Entertainment For Lively Minds
Words that only the middle classes (or highbrow media types) use
Posted by woodface on 27 February 2011 - 11:48am.
I was thinking the other day that there are certain words or phrases that are never heard in normal conversation but seem to litter our airwaves and print. I give you the following to start with: dearth, untenable, surfeit & glut. Why is this? An attempt to appear intelligent?
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"The man who...
could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one."
I suspect
things have been going down the pan ever since the Normans invaded.
Since we adopted most of their language for our government and legal system it's the ruling classes way of saying "I'm better" or "I'm more intelligent".
Mutatis mutandis
A phrase which occurred in a letter which a lawyer was explaining to me.
"Ah yes," he smiled, "it's a Latin phrase which means I am considerably cleverer than you.
mutatis mutandis
I know this expression because I used to work in the law; anyone using it in everyday conversation could be said to be chancing their arm a little. Having said that, isn't it rather wonderful that an unwieldy phrase like "the necessary changes having been made" can be so succinctly rendered?
Reue
but it doesn't stop it sounding like a number from the Lion King, does it?
The quoted examples are all just words with specific meanings
like thousands of other words. I reckon I use them all in everyday conversation - certainly surfeit and untenable. I use them not because I'm trying to be clever but because they're the right word for the job.
Words are tools and having the right tools in your toolbox makes it easier to do the job correctly.
Having a wide vocabulary is nothing to be ashamed about.
Yeah, quite.
Why would it be better to say "scarcity" or "shortage" rather than "dearth"? Why would it be better to say "superfluity" or "excess" rather than "glut"? One of the chief glories of English is its huge number of synonyms. We have tons of words for almost every single concept. I love that, and people shouldn't have to hide their vocabulary light under a bushel. Some people have a wide vocabulary. It's not because they're trying to appear intelligent. It's often because they *are* intelligent and it wouldn't occur to them to disguise the fact. If everyone adjusted their language to suit the most basic speaker, well, we'd be fucked.
That said, one of my little bugbears is people unnecessarily Latinising their speech. That is often about trying to appear educated. "Utilise" rather than "use" is my real teethgrinder. And - nothing to do with Latinisation - when people say "yourself" when they mean "you".
Fine line, I guess. Often, if someone has a small vocabulary, they'll resent anyone using a word they wouldn't themselves, assuming the speaker is trying too hard, or deliberately intimidating them with long words. If someone has a large vocabulary, it just comes out naturally - and the "utilise" and "yourself" merchants stick out like a sore thumb, too.
Don't think class has anything to do with it, incidentally.
Latin...
Fair point Bob but where do you draw the line? 'Utilise' comes from the Latin 'utilitas', which also gives us 'utility', do you have an issue with people talking about utilities in the comedy of water, sewage etc?
Oh, entirely arbitrary line, of course.
It's just that "use" works fine in every situation in which "utilise" is ever, erm, used. It's an ugly word, has no extra nuance as a verb over "use", adds nothing but syllables, and only seems to be employed by people who think "use" doesn't make them sound quite managerial enough.
As I say, arbitrary. But strongly felt.
Utility, btw, is different. It has a specific, useful sense.
Big Long Words
I work in engineering. Part of my job involves reviewing documents written by people who use the word "utilise" exactly as you describe it.
"Utilising of our extensive supply chain, who are individually certified in a range of certifications, including BS 9201, BS 9631 and specific Environmental Standards, leveraging the benefits of a distribution network....." - many paragraphs like that, of a spill of thoughts and phrases where you could only identify it as a sentence because it had a full stop at the end.
I was tearing my hair out, partly because I had to re-write it to apply some subject - verb - object structure before I could follow it and then see about the content. The same chap felt that the passive voice was better for writing. "The roadside equipment and systems will be maintained on a regular basis".
Ok, who will do that ?
Spot On.
Couldn't agree more. It's lunchtime, so I'm off to gobble an excess of lampreys, or at least I would be if the idea wasn't completely untenable due to a shortage of them around these parts. There used to be too many of them, but that's progress for you.
Abso-bleedin-lutely
Spot-on, stimpy. I thought taking the piss out of someone because they use "long words" was something that might happen at school; then people grow up, and realise that, as you say, having a wide vocabulary is nothing to be ashamed of. Of the four words mentioned in the OP, I'd say I've used three or four of them in the last few weeks. And in the case of "untenable" in particular, I really have to wonder what your beef is with this perfectly innocent word, woodface?
