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Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2017 0:05:35 GMT
The name thing is very easy. If people shorten me to Matt, which they often do when first introduced, I just say No, it's Matthew. Same on email. You have to nip it in the bud right at the start, you can't go a month down the line then cringingly say 'actually, I usually don't go by Matt'. I'm not really into correcting people on their English. I don't think most people make mistakes on purpose (some do, despite being corrected numerous times for reasons unknown) but names are unforgivable. I'm actually shocked that you have a real name. Doesn't everyone just call you Burly?
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Post by showgirl on Sept 7, 2017 4:00:14 GMT
There is a really bad habit in these parts to pluralise usually brand names but all sorts. Tesco = Tescos, Asda = Asdas, Costa = Costas. Absolutely. People seem not to understand that you only add an "s" if it's possessive, i.e. the store name is a real name, rather than an invented brand. I always say "Sainsbury's" but "Tesco" etc.
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Post by showgirl on Sept 7, 2017 4:05:22 GMT
I also wince at "didn't used to" - no, it's either "used not to" or "didn't use to" - and I've seen this in respectable broadsheets, so what hope is there?
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Post by The Matthew on Sept 7, 2017 4:58:11 GMT
If people shorten me to Matt, which they often do when first introduced, I just say No, it's Matthew. I wonder if this is a problem that all Matthews have, because I get this all the time.
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Post by tmesis on Sept 7, 2017 6:01:38 GMT
When leaving Leafy Surrey to further my interest in the business we aficionados call show, at the end of my train journey I am forced to listen to this recorded gem:
'You are now approaching your final destination, London Waterloo, where this train terminates.'
A journey can terminate, a train cannot (well not in the sense they mean.)
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Post by tonyloco on Sept 7, 2017 7:07:21 GMT
That sounds a hell of a lot ruder than it was meant to. I was just trying to illustrate the misuse of -self. If that comment was meant to refer to: 'Thank yourself' then I thought it was brilliant and I roared with laughter.
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Post by The Matthew on Sept 7, 2017 7:20:39 GMT
I hate it when people insist on applying non-rules of English: you mustn't end a sentence with a preposition, you mustn't split an infinitive, you can't use they as a singular pronoun. Language Log calls it "prescriptivist poppycock".
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Post by infofreako on Sept 7, 2017 8:33:28 GMT
Starting every sentence with "So...." Where has that come from ? So, how are you?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2017 8:39:50 GMT
The name thing is very easy. If people shorten me to Matt, which they often do when first introduced, I just say No, it's Matthew. Same on email. You have to nip it in the bud right at the start, you can't go a month down the line then cringingly say 'actually, I usually don't go by Matt'. I'm not really into correcting people on their English. I don't think most people make mistakes on purpose (some do, despite being corrected numerous times for reasons unknown) but names are unforgivable. Exactly- there's little excuse for getting names wrong (aside from inital mispronunciation). But I'm curious at those here with a long list of complaints, do you actually correct people when they speak to you? I've said before in similar discussions I find the whole nitpicking for superiority points largely distasteful- as Burly says few people are doing it intentionally. This level of critique also doesn't leave room for regional dialects etc as well- where do we draw the line? We have a long of 'Wenglish' ways of saying things here, especially for billingual people and word order/phrasing is often not 'proper' due to a combination of regional dialect and billinguallism- that isn't 'wrong' in my book and written English (or Welsh) would still be 'correct'. I'm all for teaching people correctly but just like my accent might drop the occasional 'H' or similar I don't see the harm in a bit of informal phrasing in spoken English either.
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Post by Honoured Guest on Sept 7, 2017 10:38:28 GMT
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Post by Dawnstar on Sept 7, 2017 11:32:57 GMT
The one that comes to mind is the increasing use of "gotten" in British English. I dislike reading it even in American English but accept it is a valid word for Americans; however it should not be making so many appearances in British English. I agree with the previous comments on the use of "of" when it should be "have". In spoken English my biggest bugbear is the ridiculous overuse of "like", which we have already had a conversation about on here fairly recently.
Apropos the discussion on proper names, I have been asking my family to call me by my full name rather than a short version for the last 22 years but most of them still use the short version, to my annoyance.
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Post by lynette on Sept 7, 2017 11:41:43 GMT
"Bored of" irritates me. Ok with "bored by" or "bored with"
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Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2017 11:44:01 GMT
I feel I should report myself for a violation of acceptable English. Unless stopped, I will insert the word "just" about 5 times into every sentence. The word has long since lost its actual meaning which means it can be placed absolutely anywhere and still make sense, so I end up writing things like "I just went to the shop on Tuesday to just see if they had any bread, but I just couldn't find any so I thought I'll just ask the man behind the counter. I just went up to him and he just put down his newspaper and said 'we're just out!' I just couldn't believe it."
Also I sometimes begin a sentence with a connective which I know is totally unacceptable. "I like Wicked, it's a great show. But if asked I'd say the casts haven't been as good lately." (I had to edit out three "just"s in that sentence before pressing send).
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Post by Dawnstar on Sept 7, 2017 11:49:47 GMT
I confess I have a tendency to start sentences with "Just", though I don't usually then scatter multiple others through the sentence.
