Ian, I never went to grammar school. Sec Mod for me. Flunked O Levels but still know basic grammar. That phrase grates so much with me.

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

What about those people who say "he could of" instead of "he could have". So widespread both written and oral. Depressing.

Well, strictly speaking, when some people say that, it's not really incorrect, because they are usually saying 'could've', which is of course the entirely grammatically correct apostrophised speedy speech version of 'could have', but yes, when people actually say 'could of' that is incorrect. And yes, it's is annoying. It's a bit like when people actually write 'prolly' in stead of probably, which is just plain word not allowed.

Which reminds me of a joke we used to play on people when we worked as writers at the newspaper: Sometimes some of the advertising reps (many of whom were not exactly the brightest bulbs in the room) would ask us things such as: 'I'm not sure where the apostrophe goes in this word of this email I'm writing...'

Now to be fair, although where an apostrophe goes is not hard to understand, since it usually either pluralises something, indicates a missing letter, or indicates possession, which is not a hard concept to get your head around, there are one or two grammatical pitfalls in that rule. So there are occasionally tricky things such as when you want to write about an object belonging to, for example, the St James Hospital, where as we know, the rule changes from adding an apostrophe and an S to create a plural, to simply adding an apostrophe after the word, i.e. St James'. But I don't think anyone would be too upset if you did it the other way around and doing it the other way is generally acceptable these days, after all, languages evolve over time. I always found that if something like that looked clumsy on the page, the way around it was to alter the structure of the sentence to avoid the need for an apostrophe at all.

Nevertheless, never one to miss the chance for a good laugh, when asked about this, we would of course tell them the correct way to write stuff to help them out, but then we would add: 'You do know it's not pronounced 'AP-OS-TROW-FEE' don't you? The correct pronunciation is 'AP-OH-STROFE.' To which they would say: 'Really?' Then we would say: 'Yes, absolutely, the E is silent, just like the P is silent in trumpet and crumpet, the correct pronunciation of which are 'TRUE-MAY.' and 'CREW-MAY' 🤣

I still do that sort of thing sometimes, telling people that misled is correctly pronounced 'MIZZ-ULL-DUH' and things like that. It's funny to have people wandering off believing nonsense like that.

 

Edited March 10, 20206 yr by Chock

10 minutes ago, Chock said:

Well, strictly speaking, when some people say that, it's not really incorrect, because they are usually saying 'could've', which is of course the entirely grammatically correct apostrophised speech version of 'could have', but yes, when people actually say 'could of' that is incorrect. And yes, it's is annoying.

They’re definitely saying “could of” and not “could’ve”. Apostrophes are another bug bear and I’ve seen them misused in papers like The Independent. Using the wrong words is also becoming more common like football commentators referring to the pitch as the floor instead of the ground.

And that black lad on tv the other day saying about Meghan “she’s beautiful, init”. Arrgghh!!!

The older I get the grumpier I get. ☹️

Best joke I heard on that score was Lee Mack in the show 'Not Going Out' where he was being a grammar n@zi and complaining about an advert in the paper for a job, which apparently said 'job, init', only to have his flatmate grab the paper off him and point out that it was an advert for a job 'in I.T.'

Genius bit of comedy writing that was.

I must admit that I do occasionally find myself shouting at the TV when a presenter does stuff like that. I expect people who've actually been given a presenting job to have some language skills, although I suspect I'm p***ing in the wind with that forlorn hope given the average footy player's vocabulary.

Edited March 10, 20206 yr by Chock

Lee Mac is a beacon of light in an otherwise desert of mediocrity. Bring back 70s humour. I suspect the snowflakes would spontaneously combust with outrage but at least some of us could laugh again.

Thought you might appreciate this mickey take of BBC's former Newsnight anchorman, Jeremy Paxman and political reporter, Brian Hanrahan's journalese, including an hilarious lesson in German:

 

Edited March 10, 20206 yr by Chock

What about "have a shave" is that hav a shav or hayv a shayv? 

Thanks @Chock, the first few were a good spoof but the last one was tasteless.

