Stircrazy wrote:

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Stircrazy wrote:

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Stircrazy wrote:

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I had to smile at the Beeb's gaffe.  That said, on the evidence of the linguistic abominations I regularly see perpetrated by its journalists (generally the younger ones!) on the news site, but which are never acknowledged (are their reports subject to sub-editing?), I'm not sure it should be drawing attention to its ignorance in such a way. 

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A prime example from the current home page:

Jailed cancer charity thief ordered to pay back rest of £95,000 she defrauded

How on earth do you defraud money as opposed to a person, a bank, HMRC or some other institution?    The journo responsible for it was obviously too damned lazy to type "obtained by fraud" instead - two words too many! 

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And here's another one!  I had absolutely no idea that trees could be said to possess special abilities in a particular area & I am sick to death of seeing "gift" used as a synonym for the verb from it is formed.  

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And yet another one, the plonker who wrote it obviously too thick to realise that it's open to misinterpretation or, if he or she does, too lazy to type "Woman's heartache as search for mother's body goes on", which is unequivocal. 

christ wrote:

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Two years of being body searched would be a cause for grieving, though.

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Can't argue with that.

"given"?

(Cheap shot - sorry!)

Stircrazy wrote:

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Stircrazy wrote:

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Two more for the collection from the live article on the yellow/amber weather warnings for the weekend:

1) Meanwhile, National Highways suggests travellers to delay their journeys if they can.

I'm noticing that clumsy, ungrammatical construction more & more now & it's by no means confined to the Beeb.  Why that "to"?    What was wrong with "National Highway suggests travellers delay their journeys", ideally with a "that" between "suggests" & "travellers"?

2)  Many of us have experienced the disappointment of putting sledges away after predictions of snowfall ended up to be just more rain.

"ended up to be"?  Most people would say "ended up being"!    What do they teach kids in English classes these days - assuming English classes are in fact still given?

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Two more pig-ignorant BBC journos:  "Wife calls to ban gambling ads after husband's £85k debt".  Why couldn't whichever of them was responsible for writing it have said "Woman calls for ban on gambling ads...".  Lazy/semi-literate sods!

The article from which it's taken.

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And the Beeb also appears to believe that "tariff" is a verb!  

Not, strictly speaking, an English grammar issue, but there's no other convenient thread on which to raise it & a new one probably wouldn't "have the legs", as they say.  I can't decide whether it makes me laugh or simply appals me because of the sheer ignorance it betrays.  I was reminded of it the other day, when I caught up with a recent episode of the Beeb's Antiques Road Trip, which I actually quite like, & it's the staggering inability of the experts to pronounce foreign place names & technical terms borrowed from languages such as French, German & Italian correctly:  the expert, James Braxton, was considering buying a ceramic jug, which he said came from "Kwimper".  I cringed.  Tim Wonnacott, who provides a running commentary/additional background information for the programmes, then referred to the place as "Keemper" ("Quimper" without the nasalisation of the first syllable + stress on it - that said, he got it right at the auction stage!).

In a similar vein, I once heard the London antiques dealer, Tony Geering, tell a furniture restorer that he'd bought the item he'd taken in to be restored (Salvage hunters:  the restorers - absolutely fascinating to watch such skilled craftsmen & women at work) in "Neevers" (like "beavers"!), i.e. Nevers, a place I happen to have visited once or twice many moons ago.  

Braxton himself, although clearly very knowledgeable, has quite a talent for mangling or mispronouncing English words/phrases, never mind foreign ones.  In fact, he's a regular Mrs Malaprop, who's also much given to spoonerisms! Three prime examples of his malapropisms are "the full gambit",  the "Frisby flop" &, when he was told that he reminded his travelling companion of Jack Nicholson, his response was that he was "funnelling [his] [no "inner"] Uncle Jack"!  

Wonnacott seems unable to resist (or perhaps it's his scriptwriters who can't, since they must be aware of the banter exchanged between the two rival experts) drawing attention to them, but he really shouldn't be throwing stones, as witness "Quimper" & a real lulu he came out with last year that's stuck in my mind:  there's a popular visitor attraction in Scarborough called Peasholm Park, which he managed to pronounce "Peasle [pronounced like "weasel"]-home Park"! 

Common French terms used in connection with antiques which seem to cause problems are:  cloisonné, guilloché, jardinière, trompe l'oeil, famille rose, faïence & papier-mâché, while the Italian terms, intaglio & tazza, frequently trip up the experts & I've yet to hear one pronounce the full name of the German tableware manufacturer, WMF (Württembergische Metallwarenfabrik), properly.  In fact, they make a positive virtue of not being able to get it right!    I'd expect these people to do a bit of research & get their facts straight!

Can't see me ever adding this particular new word to my idiolect, but it's certainly had a fascinating journey into English!    The linked articles on South African & Irish "loan words" imported into British English are also worth reading, IMHO - but I would say that, wouldn't I?