Idiot English

An oldie at Vue?

2012-01-27T08:53:00.000-08:00

Can you move one thing and add three words to correct the sentence?

(Screengrab from myvue.com)

Brace yourselves

2011-08-27T14:11:00.000-07:00

Do you know how many a brace is? It's Two. Check the dictionary.

(Screencap is from the BBC Sport website)

Ubercorrect at the Economist

2011-08-05T18:36:00.000-07:00

"But who's nastier than whom isn't really the point here."

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/08/defusing-fiscal-risk-0?fsrc=scn%2Ftw%2Fte%2Fbl%2Fhostagetakersorterrorists

Ha Ha

Water logic

2011-08-04T10:33:00.000-07:00

So, there I was at the local swimming pool, signing our daughter up for classes, and I had to choose between "Happy" and "Starter". Well, I said, she's never had any lessons, but she's reasonably confident in the water. So then, I'm told, she should do the "Happy" classes. When I query this and suggest that perhaps she should do the beginners' class, I'm told that "Happy" is the beginners' class, and "Starter", er, isn't. I was a bit doubtful, but there on the wall was the evidence...

The future in the past

2011-08-04T09:37:00.000-07:00

At the time of writing, it's early August 2011. At the time of our trip to Ikea it was also early August 2011. So, how to explain this notice painted on the cafeteria wall? Well, I suppose we're used to this kind of language from newspaper headlines, whose syntax involves removing bits of what we'd normally say, in order to express something in as few words as possible. Thus, in "Imhotep crowned king next Tuesday" - as in "Your new restaurant completed September 2011" - we're supposed to understand that the "will be" or "is to be" or "is going to be" or "should be" or even "is supposed to be" has been omitted to save space.

Thing is, Ikea darlings, your wall isn't a newspaper. So please write proper English on it that makes normal, everyday sense. Tack.

Walkings welcome

2011-07-05T17:33:00.000-07:00

US 'hate groups' boosted by Obama

2011-07-05T17:27:00.000-07:00

Really? President Obama is boosting 'hate groups'? Ridiculous link to an important article.

globally, from Russia to Asia

2011-04-26T15:52:00.000-07:00

Some men were apparently kept at Guantanamo just for owning one of the world's most common watches. To quote the BBC:

The [Casio] F-91W [watch] instantly proved popular, not least because it was cheap and reliable. The company does not release sales figures for the watch, but says it was - and still is - a "huge seller" all over the world.

"It sells globally, from Russia to Asia," says Tim Gould, head of marketing at Casio UK. "It has consistently remained popular because it is functional, affordable and accurate. It's as simple as that."

...more than punctuation.

2011-01-27T13:39:00.000-08:00

Doesn't it?

The French (don't) have a word for it

2010-12-25T19:06:00.000-08:00

Jeremy Paxman: "A truly comparable word for 'privacy' simply does not exist in French or Italian, yet in England it is one of the country's informing principles."

1. Guess what: French is not lacking a word for 'privacy'; in fact there are two: l'intimité and le privé.

2. Even if there wasn't a close match in French for our word 'privacy', that wouldn't mean that the concept of privacy was lacking. Italians sometimes prefer to use the English word, speaking, for example, of "la mia privacy", but that says more about how they see us than about their own habits.

Not the Madras branch of Currys

2010-08-27T14:50:00.000-07:00

Spot the (spelling) mistake.

that which annoys me

2010-08-14T18:40:00.000-07:00

Carol Ann Wilson is 30% right: where there's a comma, only "which" is possible. However, where there's no comma, both "that" and "which" are correct: "The report which I sent last week will be of some help." is a fine sentence. Ignore any guide which tells you otherwise.

mightened of

2010-08-14T18:30:00.000-07:00

According to Google, there are 33 examples of "mightened of" in evidence on the Web. (I wonder how many there'll be this time next year?) Although it's pretty stupid-looking, it's forgiveable. After all, how many times have you seen the correct "mightn't've" written down? (Well, only 53 times on the Web, according to Google...) And it looks pretty stupid, too..

Blogpost at Language Log

(Update: It's now 31/8/11 and the current hit total is 114!)

Little Birmingham

2010-08-09T15:08:00.000-07:00

There's widespread coverage in the news of the murder in Pakistan of a couple from Birmingham, Gul and Begum Wazir. The BBC version states that the couple were killed in Salehana, "sometimes referred to as Little Birmingham because of its strong ties with the Pakistani community in the West Midlands." Well, that's interesting, I thought, and I proceeded to do a Google search. And guess what? A search on Salehana brings up no results except for 150 versions of this news story, plus a few people's surnames. Wherever this story originated, that journalist was given a spelling but didn't check it. Now, spellings of Pakistani placenames are variable, to be sure, but it's far from helpful to use a spelling that no-one can find on the internet.

