Phrases/words that set your teeth on edge.

[Lat-Literal]

A teenager to a shop assistant - Can I get a double cheeseburger and fries to go? Manager to shop assistants who are dawdling - Heave-ho me hearties.

(The manager was in the navy before his early retirement and employment at McDonalds, otherwise he would have said get to work and/or off you go)

(It would work better with fillet-o-fish but pronunciation in that regard would either be pretentious or ludicrous so the burger is probably a safer choice)

[P. G. Tipps]

No, because it has to be specified that it isn't just anything that you'd go to the designated person for - it has to be something within their perceived area of expertise.

(And nobody says 'Wouldn't it be...neater...in...saying...')

But somebody just might!

Surely, also, it should be 'for which you'd go to the designated person'?

Not that I am, in any way, trying to match you in the fascinating field of grammatical pedantry, you understand.

[Richard Tarleton]

(It would work better with fillet-o-fish

OT, a serious misnomer. I'd never set foot in a McDonalds until last year when we stopped in the service station on the way back from a concert in Swansea only to find the cafeteria area was now a McDonalds, so not a deliberate act. Not wanting a burger or the bun, I asked for a fillet o'fish and chips, twice. Should have known. What appeared was a small rectangle of something not unlike fish, a little bigger than a postage stamp. My last actual burger was at a branch of Isibeals, in Belfast, circa 1987, after a Rod Stewart concert at the Queen's Hall

[jean]

Surely, also, it should be 'for which you'd go to the designated person'?

Now you're just being silly.

[P. G. Tipps]

More American words and terms now widely used in the UK are 'shooter' (marksman/woman), 'conversation' (debate/discussion) and 'first responders' (emergency services).

The last one I find particularly baffling as, apart from sounding rather clumsy, it is actually less accurate and revealing than the original, perfectly adequate UK term?

[jean]

More American words and terms now widely used in the UK are 'shooter' (marksman/woman)

I'd say a more usual UK equivalent would be gunman, since shooter is the term of choice when someone with a gun has run amok and shot and killed at random.

We could use gunwoman too I suppose, but there aren't many of them.

[vinteuil]

.

... and when did "A & E" [Accident and Emergency] take over from "Casualty"?

And why??

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... and when did "A & E" [Accident and Emergency] take over from "Casualty"?
And why??

Not sure when, but it's quite some time ago - possibly because "Casualties" in news reports has become synonymous with "deaths" ... ?

[Serial_Apologist]

More American words and terms now widely used in the UK are 'shooter' (marksman/woman), 'conversation' (debate/discussion) and 'first responders' (emergency services).

The last one in particular I find particularly baffling as, apart from sounding rather clumsy, it is actually less accurate and revealing than the original, perfectly adequate UK term?

'Conversation' is government code these days for insoluble problems: e.g. 'we're having conversations' about the situation of hospital bed blocking, and have no intention whatever to let local authorities raise Coucil Tax levels to help subsidise home care.

[Serial_Apologist]

I'd say a more usual UK equivalent would be gunman, since shooter is the term of choice when someone with a gun has run amok and shot and killed at random.

We could use gunwoman too I suppose, but there aren't many of them.

'Shooter' is gang language for gun, in this neck of the woods.

[Lat-Literal]

'Conversation' is government code these days for insoluble problems: e.g. 'we're having conversations' about the situation of hospital bed blocking, and have no intention whatever to let local authorities raise Coucil Tax levels to help subsidise home care.

Spot on.

The dodgiest bigwigs in my last years of employment were very keen on it.

Normally in the form "we need to have a conversation about". I think it's awful.

The other one is "we need a story to tell" in justifying a course of action or a decision.

I used to ask whether "story" in that context meant lies. It didn't go down well.

[vinteuil]

.

... ah, but aren't we all "on a journey"? What we need is a "narrative", - and, indeed, a "conversation".

[jean]

'Shooter' is gang language for gun, in this neck of the woods.

I never had you down as a gang member!

If you listen to media reports of American shootings, though, the shooter is the person not the weapon.

[ahinton]

I never had you down as a gang member!

If you listen to media reports of American shootings, though, the shooter is the person not the weapon.

I thought the term for that was "shootist"...

[Serial_Apologist]

I never had you down as a gang member!

If you listen to media reports of American shootings, though, the shooter is the person not the weapon.

I knew I'd manage to surprise you one day, jean!