Everyday means ‘happens every day’ or ‘commonplace’.
It doesn’t mean ‘every day’.
When you are absorbed in studying something you don’t pour over it, you pore over it.
It’s remuneration, not renumeration.
The new definition of literally (‘To acknowledge that something is not literally true but is used for emphasis or to express strong feeling’) is a fucking disaster. There is only one word that means literally (as in its other definition of ‘exactly’), so to dilute and confuse it by also giving it the meaning stupid people have been giving it for years does the English language no favours (see also: infer).
I understand typos, dyslexia and all that jazz, but if you’re an adult who doesn’t know why ‘your’ is different from ‘you’re’ you should clear a day or two to learn that difference just so intelligent people don’t think you’re stupid. The same goes for ‘its’ and ‘it’s’.
And I mention these examples not (entirely) because I’m a miserable pedant. They annoy me because they undermine the workability of the language. Now that the morons have taken over literally and infer we no longer have words with their original meanings. When someone says they ‘literally caught ten fish yesterday’ we have no idea if they actually caught exactly ten fish or they caught eight and feel like adding in some emphasis. And God knows what the hell you’re supposed to think when someone tells you they inferred that the president has died.
Maybe we should just accept that people can do whatever they want with the language – after all, if your intended meaning is conveyed to some degree then job done – but with every error of meaning there becomes an erosion of accuracy that could be avoided.
But I’d be interested to know if I’m alone in thinking this way. Do you have any English bugbears? Do you fail to give a toss as you fail to apostrophise correctly? Are you an art director? (Joke. Some of the best writers I know are art directors.)
Answers’ in the comment’s.
American business-room bullshit, such as “incentivise”. There is a word for “incentivise” and it is “encourage”.
Hate ‘guesstimate’.
My bugbear? Saw somebody comment on Scamp’s blog yesterday about smaller things that needed to “ladder up” to a big idea.
I thought: Ha! Fools! Don’t they know it’s “lather up”? You know.. things mixing and agitating together, until they produce a final (albeit frothy) end result.
Googled it. Turns out the rest of the world has been using “ladder up” this whole time.
I mean, what the hell does that even mean?
I think you’re honing in on the right thing here Ben. “Hone in on” is now accepted as a legit expression. Another American business contribution. Morons made this happen!
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/09/dont-try-to-hone-in-on-a-copyeditor.html
I honestly once heard someone say (in reference to an edit of a slaptsick beer spot) that doing X to the cut would “help make the kick in the balls more ‘poignant'”.
More poignant.
I had no idea about ‘hone in’. This is an epidemic!
And endemic!
It’s happening exponentially!
‘Ladder up’ and ‘incentivise’ seem to be part of the fashion for turning nouns into verbs. I wonder why that’s become so prevalent.
Here’s a bit more about the usage of literally –
http://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2013/08/15/glen-newey/what-does-literally-literally-mean/
Slither isnstead of sliver.
Pacific isnstead of specific.
Should of isnstead of should have.
Isnstead isnstead of instead.
Ideate. That’s right; ideate. I have had clients invite me to meetings to ideate. Ideate.
Fuck.
Vinny, surely you have had a poignant (“… painfully sharp to the physical or mental feelings-
OED) kick in the balls in your time!
‘Leverage.’ As in: ‘We can use the assets to leverage the brand.’
Leverage is a fucking noun! It means the force applied by a lever.
And that really irritating verbal tic of starting a sentence with ‘So’ that’s starting to find its way into copy.
Stop it. Stop it NOW.
Interesting read on the non-literal use of “literally” featuring Nabokov, Dickens and Joyce:
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-08-22/opinions/41435635_1_reddit-oed-has-definition
@ 7: yes, all those. Especially ‘should of’.
When I was about 21/22 I went out with a girl who thought probably was spelt ‘proberly’. She was also 20ish, not 8 (thank God).
And the strange use of ‘yeah, no’, which I occasionally find myself doing.
Why?
The one I really can’t get over is (usually American YouTube commenters) using ‘then’ rather than ‘than’.
Presumably it’s a quirk of written language reflecting accents, but it’s still pretty fucking stupid.
My pet peeve is “I did it all off my own back”. It’s bat. It’s from cricket.
Also, the use of “totally” to convey the reality of an occurrence or severity of emotional state. As in “he totally tripped over that” or “I’m totally pissed off right now.”
monetise.
Ed: I also find the American use of ‘different than’ instead of our ‘different from’ or ‘different to’ inexplicably annoying.