So, how did I find the village? Luckily other news sites gave the name of the district* (Nowshera) and I was able to find this site which handily lists all the villages there. Scrolling down the list I found Saleh Khana. Bingo! The Wikipedia entry for the village is wonderful, and I've done a screencap in case they rewrite it now in a more mature manner...

*A district, not a province!

For Area 51, read Proposition 65

2010-08-08T17:30:00.000-07:00

Over at alt.usage.english, Laura posted:
While browsing the online Levenger catalogue, I noticed a footnote to a page advertising a Moleskine notebook which reads: "Prop 65 Warning for California Residents— Click here for details." Clicking took me to a pop-up window which reads:

"WARNING! This product contains a chemical known to the state ofCalifornia to cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm."

Further investiagtion reveals that all the Moleskine products offered are so annotated. I am puzzled by this, and as the owner of several Moleskine notebooks, slightly alarmed. What could the chemical be? And how dangerous could it be in a notebook? I suppose there may be a chance of small children or dogs chewing it but that seems somewhat remote.

John Dean referred Laura to the Wikipedia page for (the notorious) Proposition 65. The irony of the zealous implementation of this law being that, rather than reducing litigation, it's had the effect of creating its own little legal industry.

must of

2010-07-29T17:26:00.000-07:00

Found an old (1989) paper about "must of". Interestingly, the author says he had trouble finding examples in print, but those were pre-internet days! (Here it is in Steinbeck, and here's a virtual tome called "Must of Got Lost".)

Coates suggests that since "of" is a preposition, speakers who use it in this construction have to somehow make sense of a preposition being in this position, but I doubt it. Language is full of idiom: phrases which don't make much sense if broken down into their component parts, and it could be argued not only that "must of" is simply accepted by its users as having that function, but also that "must have" is itself by way of being an idiom.

Cupertino/eggcorn of the week

2010-07-26T14:40:00.000-07:00

"Deepening on experience"

Wikipedia info on cupertinos and eggcorns

How old?

2010-07-22T02:10:00.000-07:00

Recent discussion about the expressions "one-year anniversary" and "one-month anniversary" (neither of which is particularly exceptionable despite their registering on many newspaper readers' peevemeters) reminded me of a much weirder case: the expressions "one month year-old" and "one year year-old". These were first brought to my attention by Philip Eden in 2007, in a thread on alt.usage.english. Although the examples to be found on the BBC News website have changed, this usage is still going strong.

Here's some of what I wrote at the time:

"Week year-old", "day year-old", "hour year-old" and even "year year-old" are all out there, in all combinations of singular and plural:

Google unique hits, May 2007, UK hits in brackets
year year-old 742 (78)
month year-old 725 (149)
week year-old 167 (20)
day year-old 80 (6)
hour year-old 5 (0)

Here are some early(ish) Usenet examples. The first YYO is 2 June 1988, quoting from the Washington Post:
"Donald Gene Burleson, a 39-year-year-old Fort Worth programmer, has pleaded innocent to charges of computer sabotage and burglary..."

The first non-media example is by "JJ" on 23 February 1993: "I would envision a much more deeper feeling of loss for my 10 year year old."

The first MYO is by Hitoshi Doi on 11 June 1990: "My 8 month year old son reprogrammed ... the VCR!"

It appears that some people think that "-year(s)-old" is a set term to which the age must be added.

The current Google hit tallies for the expressions are: YYO 772, MYO 626, WYO 405, DYO 199, HYO 34. These totals don't include variants like "months year-old". There are also 513 hits for "century year-old".

Go figure.

Home found for lost apostrophe

2010-07-13T11:22:00.000-07:00

You can't quite see it, but in line with council policy, the street sign in the distance says "St Marys Row". The missing apostrophe has found its way across the road to the sign outside this bar.

Have we stopped teaching people to write properly?

2010-07-07T08:17:00.000-07:00

Iain Dale asks "Why is it that so many people in their twenties have v little understanding of English grammar or basic sentence construction? Aaaaaaagh."

He blames the education they received at school and wonders what the new government will do about it.

A local newspaper reader is angry...

