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?

@AuntieStella Oh I understand that. But usually these are used as an abbreviation or something eye catching as in your example.

But it takes longer to type 1-2-1 than 1:1 or even 1-1 and it makes no sense! And I have seen it written out in words too which just baffled me.

"Swap out" annoys me. Often seen on chain restaurant menus. "Swap out your fries for rice - 99kcal" No, I'll just swap them, thanks.

'Fries' itself is annoying if it's referring to chips rather than French fries.

Isn't the Pret chocolate moose an intentional play on words? I seem to recall it is, and in the shops there's a picture of a moose.

Poster this morning upset about motorway etiquette and being undertook. Agh never mind the driving, we need the grammar police.

It was a deliberate mistake (hence the emoji). But so many either don't know the difference or they don't care.

I regularly pass a notice on a farm gate saying dogs seen worrying sheep will be ‘shot on site’. Which I suppose is grammatically accurate, but I’m not sure in the way the farmer intended.

My English teacher (non-native speaker, European country) gave us this rule:

• if you can count it = fewer
• if you can’t = less

Phrasal verbs like "swap out" are from old English/Anglo Saxon. The particle adds extra meaning.

"Swap out" was originally used in IT and had a specific meaning. It's now passed into mainstream usage as a synonym for "swap for"

People are always talking about ‘seeing the sites’ on holiday on here.

Yes, that's the basic rule, but there's a lot more to it than that.

I wouldn't normally recommend Wikipedia as a source of accuracy, but this is a good summary with explanations of when you wouldn't use "fewer + countable"

Also interesting to note that "fewer" at all is relatively new (linguistically speaking) In terms of usage, I suppose we could say it's a trend.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fewer_versus_less

That’s what I grew up saying, too. Even having about two feet of worktop was considered rather futuristic, because I grew up in my great-uncle’s house, which had a tiny ‘back kitchen’ with a meat safe, where food prep was generally carried out on the table…

@Saucery, yes, that makes sense. I will endeavour to stop shouting silently ‘SIDE OF WHAT?’ and return to inwardly correcting apostrophe use on under-13s football strip (one of the teams DS played against recently was sponsored by TRITON TYRE’S).

@Splitscreened your description takes me back to the house my grandparents lived in. There was no worktop there either and Grandma prepared food on the kitchen table. It wasn't until years later that it occurred to me that there was no sink in the kitchen. Washing up, the peeling of roots and washing of cabbage and so on was done in the scullery next to the kitchen.

It's strange to think how much has changed since those days.

I think this is quite standard English. Grammatically singular subject but a plural implication. It’s like ‘the government have decided’ or ‘the police have arrested’. You’d only use a singular verb if you were talking about those bodies as a singular concept eg as an institution rather than as a collection of people.
Thus:
The government have put forward legislation (the multiple people who make up the government), but
The government has fallen (the whole institution )
Pret are selling chocolate mousse (the collective of people who make up pret), but
Pret has been floated on the stock market (pret as a singular company).

Lovely explanation! Thank you.

Yes, it was a tiny little council cottage built in 1910, and very primitive throughout my childhood — we only got an indoor loo instead of the backyard spider fest when I was five (late 70s).

We’re living in a grandiose but crumbling Victorian house now, which has a mostly unchanged early 1900s kitchen which also has no work surfaces to speak of (food prep currently happens on a few inches of worktop in front of the microwave and toaster), so I think it’s giving me flashbacks. (On the other hand, we have a giant pantry…)

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

Ooh yes, I hate that one.

Also irritating:

Be upstanding instead of Stand up.

There was a thread on Mumsnet, probably last year, where a person asked about ect and etc. He/she didn't have English as first language and had noticed this. Several people replied, to explain. As I'm retired and am not in a rush, I am tending to write 'et cetera' out in full, hoping that another person, who is wondering, will see how it works.

I know I say this sometimes because of where I was brought up but I’ve noticed I only say it with other people from Scotland. However, I would never write it.
For me it is important that the written word is correct especially in media unless they are quoting someone and they should always use (sic) if it’s incorrect.

What's wrong with "be upstanding"?

Nothing.

It's just much more formal than the informal (by definition phrasal verbs like "stand up" are informal- most, if not all, have a corresponding verb with Latin origins which is considered to be more formal- descend/go down etc)

I now have furious pantry envy. We had a walk-in pantry when I was growing up and even then it was wonderful. I'd love one now but there isn't space.

Your kitchen sounds fascinating. Where I live now was last properly updated around 1984 so the kitchen is old fashioned, as is the bathroom, and there are very few electric sockets. We've re-painted the kitchen cupboards and tiles and put down new lino there and in the bathroom, but that's about it and I have to say I like it the old fashioned feel of it all.

Have you ever seen Nigella's pantry? It's magnificent, even if it is a studio 😂
My gran used to sit in hers when it thundered.

In the situations where it's used, 'be upstanding' sounds better than 'stand up' - that would come over as a rude imperative. 'Please stand up' is, of course, fine and being used more nowadays at weddings and funerals etc.

If you use 1:1 to mean a one to one meeting, then a mathematical pedant will tell you you're wrong. You've written a ratio, 1:1 could be two managers and two underlings.
I suppose a true pedant could interpret a 1-1 meeting as no meeting at all.

My mil used to ask my kids if they 'wanted to go a wee'. I had to pull her up on it. It doesn't even make sense.

Electric I can handle over leccy.

In the 1990s I taught English as a Foreign Language in Taiwan and there was a ghastly expression used with children, mainly by teachers from the US, where they'd say 'Sit nice'. I loathed that expression.

As for 'go a wee', horrible! Maybe I overdid things but I taught my students to ask 'Please may I go to the toilet'. It stood them in good stead too as one parent told me how her son was able to politely ask where the toilets were at a foreign airport. Imagine only being able to say 'go a wee', it doesn't bear thinking about.

I've just realised why 1-1 looks wrong to me in the context of using it to mean 'a one to one meeting'. Apart from its use as as a minus sign, if you see a dash between two numbers it means 'to' in the sense of range, not ratio.