I’ve also been in a meeting recently where someone said ‘pull out all the shots’.
Just heard someone say ‘change tact’.
I hate do-able.
And when people start asking a question with the word question.
And can we ban people from saying ‘bless you’ after a sneeze. There really is only a tiny chance of them catching bubonic plague now. Except maybe in the DR Congo and I don’t even think they say it there. They should, obvs.
I recently had a row with someone for using ‘I could care less’ instead of ‘I couldn’t care less’.
‘Money no option’ instead of ‘money no object’. ‘Rembrandts’ instead of ‘remnants’ (this was a copywriter). Also when people get brand names mixed up like Corolla instead of Corona.
“How are you?”
“I’m good.”
Not you’re not…you’re fine.
Well, well, well. Isn’t this just the orgy of self-satisfied, media smugness?
Language, ladies and gentlemen, is a fluid, ever-changing thing. It grows and expands through adaptation, adoption and experimentation.
yes, it’s subject to error, revision and evolution. But surely that’s a good thing? It was always thus.
A mate of mine consistently struggles to put down on paper anything vaguely resembling a decent sentence. He also takes the most grevious liberties with punctuation and phrasing. And yet, he remains perfectly understood by a number of international juries, who can’t stop awarding his work.
Maybe it’s the correct use of commas that is actually holding you all back?
Yes. Every time I see “over” used when it should be “more than,” I taze a kitten. It’s fucking rampant. ‘Over’ is locative. ‘More than’ is numeric. This drives me batshit insane.
In writing it’s the use of ampersands – there is rarely a good reason to use one.
In speech it’s the use of ‘was like’ instead of ‘said’.
so I was like ‘let’s meet up at 6’ and he was like ‘no let’s meet at 7’
ARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!
Have a look at this clusterfuck
http://i.imgur.com/cnifWze.jpg
Hey, Butterbean: Ironically, smugness is what comes through your comment loud and clear.
Hey Bellendbean,
The question was, what are our grammar/vocabulary bugbears? We answered. They are our bugbears. That’s all. If you don’t have any bugbears good for you. But can we not just take a few minutes to vent our digital spleens, which we were invited to do, without you patronisingly pissing on our parade?
By the fucking way you missed a capital Y on your third paragraph.
To be fair, that was kind of my intention. Anyone can take an irritatingly high-handed approach to language, but taking the piss out of people who don’t know where to put an apostophe is less Nobokov and more knob off.
I am a smug twat though.
‘Curate’ instead of ‘choose’, ‘proactivity’ instead of ‘showing initiative’ and ‘Top draw’ instead of ‘top drawer’.
‘Ideation’ is rubbish, agreed.
Can I get a pint of lager instead of can I have a pint of lager.
I like the barstaff who reply “Yes you can get one from here, would you like one?”
Sorry Butterbellend, I’m on a roll.
“Twerking”.
Gets my goat every time.
Oh. And ‘scaleable’. That’s rather annoying.
During the “physical” year instead of “fiscal” year.
Wow, international juries can’t stop awarding his work???
We keep a list on our office wall of pretentious business buzzwords used in creative reviews. In the last fortnight:
Halo Effect.
Sweet spot.
Homogenised.
Eclectic.
Holistic.
Organic.
Democratisation.
Crystallise.
Modernity.
Makes you want to piss on your cornflakes.
Ben,
Slate (not a site I’d usually link to) has an excellent series about language. It’s called “Lexicon Valley” and you can listen to it here. I’ve linked to the episode about “yeah no” since you brought it up in one of the comments above.
Agree with you 100% about some Art Directors being the best writers around. They don’t have the brashness to throw words on paper without a second glance.
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/society/people-who-highlight-minor-grammar-points-are-amazing-2013082378916
Tesco had covered their store in Bristol with ‘Every Day Value’ – bugged me. Glad I’m not the only one.
(Late as ever to these things but…)
When did we all decide “ironically” was the same “coincidentally”?
All of these:
http://theoatmeal.com/tag/grammar
Minimalistic.
Minimal – yes.
Minimalist – if you must.
Minimalistic – fetch my shotgun Beryl, there’s a horrible home makeover show on.
Writing is just as much a craft skill as art direction, but oddly it’s not always seen that way in our business. We’ll put extraordinary effort into design and typography but not so much into the grammar and punctuation of the copy.
I take Butterbean’s point about the fluidity of language but we’re in the communication business. Spelling and grammar are tools that aid clarity of communication. It’s OK to break the rules deliberately sometimes for effect. But to be able to do that you have to know what the rules are.