2010-07-04T16:32:00.000-07:00

What is it with local-newspaper journalists? Are the courses that churn them out really so bad? Or should we blame their editors? I'm sure they must know how irritating their style is, but they won't give up. You know what I mean; take our local paper the Great Barr Observer: it can never get straight to the point. It's never "Khalid Mahmood did X", it's always "A local MP did X". It's never "Great Barr School pupils have done Y", it's always "Pupils at a local school have done Y." It's at its most farcical when there is only one possibility. So Asda becomes "a local superstore" even though Asda is the only local superstore.

Are there any local papers that eschew this indefinitism? If there are, their readers are truly blessed.

Some "unnecessary" quotation marks

2010-06-30T13:30:00.000-07:00

Seen in Shrewsbury today...

Brain affects

2010-05-30T11:10:00.000-07:00

The BBC headline is "Research to find effects on brain of bilingualism" but the link from the front page says "Bilingual brain affects research"...

Idiot Australian

2010-04-17T10:24:00.000-07:00

Putting "people" instead of "pepper"... This BBC article throws up a poor proofreader and an unsympathetic publisher.

Overnegation

2010-04-15T08:49:00.000-07:00

Spot the mistake:

"Not only didn’t he attempt to sensationalize my well known and hardly unusual views of same-sex marriage, he also inaccurately reported my views on Michael Steele as GOP chairman..."

Shh!

2010-02-14T11:20:00.000-08:00

What could the word "secret" mean here? Other than "Since you're a Myspace user you must be very stupid, so if we use the word secret it will make you so excited, your organs will seep out through the pores in your skin."

The blog of unnecessary-hyphens

2010-02-05T01:12:00.000-08:00

It's clear that few people know how to use hyphens, but I'd like to think that BBC staff had some idea. Alas, this morning their news site includes the headline:

British Airways' £50m loss smaller-than-expected

I'll add a couple more examples later. The title of this post comes from the "blog" of unnecessary quotation marks.

Situation? What situation?

2009-12-18T04:16:00.000-08:00

Over at CNN, a list of the "ten worst phrases to use at office". (I'm not sure whether "at office" is American English, or headlinese or what.) It's pretty random, but it's hard to disagree with most of it. There's a little bit of barminess at the end though, with the suggestion that we should replace the word "crisis" with "situation".

Dare I say that the results of Yougov's survey last year are more interesting and useful than the opinions of a single individual? ;-)

"Mind your Slanguage"

2009-12-09T06:04:00.000-08:00

BBC Radio has broadcast a new discussion programme about modern British slang, and you can hear it here. I doubt there's much to make a fuss about. Okay, it is a problem if kids can't express themselves in any other way, but (a) that is rarely true, since they have plenty of experience of talking to parents and teachers, and (b) once they get out into the "real world" they'll learn to speak in whatever ways are necessary in order to survive.

The suggestion that "exam results have soared as a consequence" of a "ban" on slang at a high school (Manchester Academy) can be taken with a pinch of salt.

Egress to the buildings?

2009-12-07T01:28:00.000-08:00

Blowing their imaginary trumpets

2009-12-07T01:26:00.000-08:00

Iain Dale has justifiably got the hump about "The BBC has learned..." and "Sky sources say..."

Commonly confused words #2

2009-11-05T03:53:00.000-08:00

Chaise lounge

Chaise longue

Is it?

2009-11-04T12:03:00.001-08:00

Commonly confused words #1

2009-11-01T20:57:00.000-08:00

Earphones
Headphones

"The Diploma" and other New Labour language crimes

2009-10-28T06:50:00.000-07:00

Whenever I get around to writing a guide to Idlish, a large chapter will be devoted to the inanity of the present government. New Labour seems to have no feel for the language and is happy to abuse it at every opportunity. Surprisingly (?) this trend is most noticeable in education. Grant-maintained schools were renamed "foundation" schools despite their having no foundation; many high schools have been misleadingly and confusingly rebranded as "specialist colleges"; and now they've called the new school-leaving qualifications "The Diploma", despite the fact that diplomas, unlike certificates, have traditionally normally been further-education qualifications. The pattern here is clear: take something relatively high-level and grand-sounding and misapply it to the ordinary, everyday stuff that the morons in the Government think will otherwise sound too boring.

Said intentional

2009-10-27T11:09:00.000-07:00

I'd forgotten about this piss-poor journalistic device: using "said" instead of inverted commas.

e.g.

Crash into restaurant said intentional

I know headlinese is a clipped form of the language, but it should still make sense.

via TheEmperfect

One out of three ain't bad

2009-10-25T16:39:00.000-07:00

Victoria Square, 31 August

New Street, Birmingham, yesterday

Say what?