I'd say I have a pretty wide vocab, in that it's not often I hear or read a word I don't understand (unless I'm watching Rastamouse); if I do, it's tempting for me to think "show-off" - then I think again, and tell myself to stop being a knob. That's not to say that there aren't instances of people deliberately using words to exert their supposed superiority over others. If I'm honest, I do wonder about Will Self in that regard...
Mmm, well I am not thick but
Mmm, well I am not thick but I do not feel the need to use all the words I know. But really, who uses he word 'dearth' over, say, 'shortage'.
Sadly, I have been known to utter "dearth"
but then in unguarded moments I call the radio the wireless
There is that awful opera by Britten
Dearth in Venice
And the Queen song...
Dearth On Two Lergs.
That works ...
in a Hull accent doesn't it?
Me
Mostly because - like most near synonyms - it doesn't mean exactly the same thing and isn't used in exactly the same way.
Beat me to this word
I find it is often pronounced as ap-solutely
Those words together sound like a line from Shakespeare
on an off day:
For is not the lifespan of a man but
Dearth, the untenable, surfeit and glut
If I encounter a word, and I don't know what it means
I make a point of looking it up in one of my many dictionaries. I then try to absorb it, and, where relevant use it. I am not always terribly successful, but I try.
If someone has a big vocabulary and they employ it well, I admire them. Being deliberately obscure and showing-off is quite another thing, but it has nothing to do with knowing and using the right words.
Please note, I'm not middle-class, or a media type.
Yeah but No but Yeah but No
But Will Self - whose books I generally admire very much - can drive me up the fucking pole with his use of clever-clever adjectives, synonyms and antonyms. What the hell happened to him in prison? Did someone ram a thesaurus up his arse?
Phew.
Carry on. It's Sunday.
Will Self
I love his journalism, but can't get anywhere with his novels. I like to think I'm not too much of a thicko, but they're a bit beyond me.
This came up this very morning
on the walk into work.
I've only read "Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys" but from what I recall, if you stripped out the pretentious vocab, much of it would sit entirely unremarkably in Herbert Van Thal's 19th Pan Book of Horror Stories.
I was driven to distraction by
Umberto Eco's sophistry when I tried to read Foucault's Pendulum. Having survived, and enjoyed, Pynchon's V, I thought I'd try another big fat tome. Holy encyclopaedia, Batman!
The best thing I can say about having tried in vain to get a grip on that monster is that the nominal familiarity engendered by the effort caused me to notice the name 'Foucault' when reading some music reviews a little time later. By that route I discovered the delights of Jeffery Foucault's Miles From The Lightning and then Stripping Cane and others. So thanks, Umberto, sort of.
Although...
given that the English version of Foucault's Pendulum includes the words "English translation copyright 1989 Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.", maybe these guys should take some of the credit?
Naturally, Eco's original is probably full of the Italian language, but he is a professor of semiotics...
If you've got it, flaunt it I'd say. Why condense the language to the lowest common denominator?
Come off it.
No one's asking for the Hello Magazine version. The writing's just so, well, up itself.
That's half the point, isn't it?
Writing for writing's sake - taking pleasure in the language.
There can be pleasure in the reading as well. I've read another of Eco's books - The Island of the Day Before. I can't say I was particularly taken by it, but there was one chapter, called something like The Aristotelian Telescope, that was simply the best piece of writing I had ever read. Yes, it was probably a intellectual showing off, but it was one hell of a thing to see.
Do clever scientists show
Do clever scientists show off in the same way? I do sometimes feel that this kind of intellectual pissing contest is reserved purely for the arts.
It probably is, but is that an issue?
Can you show off in the sciences?
Maybe you can throw in a couple of flourishes in an equation (I remember Professor Wolfgang Schnell from Billy the Fish including an element in his free-kick equation to send the keeper the wrong way), but I'm not sure there's so much room for manoeuvre in the sciences. Beyond, of course, the ability to wear some natty bow-ties.
Well,
I'm with Beckett.
This was the other one that
came up this morning on the walk in.
It's the first chapter that's the sticking point, where the guy is hiding in the museum. It's page after page of inpenetrable esoteria.
However, get through that one chapter, and it's a cracking good read.
Stephen Donaldson
Is there anyone else who will admit to reading The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (the 1st 3 at least).
I read these a long long time ago. On almost every page there would be a word I didn't know. Many of them defeated the Concise Oxford Dictionary.
