Phrases/words that set your teeth on edge.

[jean]

What utter patronising tosh...

I understand that you don't like my way of speaking, but I don't see how you can call me patronising for defending it.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The point is, Jean, your own English appears to be impeccable. I considered this carefully while I was ate my mid-morning snack.

[JFLL]

['scapegoating' is] just another example of verbs being given birth by nouns...

One of these which grate on me is 'showcasing'. In those never-ending trails on Radio 3, they are forever going to 'showcase' a performer. It's also a particularly inapt figure of speech for a radio programme, in an aural rather than a visual medium.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The noun-as-verb thing can be viewed as an efficient compression or a form of laziness. As I mentioned before Peter Hain's verb "to Parliament Act" is among the more extreme examples.

[ahinton]

What utter patronising tosh. Make up your own language, you thick, ignorant Northerners, and while you're (or "your") at it, eat cake.

...or even "yore", mayhap? (or do I mean "'appn"?)...

[vinteuil]

The noun-as-verb thing can be viewed as an efficient compression or a form of laziness...

... it can also be viewed (from "view", noun) as a normal, regular, standard feature of how the English language functions (from "function", noun).

[ahinton]

One of these which grate on me is 'showcasing'. In those never-ending trails on Radio 3, they are forever going to 'showcase' a performer. It's also a particularly inapt figure of speech for a radio programme, in an aural rather than a visual medium.

...but surely no more so than describing or referring to any other radio-only broadcast as a "show", which is nothing new?...

[ahinton]

Whatever you say, ahinton ... but Another Fine Mess it most assuredly is whether it's a Listening Government or Deaf Government!

"Whatever I say"? That IS what I said!...

[Pabmusic]

... it can also be viewed (from "view", noun) as a normal, regular, standard feature of how the English language functions (from "function", noun).

You have a point. A huge number of verbs came from nouns in the first place - to rain, to snow, to thunder (just being topical ). We have no problem with those, because we never knew a time when they weren't verbs. In general, nouns came before verbs and there's evidence that children learn nouns first, because they're less abstract (usually).

[ahinton]

You have a point. A huge number of verbs came from nouns in the first place - to rain, to snow, to thunder (just being topical ). We have no problem with those, because we never knew a time when they weren't verbs. In general, nouns came before verbs and there's evidence that children learn nouns first, because they're less abstract (usually).

Exactly; it's the same old worn-out sense of "tradition" that seems to me to get some people all worked up about present and recent changes in use of language as though these are for the most part instances of unacceptable linguistic corruption whereas any such changes that occurred before those people were born are OK to ignore or accept.

I have to admit, however, that the one I heard (I think for the first time) on this morning's edition of R4's Today programme was stretching it a little - namely "modularising"...

[Pabmusic]

Exactly; it's the same old worn-out sense of "tradition" that seems to me to get some people all worked up about present and recent changes in use of language as though these are for the most part unacceptably corrupting whereas any such changes that occurred before those people were born are OK to ignore or accept.

Yes. Language changes very fast; English is noticeably different from how I learnt it at school. But we have this feeling that it had been static for so long before we were born - which is demonstrably false.

[ahinton]

Yes. Language changes very fast; English is noticeably different from how I learnt it at school. But we have this feeling that it had been static for so long before we were born - which is demonstrably false.

Indeed, yet one has only to read a 19th century English novel in the original English for this to become self-evident - let alone read Milton or Shakespeare; OK, the English language (especially in its spoken form) is changing faster nowadays than once it did, but then that's both inevitable and compatible with the rate of change of pretty much everything else; technological advances and more widespread national and international travel are just two factors that have helped to increase the pace of linguistic change.

[Nick Armstrong]

one has only to read a 19th century English novel in the original English

Does anyone read them in any other English?!

[vinteuil]

Indeed, yet one has only to read a 19th century English novel in the original English .

Does anyone read them in any other English?!

I once failed dismally to impress one of my senior colleagues. Visiting Riyadh, he kindly enquired as to how I spent my time, given the limitations that went with such a posting. I said that, among other things, I had been enjoying the opportunity of re-reading Richardson, and was just finishing 'Clarissa'. "Ah, yes" he said, appreciatively, "Richardson... " Then, after a pause, he added, "Yes, I've been re-reading 'Sir Charles Grandison'." Another pause. "... in German."

I know one-upmanship when I see it

[ahinton]

Does anyone read them in any other English?!

Probably not, but they do read them in translations into other languages - especially the better known and more widely translated examples...