2009-10-15T02:10:00.000-07:00

Zoe Ball says her new TV show proves "you don't have to be a genius to be Britain's best brain."

Silly Oak

2009-10-06T11:55:00.000-07:00

Spotted in Selly Oak, Birmingham...

I can just about understand the concept of a "non-fault accident" (which I guess means "non-YOUR-fault accident") but how on earth do you manage an accident??

Vorsprung durch Biscuit

2009-09-29T10:42:00.000-07:00

My wife likes Bahlsen's Choco Leibniz biscuits, so we often have some in the pantry. But their presence weighs heavy on my pedantic mind. There it is, in my home, the yellow box with its (in)famous slogan:

More chocolate than a biscuit

Eh? It should be "More chocolate than biscuit"! (They're about two-thirds choc.) I can only imagine that this slogan was the victim of hypercorrection in the seminar room.

Reactions vary...
Confused
Baffled
Misunderstanding
Encouraged
Unfazed
Happy
Believing

Interesting article about the marketing of Bahlsen biscuits, by Meiklejohn and Crane.

Thanks to Blogrot for th'ace title.

Verbal tics

2009-09-27T15:38:00.000-07:00

Most speakers, and most writers, have verbal tics. Words, phrases and patterns that they overuse. Sometimes they make us sound stupid to some people, even to ourselves. But we should go easy on each other (and on ourselves) since harping on these impediments will only make communication more difficult.

For the time being, I'm going to split these tics into two categories: fillers and cliches. Fillers are things like "um", "er", "like", "you know", and they often litter the speech of poor or inexperienced communicators. Cliches are phrases - often metaphors and other figurative expressions - that made us sound more interesting when they were original but nowadays have exactly the opposite effect. An iconic example, currently under discussion over at LL, is "at the end of the day". Americans tend to label this as typical management-speak, while here in Britain we associate it with sports people. In fact, as Mark Liberman has been seeking to demonstrate, this cliche knows no bounds - it's used by every sort of person in every register.

on Jeremy Kyle

the lovely Lauren Luke

Michael McIntyre

Daily Telegraph competition

Tim Kidwell at WSJ

the T-shirt

cartoons

phenomena

2009-09-27T15:23:00.000-07:00

Unlike a lot of peevologists, I acknowledge two things: 1. English doesn't have "rules", and 2. the English language is always changing, and will continue to change whether we like it or not.

At the same time, I do still wonder whether some things that break the non-existent rules can be made to go away. For example, people using "phenomena" to mean "phenomenon". Of course, most people who make this mistake don't realise the latter word exists, or if they do, they think it's just the same thing.

Which kind of Canute should I try to be? The one who tries to stem the flow? Or the one who knows that that would be pointless?

Calling out sick

2009-09-24T01:36:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm not against people in the NE US using the NE US dialect term "call out sick", but it suddenly seems to be spreading like the dreaded lurgy itself. C'mon people, it makes no sense! Stick to calling in sick.

Via Grammar Girl

Dan Brown...

2009-09-18T12:07:00.000-07:00

The Greatest Author of the 21st Century has a new book out. The Telegraph has thrown together a piece about the infelicities of his writing, and the comments have come flooding in. Entertaining.

Geoff Pullum's (in)famous series of articles about the execrable Mr B are referenced here.

Apostrophe abuse in Sedgley

2009-09-09T11:47:00.000-07:00

Idiot Algorithm

2009-09-05T13:50:00.000-07:00

I don't know whether you're getting the same thing, but the Google ad appearing at the top of my "Thanks" post says, and I quote:

Rear crash ratings
Huge range, low prices!
Buy rear crash ratings
www.wegbfoebjc.co.uk

?

Thank you very much indeed

2009-09-05T13:31:00.000-07:00

I'm afraid I'm one of those people whose hackles are raised when someone ends a message "Thanks in advance" but at least the poor sods who do it don't know any better. The same can't be said of the TV newsreaders, reporters and interviewers who insist on overthanking everyone they talk to. They get a guy (yes, Iain, I mean you!) into the studio to review the newspapers - not an especially onerous task, and not unpaid - and thank him as if he's agreed to say a few words after being rescued from a burning building.

Can you imagine what it would be like checking out at the supermarket if we all behaved in this way?

Assistant passes you some carrier bags.
you: "Thank you ever so much."
You hand over some money.
you: "Thank you very much indeed."
You leave.
you: "Ever so kind of you. Goodbye now."
Assistant stares after you, pityingly.

