Phrases/words that set your teeth on edge.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Of course, to those of us of a certain age, it's usually just 'The War'.

Which one?

[Andy Freude]

Of course, to those of us of a certain age, it's usually just 'The War'.

And likewise 'post-war' which is pleasant to contemplate.

[Bryn]

And likewise 'post-war' which is pleasant to contemplate.

The post war ended terribly with the Royal Mail getting privatized.

[Richard Tarleton]

And in Russia a different perspective applies with the wars being named: The Patriotic War of 1812. The Second Patriotic War of 1914. The Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.

© New Yorker

[LMcD]

Which one?

The one Basil Fawlty said we're not to mention.

[Serial_Apologist]

The one Basil Fawlty said we're not to mention.

[StephenMcK]

... interesting questions, to which I have no answer, except what follows.

I recall from Geoffrey Madan's Notebooks his distress at the title of Repington's First World War, published in 1919, presupposing as it did that there would be another.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_%C3%A0_Court_Repington

EDIT - ... and I see that wiki has : "The term "world war" was first used in September 1914 by German biologist and philosopher Ernst Haeckel, who claimed that "there is no doubt that the course and character of the feared 'European War' ... will become the first world war in the full sense of the word," citing a wire service report in The Indianapolis Star on 20 September 1914."



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Very useful, Vinteuil ... and surprising how early in the proceedings the world war concept was being determined. I suppose it made sense because these were the colonial powers that dominated the world. Indeed, as depicted in William Boyd's novel, 'An Ice Cream War', hostilities was assumed across the globe on common borders.

[vinteuil]

Very useful, Vinteuil ... and surprising how early in the proceedings the world war concept was being determined. I suppose it made sense because these were the colonial powers that dominated the world. Indeed, as depicted in William Boyd's novel, 'An Ice Cream War', hostilities was assumed across the globe on common borders.

... An Ice Cream War is based in east Africa. Before university I did a year with Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) in west Africa, in Cameroon - a German colony before the Great War, which was therefore fought over by the British (coming from Nigeria) and the French (coming from French Equatorial Africa), ending up as a League of Nations protectorate divvied between the British and French. One was very conscious of it having been the 'product' of a World War.

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[kernelbogey]

Of course, to those of us of a certain age, it's usually just 'The War'.

Which one?

Lawrence Durrell narrates in one of his autobiographical books, possibly Prospero's Cell, that he was with a bunch of Greek men in a kafenion, and the mood was uneasy because of his Britishness. So he stated (undoubtedly in fluent Greek) that his grandfather had fought on the Greek side at the Battle of Thermopylae. He was instantly treated as a heroic honorary Greek, and did not need to buy a drink for the rest of the evening.

(The Battle of Thermopylae took place in 480 BC.)

[StephenMcK]

There's a headline on the Guardian website which I regard as wrong, but it's hard to know how it would be more accurately put. It goes: 'Tape appears to catch Trump demanding removal of Ukraine ambassador ...'

My quibble is that audio does not 'appear'.

[jayne lee wilson]

There's a headline on the Guardian website which I regard as wrong, but it's hard to know how it would be more accurately put. It goes: 'Tape appears to catch Trump demanding removal of Ukraine ambassador ...'

My quibble is that audio does not 'appear'.

Secondary meaning of "appear" - to seem , to give the impression of...
...which you appear to have overlooked....

(cf. "it certainly looks that way..."... the metaphor is from deceptive appearances).

[LezLee]

There's a headline on the Guardian website which I regard as wrong, but it's hard to know how it would be more accurately put. It goes: 'Tape appears to catch Trump demanding removal of Ukraine ambassador ...'

My quibble is that audio does not 'appear'.

It sounds wrong anyway. I would say: 'Tape apparently catches Trump...'

[LMcD]

It sounds wrong anyway. I would say: 'Tape apparently catches Trump...'

... as he crosses the finishing line?

[oddoneout]

It sounds wrong anyway. I would say: 'Tape apparently catches Trump...'

'Apparently records' might be more accurate, if not very elegant? The need to reduce the number of words used from, eg, 'the tape records/has recorded Trump apparently demanding the removal of the Ukraine ambassador' is always going to compromise writing style.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Is any "tape" actually involved?