Not nice

"Irregardless"...

And the recent practice of starting every sentence with "So..."

There was an episode of "I Love Lucy" where they booked some English/Elocution lessons (or something). 

The chap said:

"There are two modern words which you should never use. One is swell and the other is lousy."

Lucy:

"Ooh, ooh - what's the lousy one?"

"You Americans keep adding 'like' to your sentences in appropriate places. Can you say one sentence without 'like'?" "I don't like you"

'Repurposing' is doing the rounds at work just now.  A horrible word indeed.

I'd forgotten that (my) teachers had outlawed 'nice' too....!  G

from the youth of today

INNIT

My English teacher told us, if at all possible, to avoid using the word "got".  It is rarely necessary.  e.g.  "I have got a book on astronomy" never sounds as sweet to me as "I have a book on astronomy."

But then I am of retirement age and also mourn the passing of the dative case and conditional tense in English.

Don

Sunny downtown York.

Is the definition of nice about to change again?  Apparently nice has had more meanings than most other words in the English language.  In early English it meant stupid or simpleminded. In the 14th century it was wanton or lascivious. In the next century it turned into shy or refined. By the 16th it was fastidious or tasteful and only fully evolved into its present definition in the mid 18th century. Where next for this nice word?

lovely - speaking with an Italian waiter in Rome. He mentioned noticing that anything not truly hideous is described by English people as 'lovely'.

Lots of Corporate-Speak can be really annoying; "I'll reach out to you and we can take this discussion offline and determine a way forward for this repurposing plan."  Especially when the speakers think they are so erudite for using it.

Positively mawkish.

I was going to mention 'really,really' but you beat me to it. 

I wrote this in a report once 'leveraging the accumulated knowledge capital of a newly empowered workforce' just to get a promotion - I have never quite lived down the shame - there ought to be limits to what one will do to get on in the world. 

"Surreal" gets a fair old pounding these days.

Also, "medal" and "podium" used as verbs in a sports context - he/she "medalled" or "podiumed" just sounds dumb to me.

'But then I am of retirement age and also mourn the passing of the dative case and conditional tense in English.'

If you hadn't written that I wouldn't be thinking of mourning the passing of the subjunctive - could I but remember it.

Don, now overcast downtown York.  I had better close the windows lest the weather further deteriorate.

+1

steve

The creeping Americanisation of British English.

EG - airplane, color, theater, etc.

steve

Unitilite? 

...and 'random' why is everything random these days? 

I can't stand hearing 'can I get a latte' or 'can I get a coffee and doughnut (donut?) to go' or how about 'that was kind of like so really really random'. 

People who give a $h!+ about this stuff. Don't sweat the small stuff.

My boss said we need more 'Blue Sky Thinking'

I told him we are on the night-shift

He was probably getting "blue sky thinking" confused with "day-dreaming"

Cheers

Don

Sniper beat me to the 'Can I get a coffee?'  No, but I can get it for you.

The liberal use of 'literally' winds me up.

My other pet hate is 'I got it off Fred'. No, you got it from Fred.

Winky

Unfortunately the small stuff leads to the big stuff.  There's a lady in my office who murders every sentence that comes out of her mouth.  She gets every possible bit of standard English grammar wrong.  What hope do her kids have of ever getting this right?  And she's not an isolated example, it's so common.  At times I feel like I'm the only person that says 'you were' instead of 'you was'.  Arghhhh!

Gavin

So we're all against the buzzword of the day and use of platitudes instead of the Queen's English to express ourselves. How nice!

(Doh! Wrong thread)

Cheers,

EJ