policy change was made to encourage local dialects and accents in on-air presentation. Which was fine... until it started to become a badge of pride to *not* know how to speak or write intelligible English.

Point taken. I also feel that we should try to speak and write intelligible English and that we should try and preserve the language. However, even at teacher training college here in the Netherlands we are taught that the assimilation of sound is a fact of lfe.

On the subject of tea: my pupils find it extremely confusing when they hear "Have you had your tea yet?" the evening meal is meant.

English a very confusing langauge when you look into it, all these influences from other languages like German, French ans Scandinavian languages.

But that is also what makes it more interesting!

English is the tool of my trade as a translator and although I love the beauty of well-written language, I also have teenage children, so I understand the absolute inevitability that what we now see as correct usage has already changed for those 30 years' younger.

It's also interesting to listen to my daughters - both born and bred in France; their English is remarkably good (you wouldn't know they hadn't grown up in the UK at first), but as a linguist, I spot the alien influences that are present.
The thing I feel most irrationally irritated about is that the younger one is studying an extra module for her BAC in English... US English. Fortunately, I''ve never had to correct her saying she will "write" someone. It shouldn't bother me. But it does!
Luckily, she can do a passable Sheffield accent and has a friend from Leeds and they sit at'back and tek mick out at' teachers' pronunciation.

I was also taught to speak RP, but it seems it is not to be heard on TV anymore. Which is perhaps something that is wrong, but then again...

RP now stands out as awkward and unusual; even on the BBC. That's not to say it isn't a joy to hear sometimes, but it is beginning to sound like a parody of itself.
Radio 4 or R3 announcers are probably the last bastion!

Yes, you're right there.

Spelling according to some does not matter anymore.
You probably know typoglycemia. :))

But sooner or later we arrive at the point at which people are unable to read the research in which it is shown that spelling and punctuation *does* matter.

The classic papers aren't even related to spelling except in passing; they're by Shannon (Shannon, C. (1948). A Mathematical Theory of Communication. The Bell System Technical Journal, 27:623-656 and Shannon, C. (1949). Communication In The Presence Of Noise. Proceedings of the IRE, 37(1):10-21) and they discuss redundancy of information in the context of noisy transmission paths - which is what written text with spelling or grammatical errors is.

The conclusion is that if something has sufficient redundancy, it can be reconstructed *exactly* if what is removed does not exceed that redundancy. You'll probably have seen the example where a sentence has all the words displayed as anagrams, but with the first and last letters maintained correctly - it's readable, but it's not unambiguous, and it's difficult... because it's approached and in some cases passed the limit of the redundancy.

Most Latin and Germanic languages contain extra in-built redundancy in that not only is there a standardised spelling, as in English, but there is much more required agreement within the parts of the sentence: case and gender must also agree as well as multiplicity. In English, only the multiplicity is required - because English has stolen bits from so many different languages that it can't maintain the grammatical rules in which they evolved.

So when you take English and get rid of the consistent spelling, ignore punctuation rules, forget the grammar... you're getting close to the limit where what you write is ambiguous at best, unintelligible at worst, and too much like hard work to be bothered transcoding.

If you want to be understood, make it *easy* for the reader. Good authors break the rules, but they know which to break and when to break them!

Here's something from seven hundred years ago; see how things change. But say it out loud, and it's easy, bar a couple of words:

“His coat-armure was of clooth of Tars,
Couched with perles whyte and rounde and grete.
His sadel was of brend gold newe y-bete,
A mantelet upon his shuldre hanginge
Bret-ful of rubies rede, as fyr sparklinge.”

Neil, I don't doubt for a moment that you are right, but I'm not sure the battle for intelligibility will be fought on the same ground.
You and I share a distaste for emoticons, yet many people rely on them to convey additional meaning not evident from the way they use written language.
I suspect these and other devices will take over (inelegantly) from concise language in day-to-day use.

I don't know what the consequences will be for the future of "correct" language, but they don't look great, except possibly in fields where it is essential.

I think the emoticons are quite useful when communicating, or attempting to, online. The reader is unable to see your face, doesn`t know you and may be of a very different disposition.

A gives an indicator as to whether one is attempting to be humorous or not.

