Word Usage

HarryCHHarryCH Shipmate
This is intended to provide a place for friendly discussion of word usage.

Let's start with 'further' versus 'farther' and 'affect' versus 'effect'.
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Comments

  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    I saw a new-to-me explanation of the difference between "affect" and "effect" the other day:

    Affect: Fuck around
    Effect: Find out
  • ArethosemyfeetArethosemyfeet Shipmate, Heaven Host
    Ruth wrote: »
    I saw a new-to-me explanation of the difference between "affect" and "effect" the other day:

    Affect: Fuck around
    Effect: Find out

    But you can also effect the fucking around.
  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    It depends on whether you're talking about the verbs or the nouns. The English language being as consistent and logical as it is, if you affect something you have an effect on it. But if you effect something then that something is the effect.
    Affects (n) meanwhile are something else entirely although they can be the effects of an emotional situation.
  • betjemaniacbetjemaniac Shipmate
    Can we discuss ‘lay’ - as in ‘I’m going for a lay down’? It is suddenly absolutely everywhere, like the word ‘lie’ has been deleted from people’s memories.
  • betjemaniacbetjemaniac Shipmate
    Which may well be usual overseas, but is endemic now in England in a way that it just wasn’t 10 years ago
  • mousethiefmousethief Shipmate
    Can we discuss ‘lay’ - as in ‘I’m going for a lay down’? It is suddenly absolutely everywhere, like the word ‘lie’ has been deleted from people’s memories.

    No lie?
  • Baptist TrainfanBaptist Trainfan Shipmate
    edited May 17
    I'd only ever go for a lie-down. Or some shut-eye. Or forty winks.
  • One mistake I often hear is the wrong use of "understate" - as in "it's impossible to understate the effect this new policy will have". They of course mean "overstate".

    Also the difference between "tortuous" and "torturous" as in "We took a torturous path to the summit". That may well have been true, but it probably wasn't what you meant!
  • A regular annoyance - and I even wrote a grumpy old man email to the BBC about it the other day - is the use of 'invite' as a noun.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    A regular annoyance - and I even wrote a grumpy old man email to the BBC about it the other day - is the use of 'invite' as a noun.
    It’s a usage attested to in the mid-17th Century: “Bishop Cranmer . . . gives him an earnest invite to England.” The Alliance of Divine Offices, Hamon L'Estrange (1659). There’s also this from Frances (Fanny) Burney (1778): “Every body bowed, & accepted the invite but me . . . for I have no notion of snapping at invites from the Great.”

    Not that I can say anything; I cringe at impact and gift as verbs. As Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes, not John) said, “versing weirds language.”


  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    Typo, I think. “Verbing weirds language.”
  • RockyRogerRockyRoger Shipmate
    edited May 17
    One particular gripe of mine is the use of 'enormity' when the meaning is 'big' .... like really big.
    Tangent: Mrs RR always has 'forty blinks'. And hurrah for 'Calvin and Hobbes' of fond memory.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    BroJames wrote: »
    Typo, I think. “Verbing weirds language.”
    Ack! Yes, either a typo or unnoticed autocorrect. (I just tried typing “verbing” again and autocorrect wanted to change it to “Vernon.”)


  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    The fact that English is so good at verbing nouns is one of its creative strengths.

    I personally am trying to introduce some words from Meaning of Liff - Peoria (fear of preparing too few potatoes), Worples (white blobs in tea when the milk isn't quite fresh) and its adjective Worply are all in regular use chez nous.

    I leave you with the observation that "niche" is how Sean Connery refers to his sister's daughter, and that a "crêche" is a collision between two motor vehicles in Sithe Kensington. And that in Newcastle upon Tyne you can get a £100 fine for smirking on a bus.
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    Scene : a coal mine near Newcastle.

    Miner: 'One of the lads has had a terrible accident!'
    Manager: 'Can he walk?'
    Miner: 'Walk? He cannae even wack!'
  • PriscillaPriscilla Shipmate
    The use of unique. - surely it means the one and only, not just the type, but on a number of tv programmes it’s used in the wrong way.
  • betjemaniacbetjemaniac Shipmate
    Firenze wrote: »
    Scene : a coal mine near Newcastle.

    Miner: 'One of the lads has had a terrible accident!'
    Manager: 'Can he walk?'
    Miner: 'Walk? He cannae even wack!'

