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

samizdat

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"

Gower says:

"Owing to long ago established itself as a prepositional phrase. But the orthodox still keep up the fight against the attempt of due to to do the same: they maintain that due is an adjective and should not be used otherwise. That means that it must always have a noun to agree with. You may say: "Floods due to a breach in the river bank covered a thousand acres of land". But you mujst not say: "Due to a breach in the river bank, a thousand acres of land were flooded". In the first due to agrees properly with floods, which were in fact due to the breach. In the second it can only agree with a thousand acres of land, which were not due to the breach, or to anything else except the Creation."

He goes on a bit more, but that is the essence of it.

jennyjelly

A phrase that has always really irritated me is "Good old XXXX some says, others tell the truth."

So many people say it and make me want to hit them.

samizdat

etruscanshades wrote: »

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

Are you putting your better foot forward?

antonia1

I really don't like people who descibe the time 4:30 as 'half four'. It is 'half past four'. You wouldn't say 'quarter four', so why do you say 'half four'?! 'Half four' sounds like an instruction to carry out some mental arithmetic!

Footpather

etruscanshades wrote: »

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...

An interesting one in this context is an hour.

I love regional accents and pronunciations but hate ones that have just been picked up from the TV, arksed, for instance.

Literally, basically, like, actually, amazing and stunning are now over used in everyday speech.

Something that irks me is Americanisms taking over here (they are fine in their own country though). EG cupcakes instead of buns, cookies instead of biscuits, college instead of school are a few that come to mind.

andelainedream

I think this is the first time I've read through the whole of a long thread like this and I've enjoyed it immensely. I've found at least a dozen of my pet hates already mentioned so won't repeat them, but just wondered if anyone else had considered why we get so hot under the collar about it all? I know there's the view that the language should remain unchanged but I don't completely share that perspective; I think the problem may be that if we have been well taught in a certain way, then every time something 'incorrect' is heard on the radio, T.V. or in conversation our brains are immediately and automatically alert to it, thereby interfering with our focus on the subject matter to which we would prefer to be attending. So annoying it makes us shout at the radio/T.V. or bite our tongues but forever remember that 'so and so' can't pronounce something or other.

Would somebody please respond to the vexed question of text/texted for the past tense? I would have thought it should be 'texted' but I've heard people I'd consider to be reasonably articulate use 'text'. Do you think it's just that they watch Eastenders too often?

I'm also a little saddened to note that for some people it no longer seems to be the norm to look in a dictionary to check how to spell and/or pronounce a word correctly, but rather to express a firm view based solely on what they have heard in conversation. What have schools been doing?

building_with_lego

God, I love this thread!

Here are a few gripes from my mother:

A current Government Minister says' nucular' when talking about the difficulties in Japan. Listen out for it!

I once read in an estate agent's house for sale ad, 'there is a supermarket literally on the doorstep' . I was only the proofreader so couldn't change it. It was on the night shift and it would have been so good to ring him to ask if that was what he really meant!

I hate the use of 'everyday' instead of 'every day'. They have completely different meanings.

Also the use of a noun as an adjective in the phrase 'women bishops'. It should be 'female'

samizdat

building_with_lego wrote: »

Also the use of a noun as an adjective in the phrase 'women bishops'. It should be 'female'

What about "female suffrage"?

andelainedream

building_with_lego wrote: »

God, I love this thread!

Here are a few gripes from my mother:

A current Government Minister says' nucular' when talking about the difficulties in Japan. Listen out for it!

I'm with your mother on this - I've heard that Minister too and couldn't believe what I'd heard until it had been repeated a few times. Awful.

gordikin

I've just saw an advert in Morrisons small ad. board.

For Sale: Dinning table and chairs. Is it a loud colour I wonder?