I’ve just heard a young lady on the lunchtime news say she was “determinated to cross the line”.
Is this yet more made-up sporting language, like ‘medal’ used as a verb?
Hyperbolecks
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I’m waiting for someone to say they ‘podiate’ as they step on the dais to ‘medal’.
Is anybody diasing yet?
I must admit the use of “medaling” on BBC news Olympics reports has been irritating me no end
Maybe they’ve been ‘medaling’ for the pedalling.
Ian Thorpe, an otherwise excellent Aussie swimming commentator, said someone was going to “podium” the other day
@Mousey
How quickly people forget…
Perhaps the athletes who dominatate the medals table sharpen their focus by
indulging in a spot of quiet medalation before their events
Strange that I’ve never heard them described as medalers! (Which of course looks fine written down)
Determinator X, de Chuck D and de Flavor Flav.
Slightly off topic, but I just heard BBC presenter Gabby Logan say of the Italian athlete that had just won the joint gold medal for the high jump (who apparently has a big personality) that he could “create an atmosphere in an empty toilet”.
But then couldn’t we all?
Well if it wasn’t empty to start with….
I normally create an atmosphere by filling it to be frank.
Is the OP a reference to Bad News?
Heavy medalling…
Made up language like this really irritonates me.
Defiantly.
Are the top three placements being golded, silvered and bronzed yet?
Gelded perhaps
Athletes podiuming when they have achieved medaling is what Olympicing is all about.
Not made up language, but an expert commenting on the discus on Swedish TV yesterday made me chuckle when he had a rather unfortunate slip of the tongue. He meant to say that the two athletes have been spoiling us all year (“har skämt bort oss”) and ended up saying that they had disgraced us (“har skämt ut oss”) instead… He kept going without correcting himself, so I guess he was too excited to even notice his mistake.
Edit: I should mention that the Swedish athletes he was talking about “golded” and “silvered”, in the most disgraceful way!
Apparently one of the women’s hurdles team will be “doing what they need to do”. Which I think wins the gold medal for stating the bleeding obvious. That’s assuming they know that running and leaping is what’s required.
Well Jessie Knight didn’t seem to have got the memo, sadly…
Here in Melbourne, sports capital of the universe, it’s very much the fashion to ask what team you’re “versing” over the weekend, a reworking/corruption of “versus.” And it’s not just with the little nippers, having now transferred to AFL commentary. Drives me demented. I suppose I had better get over myself at some stage.
Commonly used here in NZ too. Also “varsity” means (any) university.
While we’re on the subject of words beginning with V, I’m always amused that Aussie news outlets greet somebody’s demise with a bit of Latin, as in Vale Prince Philip.
Then they go and spoil it all by saying that he’ll be ‘farewelled’ at a private funeral.
At least it’s not ‘funeraled at a private farewell’
English.
A great language that develops. Blog and Googling were unknown 30 years ago. Now accepted new words in the lexicon.
But sports people really piss me off with their duplication of played names “Well you’ve got your Grealsihes and your Rashfords’ as an example. There are two separate people FFS! This is not a development of the language.
BUT medalling as a verb is a step too far.
Yes, language does develop, but some seem to be spouting nonsense in order (they think) to sound educated or profound. Just heard on R4 in response to an interviewer’s question that inserted a slightly sceptical tone into the interview:
“Thank you for surfacing this.”
Whatever happened to “thank you for bringing that up” or “I’m glad you raised that”?
I know that I sound like some old codger, but this management-speak, cod sociology-speak really “triggers me” … as I suppose they say these days.
Yes, I heard that too. That kind of thing makes me want to stick knitting needles in my ears.
I’m currently reading (under duress) some process improvement books for work. They are, of course, written by Americans for the hard of thinking, and full of that kind of toss. I’m beginning to think book-burning wasn’t such a bad idea…
Whatever happened to “I’m really hungry”, instead of “I’m dying of hunger”?
