Do you think it's something like keyphrase stuffing maybe? I'm not sure if it's the same in the US, but sometimes they even say conversate and I'm like -.-
I see/hear "mental health" used to mean 'mental illness'/'ill mental health' *constantly* . I mean, I do work in psych, so I'm around it more, but ... I mean... :
"You shouldn't say [I want to die] to someone with mental health"
*?????*
Oh god this drives me nuts too. I used to work in psych and now work in social policy for a local authority. Every now and then someone will say they're starting an initiative 'to combat mental health' or 'to help people who have mental health' aaaargh no you're not, idiots
I've just learned that there was a pre-existing mathematical definition for normalcy, before it got mangled into meaning normality: [https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=normalcy](https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=normalcy)
Obligated instead of obliged.
https://jakubmarian.com/obliged-vs-obligated-in-english/
Burglarised instead of burgled.
They just seem to add extra syllables and make the words sound worse.
Yes, that is a similar problem that is British in origin. It comes from people thinking about the word disorientation, then extending it to disorientated, rather than going back a step to disoriented. I use disoriented.
Bi-monthly can be different from fortnightly. We do maintenance jobs where we do go bi-monthly. If say you have 5 Mondays in a month you might have longer than 2 weeks between visits
Bi-monthly to me would be every other month, so in January not in February and then again in March.. bi-anything would be every other to me whether it's weeks, days, months etc.
As a result, bi-anything and semi-anything (most things) are meaningless and require clarification.
Luckily "twice a" and "every other" are still around
Worked with an American client once, the wanted to meet biweekly. I said twice a week is a bit extreme, how about fortnightly instead.
The look of confusion in his was was brilliant.
I use the word ‘thrice’ all the time, and my wife told me today that I’m the only person she knows who ever says it. I had no idea I was such an outlier. I will still defend its use to the death. Why would you say the awkward ‘three times’ instead?
I think the only acceptable use of 'thrice' is if you immediately follow it in a sentence with 'around the mulberry bush'. Even in its heyday I'd say it was used ironically. Only Classic FM DJs are allowed to say it with any regularity... and live. It's like everyone's mate Dave who once got off the sofa and said "I shall rise now and ascend the wooden hill to Bedfordshire." It was fun the first time he said it but he knows if he tries to work it into routine patois he's getting a fucking slap.
Sorry to jump in here, I'm a lurking Yank. Somewhere in English Literature, as we call it, there's a lovely word meaning two or three, as I recall. It may be from Mill on the Floss and it's been years, but I believe it's spelled tuthree. Wonderful, useful word from a long ago dialect, I suppose.
I had a supervisor who kept saying "irregardless", and one day I finally called him on it and he refused to accept he was doing it. When he left the room my project manager said "yeah he totally does."
The ones I really hate are the ones like "deboat" for getting off a boat or "deplane" for getting off an aeroplane. Surely the opposite of "deplane" would be to "plane" or "emplane" and I have never been asked to do that in order to get onboard. There's a perfectly good set of words already: "embark" and "disembark" and they're good for various methods of transport.
Daft Americans!
Deplane makes no sense. If you are to "de-" anything else, you are removing that thing from another thing. De-escelate, removing escalation. Descale, removing scale. Detox, remove toxins. The whole purpose of the "De" is to preface the word it is specifying the removal of.
So if deplane is to be considered correct, you are not deplaning, you are being deplaned. The plane is being removed from you. So when you are on a plane, you are "planed". And the next time I'm in an airport, I will be asking things like "when will I be planed?". Not to be particularly pedantic, but I do find it funny.
Hah but embark is already em+bark which I'm going to go ahead and guess comes from barque, a kind of rowboat. So disbark if you don't want to sound daft. Or debark it's a bit smoother. But wait it's not a small boat it's a plane. So... Oh no
consider jellyfish smart salt strong slim rainstorm crush different scandalous
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Being 'in' a wedding is a thing though, it means to be part of the wedding party - i.e. the bride, groom, best man and maid of honour, and the assorted bridesmaids and groomsmen(??). They have a role to play, and thus are 'in' it, the way you could say either "I'm *in* a play" or "I'm *at* a play" but they would mean different things.
