Phrases/words that set your teeth on edge.

[vinteuil]

apparently WHSmith are "Applying the learnings " of previous lockdowns.

I suppose people have learning, but seeks clumsy to me though, at best.

https://www.soundohm.com/product/the-great-learning-3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Learning

( ... Bryn's yer man here, tho' )

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[oddoneout]

apparently WHSmith are "Applying the learnings " of previous lockdowns.

I suppose people have learning, but seeks clumsy to me though, at best.

What's wrong with "lessons learned" ? The question of whether anything has been learned to be available to apply is another matter altogether of course.

[Pulcinella]

apparently WHSmith are "Applying the learnings " of previous lockdowns.

I suppose people have learning, but seeks clumsy to me though, at best.

Even the 'of' is clumsy: what did the lockdowns learn?

Surely 'from'?
As vinteuil says: 'Applying lessons learned from previous lockdown' would be much better, but I'd probably go for 'Applying (or Putting into practice) what we have learned from....' (which of course could be nothing at all!).

[Serial_Apologist]

A great letter in next week's Radio Times (P.151):

"I have literally had enough of literally every other person on TV saying literally: literally every soap, literally every interview and literally every quiz show includes this literally annoying word along with other wrongly used or confused expressions. My head literally span when I watched Tipping Point and I hanged my head in despair during QI. So I literally snuck over to the remote control and decided to turn off all media until these grammatical abominations are gone
Ashley Bliss Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire.

[Padraig]

and I hanged my head in despair during QI.

Literally?

[Serial_Apologist]

Literally?

Give a man enough rope..........

[french frank]

Give a man enough rope..........

I paused, momentarily, after 'span', but when it went on to 'hanged' and 'snuck' I realised that literally wasn't the only hung-up.

[Nick Armstrong]

literally

Agree with the complaint... I was surprised the other day to hear the otherwise articulate Anna Tilbrook on Inside Music say that in the Gloria of the B Minor Mass, the upward scales of the trumpets “literally lift you”

A novel trick

[vinteuil]

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... 'literally' as an intensifier (rather than the antonym to 'figuratively') has been regularly used by writers at least as far back as Pope. It's only since the 20th century that some people have found it objectionable.

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[gurnemanz]

In his inauguration speech Mr Biden referred to democracy depending "on we the people". Fair enough, albeit a statement of the obvious, but neither he nor his speech writers seem to care about prepositions being followed by an inflected pronoun.

[vinteuil]

In his inauguration speech Mr Biden referred to democracy depending "on we the people". Fair enough, albeit a statement of the obvious, but neither he nor his speech writers seem to care about prepositions being followed by an inflected pronoun.

... but isn't "we the people" (referring to the Preamble to the Constitution) now a stock phrase, 'we-the-people', and as such uninflectable?

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[gurnemanz]

... but isn't "we the people" (referring to the Preamble to the Constitution) now a stock phrase, 'we-the-people', and as such uninflectable?

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That's a valid point but I'll still venture to call it ungrammatical.

[Nick Armstrong]

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... 'literally' as an intensifier (rather than the antonym to 'figuratively') has been regularly used by writers at least as far back as Pope. It's only since the 20th century that some people have found it objectionable.

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Examples please!

[vinteuil]

Examples please!

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/misuse-of-literally

https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/literally-centuries-of-non-literal-literally/

..

[Nick Armstrong]

https://www.merriam-webster.com/word...e-of-literally

I’m literally weeping with gratitude

Let’s settle for “annoying, but it is nothing new”, as that article says...!