Drago's English language rant #72

[Oldbloke]

Inappropriate use of "awesome" and calling electricity "leccy" .

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

 

[Drago]

So you'd never say "e.g.", you'd always say "exempli gratia"?

No, I would say " for example", for example.

 

[Tim Hall]

My personal bugbears are 'unique' used as a kind of marketing ketchup and, similarly, The in italics, as in The heating engineers. No, you're not the heating engineers; you're one of many heating engineers.

A fiver says they're plumbers or boiler technicians anyway, not engineers.

 

[marinyork]

One of our local radio presenters does this. 'Sheffield Wednesday' becomes 'Shevuld Wensdeh', 'Sheffield United' becomes 'Shevuld Uni'ed'...

Er, minus the v, some eastern sheffield accents do talk that way and have done so before you and I were born. It's just that you live in a different posher bit of the city and I have Barnsley syndrome.

 

[youngoldbloke]

Condensed rant:
Issue instead of problem, around instead of with, engage instead of involve, train station instead of railway station.

 

[CanucksTraveller]

Oh and when did "Can I get" become the default way of asking for food or drink? It's not so much the grammatical inaccuracy of it that irks me (because "can / could I have" aren't strictly correct as a request for a product either, but they were at least English in origin). It's simply not necessary to have substituted this American question, and I only noticed it for the first time maybe 5 years ago, and now it's ubiquitous, expecially in London.

Cafe server: "What would you like sir?"
Bearded hipster: "Can I get a latte to go?"

You don't really hear "Could I have", "may I have", or anything similar from anyone under about 40 now. Always "Can I get". Ugly, clumsy phrase.

 

[Tim Hall]

Oh and when did "Can I get" become the default way of asking for food or drink? It's not so much the grammatical inaccuracy of it that irks me (because "can / could I have" aren't strictly correct as a request for a product either, but they were at least English in origin). It's simply not necessary to have substituted this American question, and I only noticed it for the first time maybe 5 years ago, and now it's ubiquitous, expecially in London.

Cafe server: "What would you like sir?"
Bearded hipster: "Can I get a latte to go?"

You don't really hear "Could I have", "may I have", or anything similar from anyone under about 40 now. Always "Can I get". Ugly, clumsy phrase.

Adding "please" to the end (either end) would improve it.

 

[Tim Hall]

Dropping the letter T in words annoys me. I hear people under 30 do it mostly. Be''er(better) bu''er(butter)ma''er(matter)are a few examples. Now i expect this as the education authorities encouraged/allowed/promoted this slovenly way of talking about 20 years ago. Even those who work for the BBC use this lazy way of talking. For example one person who works for BBC Radio Lancashire continually says Ever'on when referring to the football club Everton. I pass Radio Lancashire's building quite a lot and have often thought about going into the reception and asking to see this presenter to have it out with him about his slovenly way of speaking.

A glottal stop. Or, presumably, a glo''all stop.

 

[swee'pea99]

A fiver says they're plumbers or boiler technicians anyway, not engineers.

The Logistics Specialists - a man in a van

 

[nickyboy]

Oh and when did "Can I get" become the default way of asking for food or drink? It's not so much the grammatical inaccuracy of it that irks me (because "can / could I have" aren't strictly correct as a request for a product either, but they were at least English in origin). It's simply not necessary to have substituted this American question, and I only noticed it for the first time maybe 5 years ago, and now it's ubiquitous, expecially in London.

Cafe server: "What would you like sir?"
Bearded hipster: "Can I get a latte to go?"

You don't really hear "Could I have", "may I have", or anything similar from anyone under about 40 now. Always "Can I get". Ugly, clumsy phrase.

But who cares (except you and other grammar pedants)

Person speaking can understand what they are saying

Person listening can understand what they are hearing

Language changes and evolves. Grammatical "rules" get stretched to breaking point, words get used in ways never originally envisaged. So what? It's all about being able to communicate, innit?

Language is not some beautiful, aspic preserved, thing for us to look at. It's a living, evolving thing.

 

[swansonj]

But who cares (except you and other grammar pedants).

But it's not just a relatively innocent case of pedants amusing themselves by seeing who can out-pedant the other, is it. Control of language is all tied up with control of social and power relationships and is therefore deeply political.

 

[youngoldbloke]

Oh and when did "Can I get" become the default way of asking for food or drink? It's not so much the grammatical inaccuracy of it that irks me (because "can / could I have" aren't strictly correct as a request for a product either, but they were at least English in origin). It's simply not necessary to have substituted this American question, and I only noticed it for the first time maybe 5 years ago, and now it's ubiquitous, expecially in London.

Cafe server: "What would you like sir?"
Bearded hipster: "Can I get a latte to go?"

You don't really hear "Could I have", "may I have", or anything similar from anyone under about 40 now. Always "Can I get". Ugly, clumsy phrase.

- the server should then reply: "yes, but what would you like, sir?

 

[CanucksTraveller]

But who cares (except you and other grammar pedants)

Person speaking can understand what they are saying

Person listening can understand what they are hearing

Language changes and evolves. Grammatical "rules" get stretched to breaking point, words get used in ways never originally envisaged. So what? It's all about being able to communicate, innit?

Ah, the oft-used excuse list of those that can't spell or write (or can't be arsed)....
"I'm evolvin' the language, innit blud?"

I don't believe it needs "evolving" any further, or not in that dumbed down direction anyway. I think when something becomes dumbed down it can't really be described as evolving. Devolving, surely?
I'm not a pedant by the way, I cheerfully tolerate / overlook mistakes and we all make some. I just don't feel that I should have to tolerate really poor, primary school failure levels of English (of / have, there / their etc) from fully grown adults who claim that English is their first language in the name of "evolution". I gather that this pretty basic expectation makes me a "Grammar Nazi" in social media circles, which is another moronic phrase.

 

[Drago]

Stakeholders annoys me. Customers. We call them customers.

 

[perplexed]

Er, minus the v, some eastern sheffield accents do talk that way and have done so before you and I were born. It's just that you live in a different posher bit of the city and I have Barnsley syndrome.

I'm from the Pitsmoor/Burngreave/Fir Vale area originally, and don't recall my peers using that dialect form when I was a kid (I grew up in the 1970s, early 80s). I suspect it's more of a generational thing - the odd occasion I hear it tends to be in the over 60s, so I guess it reflects the general evolution of language.