[arunphilip]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Another linguo-technological (can I say that?) confusion is between engaging and disengaging the clutch.

Ah, this is a good one, and best described either by your "linguo-technological" or a techno-lingual explanation.

Typically, we'd use the word "engage" to imply an action being performed, and its equivalent negative "disengage" to imply the action has been stopped or reversed. Hence people would often say "I engaged the clutch" to state they pressed the clutch pedal.

However, mechanically, its the opposite that happens - the clutch is engaged by default, and pressing the pedal disengages it.

Together, this is ripe for confusion, and probably best avoided by allowing people to describe their actions in their words, not what happens mechanically, hence "I pressed the clutch pedal".

It brings to mind various words whose meanings have changed to mean something quite opposite (e.g. decimate used to mean kill/eliminate one in ten, now it is means killing/eliminating a majority, like nine in ten).

[binand]

Originally Posted by amitoj

Have you come across people using "should of" instead of "should've" ? I have, and it makes me really wonder.

I came across "must of" instead of "must have" on a website that discusses Australian TV shows; so it seems the usage is prevalent in other English-speaking geographies too.

PS: This came on my twitter feed: https://www.merriam-webster.com/word...age-redundancy

[noopster]

Originally Posted by arunphilip

Typically, we'd use the word "engage" to imply an action being performed, and its equivalent negative "disengage" to imply the action has been stopped or reversed. Hence people would often say "I engaged the clutch" to state they pressed the clutch pedal.

However, mechanically, its the opposite that happens - the clutch is engaged by default, and pressing the pedal disengages it.

Ahhh...this is the kind of stuff that makes me thankful for this thread!

On a lighter note, the clutch is almost always engaged? Now wonder it's depressed

[tilt]

Well, one instance of incorrect English is quite prevalent in this forum - using "costed" as a past-tense of "cost".

The past-tense of "cost" is "cost".

Cheers

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by binand

I came across "must of" instead of "must have" on a website that discusses Australian TV shows; so it seems the usage is prevalent in other English-speaking geographies too.

The mistake is prevalent, even in British English. It is an error, but "usage" in the end makes the wrong acceptable

Originally Posted by noopster

On a lighter note, the clutch is almost always engaged? Now wonder it's depressed

I have to say "lol" because, according to me, that is now acceptable English usage, despite its origins!

Originally Posted by tilt

The past-tense of "cost" is "cost".

We have been there and done that one. I agree that it is a common mistake here.

Rehashing: there is such a word as costed. If your job includes estimates/costings then you may well have costed something today.

[arunphilip]

Originally Posted by tilt

Well, one instance of incorrect English is quite prevalent in this forum - using "costed" as a past-tense of "cost". The past-tense of "cost" is "cost".

I agree what you're referring to in terms of a sentence like "The repair costed me Rs. 2000" being incorrect, but I think it's a bit more nuanced than that, isn't it? I've seen "costed" used in a business context to express the activity of estimating something, or factoring in all elements into the cost, when fixing the cost or pricing something. For instance "The S-Cross 1.6's bill of materials was costed incorrectly, leading to a higher price at launch".

I took to Google to confirm if this was indeed valid usage, and it appears to be so, according to this site: http://grammarist.com/usage/costed/

EDIT: Just saw Thad's last line, he beat me to it about 'costed'!

----------

On the topic of past tenses, I like the little idiosyncrasy for the verb "hang".

In most cases, the past tense of "hang" is "hung", like so: "I hung a picture on the wall".

The exception is when we're talking about hanging as a method of execution, when we use "hanged", as in "Bhagat Singh was pronounced guilty and hanged to death".

Interestingly enough, a person can still be "hung", when its not a method of execution, as in "They hung the pickpocket from a branch and beat him to teach him a lesson"

This was something I learnt when I was puzzled by the usage of "hanged" when I first read the following joke:

An old punster made the king the butt of most of his jokes. Consequently, he was loved by the people, but hated by the king.

The king endured the ridicule for months. One day, after hearing people in the streets repeating some of their favourite quips, he had had enough. He had the following statement posted around the royal city:

"By royal decree, anyone who tells a pun will be hanged by the neck until he is dead."

The old punster kept telling his jokes, including puns. He was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to be hanged at dawn in a week's time.

The king's conscience was pricked. He didn't want to execute a citizen for merely telling jokes. So the king sent a message to the hangman on the morning of the execution, telling him that the old man was to be given a pardon if he promised never to tell another pun.

The old man couldn't imagine living in a world where he could not tell a pun. So he replied, "No noose is good news,". So they hanged him.

----------

Originally Posted by noopster

On a lighter note, the clutch is almost always engaged? Now wonder it's depressed

Nice one

[Thad E Ginathom]

Here's another one for my record...

Last edited by noopster : 28th February 2017 at 16:07. Reason: Planing --> Planning

I'll be aquaplanning next!

Whilst I suspect that this was a keyboard slip that I didn't notice, single and double consonants are another of my life-long problems in English spelling.

[Maverick1977]

Double Comparatively and Double Superlatives:
I have seen many people stumble on this innocuous mistake. The most common being "He is more better than..." It is just better or if you want to put emphasis on the word better then the word to be used is much.
This is a very common mistake and I have heard even news readers commit it.

[binand]

Originally Posted by Maverick1977

I have seen many people stumble on this innocuous mistake. The most common being "He is more better than..."

I have done this mistake myself - usually when I start off with a "more <adjective>" version and then replace the adjective with one that has an -er comparative, but miss deleting the "more". Proof reading I guess is for wimps. :-)

Here is a list of swapped word pairs (ie, used one of them when the intention was to use the other) that I collected over the past few weeks. In some cases the mistake is obvious but in others, the difference in usage is nuanced and hence not easy to catch.

personal and personnel
realty and reality
alternate and alternative
historic and historical
beside and besides
amuse and bemuse
ingenious and ingenuous
uninterested and disinterested
further and farther
toward and towards
causal and casual
indignant and indigent
invoke and evoke

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by binand

I have done this mistake myself

And you made that mistake!

[binand]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

And you made that mistake!

Indeed. Embarrassed.

[tilt]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

*SNIPPED FOR RELEVANCE*

Rehashing: there is such a word as costed. If your job includes estimates/costings then you may well have costed something today.

Originally Posted by arunphilip

I agree what you're referring to in terms of a sentence like "The repair costed me Rs. 2000" being incorrect, but I think it's a bit more nuanced than that, isn't it? I've seen "costed" used in a business context to express the activity of estimating something, or factoring in all elements into the cost, when fixing the cost or pricing something. For instance "The S-Cross 1.6's bill of materials was costed incorrectly, leading to a higher price at launch". *SNIPPED FOR RELEVANCE*

Correct. I am well aware of "costed" in the context you gents mention. That is precisely why I framed my sentence the way I did - saying that "costed" is not the past tense of "cost". You may notice that I never said "costed" does not exist.

Cheers

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by tilt

You may notice that I never said "costed" does not exist.

Indeed. It is worth mentioning these things for general readers.

[AltoLXI]

Many BHPians use the word "wifey" in their posts. Got curious to know how and where did the word "wifey" originate from.

From https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/wifey

A condescending way of referring to a man's wife.
‘men I had met had always wanted houses and a nice little wifey to cook for them’

From https://www.internetslang.com/WIFEY-...definition.asp

WIFEY is "Serious girlfriend, wife material"

Don't tell this to wife though

[autospeaker]

Originally Posted by arunphilip

On the topic of past tenses, I like the little idiosyncrasy for the verb "hang".

I pity my colleagues in office who keep telling that their computers got hanged, when in reality, it just hung.