Phrases/words that set your teeth on edge.

[LMcD]

Heard this morning during a BBC World Service news bulletin:
Tensions (between Iran and the USA) have dialled down for the present'. I really don't like this kind of supposedly trendy, pseudo-technological term. Whatever's wrong with 'eased'? Even the intransitive use of 'reduced' would be preferable if only because it's less pretentious and self-consciously 'with it'.
(While I'm having a bit of a whinge, I'm not that keen on the use of 'transition' as a verb, either).

[alycidon]

Heard this morning during a BBC World Service news bulletin:
Tensions (between Iran and the USA) have dialled down for the present'. I really don't like this kind of supposedly trendy, pseudo-technological term. Whatever's wrong with 'eased'? Even the intransitive use of 'reduced' would be preferable if only because it's less pretentious and self-consciously 'with it'.
(While I'm having a bit of a whinge, I'm not that keen on the use of 'transition' as a verb, either).

That’s just plain stupid. How do they manage it? Why can’t people just use the Queen’s English?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

"Dialled down" doesn't make sense (mind you, neither does "ring him up") - are we sure (he asked politely - he didn't hear the broadcast) that the phrase used wasn't "died down"?

[LMcD]

"Dialled down" doesn't make sense (mind you, neither does "ring him up") - are we sure (he asked politely - he didn't hear the broadcast) that the phrase used wasn't "died down"?

I may have misheard, although there's a lot of 'dialling down' going on these days. While trying, and failing, to check using BBC Sounds, I DEFINITELY heard the words 'the language choosed by the Iranian Foreign Minister'.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It wouldn't surprise me to learn that "dial down" has become an expression - perhaps a corruption of "died down" (?to spare people's feelings?). I hadn't so far knowingly encountered it - or, if I had, I had mentally "corrected" it to what I'm used to.

I have frequently heard people say "you choosed to do it" - but not on the BBC.

Or over the age of 6.

[vinteuil]

.

... I've been encountering "dial down" and also "dial up" a fair bit over the last year or so. I'm sure the image comes from turning a dial down or up (... to 11), and nothing to do with dying. Not a phrase I wd use, but I don't find it particularly objectionable.

Never encountered "choosed" (nor "chus'd", neither... ). Can LMcD recall the perpetrator?


.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm sure the image comes from turning a dial down or up (... to 11), and nothing to do with dying.

Ahh! That makes sense! I'd been thinking of telephone dials, rather than volume knobs. (And I suppose "knobbed up/down" never had a chance of catching on.

In this context.)

[oddoneout]

"Dialled down" doesn't make sense (mind you, neither does "ring him up") - are we sure (he asked politely - he didn't hear the broadcast) that the phrase used wasn't "died down"?

It is the phrase being used for this issue.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-ease-tensions.
Who's turning the dial though?

[vinteuil]

I'd been thinking of telephone dials...

... most of us down here now use phones with buttons or images of buttons rather than dials - have they not yet caught on in your parts?

.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... most of us down here now use phones with buttons or images of buttons rather than dials - have they not yet caught on in your parts?

Things catching on my parts is not fit matter for Forum discussion, methinks (not even on a "setting teeth on edge" Thread).

But, yes, the idea of a telephone dial is something I've not encountered in over 30 years - but "dial" is a Proustian word for me: I don't associate it with volume knobs nearly as much as I do the long-gone telephone dials of my long-gone childhood. (And they haven't reappeared in this, my second childhood.)

[Oakapple]

Heard on Radio 4 today: "creatures that live in a marine environment". What's wrong with "in the sea"? Or even just "sea creatures"?

[Bryn]

... most of us down here now use phones with buttons or images of buttons rather than dials - have they not yet caught on in your parts?

.

With vinyl disc and compact cassettes making a marginal comeback, I reckon dial up telephones will not be far behind.

[Bryn]

Heard on Radio 4 today: "creatures that live in a marine environment". What's wrong with "in the sea"? Or even just "sea creatures"?

"Marine environment" includes the shoreline, not just he sea itself.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

With vinyl disc and compact cassettes making a marginal comeback, I reckon dial up telephones will not be far behind.

This thought occured to me, too - and there are some mock "retro" dial telephones available. The problem might be with getting put through to whichever department of the megalithic institution you're trying to deal with requiring you to "Press 1" (or whatever). Presumably dialling would have the same effect?

[StephenMcK]

But there was never an up or down to dialling a number, was there? No more than you could reverse the hand on a sundial.

I've looked online through lots of dictionary definitions online but none of them give any pointers as to where this notion emerged from.

I do remember in the old studios at Bush House the levels were still operated by a dial device rather than a board fader. I suppose then one could have spoken about dialling the sound up or down.