Grammarants

[Daniel Avery]

"pokie machines," which is not only redundant, but defeats the purpose of abbreviating it in the first place.

In the US, you might hear some moron say "I forgot my PIN number, so I can't use the ATM machine." Same concept.
(PIN=Personal Identification Number; ATM=Automatic Teller Machine)

 

[Willie Oleson]

"I forgot my PIN number, so I can't use the ATM machine."

Here, we say "I forgot my pincode so I can't use the money automat".
The most recent version is "geldmaat" which translates into "money buddy" which, I guess, isn't very different from paypal.
Everything related to money transactions is being friendlysized, as if it's something that you want to do. It won't be long before the process starts with "enjoy your transaction" and ends with "how do you rate this transaction?"

 

[Seaviewer]

In the US, you might hear some moron say "I forgot my PIN number, so I can't use the ATM machine." Same concept.
(PIN=Personal Identification Number; ATM=Automatic Teller Machine)

Yes, we have those here as well.

 

[Daniel Avery]

Oh, I had no doubt you had ATM's. I just assume everyone calls them different things in different countries, so I provided the definitions.

In the mid-1980s when banks started introducing them here, every bank tried to give the system a unique name in an effort to publicize them (and to give them a humanizing touch). My then-bank referred to the ATM as "Tillie". Thankfully that didn't stick.

 

[Seaviewer]

Is it just me, or are plural verbs slowly disappearing?
The most obvious example is saying "is" instead of "are" when the subject is clearly plural. I'm hearing this a lot lately.

 

[bmasters9]

One thing in this line that has been irking me (I don't know if I said it here) is when someone is referred to as saying the person that..., instead of the person who.

 

[Seaviewer]

When events are said to be cancelled - but will be rescheduled for the next day, for example. That's not cancelled, that's postponed.

 

[Seaviewer]

When a question mark is put at the end of a sentence which is not a question.
e.g. "I wonder whether it will rain today?"

 

[Seaviewer]

"Happy belated birthday" instead of "a belated 'happy birthday'."
It's the greeting that is belated, not the birthday itself.

 

[Willie Oleson]

I prefer the grammatically incorrect version because hiding the "belated" (my fault) between the catchy "happy!" and the catchy "birthday!" softens that fault a bit.

And perhaps there is a passive-aggressive aspect in using this particular incorrect grammar: sort of blaming the recipient for not having his/her birthday on the day I actually do remember it.

 

[Willie Oleson]

When events are said to be cancelled - but will be rescheduled for the next day, for example. That's not cancelled, that's postponed.

Then the event is still cancelled for that day/night. You can't reschedule before cancelling the date it was supposed to happen.
The cancellation is the first thing that people need to know as it affects the here & now. The rescheduled event/appointment is then optional.
Of course the wife is going to blame the husband even thought the event was her idea. He'll say he'd rather stay home and watch the game and drink beer and then she will say that he never considers her needs and then he will say that they "have sex three times a week, what more do you want?" and then she will call him a bastard and storm out of the room and call her sister to complain about her lousy husband.
Never underestimate a cancellation.

 

[Seaviewer]

But the event is still on; there's no thought of it not being held - just later.

 

[Seaviewer]

It always strikes me as odd when the term "damage bill" is used - the damage comes free, it's the repair that costs money.

 

[Daniel Avery]

A lot of these "grammar" issues are often just people lazily writing something and allowing the auto-correct to be a "crutch". I often see "women" and "woman" used interchangeably ("A women was seen fleeing the scene") because people just throw ideas down when posting to social media and don't proofread before they send it. I mean, if you read it aloud it sounds as wrong as it is. But the tech is mostly searching for misspelled words, when in this case neither word is spelled incorrectly. I think this is why the word "defiantly" pops up so often when someone means "definitely"---while "defiantly" is an actual word, it's the wrong one nonetheless.

I occasionally see people refer to "being payed" as opposed to being paid (as in paid a salary). I thought it was just stupid people not knowing how to do simple verb conjugation, but it turns out "payed" is an actual word (that means something else entirely) that autocorrect tries to insert in place of "paid"....and the person doesn't proofread.

 

[alexpaige]

Another one that's been irritating me is the use of "bought" instead of "brought."
The trouble is that I can't tell whether they're using the wrong word or it's that the "r" has disappeared as with the first "r' in "infrastructure" or the first "l" in "fulfill." At least in those cases it doesn't sound like another word.
Similar is the sloppy pronunciation of "hypothermia" so that it sounds like "hyperthermia", which is its opposite.

On pronunciation, what THE HELL IS IT with people deciding that the word "sixth" should now be pronounced as "sicth" ???
I can't ever remember hearing this pronunciation when I was growing up. But over the last decade it's become increasing commonplace especially from Brits.

 

[Seaviewer]

On pronunciation, what THE HELL IS IT with people deciding that the word "sixth" should now be pronounced as "sicth" ???
I can't ever remember hearing this pronunciation when I was growing up. But over the last decade it's become increasing commonplace especially from Brits.

And the annoyingly common "ec cetera" for "et cetera."

 

[Willie Oleson]

This has nothing to do with English language but it's a funny fact I like to share with you on this Sunday afternoon CET.
Dutch language has a few nasty traps, you can only avoid them intuitively (if that intuition is correct) because once you start to examine these problems it becomes a total nightmare. On the brighter side, these tempting mistakes won't have a big impact on the context of whatever it is you're writing or saying. If anything, only the people who know how to spell those words correctly - like maybe 20% of the Dutch population, optimistically - would notice the mistakes. You know, the snobs.
Compared to der/die/das multiple-choice puzzle in German language it's all relatively cool.

But anyway, for those who are not really "feeling" it they've invented some practical tricks, and one of those tricks is called the SMURF rule. "When in doubt about the "d" or "dt" spelling, replace the verb** with the word smurf, and then you will hear the difference". I don't know of any other language that has a smurf rule, but I could be wrong.
It would be nice to actually use that smurf rule but I'm one of the snobs who knows how to spell those words correctly so...it's not for me. Hm.

**to make things extra funny, it's about the Dutch word "word/wordt" (=become)

When all is spat and done, the "TH" is just a "D" in denial.
End rant. Au revoir, voyage voyage.