Those books are BALLS.
I read them as a teenager. Even as a fourteen year-old with a love of daft vocabulary and a high tolerance for sword-n-sorcery bollocks, I found them clunky, self-important, derivative and uninvolving. Oh, and the fucking villain's called Lord Foul. LORD FOUL. Jeeeeezus pleazus.
Ditto
In every respect! Balls indeed.
You're being too kind Bob
As a teenage Tolkeiniac, I was attracted to the Tolkein comparisons on the covers of Donaldson's books. I started on the first one (Lord Foul's Bane, was it?) with great enthusiasm; that enthusiasm soon waned when I realised that there was no merit, literary or otherwise, contained in those endless pages. I think I got almost to the end before hurling it aside with great force. It's the sort of thing that would tarnish by association any writer of fantasy. Or of books in general.
God yes!
Also featuring THE most unappealing and unlikeble central character EVER...
I read all nine.
And though I was merely going for a full set after about number seven, I will admit to having largely enjoyed the sheer technicolor madness of the things.
There are nine!
I'm sure I read an interview with him where he said he'd planned nine, did six and had decided that was enough.
Clearly it wasn't.
Number 10
is scheduled to land in 2013.
Glut
My Dad had a glut of courgettes last year and rhubarb.
He'd be delighted to find that makes him middle-class or highbrow, but I think he'd be less delighted to be a media "type".
ah yes the allotment
I could probably have used all four words in OP in describing the contrasting fortunes of my courgettes and aubergines.
But if the weather was less
But if the weather was less favourable, would he have a 'dearth'?
I've said dearth.
I wouldn't say it every day, but I've said it. Care to articulate what's wrong with it?
I think it works better on
I think it works better on the page than it does spoken. When voiced it can sound a little forced.
...
Alight
is a word only used by train announcers. Everyone else gets off the train.
"is the barbecue still alight?"
:-)
In my sad and sorry instance,
the question would be "is the barbecue still on fire?"
Not very good at barbecues, me.
In my case
it would be "Oh bo**ox the barbecue's gone out. Again.
According to their announcers,
First Great Western trains have the unique ability of being able to arrive 'into' a station.
maybe so
but seldom at the time printed in their timetable
Particularly in the autumn,
when there is often a surfeit of leaves on the line.
or the incorrect type of snow
making services untenable
and a
glut of the wrong type of passenger in/at the station
Or
a dearth of train operating staff.
Adjudged and deemed
are used only by football commentators. As in:
"Andy and I adjudged the female linesman to be useless, but we were deemed to be sexist pillocks. And sacked."
Surely one's attention,
to the detail of one's spelling,
is infinitely more telling,
than a compunction to elaborate,
sophisticate or complicate,
the magnitude or complexity
of one's chosen voiced vocabulary?
"Robust"
I have never used this word to describe my work practices. I have only heard it used by politicians and people being interviewed on the radio.
It drives me nuts.
you could if you were
a female boating enthusiast
"a female boating enthusiast"
Now there's some niche rhyming slang.
sports commentators use it
"that was a robust challenge"
I come across this a lot at work
Our risk assessments are expected to be robust. Last week a client handed us an accusatory letter regarding our performance, but said he anticipated a robust response
It wouldn't surprise me if our robust response involved politely but firmly telling said client that some of his expectations are outwith our contractual remit
In the old days we'd have told him to fuck off
I use it
Usually when looking at a project plan, generally for delivering computer systems. A robust plan will not fall apart when Bad Things happen.
Bad Things usually do happen, often in clusters, and generally at the Worst Possible Time.
Some plans assume that the initial design will be accepted by the customer in the agreed timescales, that the site survey will only return good news, that the Customer Reviews will not generate any additional requirements or changes to the initial set, that the initial customer tests will not cause any re-work, that all our design & development will happen smoothly in the planned timescales, etc. Those are not robust plans.
The only robust plans in IT development
are those written by experienced, honest practitioners who recognise that no IT development process is ever repeated, and that therefore no project is ever composed of repetitions of things that have been done before and are of known complexity and duration, and who don't give a flying fuck for any deadline imposed by senior managers who know sod all about building computer systems.
/rant
I'm not quite sure which way
I'm not quite sure which way you are blowing here for or against our computer brethren. I upset one of our IS technicians when I questioned her expertise (ever so politley). Unfortunately she literally cried to her boss and I had to apologise for her imcompetence.
