Annoying Words I've Seen Today
Actionable, deep dives, scaling back, impactful, attitudinal, rolling back, orgs.

Other Annoying Words/phrases
Game-changer, level up, ramp up, kick off, hack (when used about everyday life i.e. cooking hack) ,elevate (hackneyed), Circle back, combo, info, typo, y'all, deets, specs, app/apps (this may be the proper word for mobile applications), pics, photos, faves, legit, adorbs, etc. There are many, many more. This is just a small sample. This is also why I generally can't tolerate more than ten minutes reading modern articles or associating with people who speak and write in this manner. It gives me a headache, sometimes literally (and yes, I do use that word in its proper sense). I fully understand why those with manual dexterity issues, etc. would write shortened words and such. But for the rest of us, there is no excuse. Yes, there are normal abbreviations, but these go well beyond that into sheer laziness. As for the corporate and sports rubbish, when did that start? Why must everything be a game-changer? When did we begin living in a video game that we started levelling up? Have we all become scuba divers that we take deep dives into everything? How did combination turn into combo, when there is only one o in it? Why must everyone, including professionals, write words such as info and photos, to say nothing of the use of emoticons, emojis, etc. in so-called business letters? Speaking of which, when did it become appropriate to call people who are not your friends or family by their first names without their permission, instead of addressing them properly i.e. "hey, Georgiana" instead of "Dear Miss Brummell" or "Dear Madam"? Then, there are those who forget to follow at least one of the rules regarding numbers in a sentence. Either you begin using numerals after ten or, as I do, after 100. "I put 2 cups on the is not proper usage. If I wrote all of my thoughts about such things, I would rival Captain Jesse in rambling and length, but suffice it to say that I am utterly disgusted by all of this modern nonsense, and even more so by bad English in general (good/well, lay/lie, me/I, double negatives, wanna/gonna, singular they, etc.) being accepted and even promoted by educators, both of native English students and of English learners!

#abbreviations #cCorporateSpeak #English #grammar #language #linguistics #netspeak #prescriptivism #textspeak #words #writing

*This is a note for those who wish to follow me. First, please read my profile. Secondly, subscribers are those who follow me, but whom I don't follow in return. Friends are those who follow me and whom I follow in return.

People who will never be accepted: Minors. I don't feel comfortable having anyone under eighteen (preferably twenty-one) follow me, even as subscribers.

People who will always be subscribers: Those who constantly write about politics, who always use obscenities, anti-capitalists, anarchists, extreme leftists and rightists), religious fanatics, those who hardly post in English, only post about technology and/or games (not including accessibility), or medical/mental issues.
Note. I'm not talking about having a bad day or posting once about politics. I'm talking about those who barely post anything else.

People who will always be friends: Those who post about high culture (classical music, good literature, art, history, theatre, wine, coffee, tea, snuff, fine dining, etc.), male fashion, nature, pets (especially cats), plants/gardening, good news, writing, and daily life (without constant drama).

Things I am Seeking

Note. I have no interest in political correctness, no hatred of men, etc.

1. Book suggestions. (They must be online, preferably in txt, though audiobooks with good narators are acceptable). I primarily read British literature from the nineteenth century and earlier, though I may read some from the twentieth. I love silver fork/fashionable novels (Regency, not Victorian), things about the upper (titled) and upper middle (rich but not titled) classes, memoirs/biographies (usually related to the dandies, men about town, men of the clubs, and wits), anecdotes, things about dandyism, books about the Regency and/or Edwardian eras, male fashion (yes, I have Male and Female Costume by Beau Brummell/see my pinned post on dandyism), and old children's books. I love Wind in the Willows, for example. I also enjoy a bit of fantasy and science fiction, as I am fascinated by books about other worlds, magical creatures, talking animals, etc. I have no interest in modern rot with obscenities and who knows what.
2. Operettas. I am always seeking English or Viennese (translated into english) operettas. Extra points if they are original recordings, as I love old operetta/opera singing, though I will except amateur or even professional recordings if they have full dialogue. I have all of Gilbert and Sullivan, including original d'Oyly Carte recordings, a lot of Ivor Novello (always seeking more), some Franz Lehar (including with Richard Tauber), etc.
3. Old BBC radio shows. As with books, I prefer things about the upper and upper middle classes. I am always seeking anything with Upper RP. I am a huge Paul Temple fan, and even love the modern recordings, as they actually used original equipment and their accents are flawless! Rarely have I ever heard modern performances of anything that could equal the originals, but these do. I like old documentaries, too.
4. Audio recordings of elocution lessons in Upper RP or Transatlantic. Please do not recommend books, unless they don't rely on IPA. I use a screen reader (NVDA) and it cannot handle IPA characters, nor do I understand them.
5. Grammars, preferably from the early 1800's. I have many from about 1880 to 1926 or so, but I want older ones. I do not follow modern linguists and am utterly fascinated by nineteenth-century English. It has been my goal to adopt it for daily use for many, many years.

#AudioDramatisations #books #Edwardian #English #grammar #literature #operettas #radio #ReceivedPronunciation #recommendations #Regency #theatre

As a grammar prescriptivist, I take writing and proper use of words very seriously. I recently saw a post about ending text messages with full stops. Apparently, some think this is a bad idea. No. It's called using punctuation correctly! Perhaps, they should read a few grammars instead of playing their silly video games! The same is true of netspeak, textspeak, corporate spaek, and abbreviating everything. Likewise, I have no use for political correctness. I refuse to use words such as visually-challenged, vertically-challenged, etc. I will say blind (or visually impaired if the person has some vision), short, fat, etc. Unless I'm writing poetry and am seeking flowery words for things, I call them what they are. Neither do I see any difference between saying "a blind person" and "a person who is blind", for example. I also have no time for so-called gender-neutral words, unless they honestly make sense and are actually descriptive, such as firefighter or police officer. But I'm just as likely to say fireman, policeman, waiter, steward, actor, chairman, etc. and change the gender when necessary. I refuse to use the singular they. There are two sexes (gender is for grammar). You're either one or the other. This absolutely doesn't mean that you can't change your sex. If, for example, I meet you as a woman and you change to a man or are a drag king/queen, I will certainly change my use of pronouns when discussing you or talking about you, either permenantly or temporarily, as the case requires. But unless you literally have multiple personalities or are a machine or an inanimate object, you are neither a they nor an it, and you're certainly not some made-up pronoun such as xe. I would never cause harm to those who use such words. I would just consider them to be silly or confused. If the sex is unknown, or if a sentence can apply to both sexes, I use the masculine, simply because it's grammatically correct to do so.

#English #gender #grammar #language #prescriptivism #properEnglish #sex #texting #writing