Language is supposed to evolve. People are supposed to twist it and turn it and invent new expressions that are more concise, more vivid, or just more of the moment. It’s happened forever, and you will regularly use hundreds of such examples yourself, probably without even knowing it. In fact, fentonsteve has just used at least two above in explaining how much he hates expressions of this sort.
I like management speak; it adds to the gaiety of nations. My current favourite is “drinking from a firehose”. Beautiful stuff.
I don’t have the bandwidth to operate in that space no matter how much you socialise it.
You need to get on the critical path and find the racing line, my friend. It’s time to get aligned.
I know where my true North is buddy. Just stay in your lane and make sure you don’t stop my pitch getting maximum traction.
Just make sure to leverage your core competencies while doing so.
I would love to explore the mutuality of opportunity with you on that one when we have a mutual time frame that fits.
That sounds absolutely filthy.
But if there is a serviceable word already, and the speaker is just using a longer one to appear clever, it is to be decried. Here are two examples from my line of work:
“Remediate”
“Leverage”
You can just say
“fix”
and
“use”
I’ve given up mentioning it. The boat has sailed and the looks I get are just not worth the hassle.
Remediate isn’t a direct synonym for fix. It has a broader meaning that also includes correction and making right. You can remediate a grammatical error, you do not “fix” a grammatical error, unless you’re deeply American.
Even if that wasn’t the case, language isn’t just about communicating using the fewest possible syllables (thank god). There’s a place for a bit of the old razzle-dazzle.
So speaks a lawyer – go figure.
You are Billy Flynn and I claim my £5
I may or may not be Billy Flynn, but your claim to £5 is both superfluous and without legal foundation.
And Bingo pulls the old flim-flam and razzle-dazzle hoicking the wool over the eyes.
Oh, I think of myself more as a song and dance man, y’know.
You are Bob Dylan and I claim my £5
You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the Bing goes.
But it is used as a direct synonym, in my workplace. Plus, you don’t know these people, I do. So nerr.
Newsflash, Escher: I’m in your workplace. I do know these people. I’m absolutely freaking everywhere.
The. Call. Is. Coming. From. Inside. The. Building.
You are Michael Fish and I ……
Personally speaking, I’m inclined to correct (2 syllables) rather than remediate (4 syllables) and then fix the fucker who made the mistake in the first place.
I proof read a colleague’s document before publication last week. I corrected a few typos, deleted many of the commas which he had put at the end of almost every clause, moved some clauses to the ends of sentences where they belonged, and, of course, I replaced ‘symbiotic’, a word which is never as clever nor impressive as the writer thinks.
@Bingo=Little
You missed out the “literally”: in “I’m dying of hunger”
The word has apparently now become so devalued by its overuse by cretinous Z-list celebs and footballers that it – oh, irony of irony – it is now also defined in dictionaries as meaning the exact opposite
See also “amazing”, “incredible”
Just read this from the Independent.
“AstraZeneca may be done with vaccines. That’s sad but not surprising. The company did the world a solid by agreeing to offer its treatment at cost price. The world snarled back in response. Will anyone do the same in future? Doubtful.”
I feel like Judge James Pickles who asked ‘what is a Beatle?’ but what does ‘did the world a solid’ mean?
Doing a solid is an American term for successfully defecating.
Speaking as someone with Crohn’s disease and on a low-fibre diet, I am as likely to “do a solid” as I am “to podium”.
@hubert-rawlinson
Generally taken to mean doing someone a big favor.
Know the Independent has been struggling for several years, but surely they can afford a competent sub-editor whose first language is English
Characters in Breaking Bad were forever claiming to have done someone a solid, or beseeching them to do them in return.
It means pooping on their doorstep. It’s how drug dealers in New Mexico mark their territory.
I feel as I’m now stepping into Call My Bluff territory, which to choose?
Thanks @Jaygee.
I’m glad to see that Lord Digby Jones has had the courage to take on the most significant problem facing us as a nation, people from London who drop the g at the end of words. The noble lord has moved the campaign on beyond Priti Patel to Alex Scott. I wonder what these two people have in common that made them so easy to identify as culprits.
