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

[simonineaston]

Rather! I wrote our company's grammar style-guide and the subject of abbreviations versus acronyms and punctuation thereof (i.e. or ie / etc. or etc and so on and so forth...) got rather more discussion time than even I felt comfortable with! Now that did my 'ed in!!

[Jdsk]

Style sheets are fun:

1 You have to make decisions.

2 Condemning other people's usage doesn't help at all.

Jonathan

[thirdcrank]

I'm still on the Co-op strand.

I'm one of those BOFs who witters on about still remembering their Co-op number from 70 years ago when they can't remember what they came in for 149491 btw.

For most of my life I pronounced it "kwop" but the new logo makes it KO OP.

[Jdsk]

IIRC it was the same as our pre-STD 'phone number.

Jonathan

[Bmblbzzz]

Surely where there are abbreviations, as distinct from missing letters, there should be stops. So not CD’s but C.Ds. Or is that C.D.s?

Which one of those indicates "belonging to the Corp Diplomatique"?

[Jdsk]

Doesn't that need an apostrophe to mark the missing s?

; - )

Jonathan

[simonineaston]

Style sheets are fun:

Well, I enjoyed the project - probably the most fun I had at that particular job. Worked with the then ceo who cared about that sort of things (ie standards...). It was mostly about trying to act as an arbiter for all the busy self-publishing admin types and middle managers who thought there were two approaches to grammar, spelling, punctuation & style - theirs and the Wrong Way. The best quality work came from the older women in the admin. team who had worked hard to gain RCA typing qualifications back-in-the-day. The younger the author, the worse the gsp - graduates and teachers being no exception...
tbh, I copy / pasted a lot of it from the excellent Guardian style guide here.

[peterb]

The use of 'issues around', instead of 'problems with'. 'Around' used instead of 'about'. 'Going forward' instead of 'in the future'. The unnecessary addition of 'environment', as in 'the classroom environment'. The increasing use of the expression 'bad optics', instead of 'bad impression'.

[Jdsk]

The increasing use of the expression 'bad optics', instead of 'bad impression'.

What's the problem (!) with that? They're both metaphors. A bad impression doesn't leave an actual dent.

Is it only undesirable because it's new?

Jonathan

[thirdcrank]

I thought the purpose of newspaper style guides was to get consistency across the publication, which seems reasonable.

Some years ago, I had an exchange with the style guide chappie (can't remember his title) at The Times but a piece about police canteen culture struck me as a lazy stereotyping. I wrote to the Ed., referring to something like a Fleet Street waterhole but pointing out some inaccuracy I can't now remember exactly in relation to female police officers. It concerned how they should be referred to. I initially received a patronising reply explaining the usage was in accordance with that newspaper's style guide, as though that ended the discussion. I presume that he carried some authority in house so I wrote to him personally, explaining that I didn't much care what the source but it was lazy Fleet Street waterhole stereotyping. At some stage in our exchange he said it was very difficult since different police forces used different systems. I pointed out to him that WPC Yvonne Fletcher was the form when she was murdered and PC Sharon Beshenivsky was murdered after a change of form and I didn't think that was hard to grasp.

I don't remember hearing more but they followed my line subsequently.

[peterb]

The increasing use of the expression 'bad optics', instead of 'bad impression'.

What's the problem (!) with that? They're both metaphors. A bad impression doesn't leave an actual dent.

Is it only undesirable because it's new?

Jonathan

Ugly and unnecessary. Becoming overused. Another usage that grates is 'uptick'.

[Bmblbzzz]

The unnecessary addition of 'environment', as in 'the classroom environment'.

It's not unnecessary. It distinguishes between the physical location and the environment within it. A "tense classroom environment" is rather different from a "tense classroom"! The "classroom environment" need not be in a classroom; it could be reproduced in, say, an office.

[peterb]

Sometimes necessary, but often overused. In the 'studio environment' instead of 'in the studio', 'high street environment' instead of high street. Part of the tendency to use as many words as possible to demonstrate one's 'expert' views on a subject.

[simonineaston]

I'm annoyed by the prevelance of 'gifted' instead of plain-old and perfectly adequate 'given'.
I don't know if many of you have heard of, or witnessed in action, the splendid Jordan Peterson. If not check, him out on YT! When he's on one, which is often, he is the very acme of someone "who's head has been done in" by someone else's use - or planned use - of language. His destruction (here) of the hapless Cathy Newman on Ch4 is legendary...

[Cowsham]

The incredible number of acronyms we use now.

I often find myself having to check the context of each to work out what they should mean.

Here's just one and an incomplete list of what it could mean.

Acronym Definition
SOB ( I removed this one to save Vorpal Some Outrage Bother )
SOB Sense of Belonging
SOB Shortness of Breath (symptom)
SOB South of the Border
SOB Stop on By
SOB Schedule of Benefits (insurance)
SOB School Of Business
SOB Special Operations Bureau (various locations)
SOB Sexual Offences Bill
SOB Sounding Object
SOB Services over Broadband
SOB Set Of Books
SOB Summary of Benefits
SOB Senate Office Building
SOB Souls On Board
SOB State Office Building
SOB Side of Bed
SOB Some Other Brand
SOB Soggy on Bottom
SOB Signed-Off-By
SOB Small Of Back (holster)
SOB Source Of Business
SOB Statement of Basis
SOB System-On-Board
SOB Start Of Block
SOB South Of Border
SOB Start Of Business
SOB Share of Business
SOB Sailor on Board
SOB Silly Old Bear
SOB Socially Offensive Behavior
SOB Spouse of Birder
SOB Smelling Of Booze
SOB Sober Old Biker (Alcoholics Anonymous slang)
SOB Super Oralloy Bomb
SOB Sober Old Bag (Alcoholics Anonymous slang)
SOB Short(ness) of Breath (medical)
SOB Slide Over Baby
SOB Same Ocean Buddy (Scuba)