This is neatly summarised in
Hofstadter's Law, which says:
"It will always take longer than you expect. Even if you allow for Hofstadter's Law."
He's not wrong.
Mainly because
anything that is complex takes time. And when you have time, the spec gets fiddled with and changed. Those changes have impacts but most customers will then try and reduce the financial and lead time impacts, thus extending time again. Which gives the techies a window to revise the spec again.
"My father still reads the dictionary every day.
He says your life depends on your power to master words."
- Arthur Scargill, Sunday Times, 10 January 1982
You all
fink your so clevver.
Is it
Innit. Youknowwhatimean blood.
Just because our command of language is...
... magisterial. (The only occasion this word has been used to describe anything which isn't a long biography)
Strangely enough...
*Why do I remember shit like this?*
I remember "magisterial" being used to describe a footballer (Denilson - the older one, not the current Arsenal player) a few years ago. Fair enough, I thought, it's a perfectly good word, go for it.
Was it describing a biography of him?
Damn, I thought I was being so clever there...
*goes back to his Daily Sport*
Media types..
seem unable any more to use without, it has to be sans (in italics). Anybody care to explain.
I think it's due to the propensity for media types
to holiday on the island of San Seriffe.
As with many words or phrases
You can blame renowned media luvvy William Shakespere. While "sans" was borrowed from the French in the 14th century, he popularised it. Despite this, it appears in italics as even after 700 years it's still seen as a foreign word.
What's with 'Outwith'?
This has come from nowhere in the last year or so to mean 'beyond'. It has a value if you're in the habit of using 'without' in the sense of 'a green hill far away without a city wall' but no one's done that for centuries, so why has this word suddenly appeared now?
This is one case where we probably can blame trendy media types and, yes, the marketing profession. I find that whenever anyone uses it, I ignore whatever they subsequently say because they are clearly a knob
I'd never heard 'outwith' used before, Captain.
Until I was recently treated to it twice in one day. It was a knobularity glut.
TMFTL..
..hah!
I think it's used in Scotland in that sense
But why it's been picked up elsewhere, I don't know. My entire research on this matter is a conversation I had recently with my Mum, who's from Edinburgh, and had been surprised to hear non-Scottish politicians using it on TV. "It's the kind of phrase your grandad used."
outwith Scotland I've not heard it used much
but in Scotland, it's a Tom Jonesism
not unusual
Isn't it a Scots English usage?
I'd always assumed so, since it's mostly been Scottish types I've heard use it. Or utilise it.
It is indeed
a Scots word. I've been using it for years, completely unaware that I'm a knob. I only discovered it was a Scots rather than an English word last year, in an English Language lecture.
Oh well, at least I know my place now...
Oh dear
I suppose it's too late for me to say that Scots are clearly outwith the knob community if they've been using this all their life.
Dear Captain
...you could never offend me, or any of my tribe that have any sense. How could we be offended by someone who writes such brilliant blog posts? Impossible - outwith possiblity.
so is it
out-knob or knob-out?
Speaking of knobs
does 'girth' ever get used any more outside of the world of penile dimensions?
Only in a Horsey Context
They're 'saddled' with it.
It's commonplace in the world of tree surgery
Apparently.
Double post
Sans
is the without de nos jours.
It's all about capturing the zeitgeist.
Do I detect a hint of schadenfreude
in your Weltenschauung?
Now schadenfreude
Is a word I like.
I only like it
if people use it in the wrong way, and are made to look foolish as a result.
and best served
with sauerkraut
Not really totally different from..
gloating, though, is it?
Perhaps a soupcon of
Weltschmerz
Un petit peu.
Sine
qua non.
although Ne plus ultra
has a certain je ne sais quoi
Or Echte
as used by 'uber' literary types - meaning 'genuine, 'actual' or 'real', I believe.
'Shitegeist'
A word that my son often used to use, presumably to catch the spirit of awfulness at a given time?
Shitegeist?
That's well Mexico
...sorry, came over all Nathan Barley for a moment...
Mexico?
Not again...
'The chattering classes'
Never heard that used outside of Radio 4/broadsheet newspapers (Thank God).
It could be used to describe
my Year Fives, and their friends next door in Year Six. :)
Supper
A truly ugly word. What is wrong with dinner?
For me, dinner is a formal meal, with the good wine and guests.