    Best chant in British sport, used in rugby league against supporters of Hull FC and Hull Kingston Rovers:

    ‘Wern verl, yer’ve ernly gert wern verl’
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    Priscilla wrote: »
    The use of unique. - surely it means the one and only, not just the type, but on a number of tv programmes it’s used in the wrong way.
    According to dictionaries I’ve consulted, “one and only” is only one meaning of unique. It can also mean being without a like or equal; distinctively characteristic; able to be distinguished from all others of its class or type; or unusual. Those other usages date back at least to the 19th C.


  • Now... “one and only” leads my easily irritated mind straight into "each and every"; a phrase used by a good minister friend at least once in every service in his welcome and his prayers. It seems to me that "each one of us/you" or just "everyone" would serve the purpose.

    I am constantly annoyed by small things that don't really matter and may not even be wrong - another symptom of aging ungracefully.
  • HarryCHHarryCH Shipmate
    I especially dislike the use of "more unique", as unique is an absolute. I can tolerate "unique in this fashion".
  • TwangistTwangist Shipmate
    My bugbear is "intentional" what's wrong with "deliberate "?
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    Twangist wrote: »
    My bugbear is "intentional" what's wrong with "deliberate "?
    I’d say they have slightly different meanings, “intentional” having more to do with why you do something (an action is done with purpose), and “deliberate” having to do with how you do something (an action carried out in a planned and considered way).

    But that aside, what’s wrong with “intentional”?


  • The_RivThe_Riv Shipmate
    edited May 20
    Can we discuss ‘lay’ - as in ‘I’m going for a lay down’? It is suddenly absolutely everywhere, like the word ‘lie’ has been deleted from people’s memories.

    Mrs The_Riv has this as a personal crusade (she's wild that way :lol:). "Lay is to put or place -- lie is to rest or recline." One can lay one's self down, however.
    HarryCH wrote: »
    I especially dislike the use of "more unique", as unique is an absolute. I can tolerate "unique in this fashion".

    There's a West Wing episode that opens along these lines -- let me see if I can find it within the edit window, and I will LAY it in here. :lol:

    Found it. From the episode "Galileo V" which includes the phrase "very unique." Enjoy!

  • SparrowSparrow Shipmate
    The_Riv wrote: »

    There's a West Wing episode that opens along these lines -- let me see if I can find it within the edit window, and I will LAY it in here. :lol:

    Found it. From the episode "Galileo V" which includes the phrase "very unique." Enjoy!

    Is that the "one take Bartlet" episode?
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    HarryCH wrote: »
    I especially dislike the use of "more unique", as unique is an absolute. I can tolerate "unique in this fashion".

    I use unique with intensifiers and comparators all the time. It just works. Some things have more profound - more significant, if you will, uniqueness than others.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    This likely reflects the ways in which I’m something of a relic—or at least the ways I can’t let go of some of the things my parents drummed into my head—but I have been reminded again how very much the use of reverend as a noun (“I asked the reverend about it”) or as a title (“Have you met Reverend Smith?”) I know it’s a losing if not a long-lost battle, at least in the States, but it has a particular ability to rouse my inner pedant.


  • HedgehogHedgehog Shipmate
    My morning paper contained a story of the ill-fated launch of a warship by North Korea (the ship capsized during the launch). Kim Jong Un was displeased and, among other things, blamed the failure on "unscientific empiricism."

    Now, I realize that that is most likely a translation of the Korean, but I confess I have spent quite some time pondering the phrase. Can empiricism be unscientific? Even if you take "empiricism" to mean something along the lines of "data collecting," and if that act of collecting was done unscientifically (such as by ignoring/overlooking contrary data points), it wouldn't really be empiricism, would it?
  • W HyattW Hyatt Shipmate
    Maybe it was "un-(scientific empiricism)"?
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    Oops! I managed to leave the verb out of the main sentence in my last post—and in a thread about word usage. Serves me right. :lol:

    Anyway, the sentence should have read: “. . . I have been reminded again how very much the use of reverend as a noun (“I asked the reverend about it”) or as a title (“Have you met Reverend Smith?”) bugs me.”


  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    I like Frederick Buechner’s line on ‘reverend’.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    edited May 23
    BroJames wrote: »
    I like Frederick Buechner’s line on ‘reverend’.
    Same here. Though in reality, I like Buechner’s thoughts on just about everything.


