Mourning the apparent demise of electricity

[MontyDonsBlueScarf]

... but taking some small comfort in the thought of getting a shock from an electric bill.

Anyone else?

I was amused when a fashion expert suggested that one might brighten up a jumper by wearing a broach not a brooch.

It looks wrong but it's a valid alternative.

www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/brooch-vs-broach-usage

It’s US usage.

Using the word "floor" when one means "ground" pees me off no end; it has even supplanted "flavourful" and "Chester draws" as my no.1 minor irritant.

Fewer is used when the noun is plural.

Less chocolate.
Fewer chocolates.

I always correct the person when it's said.
Usually met with blanks stares.

Colleague.

A perfectly good word, in its place. An abomination when used to mean 'member of staff'.

There's a huge poster by the tills in our local B&Q. 'Need advice about your DIY project? Speak to a colleague.'

I have many brilliant colleagues who I wouldn't hesitate to ask for advice about assessing clinical studies, or whether to use italics for the names of genes. I have no reason to suspect they have useful information about choosing guttering brackets or mixing cement, and I doubt they'd be impressed if I called them on a Saturday to ask. I'd much rather ask a member of staff at a large DIY shop.

That's regional, definitely Midlands use. I picked it up at primary school and my mum hated me doing it.

Ect. drives me batty especially when people don't understand that it's wrong!

Absolutely! Perhaps the poster wants you to go and find another poster and ask it? 🤣 I’d love to see this happen in real life

This was for @BinturongsSmellOfPopcorn
I pressed reply instead of quote, sorry!

"Gifted" to mean "gave a gift" is still the one that royally riles me up.

That and "revert" to mean "reply". People use it to sound officious and efficient but it just sounds thick.

Works do is top of my list as well. Can’t stand it!

The one that flummoxes me is people putting a number two in 1:1 (as in helper, or swimming lessons for example).

So 1-2-1 or 121 or 1:2:1 or even one-two-one 🤦🏻‍♀️

Given that it means one person helping one other person, where do they think the "two" fits in? 🤔

They're writing a homophone, in the same way as it's Help4Heroes

I know this is pedant's corner, but statements disliking genuine regional dialects is just snobbery.

"I need to go toilet" or "I'm going to go shops" is typical MLE (multi-cultural London English). I've read academic linguistics papers on MLE from 10-15 years ago, so this dialect isn't exactly new. You might argue it shouldn't be in written English (I'd argue otherwise), but the example above seemed to be of someone speaking in their actual dialect. Nothing wrong with that.

Even worse the above about "that needs gone" and "the dog needs washed" - this is totally standard Scottish English usage! Not even new.

I can't stand snobs who don't know what they are criticising. Funny misspellings are one thing, evolving language usage is another.

It does make sense though. You catch a bus at a bus station.

I’m a supporter of “gifted” in certain circumstances as I feel it satisfies the requirement that its use imparts more information than the alternative of “given”.

”Given” can potentially be ambiguous - it may not be clear from context whether the given item had to be returned. You might say “gave it to me as a gift” to provide that missing context, but for the sake of brevity changing “given” to “gifted” would perform the same function.

So, as a word meaning “to be given an item as a gift” I think it has a use.

Factories used to be known as Works as in Steel Works etc. It makes more sense in that context. If you're referring to an office or school it makes less sense but it's kind of traditional.

I'm completely in agreement about 'electric'.

I have to admit I can’t stand sentences “the dog needs washed”.

It feels like such a tortured grammatical structure - a discordant clashing together of a present requirement referring to a future activity described in the past participle makes me feel dizzy!

"gift" as a verb is older than the phrase "give a gift/present" by some centuries.

So I suppose it could be seen as the favourable option as it's arguably the "original" language come back into fashion.

There was a recent thread on "birthing" which mentioned "gift" as a verb.

I commented on that thread;
"..."gift" has been used as a verb since 1608 (source: hard copy OED)..."

So whereas it's fine to dislike the usage, it would be wrong to assume it's a neologism.

(BTW "birth" as a verb is newer, first recorded 1865)

Don't visit Scotland then.

Saw a biggish sign yesterday
STRICKLY NO PARKING

Somehow is more forceful than Strictly

Except it's not quite as basic as that.

There was a lovely long thread years ago about the more subtle differences which meant that the supermarket which wrote "5 items or less" (and was robustly vilified on PC and in the press from so-called pedants) wasn't wrong.

And why linguists believe it's one of the "in danger of extinction" grammatical terms and will probably be redundant within a couple of generations.

Interesting... I'd always assumed it was "work's do", obviously "do" being slang for party, "putting on a bit of a do" etc and just like you'd go to "Emma's party", you go to your "work's do".

I'd always assumed, as above, that it comes from the time when each "works" held a Christmas party for its employees (I still have photos from the ones I was taken to) and "works' do" has now been modernised into "work do" as it's now a party with people from work, not necessarily a party organised by the works for the people.