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AIBU?

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Original poster

It’s GIVEN not GIFTED FFS !!!

494 replies

TriflePudding · 15/02/2021 18:19

Oh god it’s all over Facebook and it’s driving me crazy - “I have here to gift ...a tatty old sofa I can’t be arsed to get rid of myself so I’m fobbing it off on someone else”
or “I have been gifted a bag of baby clothes but they are too small, does anyone know if anyone in need ?”
Or “looking to gift some donations to local women’s refuge/children’s hospital- who do I get in touch with ?”

JUST FUCK OFF !! Say “given” and while we are at it just donate stuff quietly without any fanfare !

YABU - it is perfectly acceptable to use “gifted” as a verb

Or

YANBU - the word “gifted” being used as a verb was invented by Beelzebub himself.

Please feel free to add your own !

OP posts:
Thread gallery
13
crabb · 15/02/2021 21:56

I quietly mourn the death of the verb “lend”. We all loan things now.

TheKeatingFive · 15/02/2021 21:58

God MN is so tedious about this stuff.

Language evolves. You’d all have been horrified if you’d been around in the time of Shakespeare.

I like gifted. It’s more precise than the alternatives.

JohnMiddleNameRedactedSwanson · 15/02/2021 21:59

could she have an eraser

We used eraser when I was at school in the UK in the 90s. ‘Rubber’ made everyone giggle about condoms.

AngelicaSchuylerAndHerSisters · 15/02/2021 22:01

It is not pedantic to be correct.

CharityDingle · 15/02/2021 22:03

“Invite” is a verb, not a noun. “Invitation” is a noun. There is no such thing as a “wedding invite.” It’s a bloody wedding INVITATION. Gaaaahhhhhhhh.

Yesssssssssss! And it's everywhere.

EmilySpinach · 15/02/2021 22:03

@TriflePudding

Oh god it’s all over Facebook and it’s driving me crazy - “I have here to gift ...a tatty old sofa I can’t be arsed to get rid of myself so I’m fobbing it off on someone else” or “I have been gifted a bag of baby clothes but they are too small, does anyone know if anyone in need ?” Or “looking to gift some donations to local women’s refuge/children’s hospital- who do I get in touch with ?”

JUST FUCK OFF !! Say “given” and while we are at it just donate stuff quietly without any fanfare !

YABU - it is perfectly acceptable to use “gifted” as a verb

Or

YANBU - the word “gifted” being used as a verb was invented by Beelzebub himself.

Please feel free to add your own !

I don’t really have a problem with the use of ‘gifted’ in any of your examples. In the first and third it makes it clear that the items are being passed on with no expectation of recompense and in the second it makes it clear that the baby clothes are theirs to do with as they wish.
Hippopotas · 15/02/2021 22:05

Anyone who uses boob or boobing in a breastfeeding context. Makes my teeth itch

BewareTheBeardedDragon · 15/02/2021 22:06

@ThanksItHasPockets

I teach teenagers, and have noticed that they all now say ‘search it up’ as a weird hybrid of ‘search’ and ‘look it up’.
See I quite like that. It makes searching sound more fun...
DuckyMcDuck · 15/02/2021 22:11

Also, you go TO a place

You don't go cinema - go TO the cinema

Go London - no, no, no go TO London

Go Tom's house - go TO TO TO TO TO his bloody house

And breathe

Cccc1111 · 15/02/2021 22:14

The one that irritates me is when people talk about a house they’ve bought and say ‘I’ve inherited a nice garden’, ‘I’ve inherited a bad kitchen”. No you’ve bought it not inherited it, the previous owners didn’t die and leave the house to you, they didn’t give it to you,, they didn’t pass the house onto you by some line of succession, you bought the house from them.

ForensicAccountant · 15/02/2021 22:15

Lawyers, accountants, financial advisers - they all give advice. That doesn’t mean it’s free.

TatianaBis · 15/02/2021 22:18

@TheKeatingFive

God MN is so tedious about this stuff.

