Phrases that people often mangle or misuse

D_Gunther Snotpole

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In French, there is no such ambiguity: one says "J'ai compris un nouvel X" for the first and "J'ai compris un X neuf" for the second (voir ici). In English, if we want to make clear that we mean the second, we have to say, "I have bought a brand-new X."

Is comprendre really the verb you want?
Perhaps there's an idiom I'm totally unaware of.
Does it have an obscure sense meaning to buy?
 

Calboner

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Is comprendre really the verb you want?
Perhaps there's an idiom I'm totally unaware of.
Does it have an obscure sense meaning to buy?

D'oh! I meant "compré"! But now it's too late to change it! :doh:

This is a liability when you acquire a certain competence in a language and then don't speak it for 20 years.
 

D_Gunther Snotpole

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D'oh! I meant "compré"! But now it's too late to change it! :doh:
What would be the infinitive?

This is a liability when you acquire a certain competence in a language and then don't speak it for 20 years.
Ha!
Tell me about it.
I'm just now trying to unearth my disused French.
Not easy.
 

Calboner

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What would be the infinitive?
Oh, good Lord, that was backwash from Italian! I thought for sure that there was a French verb "comprer," but apparently I was just Frenchifying the Italian "comprare." Usually French and Italian cognates line up neatly.

Apparently my command of French is now rather like Basil Fawlty's command of Spanish.

Basil: Obtener la valisa . . .

Manuel: ¿Qué?

Basil: LA VALISA! En el auto--bianco--sportif.​
 

D_Gunther Snotpole

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Oh, good Lord, that was backwash from Italian! I thought for sure that there was a French verb "comprer," but apparently I was just Frenchifying the Italian "comprare." Usually French and Italian cognates line up neatly.

Canadian French is full of anglicisms ... which have the imprimatur of usage by fluent speakers but are nonetheless wrong.
This is screwing me up totally.
The fact is that proper English and proper French do share a lot of words.
How do you screen out the improper borrowings from the legitimate ones?
Sheer memorization of lists, I suppose.
If I figure it out for real, I'll let you know.
 

Meniscus

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Here's one that people seem to have lost the ability to write: "Never mind." How difficult is it to get that one right? Yet it seems now that I usually encounter in its stead the non-word "nevermind." This would have to be pronounced with the stress on the first syllable, just like "Neverland." What kind of mind is a nevermind?

FUCKING HELL! IT'S TWO WORDS, YOU MORONS!


Hugo Largo got it right.

Mettle - Hugo Largo | AllMusic
 

willow78

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Australians like to use the term "The Lucky Country" as an unofficial slogan and badge of honour but it's taken completely out of context - the original usage was less than complimentary.

I stole this from Wikipedia because they explained it so much better than I ever could:
"The Lucky Country" is a nickname sometimes used to describe Australia, taken from the 1964 book of the same name by social critic Donald Horne.

It has no one particular meaning, but is generally used favorably; among other things, it has been used in reference to Australia's natural resources, weather, history, distance from problems elsewhere in the world, and other sorts of prosperity.

Origin:
The title of Horne's The Lucky Country comes from the opening words of the book's last chapter:
Australia is a lucky country, run by second-rate people who share its luck.
Horne's statement was made ironically, as an indictment of 1960s Australia. His intent was to comment that, while other industrialised nations created wealth using "clever" means such as technology and other innovations, Australia did not. Rather, Australia's economic prosperity was largely derived from its rich natural resources. Horne observed that Australia "showed less enterprise than almost any other prosperous industrial society."

In the decades following his book's publication, Horne became critical of the "lucky country" phrase being used as a term of endearment for Australia. He commented, "I have had to sit through the most appalling rubbish as successive generations misapplied this phrase."
 

Calboner

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To buy in French: Acheter

Yes, we eventually got that sorted out. :redface:
Australians like to use the term "The Lucky Country" as an unofficial slogan and badge of honour but it's taken completely out of context - the original usage was less than complimentary.

I stole this from Wikipedia because they explained it so much better than I ever could:
I was not previously acquainted with the phrase, but now if I hear someone use it with the assumption of a flattering implication, I will set him or her straight on its original meaning.
 

Zayne

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"Would of" seems to be the best approximation for some people (usually, us Amercans)to the present perfect of the modal "would"

"hanged" as the past participle, rather than "hung" (heehee)
 

Calboner

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"Would of" seems to be the best approximation for some people (usually, us Amercans)to the present perfect of the modal "would"

"hanged" as the past participle, rather than "hung" (heehee)
Only when "hang" is in the sense of "kill by suspending by the neck." The past participle and past definite of "hang" in all other senses is "hung."
I annoyed a young man a few years ago, and his final huffy text message stated that he was "not at [my] beckon call".
I have to admit that his invention, though confused, is less opaque than the original version. "Beck," meaning a gesture giving assent or direction, is actually derived from the verb "beckon." It's related to "beacon" in some complicated way.
 

Calboner

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We need a name for instances in which a phrase that contains wit is distorted into something utterly witless. I propose to call such phrases dullardisms.

My dullardism of the day is "to laugh all the way to the bank." This is a de-witticized version of the phrase "to cry all the way to the bank." The original phrase plays with the opposition between "crying," that is, feeling hurt by criticism received for some public performance, and going "to the bank," that is, enjoying the profit that one has gained despite all critical disapproval. The version that substitutes "laugh" for "cry" spoils this ironic play, thereby reducing a witticism to a flat and obvious cliché.

According to this article at World-Wide Words, the phrase was often used by Liberace, though he was not its inventor:

World-Wide Words said:
“On the occasion in New York at a concert in Madison Square Garden when he had the greatest reception of his life and the critics slayed him mercilessly, Liberace said: ‘The take was terrific but the critics killed me. My brother George cried all the way to the bank.’ ” . . .

Sadly, for what survives of Liberace’s reputation, it looks very much as though he borrowed an existing expression. It appeared, to give one example, in the Waterloo Daily Courier of Iowa on 3 September 1946: “Eddie Walker perhaps is the wealthiest fight manager in the game ... The other night when his man Belloise lost, Eddie had the miseries ... He felt so terrible, he cried all the way to the bank!”