to absolutely hate the how people are speaking English!

[exse24Londoner]

I really hate how we have "suddenly" starting gifting presents rather than giving them as we did only a couple of years ago. Vacations - when did we start having vacations instead of holidays?????? The other day I saw an advert for pants - turned out to be trousers. Apparently when I speak to someone it is now liaising & if I call or text, I am reaching out..... the other day someone was talking about the front end, or as I prefer to call it - the beginning!!🙄

Dont get me wrong, I love the evolution of language & that generations make it their own but this isn't that this is not teenagers or cultures developing own language its...... weird management/pop psychology speak

is it just me??

My pet hate is 'step up to the plate'. We don't play baseball here and we used to say 'mark' or 'crease' for cricket. Another irritating one is 'price point', it never means more than 'price'. I hate Americanisms creeping in to our language, especially now with Trump in charge.

“Their/them/they singular is useful when you don’t know someone’s sex, or they are a figurative individual who could be either sex.

I usually call an animal it, unless its name or sex is relevant or obvious.

Everyone wears their best underwear at their wedding!

Kids are corrected at school for “Me and her did it.”

They assume “I” is posher or something, without understanding subject and object.

I find it hilarious when supermarkets describe their fish fingers as being enrobed in a crumb.

Yes! An ugly word that we dropped years ago for a very good reason.

Looks like we didn’t drop it permanently, doesn’t it?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!

What was the very good reason?

I’m Irish so I use gotten as it didn’t die out here. I find it useful that the past tense and the past participle of the verb are different. It allows for a more nuanced expression.

For example, ‘He’s got the tickets’ and ’He’s gotten the tickets‘ have different meanings.

It’s handy when you have both forms at your disposal. I’d find it restrictive not to use both got and gotten.

I got gotten where I should have gotten got.

It was dropped because there are less clunky ways of expressing the same thing.
It started to be dropped in the 18th century & you rarely see it used in 19th/20th English writing.
I'm old &, until recently, only came across it in American films & never, ever used it myself. This is probably why it grates so much.

I think a lot of it is down to children watching American rubbish. My grandson called the motorway the highway the other day and I corrected him. I totally agree with you.

You think highway isn’t an English word?

It only sounds clunky to you because you are not used to it. Losing it has resulted in a loss of nuance in the dialects that no longer use is as distinct to got.

Yes. I don’t find gotten clunky at all, probably because it’s widely use where I am. It’s a perception thing I think, rather than there being anything intrinsically wrong with gotten.

It is, but actual motorways are called motorways. I was very irritated to hear fire engines repeatedly called 'fire trucks' on radio 4 the other day.

Yes. The 'a' always pisses me off too. Just in crumb, in watercress sauce, in chilli dip etc are fine. The 'a' is so pretentious! As if it's some kind of very particular crumb or whatever.

But it’s an American term.

So where do the think the term highway robbery came from?

"I saw a reel recently"

Cotton?
Eightsome?
Fishing?

When people add 'pre' to a verb as in pre- order, pre- book. Does it make any difference to the meaning? You wouldn't say 'post book', would you? It's just idiots trying to sound clever.

People who add 'pre' to any verb as in pre- order, pre-book etc. Taking it out keeps the same meaning. It's just idiots trying to sound clever.

Pre-order does have a different meaning to order though. You pre-order something that hasn’t yet been released, a book before it’s been published, for example. If the book were published you’d just order it.

Or highwayman?

Highway is another example of an older British form that we colonists kept and continued to use after motor vehicles arrived on the scene. It's etymology is similar to "high street" which is still used in British English to denote a main or central street.

Thanks Amnbord

Helpful to know that.