I think I like "Washington fares Merkel well " at least as well. I’d have to say “bids Merkel farewell” in my dialect/idiolect.
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I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say any of those, or “a damp squib” for that matter. Are they common errors in the UK?
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I was thinking the same thing. I’ve never heard a single one of those boneappleteas in my life, and also have never heard the phrase “damp squib” either wrong or right?
Maybe it’s a UK thing? Maybe some creative license? Or should I say, creative lichens?
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The important UK thing here is that Daily Mash is a British Onion-equivalent. 
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Ah! Lichens it is then!
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I’d say “damp squib” is fairly common. Not exactly in constant use on the Clapham omnibus but not unheard of.
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No idea how common it is, but [name redacted] built half an episode of The IT Crowd around it.
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Catching up…
I don’t think that’s how farewell works. When split into its component parts, to fare well is to do well, to be ok, etc. I’m not sure it can be transitive as in the example you suggest - you don’t fare someone well you wish them well. Farewell has become a single word meaning goodbye, but means ‘fare well’ - ‘I hope you fare well’. A person cannot ‘fare’ someone or something else.
And despite dictionary allegations above to the contrary, farewell is not a verb either.
A damp squib is a very common phrase over here in UKland (where proper English is spoke!)
A squib was a type of firework I believe, and so a damp one did not go off - hence the expression’s use to refer to a thing or event that was a disappointment or did not go off as expected.
And today’s whinge from me is about this video…
… in which the narrator talks about the type of feta having “implications on” the use you put it to.
FFS! It is “implications FOR”. More skirmishes in the American English War on Prepositions.
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And this from a BB contributor today
Also on the upside, Hobby Lobby got swindled from fake Dead Sea Scroll excerpts.
Got swindled from? Ok, so some fake Dead Sea Scroll excerpts had this Hobby Lobby thing and somehow the Hobby Lobby thing got swindled from them (them being the fake Dead Sea Scroll excerpts)?
Got swindled over some fake DSS excerpts?
Got swindled by some fake DSS excerpts might work seeing as it was their fakeness that enabled the swindling, but even so I’d expect the swindling to be attrributed to a person - a swindler, who does the swindling.
Got swindled with?
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Yep - that works too.
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At least they spelled led right.
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My latest rumination on the USAnian war on prepositions being waged locally by BB contributors…
In another post on BB:
in hopes to catch a wheel of Double Gloucester
FFS - that is barely semi-literate.
…in the hope of catching (…in hope of catching, if you must.)
…hoping to catch (by far the best, most elegant formulation)
…with the hope of catching
…with hopes of catching
Why anyone would write in hopes when hoping just works when followed by to catch, is beyond me.
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I suspect that was just an error rather than acceptable in Popkin’s dialect. I’d bet they started off with “In hopes of catching” and mid-typing mentally switched to “trying to catch”. It certainly isn’t grammatical to me.
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Popkin’s dialect?
Is that a generic statement or do you have some knowledge of who they are and their dialect/language?
Popkin has no profile on BB and I have no idea who they are. We cannot even @ them to point out errors needing correction. (Tunbling, for example.)
I’m glad we agree that it was not at all grammatical.
It may have been a mistake here but it is exactly the sort of formulation I am no longer surprised to see, sadly.
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They are at least a writer of English and have presumably learned English with respect to a particular regional dialect. If you prefer, I would be just as happy to call it “Popkin’s idiolect”.
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Ah - ok - a generic statement.
I do find it annoying that BB invites these writers to post stuff without giving them a profile to help us know who they are (and by implication why they were invited) and without giving them an @ handle.
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