I have been meaning to post this for a while and now with the peace reigning here it seems like a good time to do it.
In one of the villages near to us is a shop which proudly proclaims that it sells ‘Confectionary’.
This mis-spelling is a member of a family which I find particularly annoying. Many people seem to be unclear that it is stationery that is purchased from a shop, while your car when parked is stationary.
If you happen to be one of those who struggles to tell which is which, then I hope this will help you:
A milliner sells millinery
A grocer sells groceries
A haberdasher sells haberdashery
a stationer sells stationery
See? There is a pattern to it.
Where I think it has all come unglued is that people are not pronouncing words properly, stationery and stationary are not supposed to sound the same. The diction of the English (unfair to include the Welsh and particularly not the Scots) is now so poor that they are indistinguishable, grocer is pronounced grossa and so on.
It is not new, of course, do you recall the expert in Pygmalion who declares that Eliza is a fake because her English is too good and that she must be a European princess? I do think it is a shame that the language continues to be eroded in this way, because it degrades its usefulness as a communication tool.
Lost Her Dog
When my mother was a child she was most impressed by the concern shown over stray pets in regular announcements on the ‘Home Service’ (Radio 4, kiddies) which would go something like:
“Would Jane Smith, lost her dog in Sevenoaks, please contact Hammersmith Royal Infirmary, where her mother is seriously ill….”
If even the Mr Cholmondely-Warner BBC enunciation sometimes led to misunderstandings, with the rise of Eshtury Inglish I feel we are doomed to cunfoozyun.
Are you bored?
I have always disliked ‘towing the line’.
A fine tooth-comb is another one. I have yet to see someone comb their teeth with one though.
Not bored, it but it is kind of quiet. Have you escaped to work then?
Oh yes indeed, out of the house by 6:45 this morning. Rather worryingly Big, Poppy and Elijah were already up having had a very late night. There are going to be some tired and grumpy kids in London today, me thinks. I think Layla and Simon are coming back to ours after so should be a full house and a takeaway. We shall toast your health, sir!
I can’t stand “bear with me” – not that its relevant to pronunciation and there is another one two that is similar “secretarial business talk” that i hate, but i’ve forgotten it.
I reserve special opprobrium for a phrase I keep catching myself using. It is “at this moment in time”, if you mean now, why not say now.
Made up first names really **** me off as does the vogue for weird Irish names among people who aren’t of Irish extraction. Worst of the lot, of course is Micheal (not Mícheál). Michael means “who is like God”, Micheal mostly means “whose parents are like illiterate”.
Can’t pretend always to get it right when I’m typing, but I HATE with a passion when people use you’re instead of your, there instead of they’re, tight reign instead of rein etc etc. Although I have never leanred how to spell definately. And I hate commas and apostrophes everywhere. And I loathe “a” on the end of words when people mean “er”. In fact, I am a complete anally retentive, obsessive control freak. And if I’ve made any mistakes here, remember it’s because my comments disappear and I type half of each line completely blind 🙂
I have always liked it when people ‘pour over a book’.
I have huge mental blocks on the spelling of some very simple words.
However I do know it is peddling bullshit rather than pedalling bullshit.
Laugh at Joyce and her ‘leanred’.
How many blank lines can you put in these comments?
?
I have this little mental picture right now… pedalling bullshit. 🙂
Dunno how many lines
How many did you put in?
Leanred? That would be the lean red meat, or the learned meet? Be fair, she is textbox challenged. Joyce, ages ago I supplied Jax with suggested code to fix your problem, unfortunately she still hasn’t got a round tuit.
I used to have one of those round tuit bowls from the trashy market stall in Skegness with the little witty ditty on it.
I’m completely stumped by the word exercise.. or is it exersize.. or um… i swear every time i spell it its different and even my version of word seems to have preferences which are completely random! And realize.. realise.. um… ermmm…. oh bother.
Goodness … I think I come from the estuary which you are referring to … (really) … sometimes when I go home I can’t tell towel from tail! Also, I transgress … being unable to spell (and having to get my previous school classes to set me ‘word challenge’ … so I consider it to be modelling ‘improving your spelling’, and ‘dictionary use’!)
The error that I come across most often is ‘should of’, ‘could of’, ‘would of’ … but like the rest of our (evolving) language … it is becoming so prevailent (sp?) that it will probably appear in the Oxford Dictionary within a generation!
‘Fraid you can’t stop the tide!
(Oh, lots of apostrophes too!!! and multiple !!!)
Sal, wear a barts on the marf of the tems whir ewe brort up? Are you a sinner, or did you mean ‘digress’? 🙂
I mentioned that language is a communication tool, and I think appalling, ignorant corruptions like ‘could of’ are not evolution of language but rob meaning from it and reduce its utility. They are dysgenic.
In Students offered language lessons published yesterday, the BBC reports that “a fundamental lack of basic education was stunting students’ ability” and quotes Professor Joe Farrell, Strathclyde University, saying “Young people will not be able to contribute to national life in Scotland without these basic skills.”
And that is the point. English has become the de facto language of international trade, politics and IT, but if we in the US and the UK continue to allow increasing numbers of people to reach adulthood without basic competence in English we will end up with two versions of the language. The incoherent, garbled gibberings of mother tongue speakers, who will be progressively less and less capable of doing work of economic value, and a completely separate language used by everyone else. Which will be a real shame, because that language will not be a living language. Ask a German to explain the rule they aer taught which tells them how to pronounce ‘ough’ in any context (after the first fifteen minutes, I lost the will to live).
I *am* text box challenged. Its awful hard to do this without seaing what I right. I tried to buy a mobile today (see blog), and had grate difficulty fallowing a word that was sed. I could of told him that he was talking rubbish, but instead adviced him that I would be consulting with my IT people on this issue. I may have wanted a lean red laptop, but I could not of buyed a phone without the advise off you people 🙂
PMSL – that would probably get you a GCSE Grade A!!!!!
e is for envelopes which is why there is an e in stationery which is what envelopes is. 🙂