Spare a thought for the words that disappear from use because the thing they represent becomes outmoded — the roneo, the gestetner, the Beta format cassette recorder tape, the curling iron.
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We should not confuse words and use to install where we meant to instil, or vice-versa. The word install comes from the medieval Latin installarer to fix in place or put in position. Instil also comes from Latin from the verb instillare to put in by drops.
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Human interactions with animals have given rise to many phrases in the English language. The creatures may be wild, domestic or farm animals but, over the centuries, we have observed their behaviour and made reference to them in various ways.
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This morning I was invited to look at a wellness dashboard and make a comparance between my locality now and other localities of interest to me. Just as there is an ongoing debate about the acceptability of agreeance, perhaps we are about to have a similar discussion about the acceptability of comparance.
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The objection is that of redundancy. If your sentence begins ‘The reason is … ‘ then because is simply a repetition since it means for the reason that.
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This current difficulty is a mash-up of the phrases it pains me (to do something) and I am loath to (do something) with loath meaning ‘reluctant’.
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A misnomer is a name inappropriately applied to something of someone because it does not fit their nature. To call a bleak swamp Paradise Gardens is to give it a misnomer.
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We used to be enamoured of various things, but in recent times a hesitancy has crept in about what the correct following particle should be. There are quite a few people who think that by is the right choice and that of sounds weird and with is not quite convincing.
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If you have sympathy for someone you feel sorry for them because they are in a bad situation. Your sympathy is often expressed in words and gestures to show that you care. Used more generally, to sympathise with someone is to share their point of view, to agree with them.
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The notion of the body as a mere case for the soul goes back to the 1600s in British English, but in the early 1900s to worry the soul case out of someone was an expression in Australian English, borrowed from southern American English but common enough here.
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I have noticed the metaphorical use of guardrails has been achieving cliché level. It seems we cannot take a step in business, government or personal relationships without setting up strong guardrails.
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Most Australians, at least, those of an older generation, will react as negatively to gotten as they do to the spelling color. They regard both as hateful Americanisms. But so often it is the case that the words that we regard as markers of one particular English have actually been in English English at some particular point in the past.
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A contributor has noticed that Australian news presenters are often using cardinal numbers instead of ordinal numbers in giving dates. For example: The meeting will be held on June 5. Canadians and Americans would prefer June 5th.
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Mitigate. Militate. The two words are close and not commonly used so it is perhaps understandable that when we reach for them we sometimes pick up the wrong one.
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There is a new use of champion in commercial and government organisations that is intriguing. It seems to flow on from the meaning ‘a person who espouses a cause’. The essence of a champion seems to be conviction and communication skills.
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The blog on linguistic pet hates produced an outburst from one reader who is vehemently opposed to the use of the plural skies. ‘I struggle to find a convincing reason why the word should exist. Last I checked we only had one sky! So why the word skies?
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We all have a sensitivity to words that seem to be the fashion of the moment, words that grate on our ear just because of their frequency of use. I must admit I hadn’t registered beloved among these but it appears that Ross Gittins has.
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The dictionaries have no problem with coronate as an adjective (from Latin corona crown, coronatus crowned), often used in botany and zoology to mean ‘crested’. Its use as a verb to coronate with a past participle coronated is much less common.
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The third time I heard someone say, just in a matter of days, that such-and-such an event was incredulous (instead of incredible), I thought I should write about it. There is no reason to confuse these two words. It would be nice if we could keep them separate.
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