I have seen one today on a paper billboard:

Is the correct word hanged or hung, in the context of:

A farther hanged himself after killing his family.

It was headlined as above, yet hung sounds more correct?

Hanged.

“Hung” is correct except when capital punishment is being imposed or someone commits suicide.

I fear you are right; a language capable of incredibly fine shadings of meaning is gradually demolished by people who can't be bothered to learn how to use it. Presumably there are only a dozen emotions required in this wonderful world.

Long live the illiterati!

Well, I had this discussion with AndrewR - not someone you could accuse of slovenly language use or membership of the illiterati - and he both used and saw the point of emoticons. I just hate them.

!

?

Hung in itself is does not mean to the death, that would be hanged. Hence why it is "Hung drawn and quartered", the last two being the acts that kill the victim.

I believe meat is hung.

Which, when the order is reversed, replays the world's shortest written exchange, started by Victor Hugo, to his publisher, asking how his new publication "Les Miserables" was doing

/useless fact of the day

I think that is fact of the day Nigel.

It was so awesome the forum crashed it seems!

^

Or maybe a factoid. If I was being provocative.

And the subject title has changed along the way as well

Yes, I did that. Apologies.

??

If you mean - am I really being apologetic, no.
If you mean - how did I do that, I have unique skills.

???

So have I!

I haven't. Can I have some?

I didn`t know one could do that till yesterday as i`m not an inveterate button twiddler.

I`m making up for lost time.

Habst ich nicht Deutsche gesprechen?

But Neil, do your special skills run to finding out who crashed the server?
I think it was the post Nigel made, caused some kind of meltdown.

Jim, press 'reply' rather than using the fast edit box, and you can change the subject.

Oh, that. I thought it would be something exciting like invisibility. Or super strength. Or knowing what yellow pointy things do...

I believe it should be "Ich habe Deutsch nicht gesprochen"

.

?

I've got it! I've got the answer!!

My German friend thinks her language should be very easy to learn compared to learning English. I disagree with her.
Google disagrees with me, she disagrees with Google.
I agree to disagree.

Once upon a time, on a forum far far away......

It's simple. You put them on the wheel-nuts and then you can see whether the nuts have come loose!

My nuts are loose!

I am nuts. And I have a screw loose.

Could I use them to help me?

Preposterous.

When will you people learn about the yellow pointy things

Back into hibernation for you, sir

But I've got to get the truth out!! People need to know!

Not on this forum they don't

Just now on BBC News channel

"Principle" teacher of Hanson Academy, Leeds

Due to the censorship none if this makes any sense. Can I at least have a clue ?

If you're lucky you'll be pointed in the right direction.

Or you'll turn yellow with envy...

Ho ho.

Still none the wiser.

This must be wheely driving you nuts.

Somehow, he's missing the point.

Seen on the back of a plumber's van this morning, verbatim:

I think I have the thin end of the wedge on this one.

No matter how hard I tri I just can't get the angle.

English usage rant??

Are we a bit off-topic here?

Yes.
There are no Hazelnuts.

Don't be silly. There's one in every bite.

Which was a risky gambit, if you think about it.

What constitutes a bite?

A couple of nibbles.

And back on topic, people who spell bite when they mean byte!

Writing brought when they mean bought. Also loose instead of lose. Also putting an 'e' on the end of lens.

Don't start me off again!

Also, "would of" and "could of" instead of "have"

I seen that one before.

I seen what you did there, Brian!

You seen what I done? You is more cleverer than what I is, bro, innit!

I'm fearful that this thread is being neglected. Ongoing vigilance must be maintained!

What about the (presumably American) trend of writing 'then' when the word being searched for is 'than'? It seems to be everywhere now. How difficult must that be?

It's certainly gotten more common in recent years.

Yes, I'd forgotten that one.

I can only assume it stems from a pretty basic illiteracy. Americans say "then", so that's how they spell it.

In the absence of the appropriate education, I suppose, there but for fortune, and all that.

I would say that's defiantly the case.

Most definately

You did good.

I done good. Yeah, innit.

Safe.

Probably ruined the effect by using capitalisation and a full stop though...

You're prize for pointing it out is an app as trophy.

That's like wicked.

Where does I put this app as trophy?

Careful!!

Right behind the colon