Verbal snobbery

Nothing causes me more exasperation than words I keep using myself. I notice them, and want to put something else in its place, and can't think of an appropriate replacement: On the Most Hated list: 'simple/ly', 'blatant/ly', 'mere/ly', 'logic/ally', 'think', 'good', 'decent'. In my creative writing, I have similar problems with eyes, air, people turning around, people doing things with their lips and teeth, standing, lying down and croaking, and the night. Son of a bitch.

Well generally I love the richness, variety and endless mutability of language, but... I am trying to stop myself saying "Cheers!" instead of "Bye!" (or whatever) to the bus driver as I alight from his vehicle... pe ps oid ... What is "The Art of Tea"? ... (www.pepsoid.wordpress.com)

basically

I use 'way' way too much.

Thank you kindly, I do try. Hope dad feels better soon. If he doesn't, tell him I didn't mean it. I've got loads of whinges like that. I'll put them on slow release.

Peps!? Are you giving 'Little Venice' a bad name on google? :) There's nothing more mind-teasing than the incomprehensible eagerly avowed - Dennett

Erm... OK, knowmy... whoever you are! Yan2... "From the mouths of waiters" & all that... pe ps oid ... What is "The Art of Tea"? ... (www.pepsoid.wordpress.com)

I say 'innit' too much. But I don't mind. In Norfolk there is a real proliferation of the word 'aweseome'... I hear it said at least 20 times daily. Some of it, I must say, is me. I used to hate the word 'babe' a lot, but at certain times it is the precise word I want to hear. Re the french/english thing... the main reason we have two words for things - such as sad/miserable - is from when the Normans came. Miserable has French routes, as do many of those longer words for the same one syllabal thing. Language will always change and grow and that is that. I think Amis is prob right when talking about literature and books, but if I had to think about saying something new every time I chatted I wouldn't have half as much fun. Innit?

"Language will always change and grow and that is that." Amen! ;-) pe ps oid ... What is "The Art of Tea"? ... (www.pepsoid.wordpress.com)

I've always been an advocate of simplicity and clarity in language. Take "innit", so sniffed and snorted at by clever dicks around the UK. Innit is actually a very good idea, because this filler and minor expression of doubt at the end of a sentence should indeed be easy to execute -- like "n'est-ce-pas" in French (pretty much a direct translation of innit) and "nicht wahr" in German. It's typical of the pointlessly convoluted nature of English that our version requires we conjugate whichever verb is in closest proximity (isn't it? aren't we? haven't you? Don't they? etc). Far too much thought put into such an incidental idea. The "innit" people have it right. We should be putting more thought into other things (though admittedly those who currently use it invest that spare thought into playstation cheats and ringtone website addresses!) Using big words for clarity is great; but using them as I'm-clever-me pseudonyms, so as not to use words that are in more common use is tw*ttishness in the extreme. And my biggest beef is not people getting things wrong because they have problems following the hideous logic of English: it's those prats who use big words and get them wrong.

Innit, tho'! pe ps oid ... What is "The Art of Tea"? ... (www.pepsoid.wordpress.com)

I loved Mr. Logic, also Roger Irrelevant: "Lan' sakes, Georgia! I thought you were micturating those whelks." 1/Back to the initial point of the thread, I hate unnecessary adjectives, also being told to "action" something. 2/My friend Harv coined "Mysterioso" a few years ago, which caught on in Newcastle through a network of friends and appeared as a huge slogan on Ben thingy T-shirts in 2004. Beat that for a hardy Meme. 3/I used "random" as a noun a few years ago and we are being inundated with "randoms" or even "randomites" depending on age of viewer. I hope that this last thing is just a coincidence. Chessable 9-5 at - Kurnik.org: Corruptsailor freechess.org: Ricardinio

I was like saying to him.

When I forget a guy's name and just call em "man"

I hope nobody spotted the irony of me bemoaning people using big words and getting them wrong, straight after saying "pseudonym" instead of "synonym". Oh dear. Aw, you knew what I meant!

I think your comments on innit, are excellent. I mentioned it to my Dad, BP (big pedant) and he almost burst a vessel.

"Moving forward." I hate this phrase...I prefer to move in non-congruent angles along poorly defined dirt roads amongst the shadows. I refuse to move forward with my management team using my proactive paradigms to leverage my customer-centric efficiencies. Visit me http://www.radiodenver.org/

I'm with Jack, it's words I use, so the same as ivoryfishbone and also 'to be honest', implying I'm usually dishonest. Craig

I cringe when I call someone, "mate." WHEN THEY'RE NOT! LOL "'Right, mate?" aghh! Next I'll be listening to monotonous European sex music. I don't really like, "right" or "ok" so I tend to stop myself and then come out with something worse like, "oky smoky koky doky." Daddy, take the banana! Tomorrow it's Sunday! - Faust

My God, RD, even though I know ye jest, all that management lingo just makes me cringe like a big old cringing cringy-thing!! :-/// "Moving forward"... YEUCH!! pe ps oid ... What is "The Art of Tea"? ... (www.pepsoid.wordpress.com)

Another one... "We'll throw a study on it" Hell, I can throw dog poop on it and get the same result. It's a snobbish way of saying, "Shut the fuck up, we're not interested in your fucking opinion you moron." Visit me http://www.radiodenver.org/

I must be an inverted snob then. I am opposed to the word 'cognitive' which in 9 out of 10 cases could be replaced by 'mental'. Mental is an everyday word that is accessible. Cognitive is neither. I'd also like to see 'community' treated with the disrespect it deserves. Mostly it is used to imply a togetherness that simply does not exist. Be deeply suspicious of anyone who overuses this word. They are almost certainly trying to sell you a pup.

i would like to make it clear ... i do not overuse the word 'basically' ... i loathe hearing the word ... i overuse the word 'clearly' i used to work with a woman who always said 'utilize' when she should have said 'use' and it made me want to shoot her ...