A couple of personal bugbears to add…
The verbing of nouns generally and specifically the use of “hero” as a verb. As in, “We want to hero teens in this campaign.”
The description of twelve o’clock as “am” or “pm”. There’s no such time as 12.00am and I have no idea what time you mean by that. It’s either 12.00 noon or midnight.
@Neil:
Apple – think different.
Perfect example for breaking the rules with a good reason.
steakandcheese: Maybe, but ‘Think different’is an interesting example. If the word is being used as an adverb, then it would be correct to say ‘think differently’. But if it’s being used as an adjective then ‘think different’ is grammatically correct.
In Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography, which I don’t have to hand, I seem to recall that Jobs discusses this with the team at Chiat/Day, and they agree that it should be ‘think different’, in the same sense as ‘think big’. ‘Think differently’ suggests that you should change the way you think. ‘Think different’ suggests that you should think about something different. This was the meaning that Jobs and the agency wanted to convey, so that’s the word they chose to use.
I expect that most people don’t grasp this and infer that ‘Think different’ is deliberately colloquial, American-sounding and rule-breaking, all of which fits well with Apple’s brand values.
Here’s one that (I think) is deliberately ungrammatical: “I’m loving it.” The continuous form of the verb here is grammatically incorrect but arguably makes the slogan more contemporary and memorable. Or awkward and ingratiating, depending on your point of view.
Hi Neil,
Honestly though, the vast majority people (inside or outside ad agencies) would struggle to tell you what an adverb is.
Nobody knows the rules, let alone really cares.
I’m not suggesting for a moment that taking due care with grammar and punctuation is not important. I can’t remember writing a single ad without 10 poeple agonising over every. Single. Word.
I was just taking issue with a ridiculous, sneaking snobbery that often crops up around language.
Talking about ‘heroing teens’ might make you sound like a corporate cock, but that’s subjective. People understand what you mean and that’s pretty much all that matters. Would you disagree?
@Butterbean: why bother with decent typography? Everyone knows what it says when it’s written in Comic Sans. Why bother with decent photography? Everyone knows it’s a picture of a dog even if I took it on a disposable camera. Why give a shit about the standard of anything? Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, gives a fuck.
Thank God for that.
@ Butterbean: I would disagree. It’s all about the bastardization of language, isn’t it? We all know what LOL means, too. But someday, there will be an entire subculture using a pig-latin version of our language because the fundamentals, the rules, will have been forgotten.And when that happens, communication will be much, much harder. Lose a rule here, give the wrong meaning to a word there, and pretty soon you’ve got a lot of people babbling away nonsensically and no one knows what the hell anyone is talking about. Like any goddamn marketing meeting at any global corporation in the world!
Ben, I’ll defend your right to experiment with Comic Sans with my very life.
But the notion of what makes decent photography, or design, or typography is an evolving thing. Why can’t the same flexibility applied to language?
I suppose what I’m saying is your comparison of standards is something of an… er… double standard.
“Actioning”
I’ll action this baseball bat about your head.
The notion of what makes decent photography/typography is evolving, just like language. And yes – there is no right or wrong, good or bad, but that doesn’t mean everything is as effective as everything else.
Language, typography and photography can be far more effective under certain circumstances than others, which is the point I made in my post. It’s all about workability, and if you think someone’s a cock for saying ‘heroing’ or ‘actioning’ then that gives them less credibility and makes their argument less workable/effective.
Of course language evolves, and I have no objection to that where the meaning remains clear and nobody things the person using the language is a cretin. Even then my objection is one the grounds of workability.
It’s a big grey area, but language is a loaded gun. People should be aware of that when they’re waving it around.
Fair enough Ben, fair enough. Although, I’d note that if you said the word ‘workability’ to someone 70 years ago, they’d probably assume you’d had too much snuff.
Personally I’m not that bothered about the “wrong” use of words. Language is our way of communicating. As you said, if the communication is understood then the job is done.
However, incorrect use of certain punctuation marks really really bothers me, but then I’m a designer and not a writer.
Mostly but not limited to:
Speech marks: The “66” and “99” types marks are correct. The “rats teeth” are not. (‘) is used for feet and (“) is for inches – 5’6”. – I blame modern computers for this as demonstrated by my inability to use proper speech marks in this post.
Also decimal points. The decimal point goes in the middle if the line line: £2·99 not this: £2.99. The last one is a full stop. Try writing it by hand an see where you put it.