'The word pedants' top 10 | It's specific, not Pacific...' blog discussion.

Patr100

molemag wrote: »

Xmas. Where did that come from?

A google would have told you . Not necessarily a lazy modern abbreviation but derived from a older symbol for "Christ".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xmas

northerner60

jools0001 wrote: »

It's a regional variation. It's no more incorrect than someone from Sunderland sounding their vowels differently to someone from Swansea.

If anything I think it's sad that regional accents are less pronounced than they used to be. It's a natural consequence of increased communication and travel, but I still enjoy being able to spot subtle differences in speech from adjacent towns.

I'm afraid I must disagree with the regional accent theory on 'firty fousand'. My step daughter used to say that too, but none of her contempories did. I would imagine it is just laziness of speech. Incidentally I live very near to where the Chaser was born. Another pet hate is bockle and hospickle, again lazy speech

magicgranny

'Of' instead of 'have' drives me mad!:mad:
I have even seen it on joke car stickers.
Also - apostrophes - in an upmarket supermarket this week there were bunches of flowers marked "thank's mum". That's without worrying over 'Mother's Day' when I am sure it should be 'Mothers' Day'. :mad: Oh dear.
Magic granny

ScarletBea

For everyone who keeps quoting my initial post, I went back and rechecked and then posted the following:

ScarletBea wrote: »

Thanks for clarifying me on the origins of the word 'decimate'.
I had my doubts and searched on the Cambridge dictionary earlier this afternoon, which didn't have that definition.
Now moving to Oxford, hehe, and the OED gives the following definition:

"verb
[with object]
1 kill, destroy, or remove a large proportion of:
the inhabitants of the country had been decimated
drastically reduce the strength or effectiveness of (something):
public transport has been decimated
2 historical kill one in every ten of (a group of people, originally a mutinous Roman legion) as a punishment for the whole group.

Usage
Historically, the meaning of the word decimate is‘ kill one in every ten of (a group of people)’. This sense has been more or less totally superseded by the later, more general sense ‘kill, destroy, or remove a large proportion of’, as in the virus has decimated the population. Some traditionalists argue that this is incorrect, but it is clear that it is now part of standard English"

http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_gb0209890#m_en_gb0209890

I had honestly never heard it used for the second meaning, as they also mention, and that's why this whole thing started.

So yes, now I realise that it can mean that as well.
I was just saying that I'd never heard it used like that, and the OED agrees with me.

And I won't even excuse myself with the fact that I'm a foreigner, because this word has got latin roots and it's the same in my language.

etruscanshades

Welcome to the world of old farts Martin! We all complain about how everything is not how it was. Its a losing battle! Otherwise we would still be talking like Beowulf.

When the OED can change the meaning of decimate from "a tenth" to "a lot" then you know you've lost!

My pet hate, in fact I yell it at the TV screen every time I hear it, is "Different to" whereas it should be "different from" - drummed into us at school. (My kids say its acceptable either way now).

And what about "prostrate" when they mean "prostate"?

"Wouldn't of" and "shouldn't of" instead of "wouldn't have" and "shouldn't have".

"Less then ten items" NO! "Fewer than ten items"

"The majority of the country" NO! "The greater part of the country"

And my sister (phd in English) says there is a prize (a copy of her first book "Ready Steady Dig!*) for the first person who can demonstrate the difference between "due to" and "owing to"

But I do love "To boldly go where no-one has gone before" (sister says this is NOT incorrect - it's a seventeenth century affectation trying to copy the latin where an infinitive cannot be split).

No one seems to know the difference between the intransitive "lie down" and the transitive "lay down"

"fine tooth-comb" is as correct as "fine-toothed comb".

*Google it to find her website

PHEW! PEDANTS ROOL OR WOT?

samizdat

koru wrote: »

This really is a tricky area, isn't it? A lot of the posts that have been made seem, to me, to fail to appreciate two key points:

...
(b) Usage and pronunciation do change over time. Many words that now have a completely accepted meaning started life centuries ago meaning something completely different. Many of the posts are about words that may have originally had one narrow meaning, but have long since become widely accepted as meaning something else (such as decimate).

As an example, I had been intending to raise the same point as another post, which is my annoyance at what I perceived as the misuse by BBC reporters of the word refute. They were using it to mean deny, whereas I had always understood it to mean disprove. There's a big difference in the two meanings. However, after looking it up, I see that both meanings are listed in some dictionaries. I think this is highly regrettable, because this means that the word refute is ambiguous and although the meaning will often be clear from the context, it could sometimes be misunderstood. Nevertheless, if both meanings are in a dictionary, who am I to insist that only one of them is acceptable?

However, these things are all subjective, because I really struggle to accept that the word literally can be used to refer to something that is figurative or metaphorical. Whether I like it or not, the word is commonly used as an intensifier added to a figurative or metaphorical description, and there will probably come a time when only a few rare pedants will remember that it used to mean "not figurative". Perhaps what sticks in the craw about this misuse is that the word is being misused to mean the exact opposite of what it does mean.

It was I (sic!) who was writing about the use of "refute" on the BBC. As I pointed out, the BBC's own style guide discusses the differences in meaning of the words refute, rebut, and deny.

Also, I think the test of acceptable _style_ should be that it does not impoverish the language. Style is every bit as important, if not more so, than correct usage. For example, the use of "literally" as an intensifier completely undermines the power of the word in its original sense.

On the other hand, someone before was complaining about Americans saying "I could care less about" when they mean the opposite, but I don't think that debases the language, because it is hard to imagine situations in which people could seriously use that combination of words in their literal sense, still less while retaining any semblance of good style.

On another issue mentioned earlier, pronouncing "medicine" as "medcine" is actually considered to be in good taste by the Upper Middle class. It is deliberate.

Barter

etruscanshades wrote: »

And my sister (phd in English) says there is a prize (a copy of her first book "Ready Steady Dig!*) for the first person who can demonstrate the difference between "due to" and "owing to"

I thought due to = caused by; owing to = because of, but I may be mistaken.

samizdat

Oh, yes, I forgot, I have a good one for you all.

"One of the best" should in fact be "one of the better".

How many can say that they always get that one right?

etruscanshades

I remember being taught at school (over fifty years ago) that "an hotel" and "an historical" were exceptions to the rule, in order to allow speech to flow easily. Probably an anachronism now though. (Didn't PG Wodehouse' toffs drop their aitches? Doncha know?) Grumble....grumble...

etruscanshades

samizdat wrote: »

Oh, yes, I forgot, I have a good one for you all.

"One of the best" should in fact be "one of the better".

How many can say that they always get that one right?

Either is correct depending on how many there are. The best of many, or the better of two!