[Humour] The continued drop in English language standards.

[Waynflete]

English is a living language, and it “misuse” and bendabilty is what makes it such a beautiful, joyful language. Just my foughts, innit.

I agree with this, and have no problem with meanings evolving over time. So, for example, I don't think 'decimate' has to mean 'to reduce by one tenth' nor 'quarantine' to mean 'detain for 40 days.'

However, I do have a problem when people take two different words with distinct meanings and conflate them as if they mean the same thing. 'Disinterested' and 'uninterested' have different meanings, as do 'reactionary' and 'reactive'. 'Momentarily' means something different from 'in a moment.'

Conflating these words reduces the precision of language and impedes understanding, which makes me sad .

 

[Tom Bombadil]

Mm lots of people that don't understand how language works in the real world

 

[Coalburner]

i get particularly p****d of with journalists/reporters, especially on television talking about "diffusing a situation", rather than defusing it. Big difference in the end result if what they said is really what they meant.

 

[Mellor 3 Ward 4]

It's just as well I don't own/work in a shop/cafe/bar etc.

I would refuse to serve anyone who said "Can I get?"

Whatever happened to "Please may I have?"

 

[schmunk]

'almost always'

What's wrong with this? What phrase would you use to convey the same meaning?

 

[RossyG]

Not only do people like to say Tescos, I have even heard people say they are going to ASDAS. I mean, wtf is that all about?

My sister-in-law says Waitroses.

 

[RossyG]

Literally jumped out of my skin....no you didn't.

I can't stand the word literally.

It's either used wrongly...

"My jaw literally hit the floor."

...or else it's used for no reason.

"When they rang me I was literally just coming through the door."

In what way is literally just coming through the door any different to just coming through the door?

 

[RossyG]

My biggest linguistic bugbear is people starting sentences with So followed by a pronoun.

I've watched a few episodes of Pointless and they'll ask contestants what they do for a living and get the reply...

"So I'm currently working in an office."

Got any hobbies?

'So I'm a member of a football team."

Why did this start and why do so many people do it?

 

[theboybilly]

Not satisfied with the prevalent use of "of" instead of "have", e.g. "You should of listened to that bloke on the radio", or the blackboard nail scraping annoyance of "was" instead of "were", e.g. "We was down the pub last night", I came across another nugget of incendiary grammatical ineptitude today. Instead of the use of "weren't", the knuckle dragging imbecile had the sheer audacity to use "want". I'm actually crying as I write this, e.g. "We want down the pub yesterday, we were at home".

Lord, give me strength.

You would probably find OwlsTalk unreadable

 

[Brightonfan1983]

 

[schmunk]

I only recently noticed Colin Browning on Twitter. He's either a master of trolling, or really *that* stupid and ignorant. It's not clear which.

 

[robinsonsgrin]

I am saddened at that loss of the humble adverb. The 'ly' is lost forever. I cheer if I listen to an interview (especially a footballer) who uses one correctly...... He did brilliant. NO!!!! NO!!!! bangs head loud(ly) on table... just NO!!!!

 

[raymondo]

...and the lack of use of the Gerund drives me crackers

 

[Is it PotG?]

What's wrong with this? What phrase would you use to convey the same meaning?

Hmmmmm.....often?

 

[schmunk]

Hmmmmm.....often?

That doesn't have the same meaning.

 

[Is it PotG?]

That doesn't have the same meaning.

Whereas always is pretty definitive, it can't be 'a bit always'.

Same as never, it can't be 'a bit never'.

 

[Dr Bandler]

Pet hates;
1 Degrees of uniqueness, especially very unique.

"Quite unique" is often favoured by television presenters, Jules Hudson amongst them (you would think an archaeologist would know better).

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Seriously though, I know what you mean. These things always grate with me, but I just work on the basis that, if you can understand what someone is saying, then it could be worse.

It’s lack of punctuation that gets me sometimes.

I do some peer review for science journals. I sent a paper back to the authors recently inviting them to pay for some native English speaker proofreading before resubmitting the revised manuscript. Then I noticed that a native English speaking pal of mine was one of the co-authors. FFS. Putting your name to a 'scholarly' work without actually reading it?

Anyway, for the next month, the volume of illiterate shudder-inducing piffle on NSC is likely to fall by 50%, while old droopy serves his ban

More insidious than poor grammar, however, is grotesque misuse of words. 'Literally' is a good one. 'I was literally over the moon'. Private Eye published a memorable one years ago: 'The audience were literally glued to their seats and electrified'. I would have paid good money to have seen that.

The one example that actually does grind my gears is 'how significant (e.g., do you think the Prime Minister's announcement was?)'. In my job, something can be biologically significant or statistically significant, each of which is judged on a binary basis. 'a bit significant, very significant and more significant' are meaningless concepts, as silly as a bit dead, very dead and more dead. Significant does not mean 'big'. FFS.

 

[Not Andy Naylor]

I agree with this, and have no problem with meanings evolving over time. So, for example, I don't think 'decimate' has to mean 'to reduce by one tenth' nor 'quarantine' to mean 'detain for 40 days.'

However, I do have a problem when people take two different words with distinct meanings and conflate them as if they mean the same thing. 'Disinterested' and 'uninterested' have different meanings, as do 'reactionary' and 'reactive'. 'Momentarily' means something different from 'in a moment.'

Conflating these words reduces the precision of language and impedes understanding, which makes me sad .

While I have every sympathy with your view, I'm afraid some of these battles have been lost. Some dictionaries now list 'uninterested' as a possible meaning of 'disinterested' - so while we may mourn the disappearance of the distinction between the two words, most people are no longer aware of it. So much so that if you use 'disinterested' in its original meaning, most people will probably assume you mean 'uninterested' anyway.

 

[robinsonsgrin]

like were literally all doomed innit!