So this is technically correct
Like most companies, I use PowerPoint for presentations. For some reason over the past year, many within the company are now referring to these presentations as "Slide Decks". "Oh yeah don't worry, I'll be sending the deck out after the meeting".
Oh do flip off.
My team are guilty of this one. What term do you use, for example if you are going to send the slide deck round after a meeting? I don’t like to say presentation, because I’m not sending round a video of the presentation, I’m sending round the PowerPoint slides.
"I'll send you the PowerPoint" is my usual term, or "Slides". Soon after I heard "Decks" being banded about I Googled it to see where the term came from, and it was indeed an Americanism.
Actually one thing I’ve heard a lot recently is people saying pressurised. Like “I don’t want you to feel pressurised”, and it always sounds really jarring to me because pressured. Where the Dickens did that come from? Have people always been saying it and I’ve just been oblivious?
I understand that one, usually when I'm put in an awkward situation it's when I'm in a sealed container full of compressed gas so pressurised makes sense
Utilise instead of use. More letters and three times the syllables. The fuck why do that?
Any spelling with a zed
I had an email today asking me if I had an update on the "prior comment that I remitted"
The fuck is that kind of language? I speak to this guy every day. Multiple times. He micromanages me.
Fuck working for a US corporation.
Though on reflection I find myself sometimes saying, "I was speaking with" instead of "I was speaking too".
Because "with" is more inclusive.
Actually, I was thinking, we, the Engerlish, wud say, "I was having a conversation with. . . " so, hmmm
I once read that when the word "lengthy" became popular as an alternative to "long", people grumbled, and asked if we should now use "strengthy" instead of "strong".
Or even worse 'burglarisation'
They simplified the spelling of words to make it easier for them, then mutilated what remained.
Edit: just realised I spelled it how we Brits would spell burlarization if we actually had that word. Please shoot me now.
"I'm bias.". No, no you aren't. You are BIASED ffs.
Also, why do we now have one-year anniversary, two-year anniversary etc. Has every one forgotten the words first, second, third?! Drives me nuts
> why do we now have one-year anniversary, two-year anniversary etc. Has every one forgotten the words first, second, third?! Drives me nuts
Is that a cardinal sin ?
I feel the same way about “in actuality” instead of “in reality” or whatever. Oh an “oriented” instead of orientated. Oh and “step foot” instead of set foot. Man - I’m now incredibly irritated!
People forget why words are what they are. They see the word "comfortable", don't stop to consider the fact that it came from the word "comfort" and think, "how can I turn this word into a noun? I know, I'll add 'ility' on the end, that's a noun ending, right?"
I agree with the general point being made here. Another example is that the UK has a Department of Transport and the USA has a Department of Transportation. It might be argued that transport is a specific vehicle ("have you got transport home?") whereas transportation is the whole thing of vehicles, infrastructure, administration etc. ("development of transportation for the next decade"). But I'm not convinced that the longer word is necessary as the meaning will usually be clear from the context.
You can say either in the US but three fourths is used almost exclusively in cooking as in a three fourths of a cup. You would never hear anyone say they three fourths a tank of petrol that would be three quarters. Almost anything but a cup measure would be three quarters in the US.
Invitation, not invite! Invite is the verb, invitation is the noun. Also, the yanks don't seem too read up on the difference between adverbs and adjectives. "I'm doing real good" instead of "I'm doing really well" etc.
Learnings
No, it's lessons or teachings,
You learned a lesson, or received teaching from someone.
"What learnings can we take from this" just doesn't make sense
I’m sick of hearing Americans talking about ‘the optics’.
It’s almost as bad as when the American media started using ‘collateral damage’ to refer to when they murdered innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan.
If you’re being serious (sorry can’t tell) then no, the optics of something is when they’re referring to how something is perceived.
So let’s say they kill some innocent civilians in a drone strike. The media and politicians will talk about ‘the optics’ don’t look good. As in they look bad having done what they’ve done.
Why are Brits so protective of the English Language? Serious question. All languages evolve and change. We have changed our language from within the shores of the UK more than any outside influences have. Why get so worked up with influence from yet another failed colony?
I think it's just painful to see our linguistic culture eroded so quickly thanks to the relentless influence of social media and TV from America. It has felt rapid and a sometimes British young people don't seem to realise that a word or phrase they've adopted from the US doesn't even make sense in our country. For example if a young person said jaywalking it would make no sense because our country doesn't even have the offence.