  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    Ditto
  • ArethosemyfeetArethosemyfeet Shipmate, Heaven Host
    Hedgehog wrote: »
    My morning paper contained a story of the ill-fated launch of a warship by North Korea (the ship capsized during the launch). Kim Jong Un was displeased and, among other things, blamed the failure on "unscientific empiricism."

    Now, I realize that that is most likely a translation of the Korean, but I confess I have spent quite some time pondering the phrase. Can empiricism be unscientific? Even if you take "empiricism" to mean something along the lines of "data collecting," and if that act of collecting was done unscientifically (such as by ignoring/overlooking contrary data points), it wouldn't really be empiricism, would it?

    Empiricism can quite often be unscientific, I would say, in that it can involve recording observations without using any underlying theory to connect or explain them. You just end up with things like ballistic tables that early artillerymen used for ranges - useful, but limited to that particular application and weapon.
  • TwangistTwangist Shipmate
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Twangist wrote: »
    My bugbear is "intentional" what's wrong with "deliberate "?
    I’d say they have slightly different meanings, “intentional” having more to do with why you do something (an action is done with purpose), and “deliberate” having to do with how you do something (an action carried out in a planned and considered way).

    But that aside, what’s wrong with “intentional”?


    I've been pondering and I think that "intentional" is often the gateway word to "business speak". It gets used and then the next thing you know nouns are getting verbed and the bs meter is recording alarmingly high readings..
    This kind of language is used to say common place, obvious or mundane things in such a way as to make the speaker appear (falsely) insightful and profound.
    "We must develop an intentional missional interface within our context" ... be nice to folk and talk to them about jesus.
    "Pursue an intentional personal discipleship mentality " .... try to remember to pray and read the bible.
    Rubs me up the wrong way. There is posing and power trips hidden behind it.
  • chrisstileschrisstiles Hell Host
    It was all the rage a few years ago in Church growth circles, where it was used as a stand in for 'we must be deliberate in doing X'
  • TwangistTwangist Shipmate
    You can sell books and conference tickets by telling folk what they already know in a fancy way...
  • SparrowSparrow Shipmate
    My current irritant is "reach out to". What's wrong with "contact"? Less syllables as well.
  • TwangistTwangist Shipmate
    Touch Base?
    Sounds a little inappropriate
  • SandemaniacSandemaniac Shipmate
    Sparrow wrote: »
    My current irritant is "reach out to". What's wrong with "contact"? Less syllables as well.

    This seems apt here.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    Twangist wrote: »
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Twangist wrote: »
    My bugbear is "intentional" what's wrong with "deliberate "?
    I’d say they have slightly different meanings, “intentional” having more to do with why you do something (an action is done with purpose), and “deliberate” having to do with how you do something (an action carried out in a planned and considered way).

    But that aside, what’s wrong with “intentional”?


    I've been pondering and I think that "intentional" is often the gateway word to "business speak". It gets used and then the next thing you know nouns are getting verbed and the bs meter is recording alarmingly high readings..
    This kind of language is used to say common place, obvious or mundane things in such a way as to make the speaker appear (falsely) insightful and profound.
    "We must develop an intentional missional interface within our context" ... be nice to folk and talk to them about jesus.
    "Pursue an intentional personal discipleship mentality " .... try to remember to pray and read the bible.
    Rubs me up the wrong way. There is posing and power trips hidden behind it.
    Ah, interesting. Thanks for that perspective; I can easily see how that would rub the wrong way.

    By contrast, the connotations that I have for intentional and deliberate aren’t related to business-speak (which I also hate), but from practicing law for three-and-a-half decades. I’m used to terms like “intentional tort” (as opposed to a “negligent tort”) or “intentional infliction of emotional distress.” I’m also used to phrases like “with intent and deliberation” or “intentionally and with deliberation.”

    And the connotations I have mean that, to me, your examples above—“be nice to folk and talk to them about Jesus” and “try to remember to pray and read the Bible”—don’t really mean quite the same thing as “be intentional about being nice to folk, talking to them about Jesus, praying and reading the Bible.” “Intentional,” to me at least, suggests more decisiveness than “try to.”

    But that’s me.

  • ArethosemyfeetArethosemyfeet Shipmate, Heaven Host
    "Intentional" to me, in a church context, means "doing something because we've thought about it and decided it's the right/best/most appropriate thing to do and not just because we've always done it".
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    "Intentional" to me, in a church context, means "doing something because we've thought about it and decided it's the right/best/most appropriate thing to do and not just because we've always done it".
    Yes, and that there’s purpose or a goal behind the decision to do it—“we’ve decided to do this in order that x will result.”

