For language prudes only - What words drive you nuts?

[Campbell Ritchie]

Winston Gutkowski wrote:. . . another tense that has practically disappeared from English is the subjunctive. In English it sounds very stuffy or archaic: . . .

I think the real problem with the English subjunctive is that except for 3rd person singular and I be/I were, the subjunctive sounds the same as the indicative. That means people don't realise they are using the subjunctive.

[Brian Tkatch]

Winston Gutkowski wrote:drive on the wrong side of the road and turn your light switches upside-down

Technically, we drive on the right side.

[Tim Holloway]

Campbell Ritchie wrote:

Winston Gutkowski wrote:. . . another tense that has practically disappeared from English is the subjunctive. In English it sounds very stuffy or archaic: . . .

I think the real problem with the English subjunctive is that except for 3rd person singular and I be/I were, the subjunctive sounds the same as the indicative. That means people don't realise they are using the subjunctive.

Truthfully, I'm not sure they even mentioned subjunctive in my English classes. I first noticed it when I got to advanced German.

Then again, that was long ago.

[Winston Gutkowski]

Tim Holloway wrote:That's what you get when you start out speaking one family of languages (germanic), get invaded and ruled by a bunch speaking another language (french), then go stomping off around the world stealing words from the natives right and left. It's a wonder we can spell at all!

Not quite sure about "stomping", since we're an island nation; but otherwise a reasonable synopsis of British history c.500-1914.

Winston

[Campbell Ritchie]

I suppose that is why so many people seem to want to come here, bringing their new words as presents for us

[Campbell Ritchie]

Winston Gutkowski wrote:. . . drive on the wrong side of the road . . .

It is worse than that. They drive on the French side of the road. They don't need light switches since their wires don't carry electricity (well, a tiny amount, only 115V).

[Winston Gutkowski]

Brian Tkatch wrote:Technically, we drive on the right side.

No, literally you drive on the right; but there are actually very good reasons for driving on the left. As I recall, Napoleon introduced driving on the right purely to be different from the Brits...and he couldn't even get that right, because French railways drive on the left.

Winston

[Brian Tkatch]

Winston Gutkowski wrote:

Brian Tkatch wrote:Technically, we drive on the right side.

No, literally you drive on the right

The beauty of that remark is that it relies on the correct meaning of right.

[Matthew Brown]

Stephan van Hulst wrote:I think that's because there is a much weaker link between English writing and speech in the first place. In most European languages, you can look at the word and you know how to pronounce it, even if you haven't seen it before. With English it's a lot harder. One of the well known examples is "Tough" vs "Though" and "Through".

I used to live in Milton Keynes. There were three nearby villages/districts called "Woughton", "Boughton" and "Loughton". Completely different pronunciations - if I remember it correctly they were Wuffton, Boreton and Louton (to rhyme with "cow-ton").

[Tim Holloway]

Matthew Brown wrote:

Stephan van Hulst wrote:I think that's because there is a much weaker link between English writing and speech in the first place. In most European languages, you can look at the word and you know how to pronounce it, even if you haven't seen it before. With English it's a lot harder. One of the well known examples is "Tough" vs "Though" and "Through".

I used to live in Milton Keynes. There were three nearby villages/districts called "Woughton", "Boughton" and "Loughton". Completely different pronunciations - if I remember it correctly they were Wuffton, Boreton and Louton (to rhyme with "cow-ton").

That one, I'm afraid is just not keeping up with history. Between the more tightly-packed set of dialects and outright relocation of people and boundaries.

There's a classic example given of historical layering in Wales, I think it is. Some landmark whose name consists of 4 parts, each of which is the word "hill" in one of the languages historically used there.

[Campbell Ritchie]

Matthew Brown wrote:. . . I used to live in Milton Keynes. . . .

I hope you are feeling better. I lived at Newport Pagnell a long time ago and had a job at Fenny Stratford and cycled via Woughton‑on‑the‑Green when it was a village.

[Matthew Brown]

Campbell Ritchie wrote:I hope you are feeling better. I lived at Newport Pagnell a long time ago and had a job at Fenny Stratford and cycled via Woughton‑on‑the‑Green when it was a village.

Woughton-on-the-Green still feels fairly village-y (at least, it did last time I was there). Nice pub
- used to be our regular after-cricket drinking location.

Off-topic? What topic? Oh...sorry.

[Tim Cooke]

Matthew Brown wrote:I used to live in Milton Keynes. There were three nearby villages/districts called "Woughton", "Boughton" and "Loughton". Completely different pronunciations - if I remember it correctly they were Wuffton, Boreton and Louton (to rhyme with "cow-ton").

And not too far away was Towcester, pronounced Toaster.

(I grew up in Buckingham)

[Paul Clapham]

Tim Holloway wrote:There's a classic example given of historical layering in Wales, I think it is. Some landmark whose name consists of 4 parts, each of which is the word "hill" in one of the languages historically used there.