Language evolves. You’d all have been horrified if you’d been around in the time of Shakespeare.

I like gifted. It’s more precise than the alternatives.

There's always the pedant on these threads who points out that language evolves as if it was some kind of revelation.

Language evolves: new meanings are coined: lockdown, fake news, zoom, Trumpian, anti-vaxx; old meanings shift: gifted, prestige, prioritise, premiere. And it is used incorrectly.

It's ok to be irritated by any of it. Sometimes words annoy us.

Billandben444 · 15/02/2021 22:19

Before the days of catch-up TV - no, you weren't going to video a programme: you were going to record it on your video recorder.

Bananablondie · 15/02/2021 22:20

I’m still fighting the good fight against ‘I was sat’. I think I might be the only one left who uses ‘sitting’.

OhWhatFuckeryIsThisNow · 15/02/2021 22:21

@AdultingAvoidance

blow out. Spoke to someone perfectly sane last week and then they mentioned a blow out. No, it's a bloody blow dry
Could have been worse.
tttigress · 15/02/2021 22:22

Isn't "gifted" an American phrase?

(This may have been stated in the previous 10 pages)

okstretch · 15/02/2021 22:24

The use of 'loose' for 'lose' annoys me because they are two completely different words with different meanings.
It would be a pity to lose 'lose'.

6.00 am in the morning.
I hear that on the radio and it irritates me too.

mumwon · 15/02/2021 22:24

(I think Covid & lockdown has affected everybody's tolerance of small irritations - little things that we shook off before makes our blood boil.
Ahem,& that includes me!)
Sox as a plural of sock!

GreenlandTheMovie · 15/02/2021 22:25

@Bananablondie

I’m still fighting the good fight against ‘I was sat’. I think I might be the only one left who uses ‘sitting’.
I don't like it either, but I think its grammatically correct for those dialects. Its a past tense that makes sense in other Germanic languages.
MechantGourmet · 15/02/2021 22:25

@littlepattilou Re "for free" - you were given it for nothing OR you were given it free [of charge].
You're not given something 'for free'.

TatianaBis · 15/02/2021 22:26

@Bananablondie

I’m still fighting the good fight against ‘I was sat’. I think I might be the only one left who uses ‘sitting’.
That's the ONE. Yes. DRIVES me more mad than any other language transgression.

Should be a ducking offence.

AndThenTheDayBecomesTheNight · 15/02/2021 22:26

'...infiltrated the language and shouldn't have'? Shouldn't have according to whom? If a substantial number of people are using it (and understanding it, including any nuances, among themselves), then it's part of the language and not some interloüing foreign body disturbing its purity. I find thse threads quite tiresome, because they usually involve implicit or open sneering at people deemed to have pretentions, and quite a lot of anti-Americanism.

If something adds a particular nuance, I'm all for it. I'm not sure re 'gift' vs 'give', but some stuff that my first instnct is to be annoyed about, I have to admit serves a distinct function. Alone time is different from time alone, for example. Another one I struggle to repress annoyance over is 'decline' used to mean 'refuse', but it says something about the way the refusal takes place, I think.

I'm also a huge supporter of 'y'all', 'youse' and other forms of plural 'you'. It's useful in some contexts to be able to distinguish whether you're addressing an individual or a group.

LittleMimi · 15/02/2021 22:26

@Bananablondie

I’m still fighting the good fight against ‘I was sat’. I think I might be the only one left who uses ‘sitting’.
It’s specific to parts of England. In other English speaking countries they don’t phrase it like that. It’s weird as I just started to notice it’s everywhere on British TV. Even presenters on the BBC use that. It just sounds so bad to me. It sounds like you’re saying someone else sat you down.
user1492809438 · 15/02/2021 22:26

Also, we fill IN forms , we don't fill them out.

AndThenTheDayBecomesTheNight · 15/02/2021 22:26

That's *interloping.