Any suggestions, please?

Liam Proven lproven at gmail.com
Sat Sep 11 14:29:59 UTC 2010


On 11 September 2010 08:22, Basil Chupin <blchupin at iinet.net.au> wrote:
>
> Yeah....while many people are getting "used to it", but not all like
> myself and my wife, the American way of contorting, mangling and
> torturing the English language is quite painful :'( .

Sometimes, yes. Things that especially irk me are using adjectives in
place of adverbs - "think different," "you talk real good," "that car
is real quick". Also, dropping of words that reverse or change the
meaning of a phrase: "I could care less," which means "I couldn't care
less;" "I wrote him", meaning "I wrote to him," and so on.

Merely different usage does not trouble me; e.g., "hood", "trunk",
"faucet", "curb", "sidewalk". Even "aluminum" is historically
perfectly justified.

> Not that long ago some American, on a TV programme - politician or a
> reporter or some such mammal - came out with the word, "physicality".
> Both my wife looked at each other and said, "WHAT?!".

But "physicality" is a perfectly good word.

> This was worst than the "technicolor emissions" stated in some (?)CIA
> document some years ago to mean "vomiting".

"Technicolour yawn" as a euphemism for vomiting is many decades old. I
thought its origin was Australian.

-- 
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