Can we have a 'Plain English' thread please?

[MrsJohnCuSackFullOfPresents]

you know, where we post examples of ridiculous convoluted ways of saying simple things?

This has been prompted by an email from FIL (who is practically illiterate IMO but that's another story) to DH which he finished with 'Looking forward to our telecom link up on Wednesday at 0800 hours'

He means he is looking forward to DH ringing them (you know, on the TELEPHONE) on Wednesday evening our time

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

please post similar nonsense here so I know I'm not alone in finding this kind of thing intensely irritating

[MrsJohnCuSackFullOfPresents]

ridiculous convoluted ways?
ridiculously convoluted ways?

[Bluestocking]

Yes indeedy, that is idiotic. I imagine him saying it in a John Major voice.

[PennyBenjamin]

Actually, I think both could be right - you could have something that was ridiculous AND convoluted, or something that was ridiculously convoluted.

Possibly missing a comma in the first one though

Welcome to Pedants' Corner!

[MrsJohnCuSackFullOfPresents]

yes I think I meant to type 'ridiculously' but missed the 'ly' in my typing fury, hence no comma

Still, presumably he enjoyed their 'telecom link up' which is the main thing

[Magrat]

ex-forces?

[TenLordsaLapin]

Magrat, I was thinking the same thing!

I get this sort of thing :



AL: hello?
LL: hello, it's me. where are you?
AL: short finals, eta 10
LL: OK

[MrsJohnCuSackFullOfPresents]

NOT ex forces
but very into planes etc. so probably trying to give the impression of a forces background!

[Mandalin]

I had an e mail from a bank person and she managed to use the phrase "touch base" twice within one sentence.

Not convoluted but annoying.

[MrsJohnCuSackFullOfPresents]

oh FIL touches base all the blardy time

'Let's touch base re our web cam link up'

FFS

I would complete Buzz Word Bingo in about 5 minutes if I had the misfortune to have to be in a work meeting with him

I bet he say 'synergy' a lot at work

[MrsJohnCuSackFullOfPresents]

says

gah

[PartridgeinaRustyBearTree]

OH, my DB1 uses 'eta' all the time, drives me nuts. He doesn't even have the ex-forces excuse, though he did work for BAe for years & was involved in a vintage aircraft society, so he mixed with a lot of RAF types.

I work in IT in Education, so I get two types of jargon at work - my current (non) favourite is 'emotional literacy' - it always makes me think they are teaching the kids to read Mills & Boon.

[RoxyNotFoxy]

Isn't "emotional literacy" a branch of "people skills"? Now if only I knew what that was...

[EmsMum]

0800 in which timezone ? Is he somewhere in the Pacific or did he mean 2000 hours?

Using the 24 hour clock across different time zones is fine (for a business meeting, at least) so long as you do it correctly and make the TZ clear... convoluted and ambiguous/plain wrong is the worst of all worlds.

[OverRated]

Was watching the news the other day when the reporter was describing a house which was being burglarized

Not convoluted but irritating

[OverRated]

Lots of people here don't understand the 24 hour clock

[EmsMum]

Come to that the British Gas repair man, who recently fixed my boiler and kindly reprogrammed the timer, didn't seem to understand the 24 hour clock... as we realised as the heating came on at night and went off in the day ... now that was irritating!

[Swedes2Turnips1]

Is your FIL American? If not, perhaps you could persuade him to speak from now on with an American accent (I think deep south would be fun)?

[MrsJohnCuSackFullOfPresents]

we are in NZ, they are in the UK, the time difference causes endless confusion. He did mean 0800 their time, 2100 our time

he is not American, just a fool

[NAB3littlemonkeys]

Maybe he was trying to be funny??

[MrsJohnCuSackFullOfPresents]

'fraid not Nab