Listening to Sarah Montegue interview Michael Howard this morning, I was surprised to learn that Howard is ‘one of Ken Clarke’s successors’, her words. Silly old me had him marked as a predecessor. It reminded me of the recent interview, also on BBC, when someone was told that X was the interviewee’s long dead descendent, the interviewer meant ancestor, of course. Does it really matter if BBC staff no longer use the correct words? After all, yer no wot dey mean, doncher.
Boadicea's Chariot 
Hi Tom. The thing is, the Beeb wouldn’t be the same without it’s hiccups, plus they gain by putting them Aunties bloomers.
Tom how many times have I been asked “can you borrow me that?” or “can you learn me to do?” Learn what speak bloody English?
And none of them seem to know the difference between countable and uncountable nouns. You’re right, Tom.
Two particular bug bears that I have noticed creeping into modern English usage are phrases such as:
1)Tomorrow is the 9 year anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Centre
2)Junior civil servants earn 3 times less than senior civil servants.
With regards to Howard and Clarke: successor/predecessor in what context? Both seem to have been around for ever.
http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/articles.html
(Just in case you weren’t sure either…)
Someone has pointed out to me that Sarah Montegue was correct, as Howard was a successor to Clarke as Home Secretary. However, with apologies to her, I still cringe when I hear some of her fellow presenters.
But the other should have been antecedent.
They also speak of “2.30 pm this afternoon” – pleonistic crap.
We have our own linguistic problems down here. I’m the last to point out grammar and syntax faults, I’m delighted that mine are almost always sympathetically overlooked, we do however have a good laugh at the pronunciation of comrades who are perhaps having to use English (obviously their 2nd, 3rd or even 4th language) when working with the public.
For example;
For those who don’t know, The Daily News is a newspaper in Durban.
A woman at a bookshop in Durban wanted to advertise the launch of the latest Harry Potter book in The Daily News.
She calls up The Daily News and says: “Can I speak to somebody about putting an article in the paper about the new Harry Potter book.”
Reply: “Yes, I am Harry Potter.”
She says: “No, you don’t understand. There is a new book on Harry Potter. And I need to put an advert in the paper.”
Reply: “Yes, I am Harry Potter.”
She says: “YOU ARE NOT HARRY POTTER!”
Reply: “I am Harry Potter”
The woman gets angry and slams down the phone. She calls again this time the same thing, the person calling himself Harry Potter.
Finally, she calls her assistant and asks him to phone and speak to the person in Zulu, which he does.
A couple of minutes later her assistant is laughing on the phone he gives the message and hangs up.
What’s so funny?
The man from The Daily News was saying: ” I em a repota”
🙂
And no, don’t ask me to translate the above into Xhosa or Zulu 😉
🙂
It’s minefield! My Danish students just don’t get it. Danish doesn’t seem to do ‘uncountables’ like English. Pass me a bread. I’ve got some informations for you, etc.
I had to phone a lawyer’s office in Dublin about 30 years ago. They had sent us a letter instructing us to deal with the Scottish assets of one of their late clients and I needed clarification on a couple of points. The letter was, as usual, signed in the name of the firm and all I had to go on was the reference which was along the lines of C/TER155 or thereby.
This was in the days long before forward and back slashes were referred to and I used the standard legal Scottish term of the time, asking for whoever was dealing with C Oblique TER155. This seemed to throw the person at the other end of the phone who sounded like she was on the first day of the job. She asked me to repeat the reference several times, had a couple of whispered conversations with somebody and then said that she was putting me through to her supervisor.
Said supervisor was clearly nearing the end of her tether because, as soon as she came on the line and before I had a chance to speak, she snapped. ‘Look, I don’t know who you have been talking to, but there’s nobody called O’Blake in this office.’
Smiley thing. When I use the symbol ObergruppenführerWordpress tells me I’m duplicating the comment. D-oh!
Christina, either antecedent or predecessor is acceptable for a preceding office holder.
Morning, Tom. Looks like we’ve got our very own little Pedants’ Corner going here. Deep Joy. I expect David to be along any minute now.
When CO wrote ‘But the other should have been antecedent’, I took her to be referring specifically to your comment ‘when someone was told that X was the interviewee’s long dead descendent, the interviewer meant ancestor, of course.’
In genealogical terms, she is surely right and antecedent is the more appropriate word to use?
Also believe, by the way, that ‘descendant’ is infinitely preferable to ‘descendent’ for the noun form.
Jm, the ‘-dents’ and ‘-dants’ are forever with us, not to metion ‘-ary’ and ‘-ery’…..
Val, your apostrophe is roving from Auties’ to its. 🙂
Janus –
Or even Auntie’s….(I don’t know how many Aunties you think there are!)