Pedants United

[MJMcCready]

This thread is rather curious. I strongly recommend 'The Stories of English' by David Crystal. Amongst other things he claims that the term misuse is rather prescriptive.

[Paul Habershon]

England v Iran football BBC1.
I know the commentators are easily shot down by pedants, but I did enjoy the 'vociferous' tackle.

While I'm here a Sunday Times crossword solution to 'Imagine chat' (11) was CONFABULATE. I have often heard 'conflab' (with the presumably unnecessary l) used for a 'chat'.

[John Upham]

England v Iran football BBC1.
I know the commentators are easily shot down by pedants, but I did enjoy the 'vociferous' tackle.

While I'm here a Sunday Times crossword solution to 'Imagine chat' (11) was CONFABULATE. I have often heard 'conflab' (with the presumably unnecessary l) used for a 'chat'.

Talking of confabulate, have you used the word

contrafibularity ?

[Paul Habershon]

England v Iran football BBC1.
I know the commentators are easily shot down by pedants, but I did enjoy the 'vociferous' tackle.

While I'm here a Sunday Times crossword solution to 'Imagine chat' (11) was CONFABULATE. I have often heard 'conflab' (with the presumably unnecessary l) used for a 'chat'.

Talking of conflablate, have you used the word

contrafibularity ?

John, the answer is not only never used it but hadn't even met it. Guessing it might be doing something nasty to one's calf bone I had to look it up. The actual definition seems to fit well with irony.

[Nick Ivell]

I noticed that vociferous too. It's as though the commentator thought it meant strong.

[John Upham]

England v Iran football BBC1.
I know the commentators are easily shot down by pedants, but I did enjoy the 'vociferous' tackle.

While I'm here a Sunday Times crossword solution to 'Imagine chat' (11) was CONFABULATE. I have often heard 'conflab' (with the presumably unnecessary l) used for a 'chat'.

Talking of conflablate, have you used the word

contrafibularity ?

John, the answer is not only never used it but hadn't even met it. Guessing it might be doing something nasty to one's calf bone I had to look it up. The actual definition seems to fit well with irony.

A little background: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOSYiT2iG08

[Neil Graham]

I noticed that vociferous too. It's as though the commentator thought it meant strong.

My recollection of the tackle concerned was that it made the opponent shout out in agony; I thought it rather a good description.

[John Upham]

I noticed that vociferous too. It's as though the commentator thought it meant strong.

My recollection of the tackle concerned was that it made the opponent shout out in agony; I thought it rather a good description.

Did the player shout out "In Agony"?

[Paul Habershon]

In General Chat (re the Lawrence Trent boxing) Matthew Turner has correctly used the word 'homage' and I hope he would pronounce it as written.

I have an irrational dislike of the frequently heard French pronunciation 'hommage'. Unless you are speaking French, why change the perfectly good English word? I was pleased to see pretentiousness and affectation mentioned in this article from 2006:

https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2006 ... omage.html

Americans are criticised, but I think the usage is more widespread now.

[John Clarke]

I once got into an on-line tussle with someone over this. As I pointed out then, if you pronounce it "homARZH" (sounding the initial H), you end up with a ridiculous hybrid that isn't correct in either language.

[Paul Habershon]

I could scarcely believe I heard AERIATED in a report on the BBC1 6 p.m. news on Thursday 31st August. I checked iPlayer and there it was, describing concrete in schools. No such word! Even to describe annoyance. I suppose it may have entered the language in some regional dialect or simply by persistent usage as language evolves, but it is certainly invalid in Scrabble.

AERATED✓

[Kevin Thurlow]

Continuing the grumps at BBC, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66701748 is headlined, "One in five children regularly miss school, figures show".

The subject is "One", which amazingly is singular, therefore it should be, "One in five children regularly misses school, figures show."

Then the first line of the report is,

"More than one in five children in England are frequently missing school, data shows, in a sign attendance is still struggling to get back to pre-pandemic levels."

which should be,

"More than one in five children in England is frequently missing school, data show, in a sign attendance is still struggling to get back to pre-pandemic levels."

Same thing with "one", but then they treat the plural "data" as singular...

[IM Jack Rudd]

I'd say that data is probably treated as a non-count noun these days, and it's one of those concepts where you could argue either way whether it's plural or non-count. (In Latin, sure, it's plural.)

[Ian Thompson]

Continuing the grumps at BBC, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66701748 is headlined, "One in five children regularly miss school, figures show".

...

Then the first line of the report is,

"More than one in five children in England are frequently missing school, data shows, in a sign attendance is still struggling to get back to pre-pandemic levels."

I read that report as well and wondered how many of the 20% of children who regularly miss school were also in the 20% who frequently miss school.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"I read that report as well and wondered how many of the 20% of children who regularly miss school were also in the 20% who frequently miss school."

Good one - missed that.