Phrases/words that set your teeth on edge.

[Serial_Apologist]

"Invite" as a noun - yet another Americanism. What was wrong with "invitation"?

[jayne lee wilson]

"Invite" as a noun - yet another Americanism. What was wrong with "invitation"?

"Thanks 4 the Invite, but...."
I used that in a text yesterday.....

"Long story short" is another of my "which phrases do you most over-use" phrases (co-morbidities need summarising to bored & weary ears...), so.... I guess I'm an unwelcome thread-guest....

Texting means concision; often at an extreme. C U L8ER! But I hate texting really... takes me so...so... long... & unlike many I try to correct all my (appallingly numerous) typos...feels more like concussion.
But if that's what your contact wants when you're in hospital & requesting stuff from home.......

But I like concision.... Hate formality....

[oddoneout]

"Thanks 4 the Invite, but...."
I used that in a text yesterday.....

"Long story short" is another of my "which phrases do you most over-use" phrases (co-morbidities need summarising to bored & weary ears...), so.... I guess I'm an unwelcome thread-guest....

Texting means concision; often at an extreme. C U L8ER! But I hate texting really... takes me so...so... long... & unlike many I try to correct all my (appallingly numerous) typos...feels more like concussion.
But if that's what your contact wants when you're in hospital & requesting stuff from home.......

But I like concision.... Hate formality....

Texting isn't the same as someone who is paid to speak or write for public consumption. The need for brevity and/or speed makes some phrases useful shorthand for texting(everyone will know what you mean), but in other contexts they can be, or seem like, laziness and lack of care to try and phrase things differently or better. Neither of which apply to what you write I think.
may I take this opportunity to send you best wishes, and hope that at this festive time you may find some bits of pleasure even if your circumstances are not festive.

[Bryn]

from https://www.merriam-webster.com/word...ite-as-a-noun:

"You don't have to use 'invite' as a noun, but there's no reason to judge other people for doing so."

[smittims]

I'm not sure I agree with that. Maybe it depends what one means by 'judge'.

I do deplore the use of adjectives as nouns:

'She's got Alzheimer's'.
'Whose does Alzheimer have, then?'

And transitive verbs used as if they were intransitive verbs. 'She's hurting because he won't commit'.

[Bryn]

I'm not sure I agree with that. Maybe it depends what one means by 'judge'.

I do deplore the use of adjectives as nouns:

'She's got Alzheimer's'.
'Whose does Alzheimer have, then?'

And transitive verbs, as if they were intransitive verbs. 'She's hurting because he won't commit'.

Language, as a means of communication, evolutes[sic]. Now, let's consider "And transitive verbs as if they were insensitive verbs." What form of grammar does that follow? It certainly does not constitute a valid sentence in my understanding of the term.

[smittims]

Yes, good point. I could have said 'And I also deplore...' or followed '...then?' with a semi-colon and a lower-case 'and'. I think that would correct the grammar as I was taught it .

Anyway, I must go and cook a turkey.

[Pulcinella]

Language, as a means of communication, evolutes[sic]. Now, let's consider "And transitive verbs as if they were insensitive verbs." What form of grammar does that follow? It certainly does not constitute a valid sentence in my understanding of the term.

It's part of a list, so doesn't really have to obey artificial rules that you/we might have learned (learnt?) about sentences needing subject, verb, object!
Not that ANY 'sentence' has to, really.

But one of my pet peeves has appeared again in the Guardian report of the horrible Merseyside shooting:

A murder investigation has been launched after a woman was killed and multiple people were injured in a shooting incident in Wallasey near Liverpool.

Why not just several or many? What's a multiple person, anyway?

[Ein Heldenleben]

I'm not sure I agree with that. Maybe it depends what one means by 'judge'.

I do deplore the use of adjectives as nouns:

'She's got Alzheimer's'.
'Whose does Alzheimer have, then?'

And transitive verbs used as if they were intransitive verbs. 'She's hurting because he won't commit'.

I wonder if the latter is an Elizabethan/Jacobean usage imported to the states and now back here. Trying to find an example from Shakespeare ..
The nearest I can think of is appropriately enough

“A cold coming we had of it …”

But it’s verb as noun really…

[kernelbogey]

'She's hurting because he won't commit'.

A neoogism for a newish concept.

[cloughie]

It's part of a list, so doesn't really have to obey artificial rules that you/we might have learned (learnt?) about sentences needing subject, verb, object!
Not that ANY 'sentence' has to, really.

But one of my pet peeves has appeared again in the Guardian report of the horrible Merseyside shooting:

A murder investigation has been launched after a woman was killed and multiple people were injured in a shooting incident in Wallasey near Liverpool.

Why not just several or many? What's a multiple person, anyway?

Siamese twins?

[Pulcinella]

Siamese twins?

I think we have to use the adjective 'conjoined' these days, cloughie!

[cloughie]

I think we have to use the adjective 'conjoined' these days, cloughie!

Thaied together?

[Pulcinella]

Thaied together?

[smittims]

Thanks, Alistair; I'm a bit of an Elizabethan myself.

And the author of 'A cold coming...' was an American, so perhaps we can allow him an Americanism.

'apartment' and 'gotten' are both time-hallowed in English. Trollope,etc. And people whio are criritcised for writing 'alright' instead of 'all right' may simply be betraying their early reading of the Brontes.