I recently bought a book published by Oxford Universtity Press.
The GlobiliZation of World Politics (Baylis & Smith.)

I too am concerned that "zee' is taking over from the "zed", and that "zee' is being superimposed over the "es'
yet a Philologist ought answer, language changes.
However grammer, punctuation and other 'academic' writing rules are being neglegted in our education system.

And dont get me started on 'weasel words' otherwise we will end up with a robust enhancement moving forward !

Coyote,
Please start on weazel words.
Put them up on the easel.

Also recommend 'Eats, Shoots & Leaves' by Lynne Truss - a guide to punctuation.

Also loath weasel words - had a boss whose fat smile would spread across her face while proclaiming "In the fullness of time".

I agree with article that bad grammar can indicate a spurious claim or agenda. I don't mean typos or occasional mistakes - we are all only human. But consistently bad - like those very dodgy emails.

Oh no it isn't!

>>...rather than with the “s” that is the proud remnant of this country’s British origins.<<

My edition of Fowler's Modern English Usage (the 1937 Edition) is adamant that -ize and -ization are perfectly correct, where the verb in question originated from the Greek.

He goes on to cite the OED as his authority...

"In modern French the suffix has become -iser alike in word from Greek, as baptiser, evengeliser, organiser, and those formed after them from Latin as civiliser, cicatriser, humaniser. Hence some have used the spelling -ise in English, as in French, for all these words, and some prefer -ise in words formed in French or English from Latin elements, retaining -ize for those of Greek composition. But the suffix itself, whatever the element to which it is added, is in its origin the Greek -izein, Latin -izare; and as the pronunciation is also with z, there is no reason why in English the special French spelling should be followed, in opposition to that which is at once etymological and phonetic."

Organization is perfectly good English. It is not an Americanism. The fixation on that -s is pure Franco-baloney.

Lets not even consider apostrophe's.

Speaking of apostrophes, there's an irritating one in advertisements which appear on the forum front page, to "Win 3 Viva's". Typical of modern, university trained advertising types, who seem to be utterly confused about what the plural of any word ending in a vowel should be, and are still in the dark about plurals for words ending in a consonant, at times. Did anyone mention "more greener" or "herds of sheep"? How about "at the present moment in time" for good old "now"; or the execrable "off of", or "momentarilly" for "soon"?

One thing which really annoys me are computers which fight you to get your regional settings to Australian English. I have one at work which always defaults to US English it's a pain, getting squiggley lines under "centre". Bill Gates has a lot to answer for when it comes to poor spelling- none of his spellcheckers can tell whether it's weather or wether.

I really feel out of the loop here,people. What are weasel words?

As a teacher of English as a Second Language, I would guess that the person writing that bogus website was not a native English speaker. Some of the mistakes made were typical of English learners from Asia. This doesn't excuse the mistakes or any duplicity intended by the website owner, but it does explain why some of the word choices grated so badly.

How many have noticed the current fad to answer direct verbal questions with a Yes then followed immediately by a No?

Margaret

Many thanks for a very thoughtful and timely article. I enjoyed it very much indeed.

Coyote - grammar mate!

Keith - you have hit on one of my pet hates. What the hell does it mean? Like I mean? (ugh!).

Just a few pet hates:

Cut to the chase.
Using "buddy" to refer to an Australian.
Using "guys" to refer to people of both sexes.
Take to go.
24/7
Like I mean. Like I mean.
And so on, and on (recently repeated in an article on OLO).
I mean to say ...
You know what I mean ...
b4
bcos
g8

My list could be endless.
Cheers
Kay

PS: I was an external marker for a university nursing program in 2004. My services were discontinued because I insisted on correct grammar and spelling. The students complained that I gave them too much feedback. The co-ordinator complained that I was too thorough

Kalweb,
You should have given them their feed back if they can't eat the right gramma.

Fran asked what are weasel words. They are essentially words intended to suck the meaning out of other words that people might ordinarily use and undersand, so that they are basically hollow. Politicians and public servants are great exponents of weasel words. Public relations people also love weasel words.

Don Watson has recently published "Watson's Dictionary of Weasel Words, Contemporary Cliches, Cant and Management Jargon" if you want more on weasel words.

Congratulations Margaret on your detective work and on uncovering yet another scam. I have had experience with a similar scam which targeted primary school students. The front was a writing competition in which the best entries would have the opportunity to have their work published. Lots of children from our local school entered and suspicions were only aroused when each of them received a letter advising that theirs was one of the one hundred best entries and had been selected to appear in a book. Statistically it just didn't seem possible that each of those children could have been in the top one hundred entries. Their entries were also of widely different abilities. 'Winners'were requested to send money for their copy of the book.

Gee how did I get in this room? we or at least I think we do, get a bit carried away about this.
No uni for me in fact I left school after only being a part time visitor at 12 years and ten months of age.
passed burning rubbish and handing out and collecting milk bottles top marks and nothing else, kids had to eat.
Learnt to read in a north coast construction camp, that was the reality of big bush familys.
In a forum like this does it matter? really?oh ps havent learnt to spell yet.

I suspected that somebody would mention Truss's book in the forum. I recommend taking a look at "The Cambridge Guide to English Usage", by Pam Peters. Also, have a look at Future Perfect: www.future-perfect.co.uk .

Eugene

I agree with Kay et al. but it seems only our dear intellectuals and advertising types actually like all these words and constructions that everyone's mentioned.

Casual writing is one thing but supposedly authoritative commentary is another. Good luck learning any language without learning grammar. You'll be one of those annoying people we hear on the radio or tv from time to time who claim to have been here for 20 years but for some inexplicable reason can't speak intelligible English to save themselves.

