Funny examples of awful language usage

Like, so, innit? (rising intonation for added style points)

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Isn’t the point of that apparent tautology that you’re asking/telling someone not only to stop what they’re currently doing, but also not to do it again in the future?

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I think the “rules” against ending a sentence with a proposition or starting it with a co-ordinating conjunction run pretty close.

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On the subject of condoms that would blow your socks off: an ex-girlfriend had an ex-boyfriend who refused to take his socks off so I think there could be a market for such condoms.

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I suspect that the origin of the phrase had more to do with the light the meteor generates along the way than its eventual demise.

And if they hit the ground then they are meteorites.

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Nope. Just standard legal redundancy.

I promise I didn’t just edit this article:

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I believe you - thousands wouldn’t :slight_smile:

I still think it’s cobblers. To cease something is to stop, to desist is also to stop.

I put that sort of language in the category of hoary old phrases passed down from the ancients. We have a lot of those ‘doublets’ - two words pretty much meaning the same thing which are nearly always both used when just one would do. For example “fit and proper”, “lands and tenements”, “will and testament”.

I’m more with this guy than with Wikipedia on this one.

https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-origins-of-doublets-such-as-cease-and-desist

See also here if Wikipedia is your preferred source, especially the section on legal style:

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I’ve always had chronically cold feet, but never had a steady girlfriend. Somehow, I’m still not sure it’s worth the tradeoff.

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Orwell said it earlier (but I’m almost sure, not first)

http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit/

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Or “aks” But that’s a whole other kettle of fish.__

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Ummm, you might wanna think on that one a little longer…

You just have yet to find your niche.

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I get the feeling at it is to added emphasis. Neither word packs a mighty punch alone, but, together, “cease and desist” have some rhetorical power.

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Bugs me when people use that word, “Digital” to describe computer-related stuff.

Digital is a clock that writes the numbers out. There is nothing fundamentally ‘Digital’ about computers, aside I suppose from the fact that they can display digital clocks, among other things.

It’d be more accurate to refer to it as “Pornographic media”, even if it’s the same fallacy.

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Digital in the way you describe is i suppose a misuse of the word, but it’s so ubiquitous i see it as a natural evolution of the language. When people say digital they really mean electronic… but even then it’s still not quite the correct way to describe it and i can’t think of an alternative single word to use.

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Electronic is at least closer. Electrons being the media by which the information is stored in the volatile memory.

If we’re talking the internet, perhaps just, ‘Net Media’? Might not be snappy enough sounding.

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:wink:

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Lewd and lascivious!

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