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indiana · Tennis legend

The weird & wonderful world of English grammar...

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Coup Droit wrote:
Do you think they meant 'refuted'?

It's quite common to use a word that sounds similar - a word slip (which I can forgive in spoken language but is not forgiveable in a written text, from a journalist)

Not beyond the realms of possibility. I wouldn't have batted an eyelid at that or "rejected".

On the second point, I've been rewatching past episodes of Grantchester on ITV3 (at the moment Series 10, episode 8). IMHO, the scriptwriters of most historical TV series have tin ears when it comes to "period" dialogue & repeatedly allow neologisms to invade their scripts (even Anthony Horowitz, responsible for most of the scripts of the excellent Foyle's War, seemed incapable of preventing the incursion of the ghastly "hopefully"). This one was written by Daisy Coulam, one of the worst offenders (along with Rachel Flowerday - cf. the otherwise enjoyable Father Brown stories). It wasn't a neologism on this occasion, but a "word slip": she had Robson Green's character, Geordie Keating, referring to fascist/sexist language that should be "resigned" to the history books...

christ · Challenger qualifying

consigned

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

christ wrote:
consigned

Precisely!

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Further proof, as if it were needed, that the Yanks can't speak proper English:

From a Beeb article reporting that the Somali football referee, Omar Artan, who was outrageously denied entry to the US yesterday after an 11-hour grilling by immigration officials at Miami International airport, despite being in possession of a diplomatic passport & a single-entry US visa:

A Trump administration source said: "This individual was seeking admission to the United States. Upon further inspection by CBP [Custom and Border Protection], derogatory information, including association with suspected members of terror organisations, was discovered making the traveller ineligible for admission to the United States under the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).

... unless, of course, "derogatory" means "incriminating" or "compromising" or something similar in Yank-speak!

Brendan F · Strong Club Player

I thought I'd brought it up before but I couldn't find any mention in this thread, my second biggest bugbear (Americans using the f word for autumn will always be top of the list) is "than" being replaced by "that." It's obviously another curse of autocorrect but I don't know why after all these years of text messaging it's never been resolved.

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Brendan F wrote:
I thought I'd brought it up before but I couldn't find any mention in this thread, my second biggest bugbear (Americans using the f word for autumn will always be top of the list) is "than" being replaced by "that." It's obviously another curse of autocorrect but I don't know why after all these years of text messaging it's never been resolved.

Bit puzzled by that one without any context, Brendan. Would you mind giving an example, please?

Brendan F · Strong Club Player

Stircrazy wrote:
Brendan F wrote:
I thought I'd brought it up before but I couldn't find any mention in this thread, my second biggest bugbear (Americans using the f word for autumn will always be top of the list) is "than" being replaced by "that." It's obviously another curse of autocorrect but I don't know why after all these years of text messaging it's never been resolved.
Bit puzzled by that one without any context, Brendan. Would you mind giving an example, please?

It's something I saw frequently on social media but I've given up Facebook now. But I did see 2 examples on here within the last 24 hours, but I see JonH immediately corrected it after I had seen it. The original sentence was "but i think overall we are better that the press are deducing from this event".

indiana · Tennis legend

Brendan F wrote:
I thought I'd brought it up before but I couldn't find any mention in this thread, my second biggest bugbear (Americans using the f word for autumn will always be top of the list) is "than" being replaced by "that." It's obviously another curse of autocorrect but I don't know why after all these years of text messaging it's never been resolved.

Fall, fall, fall. Why North Americans shouldn't have their own word for things ...

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Brendan F wrote:
Stircrazy wrote:
Brendan F wrote:
I thought I'd brought it up before but I couldn't find any mention in this thread, my second biggest bugbear (Americans using the f word for autumn will always be top of the list) is "than" being replaced by "that." It's obviously another curse of autocorrect but I don't know why after all these years of text messaging it's never been resolved.
Bit puzzled by that one without any context, Brendan. Would you mind giving an example, please?
It's something I saw frequently on social media but I've given up Facebook now. But I did see 2 examples on here within the last 24 hours, but I see JonH immediately corrected it after I had seen it. The original sentence was "but i think overall we are better that the press are deducing from this event".

Thanks for that, though I can't say I've been aware of it myself, but then, this messageboard is the only social medium with which I engage regularly - unless you count the hour or so I spend every now & then reading the comments section of Times on-line articles which catch my eye in the daily e-mail & those are so riddled with all the usual grammatical howlers that drive me to distraction that I would probably easily miss "that" for "than".

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Brendan F wrote:
I thought I'd brought it up before but I couldn't find any mention in this thread, my second biggest bugbear (Americans using the f word for autumn will always be top of the list) is "than" being replaced by "that." It's obviously another curse of autocorrect but I don't know why after all these years of text messaging it's never been resolved.

I'll chuck in a couple more examples of ignorant American usage: "if you're not that good of a...". I was reminded of it when Tracy Austin was talking to Clare Balding about Arthur Féry on BBC1 a short time ago. Just don't see the logic of it. Then there's "as far as..." not accompanied by "is/are concerned" at the end of the phrase & "New Year's" - New Year's what? Eve? Day? If you don't wish to be specific, then leave out the "'s", for God's sake! Sadly, all three examples seem to have gained a firm foothold among the younger generation on this side of the Pond - just like "driver's licence" for "driving licence"! furious

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Here's another one: the curious (relatively) new use of "across" in the sense of (I think!) "keep up to date with", as in the final sentence of an announcement by the Beeb that the Mexico-England match may be brought forward by several hours because of the threat of thunderstorms & heavy rain at the original scheduled kick-off time:

No final decision has been made just yet, but you can keep across the latest updates here.

indiana · Tennis legend

Stircrazy wrote:
Here's another one: the curious (relatively) new use of "across" in the sense of (I think!) "keep up to date with", as in the final sentence of an announcement by the Beeb that the Mexico-England match may be brought forward by several hours because of the threat of thunderstorms & heavy rain at the original scheduled kick-off time:
No final decision has been made just yet, but you can keep across the latest updates here.

Absolutely fine with that. Common usage. Easily understandable and indeed been around a fairly long while, so not sure I'd call it even relatively new. Though I'm not sure what your relative scale is.

Brendan F · Strong Club Player

indiana wrote:
Stircrazy wrote:
Here's another one: the curious (relatively) new use of "across" in the sense of (I think!) "keep up to date with", as in the final sentence of an announcement by the Beeb that the Mexico-England match may be brought forward by several hours because of the threat of thunderstorms & heavy rain at the original scheduled kick-off time:
No final decision has been made just yet, but you can keep across the latest updates here.
Absolutely fine with that. Common usage. Easily understandable and indeed been around a fairly long while, so not sure I'd call it even relatively new. Though I'm not sure what your relative scale is.
Presumably abreast is politically incorrect now

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Here's one to upset you, SC:

Fery faces the winner of Grigor Dimitrov vs Matteo Berrettini in the fourth round on Monday. He added: "Yeah, I've practiced with both of them. I don't know either of them well. Obviously two very established players. They've had great careers. So it's going to be, yeah, a great challenge for me to play one of those guys.

"I'm looking forward to it. I feel confident in myself. I feel confident in the fact that I can rival-ize with them and put a good performance in."

You're welcome biggrin