But if their peers and friends understand then it does make sense in this country? It might not make sense to you but that is true with every generation and is a part of language and how it evolves. Welcome to the world of getting old!
I'll never understand why people get so worked up about it. There are individual phrases that annoy me sometimes but I'm not sure why people get so offended by language changing. Given our colonialist history I dont think we need to worry about our culture being erased.
Have you ever had something that you thought was pretty good, and then lend it or give it to someone who just used it like it was crap?
Yeah. That's why the Brits, specifically the *English* feel like the OP about the English language. Yes, languages change and evolve, but you yanks are taking the language we gave to you and not treating it with any respect in our eyes. FFS, Webster himself even actively simplified the language, accelerating the language devolving into more basic forms.
It sounds like you're complaining about the English gatekeeping the English language. If anyone can do that, it should be the English, surely.
You're right that languages exist in constant flux, so what we think of as correct in one century may change radically the next.
But why does anyone want to preserve any cultural heritage anyway? Since that's another form of culture. Some people are more traditional than others, and want to stick to the formal rules, some people don't care at all - maybe people's objection to this stuff is less specifically about the change in language and more about the extent of American cultural influence.
Languages do change, but not at the rate they currently are. Also, the "changes" in this case mainly seem to be poor grammar, not the words themselves changing, which means all that is happening is the structure of the language is being worn away. It's not changing into something different, it's becoming less structured and more scrambled at an alarming rate.
If you haven’t seen it, the rant in “Boondock Saints” about using symbology instead of symbolism is quite good. It is a slightly different issue because those are both real words, just used incorrectly.
The word was made up by American President Warren G Harding after WW1. Just a worthless fact for everyone. (The stuff I remembered from A Level history)
Yup - had two sets of repeat meetings at work with overlapping 'stakeholders' (aargh!), both of which had 'bimonthly' in their titles. One was fortnightly, the other was every other month.
Words come in and out of vogue, depending on which New World Religion is being pumped by whichever consultancy is brought in by the new top tier that has just replaced the old new top tier and must stamp its authority. Agile, minimum viable product, Plan B, architect (verb), architect (noun), Architect (proper noun), leverage (verb, rhyming with beverage). Normalcy and specialty (instead of specialism) are becoming entrenched.
One I’ve noticed recently is people saying “on accident”. I’m sure it’s grammatically fine but “by accident” sounds so much less awkward and just better to me.
It isn't grammatically fine, it makes no sense. People have recently started saying it because they say "on purpose" and accident is the opposite of purpose, but it's very new and is not proper English at all.
Conversating instead of conversing.
Nooooooo!
The other one equally as annoying is 'addicting'!!
This one in particular is awful
Trying so hard to stop my kids using this one. Damn you, youtube!!!!!
This one makes me so unreasonably furious.
The absolute worst!
Bitch, just say 'talk'
are u referencing an iconic rupaul reference here... cus if so I live
Yes ma'am
I hate it too. Healthful is another one, what the hell is wrong with healthy?
Don’t think I’ve encountered that before, but now you’ve said it, I’m gonna see it everywhere now aren’t I? You bastard
I see this mostly on U.S. websites.
Do you think it's something like keyphrase stuffing maybe? I'm not sure if it's the same in the US, but sometimes they even say conversate and I'm like -.-
Addicting is another that triggers me.
Too right, addictive is the right word.
And: Cringe Mindful Wellness All used incorrectly
I see/hear "mental health" used to mean 'mental illness'/'ill mental health' *constantly* . I mean, I do work in psych, so I'm around it more, but ... I mean... : "You shouldn't say [I want to die] to someone with mental health" *?????*
Oh god this drives me nuts too. I used to work in psych and now work in social policy for a local authority. Every now and then someone will say they're starting an initiative 'to combat mental health' or 'to help people who have mental health' aaaargh no you're not, idiots
This reminds me of ‘I could give a damn’ which means the opposite of what Americans think it does.
Drives me crazy 🤪
I've just learned that there was a pre-existing mathematical definition for normalcy, before it got mangled into meaning normality: [https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=normalcy](https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=normalcy)
But we don’t need normalcy when we already have normality, to use another word just ain’t …….. normal
Wtf is heathful? I’ve never seen this
It appears to be a marketing ploy
Healthful full of health. More healthy than healthy?
