How much of a linguistic pedant are you?
Three examples of shitty language being -
Eating healthy.
Gifting.
And the worst offender.... My bad.
:)
Eating healthy.
Gifting.
And the worst offender.... My bad.
:)
This page is a permanent link to the reply below and its nested replies. See all post replies »
ArishMell · 70-79, M
My list starts with gratuitous crudities......!
The phrase "grammar nazi", which is as foolish and ignorant as it is tasteless, but implies it is wrong to take a pride in reasonable fluency and literacy in one's own language.
Muddled adjectives and adverbs (as your "eating healthy" example), and nouns and verbs (e.g. "the daily commute", "a new build" ).
Using "like" where no comparison or example exists. Does "I'm like..." mean "I'm not certain what I am"?
Clumsy, ugly suffices based on "ise" (or "ize" if you're American, reminding us of a well-known past make of toilet-paper one could use as tracing-paper). E,g., the word is "inspiring", not that awful "inspir-ayshun-ull".
Affectations such as using Americanisms and American spellings when neither American nor resident in the USA. (This is not a new trend. Two hundred and more years ago English speakers sometimes affected French or Latin words.) I except genuine technical terms for American inventions like the "transistor"; but do not accept American terms for things not invented there. That includes the names of the French-invented, Metric measurement units. One or two US spellings even unwittingly alter the meaning completely, by ignoring the etymology!
Affectations beloved of business people trying to sound clever. Many started as an individual's bright metaphor but have become cliches tarnished to death: "going forward", "identifying a requirement for", "blue skies thinking" etc. Or the politicians' equivalents: "hard-working families" and such-like.
Ignoring tenses - historians talking about long-past events, or novellists writing narratives, in the Present Tense. Also weather forecasters using the Present Tense for the days ahead.
The phrase "grammar nazi", which is as foolish and ignorant as it is tasteless, but implies it is wrong to take a pride in reasonable fluency and literacy in one's own language.
Muddled adjectives and adverbs (as your "eating healthy" example), and nouns and verbs (e.g. "the daily commute", "a new build" ).
Using "like" where no comparison or example exists. Does "I'm like..." mean "I'm not certain what I am"?
Clumsy, ugly suffices based on "ise" (or "ize" if you're American, reminding us of a well-known past make of toilet-paper one could use as tracing-paper). E,g., the word is "inspiring", not that awful "inspir-ayshun-ull".
Affectations such as using Americanisms and American spellings when neither American nor resident in the USA. (This is not a new trend. Two hundred and more years ago English speakers sometimes affected French or Latin words.) I except genuine technical terms for American inventions like the "transistor"; but do not accept American terms for things not invented there. That includes the names of the French-invented, Metric measurement units. One or two US spellings even unwittingly alter the meaning completely, by ignoring the etymology!
Affectations beloved of business people trying to sound clever. Many started as an individual's bright metaphor but have become cliches tarnished to death: "going forward", "identifying a requirement for", "blue skies thinking" etc. Or the politicians' equivalents: "hard-working families" and such-like.
Ignoring tenses - historians talking about long-past events, or novellists writing narratives, in the Present Tense. Also weather forecasters using the Present Tense for the days ahead.