English Language - what "Does your head in" ??

[Mick F]

One line I heard on R4 yesterday, was that Sainsbury's have bought Asda. Not merged, but bought.
Not heard that since.

[thirdcrank]

I believe Walmart is getting out of the UK, in much the same way as Tesco pulled out of the US and M&S scaled back everywhere.

[Cyril Haearn]

Many *associates* will be *released*

[Cyril Haearn]

I do love synonyms, there are so many different words with similar meanings

Dwell, reside, abide, stay, live, inhabit, occupy....

Sorry, I hope positive thread drift is allowed

[Mick F]

I believe Walmart is getting out of the UK, in much the same way as Tesco pulled out of the US and M&S scaled back everywhere.

That explains a great deal.
Asda have been bought out because Walmart have pulled the plug.

[Mick F]

This makes me laugh

[horizon]

If anybody knows what is going on here I would appreciate it. I've raised it before in this thread. This is a headliine from the Guardian but the BBC also now uses this form. Does anyone know why?

Austerity is causing huge damage: readers on the England local elections

Which form would you have used (either in the past or now)?

[JamesE]

If anybody knows what is going on here I would appreciate it. I've raised it before in this thread. This is a headliine from the Guardian but the BBC also now uses this form. Does anyone know why?

Austerity is causing huge damage: readers on the England local elections

Which form would you have used (either in the past or now)?

Obvious answer is simple SEO: you're more likely to be Googling something like "local elections England" than "English" and so the headline is targeted accordingly. Compare and contrast the search results:

[Bmblbzzz]

[/youtube]

Many *associates* will be *released*

They were but haven't been for a few decades.
https://youtu.be/Ww2AYxrPqkk
[youtube]Ww2AYxrPqkk[/youtube]

[thirdcrank]

Re England/English local elections.

Try comparing Leeds and Leodensian local elections.

[thirdcrank]

How's this for a mangled metaphor

Her belief that Labour should "modernise" was passionately held - forged at the coal face of a decade of Labour local activism.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44098760

(Why not something about treading the grapes in the New Labour champagne vineyards?)

[Mick F]

Wonderful!

Just been looking for examples and found this:
If we can hit that bull's-eye then the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards.

[Graham]

[horizon]

On a more serious note (if it hasn't already been mentioned) is the loss of the passive voice in lots of common verbs and the reflexive pronoun after others. Despite appearances to the contrary I'm not a grammarian - I just try to find out what's going on.

We have "aired " for example. It was aired becomes it aired; it was launched becomes it launched. Fine, until you genuinely want to know who or what did the airing and launching.

Here's a problem with missing out the noun or pronoun (from the Guardian):

May has publicly committed to a time-limited backstop, but No 10 sources ruled out agreeing to a specific date in the text, suggesting that it would be unworkable.

But who or what has been committed? Herself? The cabinet? The government? IMV it's lazy journalism hiding under the banner of trendy language.

I would welcome comments on this.

[Bmblbzzz]

I wouldn't describe it as trendy language; that suggests a conscious decision to do something in order to follow a fashion. What we're dealing with here is definitely a trend, which might turn out to be shortlived or might be part of a permanent shift in linguistic use, but people are, I think, using it because it comes naturally to them rather than in an effort to be fashionable. Like all developments it brings advantages and disadvantages but ultimately any linguistic trend which does not satisfy the need for communication will die out.