English Language Bug Tracker

[Retinend]

Forgotten how much I love this shit:
https://www.eca.europa.eu/Other%20publications/EN_TERMINOLOGY_PUBLICATION/EN_TERMINOLOGY_PUBLICATION.pdf
which touches on how Euro English has countable "informations" at this point.

Over the years, the European institutions have developed a vocabulary that differs from that of any recognised form
of English. It includes words that do not exist or are relatively unknown to native English speakers outside the EU
institutions and often even to standard spellcheckers/grammar checkers ('planification', 'to precise' or 'telematics' for
example) and words that are used with a meaning, often derived from other languages, that is not usually found in
English dictionaries ('coherent' being a case in point). Some words are used with more or less the correct meaning, but in
contexts where they would not be used by native speakers ('homogenise', for example). Finally, there is a group of words,
many relating to modern technology, where users (including many native speakers) 'prefer' a local term (often an English
word or acronym) to the one normally used in English-speaking countries, which they may not actually know, even
passively ('GPS' or 'navigator' for 'satnav', 'SMS' for 'text', 'to send an SMS to' for 'to text', 'GSM' or even 'Handy' for 'mobile' or 'cell
phone', internet 'key', 'pen' or 'stick' for 'dongle', 'recharge' for 'top-up/top up', 'beamer' for projector etc.). The words in this last
list have not been included because they belong mostly to the spoken language.

Devastating.

"Beamer" for "projector" is a standard German usage (under the misapprehension that it is a borrowing from English), not standard European use of English. Same for "Handy" for "cell phone". I now trust your guide even less.

[Darles Chickens]

Forgotten how much I love this shit:
https://www.eca.europa.eu/Other%20publications/EN_TERMINOLOGY_PUBLICATION/EN_TERMINOLOGY_PUBLICATION.pdf

European English is pretty much its own dialect these days, and there's nothing the UK can do any more to try to stop them.

The first time I heard words like "assist" being used to mean "attend", or "actual" to mean "current" totally threw me.  But in Romance languages, this is what they mean (e.g. in Spanish: asistir = to attend), and I presume the meaning changed in English afterwards.

One that got me recently is "fusión" in Spanish, which refers to the act of melting.  I thought it was being mistranslated, but, sure enough, fusion comes from the Latin fundere, meaning "to melt".  Stupid English changed the meaning at some point between Caesar and now.

[Retinend]

It's true that English doesn't just belong to the anglosphere anymore, and that latin languages have better preserved the meaning of latin cognates than English. Still, if you conceded "assist" to mean "be present at", then you would have endless ambiguities about whether you wanted to help out a political rally, or merely be present at it, and so on.

The Spanish word "fundir" means "to cast" (as in "cast iron"), so English "fusion" is not too far gone from the latin root, after all.

[All Surrogate]

I've noticed in the States that they're particularly hot on their use of the present subjunctive in everyday writing, while in British English it feels rather more weird and old fashioned.

Or piratical.

Over there, a lot of people use it very naturally, and I love it.

Me too. Adds a bit of flavour to the language, as do strong verbs.

[Darles Chickens]

Still, if you conceded "assist" to mean "be present at", then you would have endless ambiguities about whether you wanted to help out a political rally, or merely be present at it, and so on.

Sure, the European use of "assist" to mean "attend" is basically a mistranslation (one of those false friends they always talk about when you learn a language), but it's so widespread that it's totally accepted as the meaning of the word now.  And who am I to stand in the way of the evolution of language?

The Spanish word "fundir" means "to cast" (as in "cast iron"), so English "fusion" is not too far gone from the latin root, after all.

I'm more used to 'fundir' in the context of melting (e.g. ice cream or chocolate), but, yes, the other meaning is related, but not obviously so.  For me "fusion" implies the joining together of two things (normally metals I guess), but it seems like the important part of the concept which betrays its origin is not the joining together but the melting required to do it.

[Retinend]

True, it's most commonly used in the reflexive form fundirse to mean "melt".

[Darles Chickens]

True, it's most commonly used in the reflexive form fundirse to mean "melt".

The opposite!  Fundirse is to fuse :)

[Retinend]

ah, my mistake.

[Darles Chickens]

There's another one of these "surprising word origin" things that I like, which is the word "crescent" comes from the Latin crescere meaning "to grow".  I realised this when I learnt that, in Spanish, waxing/waning crescent moons have different names (creciente - growing / menguante - shrinking).  So the origin has nothing to do with the shape at all.

Same evolution of the word in French I presume.

[phantom_power]

I've noticed shows like Casualty referring to a blood sample as "bloods".  (Also I'm wondering if it's is an Americanism because I don't remember them saying it 15-20 years ago.)

Isn't that because it is a shortening of "blood tests" or "bloodworks"?

[mothman]

If I remember correctly, back in 1990 there was some controversy after Gérard Depardieu said he had "been present at" a rape when a young man, but a translation mishap meant it came out as "had participated in." It's said to have cost him the Oscar for Cyrano de Bergerac, although there were also suggestions the US studios fanned the flames to ensure someone from one of their own films got the award. Mind you, given some of his recent legal troubles, who knows what really happened way back then during the original incident...