    And deliberately in that same church context would mean to me “and we’ve thought about how we should go about doing it in order to make it more likely that x will result.”


  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    The discussion of "more unique" reminds me of the preamble to the US Constitution - "In order to form a more perfect union ...." If it's good enough for the framers, it's good enough for me!
  • SparrowSparrow Shipmate
    Twangist wrote: »
    Touch Base?
    Sounds a little inappropriate

    Not in the UK.
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    Perhaps this is my age, and perhaps this doesn't drive anyone else up the wall any more, but a recent widespread misuse I encounter all the time and find both puzzling and irritating is 'I was sat outside the café when .... ' and 'I was stood waiting for my wife ... '. If they are going to be used as participles, 'sat' and 'stood' are passive. You have been made to sit or stand somewhere. In the contexts of my two examples, those should have been 'I was sitting outside the café when .... ' and 'I was standing waiting for my wife ... '. Not only do I hear this frequently but I hear it far too often from people who ought to know better.

    I agree with every criticism others have uttered about 'intentional'.

  • North East QuineNorth East Quine Purgatory Host
    edited May 25
    Enoch's post above has triggered a question.

    In Scottish Gaelic, each pronoun has an emphatic form, which doesn't exist in English. If someone has a Gaelic background, you might hear them mangle English to say something like "It was myself that was thinking that" as a way of creating an emphatic "I" in a language that doesn't have one.

    I use expressions such as "I, myself, think that ..." "He, himself, said that...." "They, themselves went to..."

    Do other Shipmates do this? Or is it, as I read recently, a Scottish usage amongst monoglot English speakers, as an ersatz emphatic pronoun? I assumed "I, myself" was standard English, but is it?

    This question came to mind because the examples of bad English given by Enoch would, I think, be grammatically correct in Gaelic.
  • RockyRogerRockyRoger Shipmate
    Enoch wrote: »
    Perhaps this is my age, and perhaps this doesn't drive anyone else up the wall any more, but a recent widespread misuse I encounter all the time and find both puzzling and irritating is 'I was sat outside the café when .... ' and 'I was stood waiting for my wife ... '. If they are going to be used as participles, 'sat' and 'stood' are passive. You have been made to sit or stand somewhere. In the contexts of my two examples, those should have been 'I was sitting outside the café when .... ' and 'I was standing waiting for my wife ... '. Not only do I hear this frequently but I hear it far too often from people who ought to know better.

    I agree with every criticism others have uttered about 'intentional'.

    I couldn't agree more. I much prefer. "I were sat outside ....".
    Oh, and 'not only' not followed by, 'but also' is one of my dislikes!
  • FirenzeFirenze Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    In Ireland I grew up with locutions such as 'There does be' for 'There is' or even 's/he does be after (participle)'

    A construction I think of as peculiar to Belfast is the 'see me' as in 'See me? See my man? See cheese? He hates it.'
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited May 25
    Enoch wrote: »
    Perhaps this is my age, and perhaps this doesn't drive anyone else up the wall any more, but a recent widespread misuse I encounter all the time and find both puzzling and irritating is 'I was sat outside the café when .... ' and 'I was stood waiting for my wife ... '. If they are going to be used as participles, 'sat' and 'stood' are passive. You have been made to sit or stand somewhere. In the contexts of my two examples, those should have been 'I was sitting outside the café when .... ' and 'I was standing waiting for my wife ... '. Not only do I hear this frequently but I hear it far too often from people who ought to know better.

    I agree with every criticism others have uttered about 'intentional'.

    Those usages are absolutely standard in this part of the world and I use them freely myself. I'm nearly 60 and have heard them all my life; they were normal for my parents' generation. Absolutely not a recent development here, and I will defend their use and take exception to your "should know better" which comes across as a sneering personal insult reeking of superiority.
  • CathscatsCathscats Shipmate
    I see that this morning the BBC news app has a headline “King’s invite to Canada sends a message to Trump”
    I am wincing and internally screaming “Invitation. The noun is invitation!”
    But I know that this is how language evolves. I once trained as an EFL teacher, and our tutor was adamant that dictionaries only tell us how a word has been used, or what it has meant, not what is correct for today…
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