Supper is a bowl of pasta or chilli at the kitchen table with a glass of Latvian Merlot.
nooooo
supper is a light snack - perhaps a sandwich or just a couple of biscuits with a warm drink before bed - usually eaten from the coffee table in the lounge in front of the telly about 5 hours after you've 'ad yr tea.
That is how I have always viewed it
North/South
That use of supper is northern - a pre-bedtime snack - isn't it? Certainly that was Mrs Bob's understanding when we met (she's Lancastrian). Supper down south is dinner or tea up north. Although I think supper to mean "main informal evening meal" is fairly middle-class, even down south.
At the risk of betraying myself as insufferably middle class,
"Come over for supper" means "drop by and share our informal family dinner round the kitchen table" whereas "Come to dinner" means something much more formal involving an evening with other guests, 'poncy food' and probably several carefully chosen wines.
This is where class comes in I think
I'm from Essex/London, so definitely not the North (unless you're from Sussex, I suppose).
I have my tea at night. When I was a kid, I had dinner in the middle of the day, but that has changed to lunch.
So lunch and tea for me. Dinner is what I have when I go out to restaurants. Never supper for me, but if I did use it, it would be a pre-bedtime snack. No logic there, I know.
I'm from the South Coast of Hampshire
and it was the same for me, so I think it is a class thing, rather than regional.
By the way, glad to note following the Relocation thread, that someone has noticed that London is The North for some of us. (Simmers with pointless regional and class resentment.)
How odd
I too grew up straddling the London-Essex border, but for me it was always breakfast-lunch-dinner-supper. Tea, if it meant anything at all, was what them posh folk had in the middle of the afternoon.
I *am* insufferably middle class.
That's what those terms mean to me, too. Dinner is a big deal. Supper is a bowl of pasta or something.
Definitely a class thing
Never really used the word supper in Hertfordshire and if we did it definitely meant a biscuit or sandwich before bed.
Something about the word I actively dislike as well, not sure why.
*shrugs for second time this evening*
Oh well. It's not like I ever thought I was Frank Gallagher in any case.
;-)
so when I was invited out for supper
the correct response Should not have involved me asking about bedtime drinks then? Well I just wanted to make sure it wasn't going to be Horlicks.
I was born working class but
I was born working class but I am now pretty much middle. I have never had supper, still call dinner tea and lunch dinner. I know I will never be a full member of the MC's.
Supper
is what the insufferable Saint Shula would always invite her equally insufferable family members round for when I used to listen to "The Archers". You're well out of it, Nigel...
Not sure
which comedian said it but in Scotland 'supper' just means 'and chips'
La de dah
I get slightly annoyed by the use of 'La' as a prefix to a famous woman's surname. La Lumley. La Kensit. La bloody Widdecombe. In my view this usage, if deployed at all, should be confined to discussion of opera singers & ballerinas.
agreed
la dido, la lulu ... s'just wrong.
Um,
Would it then be Cilla, la?
Engage
As in politicians engaging with people on a raft (there's another) of issues. Drives me nuts. Nearly as much as community leaders.
But
Community leaders are key stakeholders!
Mr Khan
I blame the Normans
Latin = good. Anglo Saxon = bad. eg Shit = swear word. Faeces = technical term used by medics and Gillian McKeith
French = food, Anglo-Saxon = animals
Beef/Beouf = Cow
Mutton/mouton = Sheep
Pork/Porc = Pig
The Normans ate it, the Anglo-Saxons farmed it.
Also "Doctor".
A technical term used by medics, PhDs and not Gillian McKeith since the ASA made her stop. I believe she's now entitled to substitute "Charlatan" for it on her letterhead, so it's not all bad. Nice to have an official title.
To quote Ben Goldacre
"Gillian McKeith. Or to give her her full medical title, Gillian McKeith."
Breakfast /Dinner/Tea round are way. If you come to my house for supper, expect to find me in dressing gown and slippers and to be serving Ovaltine or Horlicks.
Oh, and big words are a good thing. Libraries gave us power.
Was that deliberate?
It was, Captain
;-)
Teach Yourself Anglish
http://anglish.wikia.com/wiki/Headside
The one thing that irritates me above all else (actually that's a lie but for the sake of argument can we assume it's true) is when some hoity-toity minor member of the aristocracy with a surname that is not pronounced as it's spelt say that they can trace their family back to the Norman Conquest. As though that's a good thing you usurping, thieving, Viking descended, pseudo French supporters of a right Bastard. I haven't forgotten or forgiven the harrying of a the North. Time a great healer? Hah!