Before and after

2009-09-03T14:37:00.001-07:00

Spot the difference...

(I've still got the apostrophe in my bag somewhere.) By the way, can you see what the council is doing with all its unwanted apostrophes?!

On the waltzer

2009-09-03T14:31:00.000-07:00

Nice fair, cheap and cheery.

"Furious backlash"? Who died?

2009-09-03T02:06:00.000-07:00

The peevologists are at it again, this time in Preston. (Notice that the first person to reply to the article makes two spelling mistakes - Skitts Law in action.) Although we may not like it, councils are right to omit apostrophes from road and street signs. That way consistency lies.

Kill the Apostrophe goes too far, I think, in wanting an end to all of them, everywhere. The possessive apostrophe (John's) is unnecessary, but we probably need the omission apostrophe (we'll, don't).

Thanks to Grammar Girl for the heads-up, and to The Ridiculant for its take on this.

No uplifting

2009-09-01T14:37:00.000-07:00

A lovely bit of Idlish spotted by Adam the Plumber

Lowercase L

2009-08-30T10:03:00.000-07:00

One of IE's weirder phenomena is the way some people don't capitalise the letter L when they're writing in capitals. Its psychology is still unexplained, to me at least, and I continue to be fascinated by the collection of examples on William Levin's blog.

So I wonder whether it was an isolated incident this morning when my daughter, copying ABPLUS off a pocket torch onto a sticker, produced this:

Toilet humour

2009-08-05T17:19:00.000-07:00

Czech company Walmark brings us this potion. Although the name isn't very palatable, at least it leaves you in no doubt what the capsules are for...

Crystal-ball marketing

2009-08-04T11:25:00.000-07:00

Just got an email (dated 4 August) from Verbaudet, "Take a peek at our autumn bestsellers." Here's the body of the email.

I guess "bestseller" here means "stuff Verbaudet have bought most stock of".

Not much of an epitaph

2009-07-10T10:17:00.000-07:00

I don't mind headlinese per se, but some practitioners are better at
it than others. I was taken aback just now by this headline at BBC
News:

Botched op footballer's wife dies
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/8144551.stm

Not only is it poorly formed, its tone seems disrespectful.

I notice that their previous story on this topic had the headline:

Ex-footballer wife's health blow
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lancashire/8074102.stm

I presume the writer didn't like the look of two possessives in a
row...

appreciate of

2009-07-01T14:04:00.000-07:00

"I would appreciate of this book." comments a guy on Facebook from Dothan, Alabama.

Appreciate of? Where did that come from? I assumed, correctly, that my find wasn't a one-off. A quick Google search turned up:

If you have decided on your career objectives, we would appreciate of description of them. (Alaska)
If you have items you think we might be able to use, or if you would like to contribute your time to assist in one of the many projects we have on-going, we would appreciate of these contributions, as well. (Georgia, US)

I would appreciate of synopsis of when and how fetal cells for transplant are obtained. (unknown)
I would appreciate of any help. (Mauritius)
Some of the required data are still missing thus we would appreciate of any completion of the already available data set. (Germany)

We thought that you would appreciate of being able to read the older Samui (and beyond) news any time. (Thailand)
Stick a bird feeder or two near the pond, I'm sure the birds would appreciate of full smorgesbord of nuts and mozzies. (Devon, England)
Should contents, layouts and designs on our site harm the rights of third parties or violate legal rules and regulations we would appreciate of being informed accordingly without costs. (Germany)
i would appreciate of your responses. (Malaysia)
I would appreciate of getting readers views of their measurement needs related to downloadable media. (unknown)

There's also a suspiciously large number of instances of "would appreciate of" that clearly mean "would appreciate (it) if". I suppose these could all be typos, but perhaps there are people who actually say "of" in this context also.

Had to say it

2009-06-28T15:44:00.000-07:00

I'm sure he's a nice guy, but Shia LaBeouf is a stupid name.

How convient

2009-06-26T07:09:00.000-07:00

Sighted on the Dudley Road, here in Birmingham:

I wonder which day they were closed?

Beware: carnivorous products

2009-06-24T17:52:00.000-07:00

At least they don't eat children. (Photo taken in our local Co-op.)

Everything Possible

2009-06-24T03:56:00.000-07:00

"I spoke to Prime Minister Maliki in Iraq last night and I emphasised our determination to do everything we can to secure the release of the remaining hostages."

Not for the first time, the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has been telling us that he's doing "everything possible". Why do politicians go on generalising so blatantly, despite the fact that it's so dumb and patronising? Old habits die hard, I guess.