[Darles Chickens]

Back on this. The word THE. The most common fucking word in the English language. I can't think of a single other word whose final E is pronounced "uh" (schwa), apart from borrowed words like schadenfreude.

And why do "one" and "two" have such ridiculous spellings?  "Two" should think about giving "one" its W.

[popcorn]

"The" is fucked.

the White House
the Eiffel Tower
the Élysée Palace
the New York Rangers

but:

Bush House
Tokyo Tower
Buckingham Palace
Glasgow Rangers

Why?

[Blumf]

Lebanon vs The Lebanon

[mothman]

Star Trek! It's always "THE Enterprise" or "THE Defiant" but never "THE Voyager" or "THE Discovery" just Voyager or Discovery.

"The" is fucked.

the White House
the Eiffel Tower
the Élysée Palace
the New York Rangers

but:

Bush House
Tokyo Tower
Buckingham Palace
Glasgow Rangers

Why?

In Animal House, it's referred to as both Delta House and "the Delta House."

[Echo Valley 2-6809]

Lebanon vs The Lebanon

War-torn Gower or The Gower?

It's the first one - 'The Gower' is what outsiders say, now eat your laver bread.

[Dex Sawash]

Star Trek! It's always "THE Enterprise" or "THE Defiant" but never "THE Voyager" or "THE Discovery" just Voyager or Discovery.

Never add an article to a vessel. If THE isn't painted on the back/side, don't say it.

[touchingcloth]

Never add an article to a vessel. If THE isn't painted on the back/side, don't say it.

Would it be a titanic error to do so?

[Zetetic]

Never add an article to a vessel. If THE isn't painted on the back/side, don't say it.

Or a hospital. NHS reference data is a fucking mess because of scum doing this.[nb]And many other reasons.[/nb]

[dissolute ocelot]

Unfortunately Japanese compensates for its elegant lack of plurals with its own needlessly complicated counting system. The word for one is "ichi", but if you're counting small animals like cats then it's ippiki, or if it's people then it's hitori, or for flat things it's ichimai. So you don't say "ichi neko" (one cat), you say "ippiki neko" (one cat). But that's dumb because you're not adding information, right? If you say "ippiki neko" then we know it's a small animal because you said neko, which is a kind of small animal, so can't you just say "ichi neko"? You dummies!

Sounds like Chinese, which also doesn't have plurals (or cases or genders), but there's a little particle called a measure word that you put between the number and the noun, with different words for categories like family members, other sorts of people, flat things, long thin items, things in pairs, things that were in pairs but are separated, things in packets, (some) animals, etc. So e.g. apples and bananas have different ways of saying ten of them.

[popcorn]

Sounds like Chinese, which also doesn't have plurals (or cases or genders), but there's a little particle called a measure word that you put between the number and the noun, with different words for categories like family members, other sorts of people, flat things, long thin items, things in pairs, things that were in pairs but are separated, things in packets, (some) animals, etc. So e.g. apples and bananas have different ways of saying ten of them.

Does the actual word for the number itself change too, or just the measure word?

Further "the" madness:

Diamond: It bugs the shit out of us. All the time, people are like [does annoying squeaky voice] "the Beastie Boys". There's no "the" in the band name!

Horovitz: Would you say "the Mudhoney"? "The Nirvana"?

Diamond: You don't say "the Run DMC". "The Funkadelic".

Don't step out of this house if that's the clothes you're gonna wear
I'll kick you out of my home if you don't cut that hair
Your mom busted in and said, what's that noise?
Aw, mom you're just jealous it's the Beastie Boys

[brat-sampson]

I've had to teach a plethora of office workers over the last year that according to any native speaker, the term 'home office' refers exclusively to a room in your house that you use as an office, while what they're doing during lockdown is 'working from home'.

Every single one has been surprised.

[Paul Calf]

Welcome to the English language bug tracker. Please log any errors or issues you detect in official spelling or pronunciation of our flagship communication product.

#23139 Issue: 'Yacht'
Fucking stupid spelling, should be 'Yott' or something, maybe have a 'u' in it, I don't know.

#54134 Issue: 'Raze'
How is that right? You 'raise' something up, but you 'raze' something to the ground. That can't be right!

#3221 Issue: 'Gay'
Used to mean happy and now they're all doing it in our faces, and I pay my rates, I do, but will the council fix it? And these new 5p pieces...
Resolved: Won't fix

#78632 Issue: 'Onomatopoeia'
Doesn't sound like what it's describing. I had an idea for an alternative, but when I tried to say it aloud, I dislocated my larynx.

Works as designed. Will Not Fix. Please close.

[Johnny Textface]

"Inflammable" sick joke?

[mothman]

Never add an article to a vessel. If THE isn't painted on the back/side, don't say it.

Is that an actual rule, maritime or grammatical? If so one that Trek violates regularly.

