A grammatical observation and question

[choie]

I've noticed - especially since GW Bush - people no longer call things by their full name. For example calling nuclear power or arms just "nuclear" as in "Iran won't accept an agreement that includes nuclear." Other examples: calling a domestic violence incident "a domestic". or saying "I have bipolar" instead of bipolar disorder. What gives?

And before anybody says it, I know I'm being a stickler and intolerant.

[SheltieLover]

1. Twitter brain...

[choie]

3. Hmm I remember Bush always said just "nuclear"

Well, he actually said "nucular" But I get what your saying!

[SheltieLover]

5. 120 char communications destroy neural networks

Wait till AI finishes the job. 😓

[Brother Buzz]

6. Curiously, Jimmy Carter, a U.S. Navy nuclear engineer pronounced it the same way

[The Blue Flower]

2. Another one

Using 'cyber' as a noun.

[choie]

4. YES!!!

[wnylib]

15. And "Oval" instead of "Oval Office."

[LearnedHand]

20. Cyber works really well as a noun

When you have departments named “Cybersecurity” its really easy to shorten it to cyber and use it as a noun. It’s also useful and efficient.

[Disaffected]

22. As in "Baron knows the cyber"

by guess who?

[canetoad]

7. People no longer

Give presents, they GIFT items. And there's no more criticising - it's up-market CRITIQUES these days.

[choie]

8. Lord, that's right!

[Easterncedar]

14. Oh yeah. Drives me mad. No one donates. Gave and given are vanishing

Is it that irregular verbs confuse people?

I have come to accept that people can't keep affect and effect straight, so no one is affected, we are impacted instead, which always sounds quite uncomfortable to me.

We have forever lost the distinction between jealous and envious, and, heaven help us, the difference between disinterested and uninterested, which seems like a sad loss of a valuable concept. As they say, you better hope you get a disinterested judge in your trial, not an uninterested one.

[róisín_dubh]

25. Gifting or gifting grinds my gears nt

[canetoad]

27. Mine too

It's like a form of self-congratulation for being generous.

[FadedMullet]

9. Like you said, it's grammar. I've had some experiance in the South and noticed a long time ago that folks shortened.....

.......phrases by saying things like "The lawn needs mowed" instead of "The lawn needs to be mowed".

[Easterncedar]

13. Yep, that's one!

And ugh "adulting" rather than acting like an adult.

[róisín_dubh]

26. Very common in Appalachia

I couldn’t stand it when I lived there

[FadedMullet]

41. Kinda drove me a little crazy too.

[wyn borkins]

10. Agree With You :: I Do (!)

Also, you "might" be a stickler (?)

But you are definitely not intolerant (!)

[choie]

11. Thanks wyn!

[Easterncedar]

12. Yes, it seems to be an accelerating trend

Like "give me the deets" (details). "No prob." Sometimes I get annoyed, but then I recall how long we have called temporary workers temps (even coining the verb temping), automobiles autos then cars, telephones phones, televisions teevees, doctors docs and so on. Is it laziness or efficiency?

Maybe we should have a thread asking for folks' least favorite examples of linguistic shorthand

[radical noodle]

16. You want to go with?

With what, who, when? This bothers me more than any other.

[LoisB]

18. I noticed that while watching the Darral Brooks trial. I thought it was a Wisconsin

"thing".

[3catwoman3]

31. It's also an Illinois thing.

I grew up in the western end of New York State and never heard this until moving to Illinois in 1994. “Go with” and “come with.”

Drives me batty.

[radical noodle]

36. I think it's started in the last few years and not just in Wisconsin

I never heard that anywhere until a few years ago and now I hear/see it often.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

35. This isn't new. It's a function of how English is spoken by people in areas where there were a lot of settlers who spoke

German or some Scandinavian languages.

[radical noodle]

37. Really?

Maybe it's just catching on other places because it seems like it's everywhere now.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

40. Language spreads.

[LoisB]

39. Interesting.

[LoisB]

17. I agree. You are not being intolerant. It seems as if everything is shorthand

these days.

[LearnedHand]

19. Language is very fluid and fast moving

I love how frequently language pokes us in the eye by not being rigid. Maybe a different way to look at this is to celebrate the creativity of ever changing language.

[B.See]

30. This! Sometimes I love playing with language and

sentence structure, whether that's unusual punctuation, a turn of expression, tossing in a coloquialism, regionalism, street lingo, expletives (when p.oed), alliteration or alternate spellings.

Just to ping the noggin, mix things up a bit, or for a dash of whimsy -

but mostly because I can.

[GenThePerservering]

21. Oh dear - language changes. How painful. nt

[Disaffected]

23. And ya, like I mean, your know,

its gonna keep happenin'.

[Disaffected]

24. One reason I enjoy listening to BBC World Service and Al Jazeera

is that they still speak English there.

[calimary]

28. I've noticed that, too.

We listen to BBC World Service in the car quite frequently. Just seems like the smart thing to do, these days.

[EverHopeful]

29. I've actually come to enjoy many of the shortenings mentioned here

Not sure why.

One usage that still irks me though, is what feels like an overuse of "concerning." Often things that should be described as horrifying, or at least worrying or troubling, are called "concerning." Always makes me think of Susan Collins.

[3catwoman3]

32. I detest impactful. Clunky and awkward.

In my career field, health care be/nursing, to be impacted means to be severely constipated. In other words, truly FOS - full of shit.

What’s wrong with influential? It sounds much more sophisticated and elegant.

[LearnedHand]

38. "Impactful" is not very graceful but "influential" is definitely not a substitute

“Impactful” carries the connotation of measurable affects, which is probably why it’s used more in a business environment. Although influence can also be measured under controlled circumstances, “influential” does not carry that same meaning.

[sdfernando]

33. Leaving important words out leads

to confusion and misunderstanding. The poster/writer is making tbe reader assume something.....you know what happens we we asume.

[Mister Ed]

34. The worst, to me, is calling a conspiracy theory a conspiracy. That's become all too common. n/t

[H2O Man]

42. Recommended.

I have enjoyed reading the OP/thread. It is raining in rural upstate New York. Being very old, and having suffered numerous painful injuries over decades, I have arthritis from my ankles to my neck, or from neck to ankle, if that is more proper. Thus, my repeated attempts to sleep continue to fail. Hence, upon the advice of my medical doctor, I have sought relief by smoking part of a bowl of hashish.

I should note that just before coming to read DU:GD, and selecting your post to read as a result of previous satisfaction in reading and always enjoying reading your comments, I initially had read a couple posts on an internet boxing forum. Since the full impact of the three hits, or inhaling the smoke of burning hashish, had not taken place, when it comes to boxing forums, I am a severe stickler and intolerant of ignorance.

It is my favorite chair for well over sixty years, or six decades, if anyone is keeping track. I spent many nights sitting in this chair after I participated in boxing matches. Although I didn't get hit in my large and rock-like head, I did take punches from shoulders to waist. As I sit here rocking, I think it is possible, perhaps likely, that the sum-total of 329 bouts and countless rounds of sparring have come back to haunt me this morning as I type this at 4:29 am/est. Thus, ignorance expressed as opinion on internet boxing forums annoyed me more ten minutes ago than I could otherwise justify.

A person wrote that Muhammad Ali "is considered a relatively light puncher." Is anyone that stupid? Really? Or was it more likely someone with an agenda of annoying grumpy old men who are up at this hour? Perhaps we will never know. Numerous people corrected him, yet he made a pathetic attempt at insisting he was right. I shall now ponder this, and hopefully, somewhere in the fog of its meaninglessness, fall asleep before the sun comes up.