h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Trousis. Skelington. These cause anguish.

'Vicious cycle' is how they say it in the US. Perhaps it's an example of creeping Americanisation rather than poor English usage.

Aah, the new, more mellow SoRB.

To be fair, there's hardly a midge's bawhair between 'could of' and 'could've'. I think 'axe' is from afro-american speech. It kind of annoys me too, that people talk mangled s***e 'cos they think Americans are cool.

"the new, more mellow SoRB"

Ah, yes. Not more mellow. More ME. The real me. And the real me is really hacked off by this stuff.

"there's hardly a midge's bawhair between 'could of' and 'could've'."

Midge's bawhair??? Great phrase.

You're right - in SPOKEN English. But if you WRITE that you show that you don't, in fact, even know what it is you're saying. It implies that you think "could of" is correct, when in fact it's meaningless. It only annoys me a bit, because it's (one assumes) *accidental* ignorance, rather than the deliberate, wilful ignorance of saying "axe" when one is perfectly well aware that the word is "ask".

More gripes:

Euphemistic non-swear-words: "oh sh...ugar", "f*ckrying out loud", "bar steward", etc.

The management-speak verbing of nouns: "I was tasked with...", "Can you action..." etc.

Asking a question and then *immediately* following up with the answer that you want to hear: "Have you tidied up the storeroom, yeah?"

And finally (for now) a phrase I think I've only heard over the last ten years or so, which I hear (and indeed probably say) all the time now:

"How [adjective] is that?", as a way to say "That is [adjective]."

E.g. "The Batmobile in the new Batman movie is a totally real, custom built machine, and they let Christian Bale drive one to the premiere. How cool is that?"
"Yeah, and he crashed it, how unlucky is that?"
"Your boyfriend speaks Klingon? How sad is that?"

etc.

SoRB

A construction I am hearing more and more often: "I'm going to the store. Do you want to come with?" "I've got an umbrella here somewhere. Do you want me to bring with?"

At first, this made me grit my teeth and say, "Come... with... ME... bring... IT... with... ME... argghhh...." The more I hear it, though, the more "natural" it sounds. I suppose I'll be using it myself one of these decades. Ugh.

Indigo S.

The annoying part of that to me is that it's not a store but a shop, where you go shopping. The store's the bid out back where they store things.

I've never seen anyone *write* 'could of'. I guess I'm just lucky that way.

And I've noticed I use 'I guess' instead of 'I suppose' all the time. I guess that's an Americanism I quite like.

'Do you want me to come with?' also grates for me.

Meanwhile, the distinction between 'shop' and 'store' isn't really an issue as we now have 'department stores' in all countries. I always think of a 'shop' as being an independently run place rather than a chain operation. Which would be a store.

And I have always mixed up 'vicious circle' and 'vicious cycle', though usually use the former.

As for 'could of, should of', etc, I have to teach my students here (in Spain) *not* to say 'I could HAVE done that' and to say instead 'I could've done that', because that is how people talk. My brothers (none of them great readers) tend to also spell it 'could of'. And, well, so? I know what they mean. They aren't interested in becoming experts in grammar. So WTF.

My father, born and bred in Newfoundland, used to pronounce butter Bu'her and water Wa'er and carrots Caahrts - just a small sampling of the often wonderfully bizarre way Newfies pronounce stuff.

Though where the heck 'sangwich' comes from is anybody's guess.

And I use 'guess' and 'suppose' interchangably. I believe they have come to mean the same thing in North American English.

If you say 'picture' and 'pitcher' quickly I think they sound very similar.

Also wondering why so many Brits find so-called 'Americanisms' ugly when many of the older ones are actually old English expressions. As are the pronunciations.

To say that language is 'devolving' is just being overly pedantic, imho. How can language 'devolve' if new words and expressions are constantly being introduced and used? Okay, you may not like some of the new stuff, but I doubt the Victorians did either, in their day. It turns out that some people just don't like change. The thing is, you cannot stop language from evolving, changing, refecting the time it lives in - because it *is* a living thing.


az

<<"How [adjective] is that?", as a way to say "That is [adjective].">>

I think that comes under the category of rhetorical questions.

Anyway, while we're griping:

Bought and brought: How difficult can it be to distingush between these words? I'm fed up of hearing people say "I went down the shop and brought some new shoes."

Which brings me neatly on to the misuse of 'down', to me 'going down' is not something associated with travel.

Shop/store is also an Americanism. Everyone here (Texas) goes to the store, whether it's a tiny shop run by one person, or Wal*Mart, and whther they're going to one shop or many. I grew up (in London) saying 'I'm going to the shops' (plural) or their location (street, area), unless I was going to one shop, in which case I would say 'I'm going to the sweet/toy/whatever shop'.

"Bought and brought: How difficult can it be to distingush between these words? I'm fed up of hearing people say "I went down the shop and brought some new shoes.""

And I'm fed up with people being 'fed up of' something

True - in the US and Canada they will call it the 'corner store' not the 'shop on the corner'.

So?

az

'I've brought some new shoes'????

Have never heard this all in my life. How bizarre.


az

"So?"

So... what?

I have so never heard that expression either

<>

<<So... what? >>

Oh, just SO? in the sense of - what difference does it make? Are people confused if someone says store instead of shop, or viceversa? I don't think so.

If you go to M&S in the UK does this still count as 'going to the shops'? Hardly a shop, is it? It's a massive department store.


az

I usuually refer to 'Games Workshop Hobby Centres' (as the company insists on calling them nowadays) as 'Games Workshop Stores' because 'Games Workshop Shop' sounds stupid.

azahar - someone mentioned that people now say 'store' when they mean 'shop'. I pointed out that it's an Americanism. End of story - there's no 'what difference does it make' about it, it's an observation.