Torpenhow Hill -- but in Cumbria not Wales, and there's some debunking in Wikipedia including the word "alleged".

[Winston Gutkowski]

Matthew Brown wrote:Off-topic? What topic? Oh...sorry.

No probs. Any post including my favourite sport is exempt; and it does look like a nice pub.

Winston

[Ahmed Bin S]

I also dislike any word where the apostrophe is misplaced - especially if it changes the meaning completely ...

[Stephan van Hulst]

That reminds me, I have a really bad habit of writing "it's" when I meant to write "its".

[Winston Gutkowski]

Stephan van Hulst wrote:That reminds me, I have a really bad habit of writing "it's" when I meant to write "its".

Yeah, it's a funny one that: contraction > possession.

Another one for you: The passive voice in general, but particularly when it's used to hide the subject:
"Mistakes were made ..."

Winston

[Tim Holloway]

You mean:

If mistakes were made, I'm the one responsible?

[Paul Clapham]

Winston Gutkowski wrote:Another one for you: The passive voice in general, but particularly when it's used to hide the subject:

Didn't you use the passive voice in the underlined part there?

[Winston Gutkowski]

Paul Clapham wrote:Didn't you use the passive voice in the underlined part there?

You see how pernicious it is?

No wonder writers and journalists have to "unlearn" it.

Winston

[Matthew Brown]

Winston Gutkowski wrote:

Stephan van Hulst wrote:That reminds me, I have a really bad habit of writing "it's" when I meant to write "its".

Yeah, it's a funny one that: contraction > possession.

It's not that strange when you realise it's a possessive pronoun - you wouldn't write "hi's" and "her's", would you? Or "him's" or "he's", for that matter. It's just that in this case the pronoun almost matches what you'd get if you appended "'s" to the original pronoun.

[Matthew Brown]

Winston Gutkowski wrote:

Paul Clapham wrote:Didn't you use the passive voice in the underlined part there?

You see how pernicious it is?

Have you heard of the "by zombies" rule? If you can add "by zombies" after the verb and it's still grammatical, it's in the passive voice.

These make "sense", and so are passive:

"Mistakes were made by zombies"
"It's used to hide the subject by zombies"

These do not, and so are not:

"We made mistakes by zombies"
"They use it to hide the subject by zombies"

I suspect it isn't foolproof, but it's cute.

[Winston Gutkowski]

Matthew Brown wrote:It's not that strange when you realise it's a possessive pronoun - you wouldn't write "hi's" and "her's", would you?

Very true. I guess it's our association of ''s' with a possessive.

Have you heard of the "by zombies" rule?

I hadn't, but I ain't gonna forget it now. Nice one.

I do remember doing exercises on it a few eons ago, and being amazed not only at how much stronger the active voice sounds, but how much space it saves. It's quite hard to keep up though...unless you're very vigilant.

Winston

[Paul Clapham]

Sometimes switching from passive to active saves space, sometimes not. Consider

"As part of the traffic calming project, all of the stop signs were removed."

We don't know who removed the stop signs, but that's the advantage of using the passive voice -- we don't care who did the removing. We could be told that the city contracted out the stop-sign-removal job to a local company, or whatever, but really all of that is irrelevant to the point that the stop signs went away. (If it was zombies which (who? that?) removed the signs, now that would be worth mentioning.) A minimalist revision would be

"As part of the traffic calming project, they removed all of the stop signs."

Doesn't save much space, and also it's a bit distracting since now there's a little questioning thing in the back of the mind asking "They? Who dat?"

[Paul Clapham]

Stephan van Hulst wrote:That reminds me, I have a really bad habit of writing "it's" when I meant to write "its".

I find myself doing that all the time recently. I know the rule perfectly well but I still find myself typing that apostrophe and then having to backspace and fix it. I blame the Internet.

[Campbell Ritchie]

Our's used to be considered correct, but you have to go back about 400 years. Before somebody removed all the stop signs.

[Paul Clapham]

I know I'm a bit late, but here's wishing you a happy Commonwealth Day from the minions in the colonies.

[Winston Gutkowski]

Paul Clapham wrote:Sometimes switching from passive to active saves space, sometimes not. Consider
"As part of the traffic calming project, all of the stop signs were removed."
We don't know who removed the stop signs, but that's the advantage of using the passive voice -- we don't care who did the removing.

Yeah, I see your point. However the sentence seems a bit "strained". I took one look and immediately thought:

'Shouldn't that be: "All of the stop signs were removed as part of the traffic calming project."?'

Damned if I can tell you why though.

Something to do with object/subject placement perhaps?

Winston

[Winston Gutkowski]

Paul Clapham wrote:I know I'm a bit late, but here's wishing you a happy Commonwealth Day from the minions in the colonies.

<sigh>First Pi Day and now Commonwealth Day...yet another anniversary I never knew about.</sigh>

But a Happy one to you too.

Winston

[Paul Clapham]

Winston Gutkowski wrote:'Shouldn't that be: "All of the stop signs were removed as part of the traffic calming project."?'

