The use of Grow. And other pet peeves...

Oh language

talkwrite said:

I guess I first heard the "new" use of grow about 3 years ago from a politician. He wanted to "grow the economy". Not a beard, not an additional lobe in his brain by which to filter language usage, but the economy. Soon this "want" became a "need" as in the need to "grow the support for the war in Iraq" I have since heard it and had to translate it in annual reports and even interpret it in testimony give by manufacturer representatives.
Does this usage bother anyone else?
Are writers using it in their work as narrative ?

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Hmmm....not me. I write narratives to put language in its place. No substantard usages employed even as a way of having a character have characteristics. The periodic sentence is the worst offence I allow and that usually results in nearly instantaneous decapitation.

One of my pet peeves is parent used as a verb. Nails on a blackboard!

Yeah, we all have them.

"Gender" instead of "sex". "They/their/them" used in a singular context to avoid "gender" issues. Ack! English doesn't have gender, for pete's sake!

Uh. "Decimate" used instead of "destroy" -- what, they think it sounds better cuz it has an extra syllable?

"I could care less" instead of "I couldn't care less."

I wonder if anybody anymore realizes that to "beg the question" does not mean what they think it does? "Begging the question" is a form of logical fallacy in which an argument is assumed to be true without evidence other than the argument itself. In other words, it is circular reasoning.

Best,

Michael

ColoradoGuy said:

Or else, as the Romans meant it, they actually wish to execute 10% of the soldiers for insufficient zeal in battle. I think Cheney might go for that. (Oops -- gratuitous policital jibe in wrong forum.)

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Not even. The context you're most likely to hear it used in is with some empty-headed fluffy-haired talking head on TV trying to sound like he knows what the hell he's talking about. Or she, as the case may be.

Best,

Michael

May I add a couple of my own?

Different than, rather than different from. Bigger than, yes. It's comparative. I know there can be argument about this, but than always turns me off for some reason. I tend do do an end run, such as "not the same as," "Differs from."

I won't bother you with "like" and "as."

My mother always told me, "The reason is not because, the reason is."

I am still old-fashioned about such things as nouns becoming verbs: impact for one. Adjectives becoming nouns: "It was a fun party." etc. I know, usage changes, and new words and meanings are added to the dictionary, I just cringe from time to time. I worked for Encyclopaedia Britannica for several years, where grammar and usage was paramount. So it goes.

"In composing, as a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have written; you have no idea what vigor it will give your style" Sydney Smith

Outfit.

It. Is. A. Noun.

ColoradoGuy said:

I'm growing more and more to hate "stake holders" as collective noun for those with an interest in something.

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The business world is responsible for most of the language "innovations" that drive me insane (like the aforementioned "impact" as verb). Of course, it only serves to make me doubly crazy when one of those idiocies is then modified further (e.g., "impact" as verb becoming "impactful" as adjective).

Thank god I don't do editorial work anymore. I'd have hung myself long before now. And wouldn't that have been impactful?

"I like verbing words. It weirds language."
--Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes)

(It drives me nuts, but I'm only sharing this quote to grow this thread.)

My biggie is those damn yard signs that say something like "The LaRocca's." Um, his what? No wait, don't answer that!

ColoradoGuy said:

I don't know about that one, Rob; my shorter OED says it was used as both a transitive and intransitive verb by the late 19th century. Are you still back in the early 19th sipping tea with Lord Grey?

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Any usage differing with that of the later 17th is bullocks.

Eddie Bauer moans from inside his mummy bag.

Ya. Next you'll tell me "text" is a verb...

robeiae said:

Next you'll tell me "text" is a verb...

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No, “txt” is a verb.

cooltouch said:

"I could care less" instead of "I couldn't care less."

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Fortunately, that's one that doesn't yet appear to have crossed the Atlantic to the UK. Don't these people ever stop to think about the meaning of what they are saying? Or how stupid it makes them sound?

No, I suppose they don't.

I don't like the misuse of "graduate". As in "I graduated high school".
No, you didn't. You graduated FROM high school.

My high school was built on the side of a hill. It was a graduated high school.


Honest.