Our local court building
has a sign denying liability if you slip and fall due to 'inclement' weather conditions. Doubtless all the legal types going in will understand that. Their clients, on the other hand, will be flat on their arses, as 'bad' is a concept beyond their wit, never mind 'inclement'.
Quintessence of middle-class
Really?
whaaaa??
is there a word that hasnt been used yet in any medium?
I don't mind
as long as they are real words. Someone, in a meeting I was in a few days ago, said that we have some "decisioning" to do.
Why make a word up when there are perfectly serviceable ones already.
Genuine (not from Reggie Perrin) work quote
"If this Chinese stand-off continues, the project will be dropped like a lead potato."
This was my ex-boss. I think he knows he's doing it.
I was invited to ideate once
I was appalled.
I have seen Ideation used
I was about to launch into a bit of a rant but, and this is unusual for me, I decided to check my facts before. And the word bloody exists as the process of creating ideas. Still hate it though.
Widely used in mental health circles
As in "the patient is extremely depressed but there is currently no suicidal ideation." The word has its place, although I can't think of any situation in which I'd use it outside that specific context.
It was in IT
so not dissimilar really.
Ideation also in use
in our (IT/IS) organisation.
Suspect it is the U.S. influence.
The most pretentious instance I can remember was a Sales Person (Female) of a previous employer referring to sharing account information with a customer as 'Opening The Kimono'! Bleuurgggh.
/specialist website
etc
Not that I want to come over like Dearth Vader...
...but I would suggest the OP from woodface is untenable, despite a surfeit of sympathy in the thread and a glut of fellow-feeling. He misspelled intelligent.
Thanks for that, I'm pretty
Thanks for that, I'm pretty sure I made your day. By the way, the hyphen was probably not required.
True
If i want to flaunt my hyphen, i should head for the I'm so bored with the s.e.x. thread
Hmm
'a glut of fellow-feeling'......... I think requires a website of a slightly more specialised variety
In terms of.....
'In terms of' ......the most overused phrase that I hear.
Unless you are talking of things that have 'terms' (law, contracts etc) then this phrase is just an easy way to construct a sentence.
It should never ever be used outwith (Scots) the workplace. Ever.
"In terms of..."
is the grown-ups' equivalent of the teenagers' "like..". It buys thinking time for what to say next for people who feel that actually pausing to think what to say next is a sign of conversational weakness. (Guilty I'm afraid.)
Buying time
The worst example of this is the deadly 'at the end of the day'.
Moving forward
This phrase is the reason I'll never watch the Apprentice again.
A part of me dies when I see
A part of me dies when I see perfectly good nouns (like "impact", "process" or "access") taken out of their natural habitat and put to work as bullshit verbs in business manuals.
I hear what you're saying
.
It's
a big ask!
To quote Bill Watterson:
"I love nouning verbs. It weirds language"
Oh good
Another thread about class.
Thatcher dead yet?
Feel proud
I used the word "entity" four times in a talk I did at church yesterday.
As well as references to GCSE biology, Renton from Trainspotting, the Simpsons, da Vinci's Portrait of a Man, and Abe's Odyssey. Not bad going for a talk about the church itself. Ha!
Not trying to appear intelligent
I often use words that I get picked up on because the listener doesn't know it's meaning. Usually I don't even know I'm doing it probably because the words seem normal to me which is the case if they were/are used by my parents or siblings or friends.
When did
'action' become a verb?
Around the same time that
chair did, or that people started being referred to as chairs as well.
and Medal became a verb
as in 'Beth Tweddle medalled'. Ridiculous.
Wish she was a cyclist
and not a gymnast. Then we could have 'Beth Tweddle pedalled and medalled'.
as a betrunken policy statement
i'd say that that any notion that there was vocabulary that was out of my reach because of my class background is utterly offensive
it's up to me to square up to the language and use it with precision, skill and elan, not make flimsy excuses about "ooh guvnor, them wordz is too fancy for the loikes o' me" based on my childhood in a council house
anything else is fear or embarrassment
Indeed
Drives me mad every time the BBC newsreader says, "Bob Cock, thank you very much *indeed*."
The "very much" was already unnecessary; the "indeed" is pure BBC-speak.
Here's another that drives
Here's another that drives me mad, more of a phrase but I give you 'sacred & profane'. It only seems to be used by writers, Ian Rankin seems to cram it into every interview.