Phrases/words that set your teeth on edge.

[french frank]

Had you heard of it before?

I hadn't heard of it before today.

Nope.

[Serial_Apologist]

The optics?

(Should have gone to Specsavers?)

Quite - or as Kenneth Williams might have very camply put it: "Someone's got his topics in a twist"!

[Lat-Literal]

Anything "pregnant" is 21st Century overt just as is the word "died".

I am always struck by the casual directness.

The equivalent to "passed away" is "expecting".

In my humble opinion, time and distance in metaphors for the absolute or finite may not historically be about repression for the latter is principally a fairly modern concept based on looking back. Gentility is a part of it but more so, I think, poverty at a time when more people died in childbirth and died younger in life. That is the connotation with illness plus, of course, medical professionals were an alien breed. "Pregnancy" would have been more of a medical term. And on top of all that, the working classes would have aspired to middle class mores and had some awareness, albeit vague, that gentility was a part of those. Today, everyone from The Only Way Is Essex people to the Made in Chelsea brigade only know a post-1960s let-it-all-out and, crucially, they have professional aspirations. I am in no doubt whatsoever they wouldn't have a clue about what crosses my mind on their vocabulary.

Incidentally, Les Dawson claimed that the manner in which Cissie and Ada mouthed such things rather than actually saying them emanated from the communication methods that by necessity were employed in noisy factories to get things done effectively. That might well have been a part of it too but it seems to me that it would have been a regional variation.

Also, "fall" doesn't just have the connotation of illness. "Fallen woman", "fall from grace", "fall silent" - those sorts of very old concepts would once have been linked to a perception of disgrace but in the modern age the word "fall" is possibly closer to ideas of being "struck down" or "struck down at the wrong time" . Arguably, then, to "fall pregnant" has a slight connotation of the pregnancy in question almost getting in the way. Mostly I would think that the linkage there is to the timing of it during advancement in a profession or career.

From an MSN article today:

"But there's another word Queen Elizabeth cannot stand — and it’s nothing you’d ever guess. According to "Us Weekly", a palace source says the Queen finds the word "pregnant" to be a "vulgar" word. No, Queen Elizabeth doesn’t just refuse to acknowledge expectant women. After all, Kate Middleton is currently carrying the Queen’s sixth great-grandchild. Apparently, the Queen prefers to say pregnant women are "in the family way" as a more polite term. The phrase started as a slang term in the 17th century, according to Merriam-Webster. It’s dying out now, but apparently Her Majesty still likes the sound of it".

On another point, dear Neville Gwynne and Terry Victor were engaged in a battle last night on 5 Live over American English. Predictably for anyone who listens regularly to the grammar phone-in, Victor was all for it as "enriching our language" while Gwynne was finding it hard to keep to his complex line that some of it was acceptable although none of it since 1990. The hottest potato was "tidy" which Gwynne was prepared to concede as being American and useful. Victor said that it wasn't American while host Dotun Adebayo suggested that if non American English hadn't originally a word for something as basic as tidiness then it wasn't much of a language to defend. It transpired that Gwynne had been persuaded that "tidy" was of American derivation by Matthew Engel's new book "That’s the Way It Crumbles: The American Conquest of English" which he described as excellent.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jul/03/thats-way-it-crumbles-american-conquest-english-matthew-engel-review

[jean]

From an MSN article today...the Queen prefers to say pregnant women are "in the family way" as a more polite term...

A term I hadn't heard for so long I'd completely forgotten it!

On another point, dear Neville Gwynne and Terry Victor were engaged in a battle last night on 5 Live over American English... The hottest potato was "tidy" which Gwynne was prepared to concede as being American and useful...It transpired that Gwynne had been persuaded that "tidy" was of American derivation by Matthew Engel's new book "That’s the Way It Crumbles: The American Conquest of English" ...

There might be a germ of truth in this, as the OED lists the application of the neat, well-ordered (rather than timely) sense to things rather than people as first appearing in Webster in 1828.

But as to Gwynne himself:

Linguist Geoffrey Pullum called Gwynne a "preposterous old fraud" with a "lack of any grasp of the subject"...

Oliver Kamm, a leader writer for The Times newspaper, in Accidence Will Happen: The Non-Pedantic Guide to English Usage, described Gwynne’s Grammar as "a work of titanic silliness" and in The Times in January 2017 as "the worst book I have read on language and perhaps on anything".

I'm inclined to agree.

[Bryn]

A term I hadn't heard for so long I'd completely forgotten it!

There might be a germ of truth in this, as the OED lists the application of the neat, well-ordered sense to things rather than people as first appearing in Webster in 1828.