7 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Thanks @Chock, the first few were a good spoof but the last one was tasteless.

Yup, the last bit is a bit off colour, particularly for me since I, like very many people, lost a good friend in that incident, but it is probably no less so than much of the real reporting at the time for the incident, which if we're honest, was itself rather intrusive, lazy and tasteless too, and I think that's what it was driving at. Chris Morris does sometimes go a bit close to the bone with his spoofs, but it is often quite insightful in that regard, notably with his Four Lions film, which is a very daring subject for a comedy, but approaching it in that way does a lot to explore what is a difficult subject to understand for an outsider and make it perhaps more accessible than would otherwise be the case.

Edited March 10, 20206 yr by Chock

Let's say I define a Set. I'll assume a set of animals. So I add members to the set: Goat, Cat, Sheep and so on. When I add the last member to the set: ..Human, I then have a complete set because I have finished adding the members.

2 hours ago, Chock said:

p***ing

Asterisks are not allowed.

Let's see if pissing is allowed.

Edit: Yep.

May I take this opportunity to point out that all of this criticism of bad English is NOT directed at those of you that English is not their first language. You actually put a lot of us to shame.

 

Edited March 10, 20206 yr by Ron Attwood

2 minutes ago, Ron Attwood said:

Asterisks are not allowed.

Let's see if pissing is allowed.

And everyone thought I was censoring the word punting. 🤣 Or at least, that is my defence M'Lud.

Edited March 10, 20206 yr by Chock

6 minutes ago, Chock said:

Yup, the last bit is a bit off colour, particularly for me since I, like very many people, lost a good friend in that incident, but it is probably no less so than much of the real reporting at the time for the incident, which if we're honest, was itself rather intrusive, lazy and tasteless too, and I think that's what it was driving at. Chris Morris does sometimes go a bit close to the bone with his spoofs, but it is often quite insightful in that regard, notably with his Four Lions film, which is a very daring subject for a comedy, but approaching it in that way does a lot to explore what is a difficult subject to understand for an outsider and make it perhaps more accessible than would otherwise be the case.

There are some subjects that should never been used for comedic effect. Sept 2001 is definitely one but I accept that comedians do push the limits sometimes without malice. Just desperate to get a laugh.

If I recall the Four Lions film was about Islamic bombers. Again, not something remotely of interest to me. There are some people who would be more offended by a Benny Hill sketch than what we've discussed today. Now't so strange as folk eh?

Yup I for the most part agree Ray, however, I do also think that if a subject remains completely taboo and off limits, we risk failing to gain important insights, and one of the most accessible ways you can get people to watch stuff on subjects which they might otherwise not delve into, is through comedy. Specifically, with Four Lions, regardless of one's opinions on such terrorist actions, there is no doubt that young men are often persuaded by older men who are not themselves inclined to indulge in the dubious honour (which should be a bit of a clue), of strapping explosives to themselves and committing appalling acts. It's easy to dismiss such things as plain madness, but what Four Lions did, was go some way to helping us understand the motivations and machinations of such incidents, and for that, I think it was a worthwhile effort.

There were as many tears as there were laughs experienced when watching that movie, and I've personally had a few good laughs with plenty of Muslim guys over that film when I otherwise would have had found it difficult to find an inroad for a conversation with them because we were so culturally different, yet we'd all seen that movie and could share a discussion on the subject because of it and have a good laugh too, and that can't be a bad thing.

Anyway, back on topic. Here's another really good one. I wish I'd kept it, but alas I did not..

Remember those little electronic keyrings which you pressed and they'd play some blaster and gun noise so you could take out your frustration on traffic jams? I bought one once because it was a little model of an F-14 and kind of looked cool. Now obviously all that kind of stuff is knocked up on the cheap in Taiwan, so of course the instructions for it on the little blister pack it came in were in an appallingly awful translation into English. The one which made me laugh was the label for the on switch, which it dramatically described was - 'The Button of Power!'

Edited March 10, 20206 yr by Chock

Guys....let's not be testing the bad word filter.  I haven't had enough coffee yet!