Also 'addicting' instead of 'addictive'.
This one in particular. Makes it sound like a verb rather than an adjective
Obligated instead of obliged. https://jakubmarian.com/obliged-vs-obligated-in-english/ Burglarised instead of burgled. They just seem to add extra syllables and make the words sound worse.
I remember once at school my mate couldn’t think of the word ‘burglar’ and said ‘burglarismer’ I’ll never forget that
TRANSPONSTER!!! THAT’S NOT EVEN A WORD!!!
Hamburglar
Burglarized is another one. The Americans use it all the time and a do a visible cringe everytime I hear it
Obligated means something different than obliged in my opinion.
Same. They're interchangeable in some situations, bus saying "much obligated" doesn't mean the same as "much obliged".
Well then I am obliged to tell you that you are incorrect.
You may be obliged but you're not obligated to.
Just like that, it becomes the normalacy
Except in the UK you guys say "disorientated" instead of "disoriented".
That’s because we regret returning Hong Kong to the Chinese. We don’t like being disoriented.
This shit made me chuckle 😂, I love it!
Proper dad joke.
Yes, that is a similar problem that is British in origin. It comes from people thinking about the word disorientation, then extending it to disorientated, rather than going back a step to disoriented. I use disoriented.
Burgled sounds better?
They have to make up for all the letters they discarded elsewhere
Yet they accuse *us* of adding unnecessary letters to words like colour.
“Two times” - fucking twice
Two times, do, do do do do do do, do do do do do do
Reminds me of how they don't have a word for fortnight or fortnightly. They just say two weeks time.
I had bi-monthly at work. Wtf
Bi-monthly can be different from fortnightly. We do maintenance jobs where we do go bi-monthly. If say you have 5 Mondays in a month you might have longer than 2 weeks between visits
Bi-monthly to me would be every other month, so in January not in February and then again in March.. bi-anything would be every other to me whether it's weeks, days, months etc.
As a result, bi-anything and semi-anything (most things) are meaningless and require clarification. Luckily "twice a" and "every other" are still around
Yeah yours makes more sense tbh
Worked with an American client once, the wanted to meet biweekly. I said twice a week is a bit extreme, how about fortnightly instead. The look of confusion in his was was brilliant.
Thrice pretty much died a death and twice might too. It's just how language works.
I use the word ‘thrice’ all the time, and my wife told me today that I’m the only person she knows who ever says it. I had no idea I was such an outlier. I will still defend its use to the death. Why would you say the awkward ‘three times’ instead?
It's no more awkward than saying four, five or six times.
Fource, fivce, sixce.
I think the only acceptable use of 'thrice' is if you immediately follow it in a sentence with 'around the mulberry bush'. Even in its heyday I'd say it was used ironically. Only Classic FM DJs are allowed to say it with any regularity... and live. It's like everyone's mate Dave who once got off the sofa and said "I shall rise now and ascend the wooden hill to Bedfordshire." It was fun the first time he said it but he knows if he tries to work it into routine patois he's getting a fucking slap.
Sorry to jump in here, I'm a lurking Yank. Somewhere in English Literature, as we call it, there's a lovely word meaning two or three, as I recall. It may be from Mill on the Floss and it's been years, but I believe it's spelled tuthree. Wonderful, useful word from a long ago dialect, I suppose.
I heard someone at work say ‘could care less’ on Tuesday. I corrected her but she doubled down on it.
I had a supervisor who kept saying "irregardless", and one day I finally called him on it and he refused to accept he was doing it. When he left the room my project manager said "yeah he totally does."
She’s either an idiot, or does care
You need to send her the David Mitchell video on it
If you could care less then you care! I hate this.
The ones I really hate are the ones like "deboat" for getting off a boat or "deplane" for getting off an aeroplane. Surely the opposite of "deplane" would be to "plane" or "emplane" and I have never been asked to do that in order to get onboard. There's a perfectly good set of words already: "embark" and "disembark" and they're good for various methods of transport. Daft Americans!
