Paid Members air_raid Posted September 15, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted September 15, 2020 On 9/13/2020 at 10:51 PM, Chest Rockwell said: Complaining about Americanisms. It's really tedious. Not just you and other people in this thread.. Just generally. Does “my bad” count? Awful baby talk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted September 15, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted September 15, 2020 Along similar lines, and I can't really justify this as I know it's just how language grows and develops, but people using new trendy phrases - usually learned off TV or fucking adverts - for things that we have perfectly good words for. It doesn't "bring joy", it makes you happy. You're not "loving it", you love it. It's not a "life hack", it's advice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr_Danger Posted September 15, 2020 Share Posted September 15, 2020 Oh man, some of you should never ever go near teeny bopping YouTube channel 123Go! Americanisms’ and trendy catchphrases off the chart yo. All whilst teaching kids how to use Stanley knives and super strong glue to concoct some mad invention that will help them eat sweets in class or cheat on tests. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 15, 2020 Share Posted September 15, 2020 One that's maybe a bit insensitive to criticise but always sounds corny to me is "rest in power," used as a sign of extra respect for the recently deceased. I do understand the desire to express the fact they contributed significantly more in their life than the average person and deserve to be remembered for it, but the choice of phrase itself just makes me cringe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Coconut Posted September 15, 2020 Share Posted September 15, 2020 50 minutes ago, BomberPat said: It's not a "life hack", it's advice. It was a top tip in my day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members air_raid Posted September 15, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted September 15, 2020 I grew up on the Beano so I learned most of my “life hacks” from Roger’s Dodge books. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr_Danger Posted September 15, 2020 Share Posted September 15, 2020 The use of emojis to express what should be and often is genuine sadness/grief. Nothing says love and respect for a lost love one more than a crying cartoon face. Having experienced some of the most gut wrenching grief imaginable I can’t fathom how anyone could start writing something to let people know a close loved one has died only to drop down on to the emoji menu and select multiple emojis. There’s no going back, humans are broken. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Carbomb Posted September 15, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted September 15, 2020 (edited) 1 hour ago, BomberPat said: Along similar lines, and I can't really justify this as I know it's just how language grows and develops, but people using new trendy phrases - usually learned off TV or fucking adverts - for things that we have perfectly good words for. It doesn't "bring joy", it makes you happy. You're not "loving it", you love it. It's not a "life hack", it's advice. We absolutely do need to take language change into account; when it comes to stuff like the gap between American English and British English, I'm pretty much with David Mitchell on this - it's all fine, except for "I could care less", and, for me personally, when instead of "if you had such-and-such, this would have happened" they say "if you would have such-and-such", but it's all minor stuff. I get the impression that British people using American English annoys people because it come across as affected and wannabe-ish, but there are Americans using words like "shag" and "wank" now, so whatever. I'd say more crimes are committed against English by our own. @air_raid pretty much nailed it as regards the OED formally recognising, through sheer force of misuse, that "literally" could mean "figuratively", that it's a ridiculous move because we simply don't have another expression for "literally". We have re-phrases like "in a literal sense", or "in literal terms", etc., but they're all clunky and don't immediately come to mind. Also, whilst language change is an important factor, there also have to be some lines drawn somewhere, and the job of institutions like the OED is to point out when people are misusing language, not give way just because people are doing it in significant numbers. If that's how they intend to do things, we may as well just stick "would of/could of/should of" in there and be done with it. Only other thing that bugs me is the Whedon-speak that often pops up, like the word "judgey" instead of "judgmental". Just something annoying about it. EDIT: One thing I like about American English is that they more frequently use "z" in words like "emphasize", etc., I know it's not a hard-and-fast rule that we don't use it in British English, and I know that even with the French-based rule we're supposed to use "z" for certain words because they're from Greek and not Latin ("emphasize" actually being a case in point), so I guess there's nothing really stopping us, except the psychological jarring of seeing the red line appear under the word when you're using a UK dictionary. Edited September 15, 2020 by Carbomb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cobra_gordo Posted September 15, 2020 Share Posted September 15, 2020 6 minutes ago, Mr_Danger said: The use of emojis to express what should be and often is genuine sadness/grief. Nothing says love and respect for a lost love one more than a crying cartoon face. Having experienced some of the most gut wrenching grief imaginable I can’t fathom how anyone could start writing something to let people know a close loved one has died only to drop down on to the emoji menu and select multiple emojis. There’s no going back, humans are broken. I can sort of see why folk would use an emoji though. There's plenty of people on my social media that I'm not super close with or that I've even met and I'd assume most people's friends lists on Facebook and such are similar. It's not always easy to put feelings in to words online and if they're not a friend you could ring or send a private message to I can imagine for some that commenting a heart emoji or whatever is at least showing you give a shit without awkwardly hashing out a comment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperBacon Posted September 15, 2020 Share Posted September 15, 2020 5 minutes ago, Mr_Danger said: The use of emojis to express what should be and often is genuine sadness/grief. Nothing says love and respect for a lost love one more than a crying cartoon face. Having experienced some of the most gut wrenching grief imaginable I can’t fathom how anyone could start writing something to let people know a close loved one has died only to drop down on to the emoji menu and select multiple emojis. There’s no going back, humans are broken. 👏👏👏 well said! Reminds me of that excellent bit in Steven Merchant's stand up, when he's talking about 'soz' and how inappropriate it would be if say, a doctor used it on a hospital death bed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members gmoney Posted September 15, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted September 15, 2020 19 minutes ago, Carbomb said: I'd say more crimes are committed against English by our own. @air_raid pretty much nailed it as regards the OED formally recognising, through sheer force of misuse, that "literally" could mean "figuratively", that it's a ridiculous move because we simply don't have another expression for "literally". Actually, there's literally hundreds (figuratively). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted September 15, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted September 15, 2020 Someone has probably said this one already, but online job applications that require you to individually fill in all the information that's already on your CV. In the time it's taken me to apply for three jobs today I could have applied for thirty, with those three not getting any more information than they could have got from my CV in the first place. Complete waste of time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CavemanLynn Posted September 15, 2020 Share Posted September 15, 2020 32 minutes ago, BomberPat said: Someone has probably said this one already, but online job applications that require you to individually fill in all the information that's already on your CV. In the time it's taken me to apply for three jobs today I could have applied for thirty, with those three not getting any more information than they could have got from my CV in the first place. Complete waste of time. Especially when they ask you to attach your CV on the first page. It feels like that's part of the interview process. It's as if being able to regurgitate/duplicate work unnecessarily is a key skill for the role; either that or if you can gut out retyping everything in whatever ghetto Winforms template they've deployed online, then you must REALLY want the role. It also dumps on the idea that your CV has to be well-presented and eye-catching in order to get past the first post. Mind you, it's probably because it'll take whatever system they've got a few seconds to keyword-search a massive database of crap whereas it'll take a human a few seconds more to skim the first page of a CV and decide whether to bin it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted September 15, 2020 Paid Members Share Posted September 15, 2020 13 minutes ago, CavemanLynn said: it's probably because it'll take whatever system they've got a few seconds to keyword-search a massive database of crap whereas it'll take a human a few seconds more to skim the first page of a CV and decide whether to bin it. Bingo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Houchen Posted September 15, 2020 Share Posted September 15, 2020 One that fucks me off is how nobody lies anymore, they’re gaslighting. They are two different things! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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