The Argus: destroying the English language, one heading at a time

[portlock seagull]

It has been a while since the Argus has featured on these pages for it's wanton disregard of grammar rules and usage. So, I give you:-

View attachment 69905

Was Timmy the guest sub-editor for today's edition, I wonder?

Pray tell us where Timmy has gone wrong?

 

[SweatyMexican]

90% of the people on NSC will read it and think "what's wrong with that?".

"help please miss, i don't get it....."

 

[Jim Van Winkle]

RIP Bong

 

[Fungus]

Surely the headline doesn't make sense even after it's been corrected.

To say "all the more easy" or "all the easier" is like saying "Rosenior's good form has made the loss of Bong even easier".

 

[GT49er]

Its the least I expect, apostrophes are easy.

.....but not semi-colons, it would appear!

 

[GT49er]

The Plain English Campaign has a lot to answer for, I'm afraid, particularly with their insistence on using the shortest possible sentences, thus vastly reducing the use of commas and other punctuation marks. If punctuation is under-used, people naturally become less adept at using it.

 

[AZ Gull]

What's that saying about glass houses?

Its that "they shouldn't throw stones", isn't it?

 

[Perfidious Albion]

The teaching of English in the last 20-30 years has largely gone to the dogs. As a result, nobody seems to know or care anymore .
My last employers,a national company, produced stock letters that were grammatically incorrect. Previously well written magazines can now seem overly simple. Some speak of a language evolving but it is just dumbing down.

PS ,excuse the typos & don't expect this to be perfectly written.

 

[soistes]

You have to love the Argus

 

[el punal]

Please tell me you spotted the tongue firmly in the cheek?

 

[Lady Whistledown]

Some of the written work produced by supposedly very bright people at my place of work drives me nuts. Grocer's apostrophes, mixing up 'their' and 'there' (seen this once already today from a Director level individual) and the worst one of all, 'should of'......

Here here!

 

[Norman Potting]

Its no surprise that younger journalists are making grammatical errors, as our language changes and handwritten words are fast becoming a thing of the past. Its only really the older generation now still writing letters. The whole construction of grammar is by-passing the younger generations, as they short-cut their way through life, with abbreviated texts, twitters and banal facebooking. No disrespect but some of the posts on here are awful, shoddy, embarrassing efforts at the English language. If you haven't got time to construct a couple of sentences, that read clearly and make sense, then don't bother.
The written word and the spoken word are under threat. Its common to find people in all walks of life, who can't pronounce the letter ' r ' They weren't born with this problem. They just weren't corrected by their parents, when they were young. Kids will look for short cuts. Its not just the letter ' r '. Its now fashionable not to pronounce ' th ' anymore but replace it with the letter ' d ' and throw in a sort of mid-Atlantic drawl and you end up with...." So dare I was de udder day, wondring wot te do bout dis car I've got, when der next door nayber said his was up for sale "....etc etc
Our speech is being hijacked by lazy people who can't be bothered to use their tongues and pronounce words properly. Kids are talking in a kind of semi-language, part Jamaican patois, part sub-continental immigrant ( ' innit ' ) and part Vicky Pollard. They never handwrite anything. They don't construct sentences and paragraphs. Before long there will be a generational language gap, where the older generations will not have a clue what youngsters are on about. It will be like a secret society, where kids talking normally can't be understood by their parents and will get away with murder ( not literally ) which will widen the divide. We will be two races within our island. One will be a diminishing older generation, still speaking the Queen's English ,who will all be locked away, institutionalised, imprisoned by the younger generations, to stop them tainting this ' new speak ' They will be regarded with disdain and condemned to their final days of near solitude, reading the last great works of English literature, that they have smuggled into their ' rest homes ' Still writing the occasional letter with their frail hands, until eventually they are all gone, like the last Great War veterans and are just a thing of the past.
" I must go down to the sea again, the lonely sea and sky....."

Paragraphs?

 

[GT49er]

The trouble with threads like this is that after a time it becomes impossible to tell who is posting tongue-in-cheek, who is taking the p1ss and who is just plain thick.........

 

[GT49er]

Paragraphs?

Four (including the quote at the end) - enough, isn't it?

 

[Murray 17]

I know many will say they shouldn't need them, but The Argus made its proof-readers redundant years ago.

 

[dazzer6666]

I know many will say they shouldn't need them, but The Argus made its proof-readers redundant years ago.

Their all on hear now

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

It has been a while since the Argus has featured on these pages for it's wanton disregard of grammar rules and usage. So, I give you:-

View attachment 69905

Was Timmy the guest sub-editor for today's edition, I wonder?

Hmmm.... call me a pedant but the headline may be a bit clunky, but is not ungrammatical surely, yet your apostrophe (it's) is wrong. Innit.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Some of the written work produced by supposedly very bright people at my place of work drives me nuts. Grocer's apostrophes, mixing up 'their' and 'there' (seen this once already today from a Director level individual) and the worst one of all, 'should of'......

One that makes me laugh is 'I can't be asked'. I have seen it regularly written by a non-Brit of my acquaintance in emails, but was stunned recently to see it written by a middle class English born and bred type. Or do I mean bread? Its ARSED, innit.

My rule of thumb is that if it doesn't bother me then I don't give a toss (by definition, obviously). The verly long email rant in this thread is, in my view, hilariously parochial, given its cultural bias in the face of egregious grammatical errors. And it is TOO EFFING LONG.

And . . . à propos of nothing, the worst English I have ever seen written (coursework, decent Uni, more than 1000 students over 25 years) was written by a white English male from Croydon. Yes . . . . he was, and is, a Palace fan

 

[AZ Gull]

Hmmm.... call me a pedant but the headline may be a bit clunky, but is not ungrammatical surely, yet your apostrophe (it's) is wrong. Innit.

"more easier"? When I grew up I was taught that the comparative/superlative form of "easy" would generally be "easier" ("more easy" would also be considered acceptable, although probably less common).

"more easier" is therefore redundant, just like the Argus proof-readers (we'll ignore the fact that the sentence doesn't even make sense).

When I read that headline it just sounded WRONG.


But perhaps I'm mistaken. Perhaps I grew up in more simpler times and the world has moved on. Maybe I even just wanted to show off my education and learning in a "my dad is more bigger than your dad" fashion.

 

[Wrong-Direction]