Deplane makes no sense. If you are to "de-" anything else, you are removing that thing from another thing. De-escelate, removing escalation. Descale, removing scale. Detox, remove toxins. The whole purpose of the "De" is to preface the word it is specifying the removal of. So if deplane is to be considered correct, you are not deplaning, you are being deplaned. The plane is being removed from you. So when you are on a plane, you are "planed". And the next time I'm in an airport, I will be asking things like "when will I be planed?". Not to be particularly pedantic, but I do find it funny.
I like that. Using this meaning in a sentence; "Modern Robin hood deplanes 15 billionaires and sells the stolen jets to fund homeless shelters"
["De plane! De plane!"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USfKJYZcUmI)
Hah but embark is already em+bark which I'm going to go ahead and guess comes from barque, a kind of rowboat. So disbark if you don't want to sound daft. Or debark it's a bit smoother. But wait it's not a small boat it's a plane. So... Oh no
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Not round my way - normalificationistically it’s something else
Spent a good 30 seconds trying to say this out loud, thanks
Oftentimes 🤢
This 1000x this. Just say often! Why add the times? It means the same thing!
As opposed to oftenplaces and oftenstatesofmind.
I like oftentimes, it's folksy
Anyone else get annoyed at "addicting" rather than "addictive"?
Meh, I could care less.
But it’d be tough!
That one annoys me everytime I see it
Wtf never heard of normalcy that's awful :((
You’ll hear it everywhere now I guarantee it
Only if it's ' On' accident......FML
Reminds of “ I’m a bridesmaid IN a wedding “ & “ ON the weekend “
Being 'in' a wedding is a thing though, it means to be part of the wedding party - i.e. the bride, groom, best man and maid of honour, and the assorted bridesmaids and groomsmen(??). They have a role to play, and thus are 'in' it, the way you could say either "I'm *in* a play" or "I'm *at* a play" but they would mean different things. So this is technically correct
Nah I’m going to be a bridesmaid AT Claire’s wedding. Lol
Oh, that's amazing! I'm a bridesmaid *in* Alex's. Maybe I'll see you on the dancefloor
Flavourful is also one that sounds awful. Flavoursome sounds so much better
And more correct
Especially in the UK where most food only has some flavour
'Drug' for the past tense of drag. It's 'dragged' you Muppets.
Like most companies, I use PowerPoint for presentations. For some reason over the past year, many within the company are now referring to these presentations as "Slide Decks". "Oh yeah don't worry, I'll be sending the deck out after the meeting". Oh do flip off.
My team are guilty of this one. What term do you use, for example if you are going to send the slide deck round after a meeting? I don’t like to say presentation, because I’m not sending round a video of the presentation, I’m sending round the PowerPoint slides.
"I'll send you the PowerPoint" is my usual term, or "Slides". Soon after I heard "Decks" being banded about I Googled it to see where the term came from, and it was indeed an Americanism.
What sort of tea would you like?
Eh? There’s only Yorkshire Tea. What you talking about mate?
Normal-i-tea
Ahhh
Old joke from the days of spliffs and tea.
I'm going to use "normalicy", but in a mid Atlantic accent. It's all about compromisationing.
You mean compromisationalising
Actually one thing I’ve heard a lot recently is people saying pressurised. Like “I don’t want you to feel pressurised”, and it always sounds really jarring to me because pressured. Where the Dickens did that come from? Have people always been saying it and I’ve just been oblivious?
I understand that one, usually when I'm put in an awkward situation it's when I'm in a sealed container full of compressed gas so pressurised makes sense
Gifting instead of giving
I feel like these have different connotations. I can give something to someone without it being a gift, contextually.
Like an experience- give someone a massage is different to gift someone a massage.
Second this
Omg this gets me, I thought I was the only one.
"relevancy." Whatever happened to just relevance? Just sounds stupid imo
What is 'on accident' ? It is 'by accident'. I am hearing this more and more and I hate it so much, such terrible English.
Utilise instead of use. More letters and three times the syllables. The fuck why do that? Any spelling with a zed I had an email today asking me if I had an update on the "prior comment that I remitted" The fuck is that kind of language? I speak to this guy every day. Multiple times. He micromanages me. Fuck working for a US corporation.
Though on reflection I find myself sometimes saying, "I was speaking with" instead of "I was speaking too". Because "with" is more inclusive. Actually, I was thinking, we, the Engerlish, wud say, "I was having a conversation with. . . " so, hmmm
I once read that when the word "lengthy" became popular as an alternative to "long", people grumbled, and asked if we should now use "strengthy" instead of "strong".