Damned if I can tell you why though.

Something to do with object/subject placement perhaps?

That could be a better way to say it, but it's still a passive construction. (Apply the "by zombies" rule.) And trying to make it active still raises the "who removed them" question, which is why passive is preferable (by me anyway) in this case.

But generally you're right: "Passive is preferable by me" is long and flabby compared to "I prefer passive".

[Paul Clapham]

Winston Gutkowski wrote:Commonwealth Day...yet another anniversary I never knew about

I never heard of it before, but my Windows 10 lock screen told me that today was Commonwealth Day all day. I had to look it up.

[Jan de Boer]

Language is a living and changing thing, so no language mistake would drive me nuts. But I am somewhat irritated when people over use English terms when there is a perfectly suitable Dutch term that can be used. The reason for this is not the language as such, but a sort of snobism I find with hipsters. Like they want to use English to show they know English and are better than the common folks. About two hundred years ago French had a similar same use. Then it was the nobility that spoke French as the worldly language and the plebeians who used the local dialect of Dutch.

[Tim Holloway]

We don't know who removed the stop signs, but that's the advantage of using the passive voice -- we don't care who did the removing.

Actually, we do know, but we're a bunch of cowardly weasels who won't admit to it.

Passive voice is a favorite amongst character assassins, people who are too lazy to substantiate their claims or who want to hide behind the "everybody knows" screen.

[Ahmed Bin S]

Jan de Boer wrote:But I am somewhat irritated when people over use English terms when there is a perfectly suitable Dutch term that can be used. The reason for this is not the language as such, but a sort of snobism I find with hipsters. Like they want to use English to show they know English and are better than the common folks.

I find it annoying when Indians and Pakistanis try to speak in an English accent.

I find it even more annoying when Europeans (which when used by a Brit means non-British Europeans) try to speak in an American accent.

Just speak in your normal accent!

[Campbell Ritchie]

Ahmed Bin S wrote:. . . I find it annoying when Indians and Pakistanis try to speak in an English accent. . . .

Many of the “Indians and Pakistanis” round here were actually born in England and have lived their entire lives here. So why should they not have English accents?

A long time ago when I had a job near Glasgow I got the overnight train from Central Station to Euston. In the same compartment there were an Indian father and son. The father spoke with a Goodness Gracious Me accent, rather like Peter Sellers to Gina Lollobrigida and the son had a proper Ey Jemmy Glesca accent. It was a bit weird at first.

[Ahmed Bin S]

Campbell Ritchie wrote:Many of the “Indians and Pakistanis” round here were actually born in England and have lived their entire lives here. So why should they not have English accents?

Sure, my mother was born in Pakistan, I was born in London!

By Indians and Pakistanis I meant those who have come here from India and Pakistan recently, and who then try to speak in an English accent, when they don't have one. Maybe it's the anti-Colonialism in me whereby I believe everyone should just be happy with who they are that annoys me when they do this

Campbell Ritchie wrote:
A long time ago when I had a job near Glasgow I got the overnight train from Central Station to Euston. In the same compartment there were an Indian father and son. The father spoke with a Goodness Gracious Me accent, rather like Peter Sellers to Gina Lollobrigida and the son had a proper Ey Jemmy Glesca accent. It was a bit weird at first.

I did London to Glasgow a few years ago on the Virgin, it took around 4 hours IIRC, I suspect your journey took considerable more time!

[Paul Clapham]

Ahmed Bin S wrote:By Indians and Pakistanis I meant those who have come here from India and Pakistan recently, and who then try to speak in an English accent, when they don't have one. Maybe it's the anti-Colonialism in me whereby I believe everyone should just be happy with who they are that annoys me when they do this

Personally I'm in favour of that. If you're going to immigrate into a country then you should try to fit in there. As you may know it's common in Britain for people to display condescension or hostility to people who have accents different from their own, which is another reason for learning a British accent. It's not that different from trying to speak French with a good accent if you moved to France.

[Jan de Boer]

Ahmed Bin S wrote:I find it even more annoying when Europeans (which when used by a Brit means non-British Europeans) try to speak in an American accent.

It depends I guess. Remember that because of many American TV shows that are being watched some Europeans copy the American accent without even being aware of it. I am a bit of a fan of British comedy though, so I copy the British accent. I listen and watch the BBC that often, that when on the radio there is an interview with an American, I think they have a 'funny' accent.

[Liutauras Vilda]

Paul Clapham wrote:which is another reason for learning a British accent

That could be difficult. There are quite few. Even accents differ from borough to borough within the city. Friend of mine is from Southwark council (borough in London), he's English, he says sometimes could be challenging to understand even other English guy to him.

When he says "water", you could hear only "woa", for me non English, that was difficult to understand him first, he was laughing from me, now I got used to it.

And I still can't wrap my head, why "Leicester square" is being pronounced as "Lester" but not "Leichester", same as Gloucester being pronounced as "Gloster" but not "Glouchester" - where those few letters get disappear?