What are your pet peeves re English usage?

You get out of the situation what you put into it, clown. When you insult others, you can expect a return of the same.

JTT,
.....Why you call Setanta, a "cantankerous old fart"?..He is not old..

...Set baby, I couldn't resist. You know you my main guy right?
See the devil made me do it,

I can smell where yer comin' from, ma man . . .

I can't believe I've pulled an allnighter on A2k

What makes you such a hypocrite, Set, is that you so often mouth this type of thing without, for the briefest of moments, realizing that this applies to you in spades.

I hope I haven't kept you up with this spate of honesty. Take that shower and go 'n get a little bit 'o shut eye.

When you get up and you're feeling more refreshed, you can address the actual language issues.

or in this case, hope for a return of the same so one can be especially tiresome.




And now for something that has to do the subject of the thread, but is less about complaint and more about facts and wonder:

Help the BBC and OED find the origin of these words.

Some of which may be irritating, some not. Would you guess that the earliest use of 'codswallop' found thus far is not 1683 but 1963?

And that no one was "ditsy" before 1978, at least not in writing. Look through the attic and find those letters from your Uncle Ed where he describes the girl he met that weekend in 1968 as a bit "ditsy". Or ask your Aunt if she remembers him using the word as often for others as he did for her. Then find it in writing.

I think I'll start a new thread for the A2K searchers.

Let the search begin.

Joe(something for the weekend)Nation

I did wonder about that, Boss . . . was it unintentional, were you just drawn the utter fascination of the place?

Setanta,
.....It was the latter, My Brother. and since that postng, Posting I can remember some how winding up in a tech thread,;I decided to to read that one postiing, which I knew nothing about.. I just finished reading it about 5 minutes ago.My clocked is showing 8:15. Let me make a calculation here. I don't knowif you're still up. but here goes.

I seem to be about one hour ahead of the A2k clock so-o-o. it took me about one hour of dozing off, and opening my eyes, and trying to get through one posting, about twice the normal size of a post. So-o-o, I guess it's about that time to..to go to........zzzzzzzzzzzz. allright, back to the boxing match......wait..no.. Okay, just kidding. But the timing calculation was close to accurate. So long god buddie, I'm going to tie up a few loose ends, and try to get a good half day's sleep. :wink:

My God! This means <catching my breath> that <not very well, though> Setanta beat up e. e. cummings! He IS my hero.

Don't i wish . . .

I heard on the tv that the word "homeless" wasn't
in general use till the 1980's. That doesn't seem
right to me....any comments?

McTag, eyup, that Yorkshire dialect is awesome!

boo2....is Booman your alter ego?

pet peeves
"The journalist Edwin Newman is a linguistic prophet who sees the language style of his fellow Americans as deadly. In 1974 he vaticinated in a book called Strictly Speaking, which was subtitled Will America be the Death of English? In it, he too objected to the invention of all sorts of nouns and verbs and words that shouldn't be. In particular he objected to verbosity and euphemism as bad style. A number of Americans bemoan the baleful influence of their fellow citizens on the health or integrity of the language, but only a few, like Edwin Newman, have been able to make a career of it."
this is from an article called :

...DO YOU SPEAK AMERICAN ?...


some years ago i found the book "edwin newman on language" at a goodwill shop. it cost me ONE whole dollar but has entertained me for many evenings when i wanted to read something around bedtime but was not in the mood to start a new book. i can open this book on any page and start smiling almost right away. newman collected the best examples of how to mangle the english language.

i'll just open a page (chapter 3 , page 269) :

" IZE FRONT "
"in january 1976, before any of the presidential primaries, howard 'bo' callaway, chairman of president ford's campaign committee, said : 'the white house is so concerned about perceptions of a politicized white house that the president and those around him just totally unpoliticized the white house.'
after a number of bo peeps of this kind, the president semirepoliticized the white house by bringing in rogers morton as a political counselor.
later, callaway was put out to pasture, or pasturized."

reading this puts a smile on my face right away. i wish newman would update his book - it was written during the 1970's . i'm sure it would easily double in size - my issue has 448 pages of "gems" !
if you can find a used copy somewhere, buy it ! hbg

Re: pet peeves



Hamburger, I'm glad you located this article and posted it. It gives an accurate appraisal of how language should be viewed.

Verbosity (and euphemism) as bad style...

That is a telling comment. Quite often nowadays I read articles which have something important to say and the message is lost in a froth of over-elaboration; self-important verbosity to no useful purpose. It is distressing.

Here's an example: I offer this for the style, not necessarily the content.

http://www.motherjones.com/news/dailymojo/2005/03/devilsdictionary.html

That's also an efficient way to kill a good fictional story. A terrific plot can die an agonizing death in that froth. I should know; I've killed my share. :wink:


I read recently that there is a disagreement among language experts on the actual number of sounds in the English language. Hmm. Anyone know why?

Virago

Ehhhh...eeeeh....aaah...?

Search me.

I would imagine it's to do wtih the plethora of accents. McTag for example has very different vowel sounds from me, since he is a northern Briton and I am a southerner. Possibly French, German, etc don't have such variations.

Yes, Clary, indeed they do. For example, it is said by waggish Frenchmen that the people of Alsace and Lorraine pronounce their consonants as do the Germans. Old joke:

Il y avait deux mecs sur le troitoir à Mulhouse, lorsqu'ils ont vu un vieux MGB, avec une affiche qui dit: GB.

Un dit à l autre: <<Il a de la chance.>>

<<O, pourquoi ça?>>

<<Regarde, mon viex, GB--gongé bayé.>>

The joke is from congé payé, a paid vacation. Not hilarious to us, it is an example of what you refer to.

OK! so the consonants differ. But I defy you to find as many differences as between the different British accents. That's not counting American and Aussie and Kiwi and Indian English and Singlish....