But as to Gwynne himself:

Linguist Geoffrey Pullum called Gwynne a "preposterous old fraud" with a "lack of any grasp of the subject"...

Oliver Kamm, a leader writer for The Times newspaper, in Accidence Will Happen: The Non-Pedantic Guide to English Usage, described Gwynne’s Grammar as "a work of titanic silliness" and in The Times in January 2017 as "the worst book I have read on language and perhaps on anything".

I'm inclined to agree.

"There's tidy, isn't it?" As my Welsh acquaintances are won't to say.

[ahinton]

From an MSN article today:

[I]"But there's another word Queen Elizabeth cannot stand — and it’s nothing you’d ever guess. According to "Us Weekly", a palace source says the Queen finds the word "pregnant" to be a "vulgar" word. No, Queen Elizabeth doesn’t just refuse to acknowledge expectant women. After all, Kate Middleton is currently carrying the Queen’s sixth great-grandchild. Apparently, the Queen prefers to say pregnant women are "in the family way" as a more polite term.

Would she therefore call a pregnant pause a pause in the family way?

[jean]

"There's tidy, isn't it?" As my Welsh acquaintances are won't to say.

But that's something different again, isn't it?

[Serial_Apologist]

"There's tidy, isn't it?" As my Welsh acquaintances are won't to say.

The problem could easily have been solved long ago, had somebody gone up to Canute, and said, "The tidy's coming in".

[Lat-Literal]

Some very amusing comments in the past few posts. Neville might be fraudulent in some people's opinions but I like him. He is one of the best things on the radio or perhaps more appropriately the wireless. On the weeks when his telephone is working, there are few who can equal him. The Welsh "(proper) tidy" was mentioned on the programme as was its significant use in Tottenham, Greater London by black and other youths. Slang in other words. "Face the Music" is also a very acceptable Americanism but not "Mom" for mother.

Does anyone know why Permanent Secretaries are called Permanent Secretaries? Having had the misfortune recently to watch a few televised Committee sessions, I am astonished almost to the point of silence at how such unimpressive bruisers now achieve that status. Rationally they should be impermanent which historically such people have been anyway.

(The one I saw yesterday reminded me of Jack Duckworth)

[gradus]

Mandarins to a person. The brightest of the bright?

[P. G. Tipps]

If 'a palace source' is in any way credible I'm delighted to reveal that I'm solidly with Ma'am on the subject of the word 'pregnant', a horridly ugly word ... and 'impregnated' is even worse, imv.

'Expecting' is much, much more acceptable and rather less of a mouthful than 'in the family way' or, alternatively, the thoroughly plebeian 'in the club' or 'bun in the oven'.

We all have our verbal dislikes, of course. Another pet hate of mine is the now widespread 'phenomenal' which suddenly appears to have taken over from 'awesome'.

At least I could pronounce the latter without getting my poor tongue in a twist ...

[Serial_Apologist]

If 'a palace source' is in any way credible I'm delighted to reveal that I'm solidly with Ma'am on the subject of the word 'pregnant', a horridly ugly word ... and 'impregnated' is even worse, imv.

'Expecting' is much, much more acceptable and rather less of a mouthful than 'in the family way' or, alternatively, the thoroughly plebeian 'in the club' or 'bun in the oven'.

"Up the duff" was once quite commonplace around here - then the wonderful Ann-Marie came along, forcing a re-think!

[Lat-Literal]

If 'a palace source' is in any way credible I'm delighted to reveal that I'm solidly with Ma'am on the subject of the word 'pregnant', a horridly ugly word ... and 'impregnated' is even worse, imv.

'Expecting' is much, much more acceptable and rather less of a mouthful than 'in the family way' or, alternatively, the thoroughly plebeian 'in the club' or 'bun in the oven'.

We all have our verbal dislikes, of course. Another pet hate of mine is the now widespread 'phenomenal' which suddenly appears to have taken over from 'awesome'.

At least I could pronounce the latter without getting my poor tongue in a twist ...

I do use "phenomenal" and "awesome" but sparingly and only when I can think of me being Ian Hislop saying them.

As for subtle language, a truly subversive artist would produce a made bed with it nicely embroidered on the top blanket either side of the military line in the centre.

"Anticipating the arrival".

"Up the duff" was once quite commonplace around here - then the wonderful Ann-Marie came along, forcing a re-think!

Honestly!

[jean]

...a truly subversive artist would produce a made bed with it nicely embroidered on the top blanket either side of the military line in the centre...

Like this, you mean?

[Lat-Literal]

Like this, you mean?

It's nice but I'm not seeing any element of austerity.