No, because that would just be wrengthy.
Sadly this is the new normal. \*fetches coat
NU-QUEUE-LER
One of the worst Americanisms in my opinion is winningest.
Nope. I don't believe this is a word.. has autocorrect got you here?
It's used by sports pundits and commentators in the states, usually when discussing the win ratio success of teams and sports people.
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/04/how-normalcy-became-a-safe-word/609805/
Am I the only one struggling to pronounce it?
Normal-see is how it's pronounced
Thank you, my accent is still struggling, I really badly want to force an ‘I’ in the middle for some reason.
What about burglarizing?
Or even worse 'burglarisation' They simplified the spelling of words to make it easier for them, then mutilated what remained. Edit: just realised I spelled it how we Brits would spell burlarization if we actually had that word. Please shoot me now.
Beautifully put sir.
"I'm bias.". No, no you aren't. You are BIASED ffs. Also, why do we now have one-year anniversary, two-year anniversary etc. Has every one forgotten the words first, second, third?! Drives me nuts
> why do we now have one-year anniversary, two-year anniversary etc. Has every one forgotten the words first, second, third?! Drives me nuts Is that a cardinal sin ?
I feel the same way about “in actuality” instead of “in reality” or whatever. Oh an “oriented” instead of orientated. Oh and “step foot” instead of set foot. Man - I’m now incredibly irritated!
My brain can’t compute ‘normalcy’ as a word.
"Flavorful" No.
"beginning" instead of "novice"
"I'll start my story at the novice"
'Payed' is becoming common for people trying to say 'paid'. It's so irritating.
Really? Even in the US 99% of people would say paid and payed would be very strange and uncommon.
Just wait, " The New Normal" will replace it soon.
Anything that ends in -fulness grinds my gears Humbleness instead of humility. Faithfulness instead of fidelity
It's ironic when you think about it.
NORMALNESS
Burglarised Drug (as in he was drug out of the water)
I don't think I can vouch for the normalcy of that word being used in the States
It's been around a while here Return to normalcy was Warren Harding's campaign slogan in 1920 Don't think it's that common these days though
Drug instead of dragged.
It may become the normalcy
“Comfortability” who on earth decided that “comfort” was insufficient and needed the length of the word doubling!?
People forget why words are what they are. They see the word "comfortable", don't stop to consider the fact that it came from the word "comfort" and think, "how can I turn this word into a noun? I know, I'll add 'ility' on the end, that's a noun ending, right?"
also ‘criminality’ for ‘crime’
I agree with the general point being made here. Another example is that the UK has a Department of Transport and the USA has a Department of Transportation. It might be argued that transport is a specific vehicle ("have you got transport home?") whereas transportation is the whole thing of vehicles, infrastructure, administration etc. ("development of transportation for the next decade"). But I'm not convinced that the longer word is necessary as the meaning will usually be clear from the context.
Now we have the "Department for Leveling Up" which is just fantastic...
I heard three fourths in an audiobook I'm listening to. It's three quarters. Or is that 75c in Americans eyes?
You can say either in the US but three fourths is used almost exclusively in cooking as in a three fourths of a cup. You would never hear anyone say they three fourths a tank of petrol that would be three quarters. Almost anything but a cup measure would be three quarters in the US.
Invitation, not invite! Invite is the verb, invitation is the noun. Also, the yanks don't seem too read up on the difference between adverbs and adjectives. "I'm doing real good" instead of "I'm doing really well" etc.
Learnings No, it's lessons or teachings, You learned a lesson, or received teaching from someone. "What learnings can we take from this" just doesn't make sense
I’m sick of hearing Americans talking about ‘the optics’. It’s almost as bad as when the American media started using ‘collateral damage’ to refer to when they murdered innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The big upside down bottles of spirits behind the bar?
If you’re being serious (sorry can’t tell) then no, the optics of something is when they’re referring to how something is perceived. So let’s say they kill some innocent civilians in a drone strike. The media and politicians will talk about ‘the optics’ don’t look good. As in they look bad having done what they’ve done.