Or Digby, Lord Jones, as he doesn’t seem to realise he’s actually styled. Pedantry’s a bastard, particularly when you’re stupid.
Still, after all that he did with Dan Dare in saving us from the Mekon, a peerage is the least he deserves.
He didn’t though – the Mekon now appears to be health secretary.
The Afterword: All Your Best Dan Dare Jokes Here
I still can’t get over ‘dropped’ as a synonym for ‘released’ – in the album sense. I remember when I first read this in the Metro: ‘Beyoncé surprises fans by dropping new album.’ Bless ‘er, I thought… she must’ve realised it needed a bit more work.
I just thought she’d shat.
I’m far too polite to point out such crudities, young dog, but my thoughts did, momentarily, throw themselves that way.
On a less crude note but with the same objective, I have just read that the soon to be released Steely Dan Northeast Corridor CD is ‘set to street’. Who makes up this crap?
‘Set to bin’ if it’s anywhere near as listless as the stuff they started churning out after their mid-90s’ reformation.
The other recent linguistic development that sticks in my craw is the addition of superfluous words whose use, while doubling a phrase’s length, actually ends up telling you far less than the original.
Thus an ‘emergency’ is now an ‘emergency situation’, and a ‘blizzard’ or ‘thunderstorm’ is now a ‘weather event’ or even, god ‘elp us, an ‘extreme weather event’.
Hope no one here ‘throws shade’ at me for pointing this out as I have no idea how to go about ‘doubling down’ if hey do.
See also: meal solutions. Otherwise known as food.
@mikethep
Agree.
Every product or service – regardless of how clear its original wording – now seems to come with solutions stuck on its end.
Another bugbear is announcers who insist on saying shit like ‘and coming up ‘at the top of the hour…’ when it would be simpler, shorter and more informative to say ‘at ten o’clock’
I saw a TV ad for some drug or other that claims it helps with “body pain”.
As opposed to spiritual pain – like regret, shame or guilt.
How existential.
Will it work on a pain in the arse, I wonder?
@mikethep
Only those resulting from the linguistic race to the bottom
Just seen someone on Twitter talking about masks being made by out of work sewists. Are we allowing this?
If I heard someone say this I’d assume they were referring to people who are really into Peter Gabriel.
Arf! After some thought, I’ve come to the conclusion that ‘seamstresses’ is simply not gender neutral enough.
@mikethep
Sadly any seamers are likely to have been snapped up by local cricket teams
Can one not be a seammeister?
And is there honey still for tea?
Not since the Hun invaded, turned Granchester Meadow into a massive outdoor bierkeller and reserved all the seating by putting their towels on the backs of the deckchairs.
Given their notorious reputation for efficiency, you’d think their sappers would have fixed the fucking vicarage clock, but, no, its stuck forever at ten to bloody three
It’s worse than that – Jeffrey Archer invaded Grantchester Meadow and now charges you £26.50 to sit upon the grass (with a ‘Rupert Brooke’ Afternoon Tea).
@fentonsteve
If you’re foolish enough to pay an additional £23.50 for the Platinum VIP Rupert Brooke Afternoon Tea, you get a souvenir T-shirt and a selfie of you and Jeff
I once had dealings with Mary Archer (not like that, Moose, we were both on the same charity committee) and had my own Mrs Merton moment: what attracted a clever lady like that to multi-millionaire Jeffrey Archer?
@fentonsteve
Was she not fragrant, Steve?
I couldn’t tell from my side of the table. I met her again a few years later, as Mrs F and I were going for an ultrasound scan and she was collecting Jeffrey, who was out from prison on day release.
In Terry Pratchett’s books, seamstresses supply negotiable affection, and are not skilled in needle-and-thread…
seamstress is when you’ve over indulged and you can’t fit in your clothes any more.
Of course if they’d put sewers there would be some confusion no doubt.
Problem is H, no one would work with them because they smelled so bad.It’s no wonder t’mills went down t’drain