Should of, could of but in the end just couldn't

thistledome

Nice to see this thread still going

Apologies for going OT but reading the posts about colloquialisms reminded me of something funny. Renault used to have an advertising slogan, "Cars with Flair". My Scottish Uncle said, " 'course they all goht flairs......otherwise yer feet would be draggin' on the groon". Well, it made me laugh....:o

wigglebeana, I watched a TV documentary about Cameron Diaz and the narrator called her the "eppy-tome" of style. Years ago this kind of thing would have been spotted and corrected before broadcast (it wasn't live). It wasn't American either:eek:

Tigsteroonie

ClootiesMum wrote: »

But being from sunny Scotland I know I'm guilty of a horrible sin - seemingly it's a Scots trait to measure distance in time - How far is the local supermarket? 5 minutes down the road of course:o

Ah, but that's because it's so rural up there, distance doesn't equate to time in the normal sense.The nearest supermarket was 27 miles away from the village where I lived, but there was no way it could be driven in half-an-hour as some visitors expected; 45 minutes was the best time, and over an hour in tourist season (single track road). So it was easier to say that the nearest supermarket was almost an hour away, rather than 27 miles.

vyle

While at work yesterday I was reminded of the pet hate of myself and my colleagues (no, not customers :P).

There used to be an announcement near closing time saying, "Customers are advised that the brasserie is closed in 15 minutes."

Every time, without fail when that announcement went off, somebody would point out that it should be, "The brasserie will be closing in 15 minutes."

Of course, perhaps "Is closed" is acceptable, but it sure sounded annoying and wasn't technically true as customers weren't kicked out on the deadline, they just couldn't order anything else and the staff started to clean up.

babs98

There is no such word as independant.

frivolous_fay

anamenottaken wrote: »

A couple of my pet hates:

decimate (used to describe destruction of a high proportion of something rather than 10%))

To be fair... is that a commonly known definition?
I think I got to 30 before hearing about the Romans!

ellay864

ClootiesMum wrote: »

But being from sunny Scotland I know I'm guilty of a horrible sin - seemingly it's a Scots trait to measure distance in time - How far is the local supermarket? 5 minutes down the road of course:o

CM

I don't think it's just a Scottish trait, I do it all the time and when on a business trip to Sweden recently and asked where I lived in relation to the offices I said "about 40 minutes away". The Swedes I was with all laughed and said that whenever they asked an English person this question they always got an answer in minutes, never miles or kilometres

frivolous_fay

ellay864 wrote: »

I don't think it's just a Scottish trait, I do it all the time and when on a business trip to Sweden recently and asked where I lived in relation to the offices I said "about 40 minutes away". The Swedes I was with all laughed and said that whenever they asked an English person this question they always got an answer in minutes, never miles or kilometres

Knowing a distance in miles is a bit academic isn't it? Unless you're planning on walking that far?

Knowing the distance is a bit irrelevant - your travel times will vary, depending on method of transportation, traffic, route, and whether there are any roads between A and B! If you tell me how far away you live, I wouldn't have the foggiest idea how long it would take me to get there.

I say I live on the outskirts of town, or a 10 minute cycle. Google tells me I live precisely 2 miles from the city centre, but that's totally irrelevant to me as I don't go that way.

sarahg1969

Asda tell you to ask a colleague if you need assistance. A colleague? How would one of my colleagues know where to find something on the shelves at Asda?

*max*

Oh, and affect vs effect....That really annoys me too!

Tiddlywinks

Gosh, just the title of this thread raised my blood pressure; I thought it would be a badly worded gripe about something or other involving pit bulls or fake tan.

Refreshing to see it's full of posts that I can agree with for once:D.

Another annoying mistake is the use of "an" instead of "and" - why? I really believe that most of the posters that make this mistake actually believe that there is no 'd' on the end.

Also, I hate the written use of "mom" instead of "mum" - very few regions in the UK historically use this term so why do so many MSE user names have xxxxsMom as a user name? So many of the younger generation (gawd do I sound old?) use a US spell check and learn most of their vocab from American sources which probably has something (somethink) to do with it.

Still, there are some users with "bored of..." in their name so I suppose it takes all sorts.........