11.11.08
Annoyed? Absolutely!
A new book from Oxford University Press, A Damp Squid: The English Language Laid Bare
They are:
- At the end of the day
- Fairly unique
- I personally
- At this moment in time
- With all due respect
- Absolutely
- It’s a nightmare
- Shouldn’t of
- 24/7
- It’s not rocket science
Some classics there, particularly #4 and #10. I puzzle over “shouldn’t of,” though. Is this in written English or spoken English? As with such phrasings as “I should of looked up the answer to that question,” the of is a phonetic spelling of a contraction. “I should of” represents “I should’ve.” The phrase “shouldn’t of” perhaps attracts particular attraction because it is an unusual instance of a double contraction: shouldn’t've. Multiple contractions are hardly unknown—consider the pronunciation of a word I’m sure you use on a daily basis: forecastle pronounced as fo’c’sl.
OK, maybe you don’t use it on a daily basis or even daily, which I mention because The Daily Telegraph followed Oxford’s list with a reader-generated list:
- Literally
- A safe pair of hands
- I’m gutted
- Basically
- Going forward
- Upcoming
- Up until
- Neither here not there
- On a daily basis
I’m curious about what “a safe pair of hands” means. Is it British? Or am I just cloistered? I’ve never heard it before so haven’t yet had a chance to be annoyed.
As for me, I’m actually going to nominate actually as my greatest source of annoyance at (you knew I was going to annoy you and say it) this moment in time.
(Might I also note that to my moderately math-trained eye, 24/7 seems to equate to 3.428571429.)
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Soupaddict Karen said,
November 11, 2008 at 10:05 am
Ahhh, yes. “It’s not rocket science.” That brings back memories. (But I believe the actual usage was, “It’s not rocket science, people.” Was it “people” or “folks”?)
In my current situation (well, it’s the same job, just a different generation of peeps), “Basically,” is the biggest offender (capitalized, because it always, always, always, starts off the sentence: “Will you meet your upcoming deadline?” “Basically, I literally have a ton of work to do at this moment in time, but going forward, I absolutely will work 24/7 on a daily basis up until the project is finished. But that’s neither here nor there. With all due respect, no, I personally do not believe I will meet my deadline.”
Absopositivelylutely. And my employer is a publisher that makes it living with words and stuff. Or maybe I shouldn’t of admitted that out loud on a blog?
Glen said,
November 11, 2008 at 11:58 am
The issue with “shouldn’t of” is with the use of “of.” I think “shouldn’t of” is an aural mangling of “should not have,” not “should not of.”
Following your example, “I should’ve” is a contraction of “I should have,” not “I should of,” and the negative “I should not have” would be contracted colloquially as “shouldn’t've,” as you point out.
(With respect to the list, I’m absolutely guilty of several of these. It’s a 24/7 nightmare.)
JohnnyB said,
November 11, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Soupaddict Karen:
BRAVO!
My favorites are cliche malaprops like, “Well, it’s not exactly rocket surgery.”
Bill Brohaugh said,
November 11, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Karen: It was people. Folks was perhaps too folksy.
Glen: You caught me in a fit of unclear writing. You’re right about “I shouldn’t've” being a contraction of “I should not have” and not “I should not of. “Shouldn’t of” is wrong in writing but largely indistinguishable from correct-in-writing-but-colloquial “Shouldn’t've” when spoken (as shifting from the T to the V sound introduces a short O sound). Of course, the Oxford research was based on writing, thus the annoyance expressed about “of.” Anyway, that was what I intended to communicate–you expressed it far better than I did.
JohnnyB: Agreed. Worse yet was an instance (of which I have vague memory–and it may have been in a comedy routine instead of real life) of someone speaking about the space program and then declaring that one element of it was not rocket science. Oops.
Soupaddict Karen said,
November 11, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Thank you, JohnnyB, thank you [bowing humbly].
I’m curious as to what “I’m gutted” means. Tired? Empty? Braveheart‘ed? I assume it has nothing to do with, or is the opposite of, the “safe pair of hands,” but one never knows….
There’s a guy in my office who says, “It’s not brain science,” so often that I’m starting to suspect he’s not doing the malapropism, um, intentionally (or possibly he’s just beating into the ground a phrase that was small-smirk-worthy only the first time around…).
Rick S said,
November 11, 2008 at 5:37 pm
If I’m not mistaken, “I’m gutted” is British for something like “I’m stunned with (disappointment, shame, embarassment–some kind of unpleasant emotion)”.
No clue about “a pair of safe hands”, though.