Alan you miss my point. Mental and cognitive mean different things, but in everyday language the scientific precision of cognitive is overkill and generally not required. Mental will mostly do just as well. The shade of meaning that is lost is a small price to pay for avoiding the listener unfriendliness of cognitive It's a bit like when people say 'the kettle is boiling'. They are not being strictly scientific, because metal cannot boil at 100 degrees centigrade. But in everyday language it works perfectly well and is a lot better than having to say very ponderously 'the water in the kettle is boiling'.

My objection to 'community' is in phrases such as 'the gay community' or 'the muslim community'. These are often used by lazy commentators to imply that hundreds of thousands of people are all acting and thinking in the same way, when the truth is within these so-called communities people hold a wide range of different views. I also object to these phrases being used in that patronising Patricia Hewitt kind of way to enable politicians to put words into other people's mouths in an effort to support otherwise unsupportable views. Trust me. It's a horribly misused word.

"...exciting times ahead..." :-/ pe ps oid ... What is "The Art of Tea"? ... (www.pepsoid.wordpress.com)

"... faciliate..." :-/// pe ps oid ... What is "The Art of Tea"? ... (www.pepsoid.wordpress.com)

"Let's make it happen!" :-///// pe ps oid ... What is "The Art of Tea"? ... (www.pepsoid.wordpress.com)

"It's gotta be done." :-//////////////////////////// pe ps oid ... What is "The Art of Tea"? ... (www.pepsoid.wordpress.com)

I am very confused by 'community leaders'. How do I find out who mine is? How does one become one? Does it pay well? I have been getting annoyed at people using 'source' and 'author' as verbs. (cartoon in Private Eye last week: "I'm not shopping, I'm sourcing ingredients.")

"What are you doing with that hotdog?" "I am saucing my sausage." pe ps oid ... What is "The Art of Tea"? ... (www.pepsoid.wordpress.com)

I confess to using 'to be honest' 'at the end of the day' and 'basically' far too much. I need help - I would seek psychotherapy but I used to have a psychotherapist who used to say 'intoxicated' all the fookin time (what's wrong with plain 'drunk') . Before that I had another psychotherapist who looked like an alpaca and had the brains of one too (apologies to llama-kind) and used to spout psychobabble all the time in an attempt to disguise the fact. I have come to loathe the therapy industry. jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

he he he... The funniest observation of therapy I have ever read came from Hox , "I am worrying about my low self esteem, but John reassures me that it's a common problem with losers." http://www.abctales.com/node/538616 jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

Imagine how happy we could all be if we didn't concern ourselves with such things...? Just a thought. (I say "just a thought" too much...) pe ps oid ... What is "The Art of Tea"? ... (www.pepsoid.wordpress.com)

I'm not keen on is all those pretentious French words that really don't belong in the English language but people like to weave them in. Things like: chagrin, milieu, penchant, parvenu, insouciant, decolletage, boutique, croissant, pain au raisin, enfant terrible, hors d'oeuvre, fin de siecle, cafe au lait, objets d'art, bric-a-brac, vis-a-vis. I reckon we can get by without them. And I don't like it the other way round when the French say stuff like le weekend, le breakfast, le sex swap operation. Something else I hate is when people are having a sandwich in the office and they say they are 'lunching al desko'.

Um, the French occupied England for long enough that a lot of their vocabulary is endemic to the English language. Otherwise we wouldn't have fabulous words like 'sabotage' or 'coup d'etat' or 'renaissance'. Are you really wound up that easily, Brooosh?

Madamoiselle Archer It's not the end of the world if people use these words, but it does sound horribly pretentious when they do. I just cannot bring myself to say stuff like this, especially when we have perfectly good English alternatives. What's wrong with showing a bit of cleavage or ordering a white coffee and a crescent-shaped roll?

a croissant is a roll, but in the English we mean a bread-roll when talking about a roll so it'd be confusing. Also, an English white coffee is made with cold milk. To clarify you could ask for buttery crescent-shaped puff-pastry-roll and a coffee made with hot steamed milk but you would probably sound a bit silly. jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

"crescent-shaped roll"...??! A croissant is a croissant is a croissant, Monsieur Brooosh!! pe ps oid ... What is "The Art of Tea"? ... (www.pepsoid.wordpress.com)

And what would you have us call a capuccino? pe ps oid ... What is "The Art of Tea"? ... (www.pepsoid.wordpress.com)

"a buttery crescent-shaped puff-pastry-roll" reminded me of Mr Logic from Viz! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr_Logic

White coffee topped with foam and chocolate or as Mr Logic would say -strong filtered italian coffee with hot steamed milk and topped with the froth which is a by product of the steaming process and sprinkled with chocolate. jude "Cacoethes scribendi" http://www.judesworld.net

In practice what I say is "I'll have one of those things" and point. I do the same for pain au raisin. As for capuccino, don't get me started. AllI need is a cup of instant white coffee. Why can you not buy such a thing in Wild Bean Cafes and the like? Actually I know the answer. If you give it a ludicrous name you can charge a ludicrous price. They'd never get away with £1.99 for Nescafe.

And in a strange twist of irony, that article about Mr Logic could have been written by Mr Logic himself! :-)) pe ps oid ... What is "The Art of Tea"? ... (www.pepsoid.wordpress.com)