To ask where this stupid phrase has come from?

[Bluesheep8]

"Swap out"
Why the addition of the word 'out' ?
I was in a restaurant last week and heard someone say "can I swap out the chips for new potatoes?"
The word swap says all that's needed surely? It just makes no sense

another one is things being "curated"....e.g. putting ornaments on a mantel piece, organising your wardrobe etc

I saw the word curated used in completely the wrong way the other week, on an advert for a large retail company - can't remember which now.

But given that you 'curate' a collection of items to be shown together, or you specially select/organise them in some way deliberate way, they were using the word curated in place of got or obtained, which is not the same thing at all.

It struck me as a really clumsy way of trying to shoehorn a very in-vogue buzz word into a sentence and getting it completely wrong. Yet it somehow got past the person responsible for editing and signing off this stuff.

I used to get irritated by 'meet with' but that is thoroughly established now. John Le Carre had GEORGE Smiley mull on it, in Tinker Tailor from the 1970s, I think. He wondered if what was then clearly an Americanism has come from a German construction. It's curious how things move from one dialect to another and then grow like weeds.

My DC's say 'search up', which is something their teachers say at school. What they mean is 'google'!

Change it (meaning the performance) up (used to mean differently)

But the 'differently' is already understood by using 'change', surely? To change something means to do it diferently. The 'up' performs the function in this case of emphasising the need for not just change, but for improvement. The person is being urged to change their performance for the better - up their game, in other words, arent they? Not saying I like the phrase - 'improve' would cover it for me!

@drpaddington

My DC's say 'search up', which is something their teachers say at school. What they mean is 'google'!

Yep my DC used to say that too.

Solve for…” arrrgh you just solve! You don’t solve for…

Isn't that correct in maths problems though, where you say "solve for x" - i.e work out what x is?

super swap out

everything is super....

@Nesbo

It doesn’t irritate me as much as the construct: “It needs sorted” and the like (instead of “”It needs to be sorted out”. That one seems peculiarly British.

Oh god, agree 110%. Apparently, it was regional but now everyone uses it and it really grates on me.

Take out instead of Take away

Ooh, and ‘blue lighted’. That’s pretty common on here.

‘I was blue lighted to the hospital’

FFS, you mean you were taken to hospital in an ambulance. Calling it ‘blue lighted’ is just a way of adding attention-seeking drahmz.

@SixQuidGames

Ooh, and ‘blue lighted’. That’s pretty common on here.

‘I was blue lighted to the hospital’

FFS, you mean you were taken to hospital in an ambulance. Calling it ‘blue lighted’ is just a way of adding attention-seeking drahmz.

Yep. All of this.

My Bad

I don’t even know what it’s supposed to mean, at a possible guess it may be “sorry, I was wrong”. If it is, then why can’t you just say that.

Craving for. That's another one. You either crave it, or you have a craving for it. You don't crave for it.

And cringe seems to be used as an adjective. 'That's so cringe'

NO. STOP IT. Cringe is a verb. You cringe in reaction to something. The thing itself cannot 'be' cringe,

And bias. I keep reading 'I may be bias but...'

No. You may be biased. Bias-ED.

You can display bias. Someone can show bias. They cannot be bias. STOP IT.

A fairly recent change of usage has me baffled because I have no idea why anyone thought it was needed at all.

I can't help feeling that "partially" instead of "partly" is a bit longwinded as well as originally meaning something different. Every time I hear "partially" I expect it to be the opposite of "impartially".

Part means a bit of or an incomplete thing.
Partial means biased (usually in favour of the thing, whatever it is).

So partly dressed would mean not fully dressed; goodness knows what partially dressed might mean, though I suppose "wearing the shirt of a particular football team" might make sense of it.

English is not a perfectly logical or efficient language. It never has been and it never will be. People use words differently than you for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes they repeat things they hear because they like the way it sounds or it's what their friends say, or because the "correct" thing still sounds wrong or too informal so they try to fancy it up a bit (ask your local police officer about that one) or else it sounds too formal so they try to make it sound friendlier and less rude.

These prescriptivist language threads are tiring. You're just trying to show that YOU know good English unlike all these other dummies but all you're doing is showing that you have no idea how a language in common usage works.

I heard "switch out" in the US and it threw me because it was in an electrical context. The hire Jeep had a faulty power socket so the satnav GPS died and I couldn't charge my phone.

I was advised on the phone to "switch out" the fuse - they meant buy a new one and replace the dodgy one, of course, but I had to have that spelt out to me. 🤦🏼‍♀️

In Viz they used to quote "Lemmy out of Motorhead" "Bruce Dickinson out of Iron Maiden" ’.grin🤣
Like 'Duncan out of Blue'

The one I find weird, which I've only seen on Mumsnet (and only recently, but it's becoming more frequent) is the new meaning of "breaking his/her heart", e.g. "my poor DS was breaking his heart" meaning "my poor DS was crying/really upset".

It's like an existing, frequently used phrase has just been given a completely different meaning with no acknowledgement that it already means something else.

@StormOfSekhmet

I have also heard 'Bleeding out', it's just bleeding!! It annoys me too, this adding 'out ' to things.

Doesn’t bleeding out mean kind of bleeding to death, like on an operating table when the aorta ruptures and no one can stop it.

@PupInAPram

'Reach out to'. What's wrong with 'contact' ?

😁

Screaming. Everyone on MN seems to be screaming or being screamed at. I never hear people screaming.

Plate up. " Plate up the food". It seems that "plate" has become a verb.

My own pet peeve….
“You’re doing brillant” surely it should be “you’re doing brilliantly”

Chipsinthewoods, I have heard my Son use it when he has been bleeding a little bit!! If used in the context you are suggesting, it does make sense.

@StormOfSekhmet

I have also heard 'Bleeding out', it's just bleeding!! It annoys me too, this adding 'out ' to things.

Well, no. Bleeding out is when someone bleeds to death.