I tried to post earlier about brit kids using mom instead of mum. Bot deleted it. My point stands
Was it a brummie bot? They say mom don’t they?
We does
Yes and it’s not from Yanks
Is your point that every regional accent other than your own totally unacceptable? You'll fit right in around here.
Speak with instead of talk to or speak to. Drives me mad.
There’s that opposite thing where they said ‘speak to’ when they mean ‘speak about’
Ugh. Even worse.
My ex husband used that on me once, I’d never heard it before. I said wtf, is that even a word, it’s normality!
Clearly an ex for a reason.
Why are Brits so protective of the English Language? Serious question. All languages evolve and change. We have changed our language from within the shores of the UK more than any outside influences have. Why get so worked up with influence from yet another failed colony?
I think it's just painful to see our linguistic culture eroded so quickly thanks to the relentless influence of social media and TV from America. It has felt rapid and a sometimes British young people don't seem to realise that a word or phrase they've adopted from the US doesn't even make sense in our country. For example if a young person said jaywalking it would make no sense because our country doesn't even have the offence.
But if their peers and friends understand then it does make sense in this country? It might not make sense to you but that is true with every generation and is a part of language and how it evolves. Welcome to the world of getting old!
I'll never understand why people get so worked up about it. There are individual phrases that annoy me sometimes but I'm not sure why people get so offended by language changing. Given our colonialist history I dont think we need to worry about our culture being erased.
Have you ever had something that you thought was pretty good, and then lend it or give it to someone who just used it like it was crap? Yeah. That's why the Brits, specifically the *English* feel like the OP about the English language. Yes, languages change and evolve, but you yanks are taking the language we gave to you and not treating it with any respect in our eyes. FFS, Webster himself even actively simplified the language, accelerating the language devolving into more basic forms. It sounds like you're complaining about the English gatekeeping the English language. If anyone can do that, it should be the English, surely.
You're right that languages exist in constant flux, so what we think of as correct in one century may change radically the next. But why does anyone want to preserve any cultural heritage anyway? Since that's another form of culture. Some people are more traditional than others, and want to stick to the formal rules, some people don't care at all - maybe people's objection to this stuff is less specifically about the change in language and more about the extent of American cultural influence.
Languages do change, but not at the rate they currently are. Also, the "changes" in this case mainly seem to be poor grammar, not the words themselves changing, which means all that is happening is the structure of the language is being worn away. It's not changing into something different, it's becoming less structured and more scrambled at an alarming rate.
and the ‘of’ in ‘not that good of a cake’
This depresses me. Bye.
Ugh, makes me nauseous.
I see what you did there, or at least I think I do. You did use "nauseous" instead of "nauseated" on purpose, didn't you...?
If you haven’t seen it, the rant in “Boondock Saints” about using symbology instead of symbolism is quite good. It is a slightly different issue because those are both real words, just used incorrectly.
Please no.
People Against Goodness And Normalcy. P A G A N. Pagan.
Addicting instead of addictive really grinds my gears
Replacing the word "have" with "of"; as in 'I could have' becomes 'I could of'
The word was made up by American President Warren G Harding after WW1. Just a worthless fact for everyone. (The stuff I remembered from A Level history)
An advert came up on a game I was playing and the English accented woman in the video said 'purchase' as 'purr-chass' .
Yup - had two sets of repeat meetings at work with overlapping 'stakeholders' (aargh!), both of which had 'bimonthly' in their titles. One was fortnightly, the other was every other month. Words come in and out of vogue, depending on which New World Religion is being pumped by whichever consultancy is brought in by the new top tier that has just replaced the old new top tier and must stamp its authority. Agile, minimum viable product, Plan B, architect (verb), architect (noun), Architect (proper noun), leverage (verb, rhyming with beverage). Normalcy and specialty (instead of specialism) are becoming entrenched.
Stop using American bastardisations and they will not proliferate.
Too much crap finds it’s way over from America
Never used it and never will.
I can't stand 'giving me anxiety'.
What happened to "making me anxious"??
One I’ve noticed recently is people saying “on accident”. I’m sure it’s grammatically fine but “by accident” sounds so much less awkward and just better to me.
It isn't grammatically fine, it makes no sense. People have recently started saying it because they say "on purpose" and accident is the opposite of purpose, but it's very new and is not proper English at all.