The Fascinating Thing about Language...
Do you groan when you hear certain words or expressions used on the TV or in conversation? This month we asked a group of colleagues - English, French and German speakers - to tell us which ones are guaranteed to make them cringe or which give them problems!
Martyn:
Oh, where to start? The old potboilers like misplaced apostrophes, ubiquitous commas and the inability to distinguish between 'your' and 'you're' obviously get on my wick, but neither of those suggestions are very original, are they?
Here are 5 'off the beaten track' English errors that reeeaaallly annoy me:
1) The use of the word 'literally' instead of 'figuratively'. Example: "As we approach the end of the game, the Scotland players are literally dead on their feet". Interesting image.
2) The contagious disease of mixing up preterite and perfect tenses that is especially prevalent in Scotland (or in the East of Scotland, at least), like "I've went to Spain ", "We've did that already" and "They've came up the road". Also manifests itself in the 'past participle only' strain, i.e. "I seen that film".
3) Less and fewer. For example, one can eat fewer chocolates, but one can drink less wine. One cannot eat less chocolates and fewer wine. This error is so widespread that it's beyond saving, I'm afraid...
4) Nouns that are turned into verbs by people with limited vocabularies. You can blame the Americans all you like, but no-one's forcing British people to ask "How does that impact on our results?"
5) The morphing of 'lax' and 'lackadaisical' into the non-existent 'laxadaisical'.
And here are a few in French for good measure:
1) 'Made in France' translations of English words, i.e. 'Recordman' (Record-holder), 'Rugbyman' ( Rugby player), 'Lifting' (Face-lift).
2) The mixing-up of 'il faut' and 'il vaut', something that you hear more and more in France . I even heard "il faut mieux rester ici" last time I was over there, which doesn't really mean anything...
3) Metz. The name of this town is a homophone of the English word 'mess' (hence the term 'messins', i.e. from Metz), but many French people insist on rhyming it with 'bets'.
Annika:
I hate it when people write "could of/would of" instead of "could have/would have"... Literally, drives me NUTS!
Karen:
Example: "I've said I won't have a pudding this evening, the reason being is that I've had enough to eat already." Aggghhh! (and no, my horror is not provoked by the unthinkable idea of turning down pudding....) That extra "is" really hurts my ear every time I hear it used in this context - as it frequently is. Listen out for it yourself and see how often someone says blithely "and the reason being is that," - and then be bold enough to tell them to drop the "is"....
Alain:
Two of my English (linguistic!!!) pet hates:
Just like the rules of cricket, which have been explained many times while I was concentrating hard, I still can't differentiate these two words and use one for the other all the time: "Definitely" and "Definitively"!
Absolument !
Another couple of words I get confused with in terms of spelling, rather than meaning are: "which" and witch". Actually, I probably pronounce them exactly the same way too!!!
Which ... mmm... yep it's correct... reminds me of story I had with my mother in law when I started to date her daughter: when I met her (the mum) for the first time, I told her I would shortly send her pictures of her daughter. I did it and in my email I wrote: "herewith are the pictures of witch we talked about"!!! Then clicked "send" and realised my mistake. That confusion cost me a very awkward email in which I was explaining that I was talking of "the pictures about which we talked and of course not at all of a witch of any sort"!
Professional talk
Have you noticed how each profession tends to have its own set of euphemisms? Here are a few for starters - if readers have any of their own to suggest, we'd be delighted to receive them for future issues.
Politics
'A sea change" - generally means a U-turn;
"to be quite clear about this," means they won't answer the question;
"to a degree," means "I haven't got anything to say but feel I should have a go anyway"
Advertising
"to be honest," means "I've screwed up and really need your help"
"in a meeting" means "I really don't want to talk to you"
"hard working little ad "means it's absolute cr** and the client hasn't spent enough on it
"tight budget" means "you have got to be joking"
"competitive cost" means "I KNOW you can't buy this cheaper"
"presentable sales person" means HOT HOT HOT
"hard-working sales person" means telesales only
"challenging project" means no money and a client that wants the earth
And to conclude, we move to another "field" entirely, for a few farming euphemisms
"student wanted" means "I'm getting too old to do the rubbish jobs and can't afford to pay well"
"interesting crop growth" means the student has fertilised the wheat at 200 miles per hour to get to the pub early
"lambing percentage" means how good you are at keeping the little dears alive
"on top of the paperwork" means "I employ somebody else to do it" "single farm payment" means money for old rope
"looking to diversify" means last chance saloon
"planning for the future" means talking to the estate agent