Academics are by definition out of touch with society, that goes without saying, but to suggest as one person said above that advert execs are "uni-trained" has to be a joke - surely they're lucky if they completed a correspondence course off the back of their cornflakes packet. As we say, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and a very little knowledge is about all our print media has.

No, copy is written too rapidly by ambitious kids lacking expertise and tired old hacks who could only ever claim a slim connection with their own language and who both spend much more time checking to see if their own names are in print. Spelt correctly of course.

Some words that give me the sh1ts are..

"butt" instead of "arse" - since when did we ever kick butt? What is a butt? If I sit on my butt, for example, I will only burn my arse.

"gifted"... now really, why bother with such a stupid sounding and superfluous word?

"panties" ? What's this crap anyway? It sounds weird and coy or something - they're underpants for god's sake. Whatever happened to undies, to grundies (or to dick-dacks in the case of men?). Panties are definitely pure advertising copy.

biscuits, biscuits, biscuits ... we don't see any anzac cookies anywhere sorry ..

"oversight" - you want the verb instead? Well use the bloody verb.

etcetera etcetera

I never went to university nor do I have great grammar, however I do know that the English went to the US a few hundred years before they ambled up to these shores. So the American english is quite often as english as ours, just from a different time. In those few hundred years french seemed to creep into english spelling. We are confused ourselves with the older english version of "labor" as in Labor party and the newer more elaborate "labour"

I mean like, who really cares? Or should I say "ya know what I mean, like!"

Whatever!

ps

Had to edit due to the following warning.

Error
There is no need for that many exclamation marks. Remove them to continue.

roflmao, I was just making a point relevant to this subject !!

I despair that most of the grievances expressed in this thread are (close to) a lost cause. However I would like to mention the one which grinds my teeth - the confusion between fewer and less. The misuse is now routine in both spoken and written discourse.

Since this is clearly a home for pedants where they can safely complain about inaccuracies in language here's two from me:
1. In emails/sms messages from friends I have noted much use of "definitely" misspelled as "definately".
2. I am always amused by posts on OLO that complain about the lack of spelling and grammar taught in our schools. However, these posts themselves often contain errors in spelling and grammar.

one of my friends doesnt think that grammar and spelling have any point and so i send him emails that are like this one created without any grammar it is interesting to see how well it gets the point across that there is just no room to breath in a paragraph without punctuation i find it pretty tough to write like this however because my hands naturally just want to type in the punctuation automatically

Does that start to get the point across? It really is a shame that there is a genuine culture of young people (many of my friends are in their early 20s) who do not think that grammar and spelling has a place in society. Words are such wonderful and powerful things. They can be used to marvellous effect, and it is a shame to see that the urge to use good language is fading.

But so be it.

Margaret: If you want to be so fussy you should watch your own syntax, e.g. "...scholarship to apply for..."

'Fulsome' doesn't mean 'unalloyed'. 'Quantum leap' means the exact opposite of what it's normally used to indicate - it's an infinitesimal move. 'State of the art' actually refers to industry-standard technology, the 'state of the art' in common use. And 'disinterested' is not a synonym for 'uninterested' - it means 'unbiased'. Such a beautiful language, being perverted and reduced by laziness and commerce. An alarming number of people speak as though they've walked out of a TV commercial. We've prostituted the language to sell cans of soup. Sometimes I despair a little.

In Queensland primary schools, students in years 3, 5 and 7 are required to take standard literacy tests. I think teachers should be made to do the same, with courses being offered to those who don't meet a certain standard.

Yes, I am a teacher.

Anomie, As a physics teacher I cannot agree with your definition of quantum leap. In a quantum movement, a particle is at one moment in a certain position, and in the next in a different position, without any process of progression from one to the other. True, this effect only occurs on a very small scale, but when used rhetorically, it is the virtually instantaneous quality of what is being described, which suits the use of the word "quantum".
cheers

Bow to your superior knowledge of physics, Whistle, but I comment as an editor. Many - probably most - users of 'quantum leap' intend to indicate a very large move. They simply DON'T KNOW THE MEANING OF THE WORDS THEY USE. As I think the other examples I've given demonstrate. Sorry for shouting, I just get a little het up sometimes.

There is no such word as furtherest. Look it up in the dictionary if you don’t believe me. It’s like saying braverest or strongerest.

People use this made up word all the time. Try farthest, furthest or longest.

Why have remedial courses for illiterate teachers, Tubley? I'm sure plenty of people would happily volunteer to be part of the firing squad, providing a considerable incentive to maintain high standards. Not that any desire for revenge on the nuns from all those years ago colours my attitudes at all, you understand.

With you all the way, anomie.

The proponents of "it's a living language" school are the foot soldiers of evil in the war against precision and correctness in English usage. What they fail to understand is that when a word is misused to the point where its meaning is either changed or - more likely - debased in some way, we lose a valuable element of clarity in communication. We should mourn the passing of each individual word.

Sure, my audience might "know" what I mean when they hear the phrase "quantum leap", but they are in fact misled as to its true meaning. The fact that they don't even care that they are misusing the word "quantum" only compounds the fault.

Sadly, the cause is laziness, and if the living language school are foot soldiers, our newspapers are the standard-bearers. Every day, every single issue of every single newspaper published in Australia contains at least one outright verbal solecism; more often a solid crop of them.

(Whatever happened to the profession of sub-editor? Gone, probably; replaced by computer spell checkers.)

It is particularly unfortunate that the starting proposition in this article - the suffix -ize - was so wrongheaded. We need more, not fewer, of these complaints about the dumbing-down of one of our key resources - not to mention the source of a great deal of our international competitiveness - the English language.