Words that get on your nerves

Mrs Lao said, Noisette should leave me out of it (funny how she immediately recognised herself in your “Miaow”.) She said La petite noisette should keep me out of it, she is dealing with a walnut here! I said, Be careful because what you say will end up on the Forum. She said, What do I care, since what I don’t say also ends up on “The Forum”. And then she added And as for you (meaning me), it has nothing to do with my hands, more with my

Well, you said it, WiewAhead, yes, Mrs Lao chooses the small hours to raise the ugly heads of the big issues, from the never-changing temporary traffic lights at the bottom of our road to the never-ending gas and water works opening up the roads; from the consequences of “The Budget” to the repercussions of “The Elections Across the Great Divide”; she says she’s never seen, over here, such monumental political “Whoops!!!!!” and back-pedalling, as they fall all over themselves, like bowling pins keeling over while trying to save face and alleviate their erstwhile air-headedness”; Whoops, I didn't see you there! … Il y a de l’eau dans le gaz! … Yes, Noisette, there won’t be much sleep around here … and what with worrying about that leaf coming back!

 

I never realised “LAO” might cause so much (dis)stress.

 

Having been introduced to Daniel Pennac's books some time ago, I can cope with slang This is on a whole new level, though. Or tho

 

“I never said ‘walnut’, I said ‘coconut’, stop misquoting me, next you’ll be telling her that I call her ‘voilette’, or ‘—
I said That’s enough now, I won’t mention you at all.
Good!
And then she embarked on her first rant of the day (she gets those from “Rant-a-crowd”, so she can crowd the day with rants) which was about rent-a-bike vehicles abandoned on the pavement, then it was about the e-scooters which are apparently on a mission to murder her in the shopping centre, then we got onto the injections of the “platypus-lips-brigade”, niah-niah-niah-niah-niah …

Noisette in disguises:

 

@LawnAndOrder, may I just say I really like your avatar. Every time I see it, it makes me smile ... and it is how I imagine your facial expression when you spy an interloper that has invaded your greensward!

 

@noisette47

Information has just arrived, suggesting that your “miaow” was, in fact, directed at me. Aow??? There may have been a misunderstanding there – neither miaowing nor scratching was intended; I am uncommitted on that one; we know an ex-teacher of English (who now devises the Curriculum and A-level exams for the OCR (sorry, Shiney!) who actually advocates the splitting of infinitives on the grounds that usage is overwhelming. Personally, I think (in the hope that you’ll forgive the tautology here) that it all depends on how much pleasure you derive from what lies in between the two words: ‘to’ and ‘the verb’; some adjectives harmonise well within the triptych, others just don’t. Perhaps the best and most limpid examples of the ‘either or’ are to be found in Nabokov whose prose seems always to be beyond reproach (here was an inadvertent example of an instinctive phrase I would never have constructed as ‘whose prose seems to always be beyond reproach’ which, to my ear, sounds clumsy and unrhythmic.

It’s all academic, though: you won’t control the tides unless you get rid of the moon; no matter how disciplined, language will succumb to irresistible pressures: humans are primarily imitative, essentially lazy, influenced by regional accents, as well as foreign influences, both at street level and in the media. Unlike music where, for instance a Schoenberg or Stockhausen can never distort the sound or constructions of a Mozart or Beethoven (or any of them), language is more vulnerable, both in terms of form and acceptability: soon, to some extent, Shakespeare will have to be re-written if future generations are to understand any of it; Roald Dahl and his ilk are being ‘edited” on account of appropriateness; we will continue reading them to our grand-children (if we have any) in the original, unless it were to become illegal, and even then, but that’s a conscious choice; society receives language subconsciously, you might say insidiously; mostly, we are not aware of the sounds we make, not even when so-called ‘well-educated’: note how many highly trained news-readers pepper their RP with “Febuary” – “Thish week – “We sawrrr it” – they don’t know they are doing it and, what’s more, their listeners are not even aware of it. Ultimately, does it matter? It does if you care, it doesn’t if you don’t.

 

Feb-you-erry irritates me every time I hear it.

 

The nucular threat.

 

That one as well!

 

Now that's something that I would love to see back in fashion. Imagine...you've had yet another sleepless night, coalbags under the eyes but you have to go out to replenish supplies. A wonderful, instant touch of chic to set off the leggings and carpet slippers 10/10 to Mrs LAO for perception

 

@LawAndOrder, I don't think it's true to say that it doesn't matter if you don't care. We need some kind of clarity and uniformity in language to enable laws to be written, if nothing else.
For example, if there was a law that something had to be done in February (bear with me). Are people who don't do this thing to be let off because they've never heard of February, and to them it is Febuary?

 

Whilst proposing an interesting ‘technicality’ argument, you are stretching it beyond its legal elasticity. In the writing of ‘Laws’, I could not agree with you more: there MUST be no ambiguity, but the example you give would instantly suggest a misprint. There are huge latitudes of acceptability between the spoken and the written word.

In the COL situation you evoke (sorry, Shiney!) [Court Of Law], the prosecution would question the genuineness of a defendant’s assertion of not being able to associate Feb-you-erry to Fe-brew-erry in a context which would be perceived as exceedingly far-fetched, and a prosecutor would discredit the suspect’s avowed “dilemma”, and bounce the argument onto a sceptic jury who would undoubtedly rule against.

There is further consideration regarding discrimination when assessing “accents” caused by class, or by region; VERY tricky; why do we readily accept that the word ‘bill’ will sound like ‘bell’, or other, depending on regions, but NOT tolerate that ‘water’ in certain parts will be made to sound like ‘wough-er’? Or ‘river’ sounding like ‘ri-vaaaar’?

As for caring … on ne va pas se faire de mauvais sang là-dessus! … Or, to put another way – if you don’t mind clichés – Life’s too short and I have long since stopped flogging the waves! ... Nor do I have a throne to place at the edge of the sea ...