[Blumf]

Isn't it something to do with the vessel's proper name, i.e. 'USS Enterprise' as opposed to a more casual 'The Enterprise'.

Check out this contemporary newspaper report on HMS Hood:



Which must be right, as it was written back in the good old days... according to some boomer poetry I read.

'HMS Hood', 'Battle-cruiser Hood', 'The Hood', all used.

[Dex Sawash]

Not a rule, just don't do it. I think it is forgivable/ok to add the if the vessel is an indirect object. But I'm not sure what indirect object is anymore.

[PlanktonSideburns]

Prepositions - to, in, on, at, by, with, under, next to, etc. What's the difference between "I'm at the supermarket" and "I'm in the supermarket"? Or the impossibility of knowing when to use an infinitive (to eat, to run, to sleep) or a gerund (eating, running, sleeping): "I started studying" and "I started to study" are identical but "I stopped studying" and "I stopped to study" aren't.

Plurals. English grammar is bent on establishing whether there's only one of the thing you're talking about or some number between one and infinity. This established, the entire sentence morphs, shifting verbs (the cat eats; the cats eat) and pronouns (it; they; them; that; those; these), articles (cats eat; a cat eats), and more.

It's a huge amount of engineering to support an almost worthless unit of information. We'd lose nothing if we excised plurals from English. You'd just say "there is cat in the road", and when you needed to specify otherwise,  you'd say "two cat", "three cat", "some cat", "many cat", or whatever.

Uncountable nouns. It's usually clear, to the beginner student of English, why you can't count things like water or air, and why you therefore can't say something like "there are many waters in this jug". But it's not obvious why you can't count woods, or breads, or beefs, or moneys.

Uncountable things sometimes become mysteriously countable after all —  as in the foods of the world, or the beers of Belgium, or in phrases like "troubled waters" or "blue skies". It's galling for students of English to carefully order "a cup of coffee" only for the native speaker at the next table to order "a coffee".

Supermarket carpark = I'm AT the supermarket
frozen food Isle = I'm IN the supermarket

[touchingcloth]

Sounds like Chinese, which also doesn't have plurals (or cases or genders), but there's a little particle called a measure word that you put between the number and the noun, with different words for categories like flat things, long thin items, things in pairs, things that were in pairs but are separated, things in packets

This is why Kit Kats never took off there.

[Smeraldina Rima]

I used to work with a French guy who was absolutely insistent that "We recommend you..." was incorrect and that it should be "We recommend you to..." He asked on Reddit about it and downvoted all the replies.

I would've thought the underlying phrase is "We recommend that ...", which would originally have been followed by a subjunctive phrase e.g. "We recommend that he leave."
This can then be changed in two ways:

• The subjunctive mood becomes indicative e.g. "We recommend that he leaves."
• The "that" is lost e.g. "We recommend he leave."

These changes can be, and usually are, combined e.g. "We recommend he leaves."

In the case of "We recommend you ...", change (1) is 'invisible', as the difference between indicative and subjunctive moods is not marked in the second person e.g. indicative "you leave" is the same as subjunctive "you leave" (except for the verb "to be" e.g. "you are" contrasts with "you be").

"We recommend you to ... " is not strictly correct, as far as I'm aware, except in the case where you are being recommended to someone (rather than to do something) e.g. "We recommend you to the agency."

This is even clearer in the case of "he/him" rather than "you".
"We recommend him to leave." feels very wrong, and "We recommend he to leave." is even worse.
"We recommend him to the agency." is OK.

I would use "We advise you to ... ", "We advise him to ..."

So, all in all, the French guy was wrong,

"We recommend you fuck off" and "We recommend that you fuck off" are both correct and natural, surely.

I think the "that" can be optionally removed in the same way you can from lots of English constructions - "He said that he was hungry", "I didn't know that you were there", etc.

He sure was, and as the argument progressed he went on to reject the subjunctive mood entirely in all forms, so "He suggested you to fuck off" it is.

Haha, isn't the subjunctive even more clear in French? What a bizarre stubborn attitude he had.

Not as much so as it is in Spanish, but still much more a thing than in English.  But I can imagine it as I've often heard this kind of construction "He suggested you to..." from French people speaking English.

I've noticed in the States that they're particularly hot on their use of the present subjunctive in everyday writing, while in British English it feels rather more weird and old fashioned.  Over there, a lot of people use it very naturally, and I love it.

The form of sentence that popcorn's French colleague preferred which states the whole infinitive (I recommend you/ to do something) was overtaken by the standard elliptical English form (I recommend you/ [to] do something)  - a form which looks the same as what we might think of as an elliptical subjunctive (I recommend [that]/ you do something) - from about the 1970s but it had previously been the norm and - more relevantly from his perspective - it more closely reflects the French use of 'de' (Je vous suggère de.../ Je vous recommande de...) and the French preference for the infinitive construction over the subjunctive construction where possible. Before that even the dative 'you' was often 'to you' (I recommend/ to you/ to do something). See the two charts in this stackexchange question:

https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/56993/recommend-you-to-do-something-or-recommend-to-you-to-do-something