I've just thought of another thing that really bugs me: "How are you?" "Good". I'm asking about your well-being, not your morals.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2017 12:04:31 GMT
I confess I have a tendency to start sentences with "Just", though I don't usually then scatter multiple others through the sentence.I've just thought of another thing that really bugs me: "How are you?" "Good". I'm asking about your well-being, not your morals. Sorry, I'm being harsh, you used it correctly to mean "it just happened" as opposed to "let's add a bit of decoration to this sentence"
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Post by glasses on Sept 7, 2017 16:57:18 GMT
I see your "de/het" and raise you our der/die/das But as a learner of both Dutch and French (le/la) I know I tend to just go on instinct and hope for the best. English is actually a fairly easy language to learn (all things considered), so I'm glad it's the one that made it as lingua franca as the world. We'll all be screwed when the Chinese start ruling the world. Haha, I know. I actually took German in school. I still remember all of the prepostitions and which case it comes with Mit, nach, bei, seit, von, zu, aus, außer, gegenuber, entlang -> 3rd case etc.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2017 19:04:26 GMT
HOTTING UP!
I bloody hate the phrase. It seems to appear on telly all the time these days - "the competition's really hotting up!" AAAAAARGH!
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Post by Dawnstar on Sept 7, 2017 20:37:56 GMT
Other peoples' posts keep on making me think of more uses I dislike. "Medalling"/"medalled" as used endlessly by BBC pundits in the context of the Olympics etc.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Sept 7, 2017 20:46:54 GMT
I've no objection to new words created by adapting existing ones, adding suffixes, turning nouns into adjectives and vice versa etc., as they develop the language. The area that does concern me is where there is any reduction in language, where a word starts to take on the meaning of other words which then fall out of use.
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Post by showgirl on Sept 8, 2017 4:20:22 GMT
New words invented or used to replace an existing (and often less clumsy one) do concern me, e.g. the BBC's puzzling use of "listenership" instead of "audience" and "transportation" (and many other US uses) instead of "transport".
Then there's adding unnecessarily to quite satisfactory and long-standing words such as "station-stop" on trains instead of "station" and so on. Though a cynic might think that given how poor some services are, that might be to distinguish scheduled stops from unexpected and unexplained delays in the middle of nowhere...
As for TOCs ceasing to refer to "passengers" in favour of "customers", again I suspect that's because passengers might actually hope or expect to travel somewhere, which these days is no certainty. Or maybe it's due to the monetisation of everything.
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Post by tonyloco on Sept 8, 2017 13:28:13 GMT
I've just thought of another thing that really bugs me: "How are you?" "Good". I'm asking about your well-being, not your morals. Ah, dawnstar, that is also a very Australian thing, or it was in my day many years ago. Aussies say 'good' to mean lots of things, including a simple 'Yes' as well as 'I understand' and they sometimes turn it into 'good-oh' to indicate enthusiasm!
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Post by tmesis on Sept 8, 2017 15:20:15 GMT
I hate the word artisan (and the very clumsy sounding artisanal) - not the word itself, and it's true meaning, but it's now used indiscriminately to indicate often a spurious, faux authenticity and usually with an unjustified price hike over something else that is supposedly more mass-produced.
Also, it now seems that if you stick the word 'craft' in front of anything you want to drink or eat, a similar smug, superiority of quality and purpose is implied. This obviously comes from craft beer (I still prefer proper real ale myself) but I've now seen the ludicrous term craft coffee at some cafes in London.
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Sept 8, 2017 15:31:43 GMT
Yes I'd like the hand carved hand reared free range ham on the organic artisanal granary bloomer, with a pint of your craft IPA please
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Post by Tibidabo on Sept 8, 2017 16:40:45 GMT
Pacific for specific.
And don't even start me on the huge percentage of the population that seems to think the plural of anything we commonly use abbreviated letters for (CDs, LPs, DVDs etc.) should be in the possessive, ie. CD's, LP's, DVD's.....no no no no no no NO!
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Post by The Matthew on Sept 8, 2017 17:23:23 GMT
Possibly the worst apostrophe abuse I've seen was a warning about High Wind's near Milton Keyne's. (Click to embiggen.)
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Post by tmesis on Sept 8, 2017 17:47:55 GMT
Pacific for specific. And don't even start me on the huge percentage of the population that seems to think the plural of anything we commonly use abbreviated letters for (CDs, LPs, DVDs etc.) should be in the possessive, ie. CD's, LP's, DVD's.....no no no no no no NO! I so agree.
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Post by tmesis on Sept 8, 2017 17:51:51 GMT
....and people who are passionate about everything. Any website that begins 'I'm passionate about...' doesn't get my business.
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Sept 8, 2017 21:11:40 GMT
....and people who are passionate about everything. Any website that begins 'I'm passionate about...' doesn't get my business. Anybody at work who says that... even worse.
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Post by longinthetooth on Sept 8, 2017 21:41:58 GMT
"I literally died."
Really? Are you speaking from beyond the grave?
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Post by tmesis on Sept 8, 2017 22:23:37 GMT
....and people who are passionate about everything. Any website that begins 'I'm passionate about...' doesn't get my business. Anybody at work who says that... even worse. There's an excellent YouTube clip about this from David Mitchell with another one about the almost as annoying 'going forward.'
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