Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Gangs of pissed-up chav cunts who almost start on you when you're walking home from the pub, minding your own business. :(

Still, not quite as bad as gangs of pissed-up chav cunts who actually start on you when you're walking home from the pub, minding your own business. Thankfully.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
OK, quite a big list here, if we're talking about abuses of language...

- Irritating malapropisms, like using "decimated" for "devastated" and "disinterested" for "uninterested", which are so commonly used they're actually starting to assume the meanings of the words they're mistaken for.

- That most hideous of all clichés, "giving 100-and-x percent" - this is so frequently used that if you now say someone gave a 'mere' 100%, it sounds like they did't really try that hard at all. Footballers and their managers are extremely prone to this.

- In fact, some footballers seem to have perfected a form of English consisting almost entirely of clichés: "Well it was a game of two halves but we gave 110% and at the end of the day we got a result." AAAARRGGHHH!!!!

- Speaking of clichés, it annoys me the way Americans often use the stem of a verb as an adjective, rather than the past participle - for example, describing something as 'cliché' (rather than 'clichéd'), or calling a person 'tan' (rather than 'tanned').

- Another American usage that does my head in is "I could care less", when they mean "I couldn't care less". I mean, come on, it's not that fucking difficult, is it? :confused:

- And pronunciation of words like "herb" and "human" as "erb" and "uman", to the point where people actually say things like "an erb". Like the old "an hotel" you sometimes hear in UK English. Dammit people, English != French...

- Oh, and I was talking to someone the other day who said "that's the exception that proves the rule". Well think about it for a moment - an exception disproves a rule, doesn't it? The word 'prove' in the original phrase actually means 'test'.
 
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Immryr

Well-known member
- Another American usage that does my head in is "I could care less", when they mean "I couldn't care less". I mean, come on, it's not that fucking difficult, is it? :confused:

this does my head in no end. i often think maybe im being a little too anal with how much it annoys me, then i realise, yes, i am being anal. and im fine with that!
 
using "decimated" for "devastated" and "disinterested"

agreed but i love using "dessicated" instead.
also i enjoy saying "ezackly" instead of exactly even though I am quite capable getting it right.

"that's the exception that proves the rule". Well think about it for a moment - an exception disproves a rule, doesn't it? The word 'prove' in the original phrase actually means 'test'.

surely this is originally an ironic thing to say based on the saying "every rule has an exception".

if we're going to be pernickety, I hate the use of adjectives in the place of adverbs, such as Apple's famous "think different" (-ly)
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
if we're going to be pernickety, I hate the use of adjectives in the place of adverbs, such as Apple's famous "think different" (-ly)
That's another one I love to hate. As is Sony's vaguely Yiddish "Go create" (grrrr...).
 

STN

sou'wester
I dislike it when a pub, restaurant or cafe is lauded as 'authentic' and 'no-nonsense' simply because the staff are eye-gougingly and deliberately rude. The same goes for the proprietor being a 'character'.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Another American usage that does my head in is "I could care less", when they mean "I couldn't care less". I mean, come on, it's not that fucking difficult, is it?
But isn't that often said with a question mark on the end "..and I could care less?" as if to imply "Could I? - No!" or is that just my charitable reading?

"that's the exception that proves the rule". Well think about it for a moment - an exception disproves a rule, doesn't it? The word 'prove' in the original phrase actually means 'test.'

"surely this is originally an ironic thing to say based on the saying "every rule has an exception"."
Mr Tea is correct here, the old-fashioned meaning of "prove" (in this context at least) was "test" and an exception to a rule tests that rule (to the point where it breaks). Somehow the phrase itself survived that usage of "prove" and it has now become used in the sense that Edward says as a kind of jokey validation of the rule. In another words it is now used to mean the exact opposite of what it actually does.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I dislike it when a pub, restaurant or cafe is lauded as 'authentic' and 'no-nonsense' simply because the staff are eye-gougingly and deliberately rude. The same goes for the proprietor being a 'character'.

That can be almost refreshing when you've been dining in America, with their "Hello, how are you??? My name is Marsha and I'll be your server for this evening..." :slanted: And that's without going into the fucking awful habit some of them have of hovering around your table with a big pitcher full of water, waiting until you've taken a single sip from your pint-sized glass before swooping in like a hawk to top you up? Leave me in peace for five seconds, please! I can ask for more water if I need it, OK? Jesus.
 
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Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
But isn't that often said with a question mark on the end "..and I could care less?" as if to imply "Could I? - No!" or is that just my charitable reading?

I think you're being very generous here - I've usually heard it with the emphasis on the 'care', making it sound very much like a statement, rather than a question.

The phrase 'horses for courses' makes my blood boil*, for some reason.


*slight exaggeration**

**but only slight!
 

zhao

there are no accidents
OK i am guilty of "could care less"... in fact, i had heard it so often in the US that i didn't even realize that it was wrong! will mend my slack ways and choose a righteous path for future days... redemption surely is not entirely out of reach :eek:
 

Immryr

Well-known member
thats what makes it even worse! to me, it is absolutely impossible to think that statement could convey what is intended to. just think about it logically, if you COULD care less that implies you actually do care, which is obviously not the meaning intended in the context its used.
 

gabriel

The Heatwave
i remember reading that the could care less thing in america started out as being a sarcastic/rhetorical question and then just became the phrase it is today, ie used to mean the the exact opposite of what it says
 

STN

sou'wester
Gabriel, as soon as I saw this thread I thought you'd pop up with one of your pet hates, but as yet you haven't. Perhaps I've exaggerated in my mind the extent to which people saying 'Trivial Pursuits' maddens you?
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
Mr Tea is correct here, the old-fashioned meaning of "prove" (in this context at least) was "test" and an exception to a rule tests that rule (to the point where it breaks). Somehow the phrase itself survived that usage of "prove" and it has now become used in the sense that Edward says as a kind of jokey validation of the rule. In another words it is now used to mean the exact opposite of what it actually does.

That may be so but I think the way that phrase works now is to imply that if there is just the one exception then the rule is quite a good one, most of the time; the (singular) exception proves the rule.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I disagree, I think the way most people (mis)use the phrase is as if to imply that the rule is somehow un-'proven' until an exception is found - after which it is 'proven'. Which is obviously nonsense!

Rules, as I understand them, don't have exceptions. 'Rules of thumb' and 'guidelines' have exceptions.
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
Rules, as I understand them, don't have exceptions. 'Rules of thumb' and 'guidelines' have exceptions.

I knew someone would mention guidelines - I see the point.

Well that's the meaning I prefer to attach to that phrase rather than think that people go around saying something so nonsensical. It is silly.
 
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