Words we could do without

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  • Amanda B ReckondwythAmanda B Reckondwyth Mystery Worship Editor
    Pigwidgeon wrote: »
    Starting a sentence (or, worse, a paragraph) with the word "So" is a practice I could certainly do without.
    "So let it be written . . . so let it be done!"

    As for using nouns as verbs . . . there's a commercial for a certain over-the-counter concoction that's supposed to improve one's memory that begins: "Do you want to brain better?"

    I cringe whenever I hear that one. Especially because as kids we used "brain" as a verb to mean "knock over the head." "Stop showing those stupid commercials or I'm going to brain you!"
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    HarryCH wrote: »
    I am always irritated by "where is it at".

    Dialect where I live is 'Where's it to?'

  • "It's a big ask..." A big what?
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    Heh, I like 'a big ask'. It's colloquial and originally Australian, and it's abundantly clear what it means. I prefer it to 'a tall order,' which just has me visualising a very tall glass of some alcoholic beverage!
  • The problem comes when you lose your hearing and miss the final consonant...
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    The problem comes when you lose your hearing and miss the final consonant...

    … well that’s what they tell you when you react! :mrgreen:
  • The use of the word gift as a verb. No, you give a gift.
  • finelinefineline Kerygmania Host, 8th Day Host
    Yes, that is the argument people were giving. Except that gift has been used as a verb since the 1600s, and plenty of words double up as both a noun and verb, even when they have another verb version. The English language has an abundance of such occurrences, but people are quite choosy with which they decide are acceptable, and the criteria for unacceptable tends to be 'I haven't heard this before in my lifetime.'
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    HarryCH wrote: »
    I am always irritated by "where is it at".
    I’m afraid you’d be driven to distraction, or perhaps heavy drinking, in the American South. “Where’s is at?” and similar constructions are very common in these parts.

    As for me, I don’t care how accepted it is, I just can’t use “impact” as a verb.

  • Oh yes! "Impact" may be a verb, but it shouldn't be.
  • Stercus TauriStercus Tauri Shipmate
    edited May 2020
    Among the more vile atrocities is 'ask' used as a noun, as in "That was a big ask!". Just today a headline in the Washington Post was as bad: "Trump’s rage at a Fox News anchor contains a key tell."

    While I'm ranting, what is, or ever has been, wrong with 'normality'? 'Normalcy' is ugly and unnecessary.

    Edit: Too grumpy to have noticed I was beaten to 'ask' back a few posts..
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    Just today a headline in the Washington Post was as bad: "Trump’s rage at a Fox News anchor contains a key tell."
    As in a poker tell, I’m guessing?

  • Oh yes! "Impact" may be a verb, but it shouldn't be.

    And it's derived adjective impactful.

    In Australian politics, it seems we first brought the word incentivisation to prominence.
  • Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Just today a headline in the Washington Post was as bad: "Trump’s rage at a Fox News anchor contains a key tell."
    As in a poker tell, I’m guessing?

    Interesting - I had no idea!
  • I hadn't come across "impactful" before. The horror....
  • Try "impactive".
  • Penny SPenny S Shipmate
    Well, I've given up complaining about "gifting" as it was plainly a lost cause. But it's filed for future complaint if necessary.
    It is interesting how quickly usages spread. Possibly among people who had not previously used the original. Such as the non-British pronounciation of botanical word ending in "wort" as if they were "warts", instead of part of the family of words such as "worth", "world", "work", "worse", "worst", and "word" itself.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited May 2020
    I don't quite understand how "reach out" suddenly expanded in semantic scope to encompass merely "contacting".

    I loathe "mouth watering" because it makes me feel sick, and "lip smacking" tells me I'm not going to want to be anywhere near you when you eat it. Or eat anything, probably.
  • While I don't mind the word "hilarious", if it appears in a book review I know I'm going to be bored.
  • Oh yes ... something which comes up on our community FB page from time to time (e.g. today) - "fur babies" to mean pets, usually cats. Ugh!
  • An Australian academic has just added problematised to the lexicon, in referring to our country's current difficult diplomatic relationship with China.
  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host, 8th Day Host
    fineline wrote: »
    HarryCH wrote: »
    I am always irritated by "where is it at".

    Dialect where I live is 'Where's it to?'

    Yes, "where's it to?" would be correct here. One of our typical sayings is "Stay where yer to till I comes where yer at," although in the Present Situation many have amended it to, "Stay where yer to and I won't come where yer at."

    On the topic of verbifying nouns, I try to have an open-minded and descriptive view of our fluid language, but there are some that grate on me. A major cosmetics chain opened a store in our mall and the sign in the window said, "Let's Beauty Together!"

    No, please, let's not.
  • CaissaCaissa Shipmate
    "Unprecedented"
  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host, 8th Day Host
    I love that one of the chapters of Catherine Fox's new Lindchester novel that she's blogging week by week (taking her characters through 2020 and its real-time events) begins: "We live in precedented times."
  • Penny S wrote: »
    Well, I've given up complaining about "gifting" as it was plainly a lost cause. But it's filed for future complaint if necessary.
    Our older daughter talks about 'regifting' unwanted presents. That seems to happen rather frequently.
  • PigwidgeonPigwidgeon Shipmate
    Trudy wrote: »
    I love that one of the chapters of Catherine Fox's new Lindchester novel that she's blogging week by week (taking her characters through 2020 and its real-time events) begins: "We live in precedented times."

