Illiterate BBC reporters

[Buzzer]

Grrrr......This is just appalling English:

"Tommy Burns has resigned from his position as Scotland assistant manager after not yet being approached about being Walter Smith's successor. "

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/internationals/6275077.stm

Don't they teach people how to use our language properly anymore?

 

[RM-Taylor]

 

[Brightonfan1983]

Grrrr......This is just appalling English:

"Tommy Burns has resigned from his position as Scotland assistant manager after not yet being approached about being Walter Smith's successor. "

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/internationals/6275077.stm

Don't they teach people how to use our language properly anymore?

Email them!!!! I bloody would.

 

[Trigger]

!Burns, who had assisted Beri Vogts'

Good old Beri...

 

[The Clown of Pevensey Bay]

Not as bad as two captions I saw on News 24 today:

SERVERE WEATHER

and

LICENSE FEE.

Thank f*** we spell things right on the radio.

 

[Buzzer]

I did email them to let them know my feelings on the subject and, surprise surprise, they've amended it to something resembling a sentence that is readable.

I am expecting a phone call soon asking me to appear on the next series of 'grumpy old men'.

 

[The Large One]

I get weirded out when they say someone 'fought their attacker off with all the tenaciousness of a lion...'

 

[Publius Ovidius]

I get weirded out when they say someone 'fought their attacker off with all the tenaciousness of a lion...'

talking about use of English....WTF does "wierded out" mean?

 

[The Large One]

talking about use of English....WTF does "wierded out" mean?

Ah, I am lapsing into the vernacular, possibly with a hint of hyperbole there, Dave.

It means, in this instance, that my head has gone into a spastic trance (I am sure a pyschiatrist will know the correct definitive term) which I have little or no control over when someone says a word which doesn't actually exist in the English language when common thought dictates otherwise.

There is no such word in the English language at 'tenaciousness'.

 

[Publius Ovidius]

fair enough.

I get the same reaction when someone in a meeting suggests a " thought Shower"

 

[Buzzer]

I get weirded out when they say someone 'fought their attacker off with all the tenaciousness of a lion...'

Tenaciousness? :thud:

It gets worse.

I wrote a very snotty letter to the Odeon when they advertised that Flight something-or-other film about the 9/11 aeroplane (yes, Americans, AEROplane is how it's spelt) hijacking.

It came with a warning that it contained 'scenes of extreme terrorisation'.

After I pointed out that they were trying to noun a verb that originated from a noun in the first place and that the word 'terror' would have sufficed, I received a curt response that the description came from the distributor.

I emailed back asking them if they would jump off the Palace Pier (yes, Noble Organisation, the Palace Pier, not the Brighton Pier) if asked to by the distributors. I also pointed out that making up words like that was indicative of a person who, with a poor grasp of the English language, was trying to sound cleverer than they actually were and was quite obviously failing.

They never replied.


Perhaps I ought not to get so worked up about things like this but if no-one makes a stand where will it all end?

Jade Goody-speak?

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

If you want a good laugh, watch one of the BBC live news broadcasts with the speech recognition sub-titles. May well be state-of-the-art technology, but the end result is still complete gibberish

 

[Nemesis]

Don't they teach people how to use our language properly anymore?

You're asking that kweshtun on here?