“I was taken back”

[SparklyBracelet]

How many times have you heard this?! Where were you ‘taken back’ to?
Why regurgitate what you think you’ve heard? It’s ABACK!

Bit taken back by the level of vociferousness here. So some people have misheard a phrase that has its origin in a maritime-speak with which almost none of us are familiar anymore. Have you never misheard a phrase?

honestly

never ever heard anyone say it in RL or indeed on mumsnet

When did pedants’ corner turn into contrarian snark’s corner? Surely this is the correct place for righteous indignation about the mauling of the language by the great unread?

@PinkTonic Thanks

This is in Pedants Corner which entirely exists for posters to be taken aback at misheard and misused phrases.

I don't think I've actually heard this being said though, not like examples such as "pacifically" instead of "specifically" which I find is pretty common.

I've only ever heard the correct phrase.

It's for discussion of language, not sneering.

It is for pedantry. Hence the title. Querying people's use and misuse of language is definite pedantry.

Answering the "why regurgitate what you think you've heard", it's precisely because they have only ever heard the word said and not ever seen the phrase written down. If you have frequently read a phrase you are more likely to know how to spell it than if you have only ever heard it. Particularly if it sounds similar to a simpler phrase that has a plausible meaning.

Just look at all the instances where people write "Walla!" when they mean "voilà!" - it's because they've only ever heard it and don't know it's borrowed from the French word.

Pedants' Corner used to be a place where there was interesting discussion of abstruse points of grammar and of the status of grammatical rules in a language that is always evolving. Or at the very least it was about annoying new linguistic trends that were moderately well established.
There is a lot that could interestingly be said about 'taken aback' versus 'taken back' (an error I have never come across and which I guess isn't an actual trend). In particular I was struck by the question the OP raised: "Where were you ‘taken back’ to?"
This question seems to imply that people should be able to 'make sense' of an expression and should notice if it has no plausible meaning that is relevant to the context. But if that is the case, shouldn't people be equally well-informed about using the actual expression, whose literal meaning is something to do with the wind hitting a ship's sail in a specific manner? I'm pretty sure almost no-one is. I think I only found out about it through reading a William Golding novel

The literal meaning of these sorts of terms is pretty arbitrary in relation to the communication intent with which they are used. So it felt like a shame that the OP was so ridiculing of people's lack of interest in the literal meaning of the words they had used.

It just felt like a too-aggressive introduction of a too-marginal misuse of language to be interesting in the ways that Pedants' Corner used often to be.

a brilliant post

I am always amused by these things, and the recent one about rest bite/respite was a lovely thread.

@GoodOldEmmaNess Yes, yours is a brilliant post beautifully written. I do honestly hear so many people say “I was taken back”. Yes it is an old-fashioned term and no, I doubt they’ve seen it in writing.

I've never heard/seen 'taken back' or 'walla', I'm pleased to say!

Great post @GoodOldEmmaNess .

I think someone might say, “I was taken back to my school days when…..”
That has a different meaning though obviously.

How interesting the original meaning of taken aback is, I never knew that.

Agreed.

@GoodOldEmmaNess is the sort of poster that makes me stick around mumsnet!

But it only became a "lovely" thread after the person who'd said it had had the piss taken out of her on a Pedants' thread, saw it, and clearly thought fuck them. I'll play the point-and-laughers at their own game.
There was nothing lovely about the way the other poster laughed at her on here. And, sadly, in recent years, that's what PC has become.

Oh, I agree. It was the OP's answering thread that I enjoyed, she had a great sense of humour. I didn't read the original thread past the first half page.

I preferred it when Mners weren't ridiculed for their grammar/expressions etc. When I joined, which wasn't even very long ago [roughly 3 years], Pedants' Corner was more about grammar/spelling/obvious errors in adverts, magazines , on road signs, in shops for instance . It hurt nobody.

A friend of mine recently said "ad hog" instead of ad hoc. I think people don't read as much so don't see the written word. It's a bit like mishearing lyrics to a song and that becoming what you sing.

There's a chap on tik tok who posts glorious stuff. My friend sends me links to them. He is to be found @ is Ryan.maxwell22. It's called 'Dumb stuff from the internet'. Often has me weeping with laughter.