    I have that one, but before reading it I decided I should re-read the earlier ones to remind me of the characters, etc.
  • Penny SPenny S Shipmate
    Now "regifting" fills a niche that did not have a word before - Tolkien referred to it in his description of mathoms, the things which were regifted, but did not, I think, have a verb for it. Regiving wouldn't quite have the same ring to it.
  • Eye-watering.
  • LandlubberLandlubber Shipmate
    "your onboarding journey" - sent in an email welcoming me after I registered as a user of a certain newspaper's website. I am looking for ways to undo my registration.
  • Penny S wrote: »
    Well, I've given up complaining about "gifting" as it was plainly a lost cause. But it's filed for future complaint if necessary.
    Our older daughter talks about 'regifting' unwanted presents. That seems to happen rather frequently.
    Could you "ungift" them if you fall out with the person who sent them?
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Circus Host, 8th Day Host
    I think the English language does lack in nuance on this front. French has a useful distinction which English doesn’t contain.

    Compare:
    Ma mère m’a donné cette robe

    And
    Ma mère m’a offert cette robe

    They both translate as ‘my mother gave me this dress’. The distinction is that in the first case, she handed on an old dress of hers that she didn’t want anymore, and the second is a new dress that she bought or made as a gift.
  • Baptist TrainfanBaptist Trainfan Shipmate
    edited May 2020
    Landlubber wrote: »
    "your onboarding journey" - sent in an email welcoming me after I registered as a user of a certain newspaper's website. I am looking for ways to undo my registration.
    Surely you wish to "disboard" or perhaps "untravel"? Or, as the Glasgow tramcar conductors were wont to say: "Cummoangetaff!"

  • But English can say, "she gave me a new dress". What's the problem?
  • "Healthy" still bugs me. It's a perfectly sensible adjective, but it's widespread use as an adverb sets my teeth on end every time.
  • Wet KipperWet Kipper Shipmate
    "Upskilling"
  • Amanda B ReckondwythAmanda B Reckondwyth Mystery Worship Editor
    edited May 2020
    But English can say, "she gave me a new dress". What's the problem?

    Or "She handed me down an old dress."

    I don't know French, but the "problem" (if it is that) would seem to be that French does not need the qualifying adjective "old" or "new". The nature of the gift is inferred from the verb.
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Circus Host, 8th Day Host
    But English can say, "she gave me a new dress". What's the problem?

    This isn't the nuance exactly. If I'm wearing it and someone asks me where I got it from I can answer in either way. English does have "it was a gift from my mother" or "it was a hand-me-down from my mother" but that's not how people talk usually.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    Well, my experience is that people would typically say “My mother gave it to me for my birthday/Christmas/whatever,” “my mother got it for me” or “it was my mother’s.”

  • This isn't the nuance exactly. If I'm wearing it and someone asks me where I got it from I can answer in either way. English does have "it was a gift from my mother" or "it was a hand-me-down from my mother" but that's not how people talk usually.

    Which do you use if your mother bought it, never wore it, and decided it would suit you better than her? Perhaps it depends on whether or not your mother snipped off the tags?
  • Gill HGill H Shipmate
    "It's a big ask..." A big what?
    . If it’s too big an ask, counter it with a big ‘but’.

  • Amanda B ReckondwythAmanda B Reckondwyth Mystery Worship Editor
    But don't let your thought processes get behind.
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    Ones I don't like,
    - 'in excess of' - No. it's 'over' or 'more than'.
    - the use of 'gift' as a verb.
    - the construction from that of 'giftings' to mean talents, particularly popular in church circles.
    - the usage of 'intentional' in phrases like an 'intentional meeting' or an 'intentional community'.
    - 'meaningful'. It should be an unnecessary word. It should only be the absence of meaning that one needs to notice or comment on. Also, it's appearance is usually a sign of its absence.

    I'm relieved to say I've never heard 'uptick' or 'unsuccessful'.
  • Fawkes CatFawkes Cat Shipmate
    Enoch wrote: »

    (...) I've never heard (...) 'unsuccessful'.

    Really?

    A little googling offers
    Historian: an unsuccessful novelist.
    To judge between good or bad, between successful and unsuccessful would take the eye of a God.
    (OK, that one's probably in translation, but still...)

    I've been making bronze sculptures for a long time. My sculptures are wholly unsuccessful and uncommercial. No one is even the remotest bit interested in them. So it's almost like my hobby.

  • rhubarbrhubarb Shipmate
    Some expressions that irritate me:
    • have a listen to instead of listen to
    • have a look at instead of look at
    • bunches of (politicians, whales, dogs, ideas, cars etc etc) Why has the proper collective disappeared and has been replaced by a word that used to be reserved for groups of flowers, carrots etc?
    • Returned back.
    • Passed away, fell asleep, instead of died
  • Amanda B ReckondwythAmanda B Reckondwyth Mystery Worship Editor
    rhubarb wrote: »
    Passed away . . . instead of died

    Or worse still, simply "passed." Passed what? An exam? Another motorist?
  • balaambalaam Shipmate
    Enoch wrote: »
    Ones I don't like,
    - the use of 'gift' as a verb.
    - the construction from that of 'giftings' ...

    Take a noun, use it as a verb, add -ing to make it a noun again. Full circle.

    :frowning:
  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host, 8th Day Host
    rhubarb wrote: »
    Passed away . . . instead of died

    Or worse still, simply "passed." Passed what? An exam? Another motorist?

    I've decided to reconcile myself to that euphemism by imagining that all of life was a long and difficult exam, and the person being discussed has finally passed. Good for them.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    Trudy wrote: »
    rhubarb wrote: »
    Passed away . . . instead of died

    Or worse still, simply "passed." Passed what? An exam? Another motorist?

    I've decided to reconcile myself to that euphemism by imagining that all of life was a long and difficult exam, and the person being discussed has finally passed. Good for them.
    :lol:

  • I think that "pass" is a Caribbean, or possibly African, usage which has become mainstream.

    When I conduct funerals I make a point of using the word "died" at least once.
  • 'Raft', as in 'a large amount of...'

    Example - a whole raft of new laws...
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