Drago
Legendary Member
- Location
- Suburban Poshshire
People using historical when they mean historic. Almost as bad as them mixing up discreet and discrete.
What English expression do you hate the most?
- Thread starter gavroche
- Start date
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Gwylan
Veteran
- Location
- All at sea⛵
Think that post belongs on "Pedants4U"
Red17
Guru
- Location
- South London
Dogtrousers
Kilometre nibbler
That’s time travel.What about the hour the clocks go back
DaveReading
Don't suffer fools gladly (must try harder!)
- Location
- Reading, obvs
Yellow Fang
Legendary Member
- Location
- Reading
I am not keen on the expression, "At the end of the day." I don't hate it. It is just a bit stale and it's a lot of words for a simple meaning. Footballers used to say it. They also used to say they were "Over the moon" if they scored a goal, but they don't seem to say that any more.
Yellow Fang
Legendary Member
- Location
- Reading
I used to hate the word 'facilitate'. I wanted to use it in essays all the time. It's a bit vague, but is supposed to sound intelligent. Likewise the word 'utilise'.
Jameshow
Veteran
ebikeerwidnes
Guru
- Location
- Z’ha’dum
Yup - words that are a sylable or so longer than alternative and sound clever and important
Probably said this before but
some years ago - when I was working in a vert techy part of an IT department - my boss was reading a marketing thing from an IT supplier
normal stuff - trying to persuade us that we REALLY need their new software that would do amazing things
He hated flowery complicated trendy language used only to make thing sound more complicated and clever than they were - he was a basic Wigan lad
anyway - he started going on about this thing he was reading and how it kept using the word "Leverage"
if was some software that would - apparently - allow us to make some old software more useful
then one of the otehr managers came in and this bloke was in charge of contracts and negotiations - so he was always dealing with things like this
so my boss asked him what on Earth the word Leverage actually means
the other bloke looked at the article - which was about 4 pages of A4 long and quickly read teh main bits
he handed it back with the comment
"I think you will find that if you replace the word "Leverage" withe "Use" then it means the same thing in every case"
e.g. "if you run xxx in parallel with your existing software then it will allow you to leverage added value from the data in the existising system"
becomes
"If you run xxx at the same time as your old software then it will let you use you computer to get more information"
Leverage
DaveReading
Don't suffer fools gladly (must try harder!)
- Location
- Reading, obvs
I suspect you've misheard people saying
"In the cold light of day"
Maybe they all had a cold.
Yellow Fang
Legendary Member
- Location
- Reading
'Misogyny'. When I started to hear this word I looked up its meaning. It meant a hatred of women. But people kept using it as a trendier word for sexism, because they hadn't looked it up in the dictionary. The thing is one can be a male, chauvinist pig and still not actually hate women. Most men in history have held views that could be considered sexist, but that does not mean they actually hated women. So, what should I think the word means now: the meaning I looked up in the dictionary, or what I think other people think it means?
matticus
Guru
Yes. Now the following reply should really be in NACA, but I'll take a chance anyway:
This is usually done to make someone sound as bad as possible - which in turn makes the speaker sound as virtuous ("right on" in 80s speak) as possible.
Sexist is sometimes also used in this way; if an unpopular man says something un-PC, or maybe patronises a woman, he might be described as "sexist" just to denigrate him as much as possible. Even if he wasn't matching the real dictionary definition.
Profpointy
Legendary Member
Whilst that may be technically correct up to a point, a lot of today's sexism is pretty much indistinguishable from outright misogyny whereas back in the day it might be argued that most men were sexist but only a subset might have been out and out misogynists.
I should caveat this that I'm a bloke so my own experience of changing times is limited to what I've seen rather been a victim of.
Also have tried to keep to the meaning of words rather than a starting a debate for the ghetto
N0bodyOfTheGoat
Active Member
- Location
- Hampshire, UK
"When it's gone, it's gone!"
No kidding Sherlock.
No kidding Sherlock.
