Say it to Julia

 

These are some words and verbal practices which are repugnant. Their use is forbidden at the blog headquarters.

 

• Calling films 'movies'. This is akin to saying moo-cow when you are actually referring to Bos taurus or the common domestic cow, and it demeans both the speaker and the person addressed.

• Use of 'to be like' instead of 'to say'. To increase my disapproval, this is frequently found in an inappropriate present tense. eg. 'I'm like, Do it to Julia, ok?' meaning 'I said "Do it to Julia"' [though 'I pleaded with the torturers, saying  Do it unto Julia' is preferable to either].  You wouldn't say 'Her Majesty was like, have you come far?', now would you? If you would then you have no business mingling with royalty and should return to your cave immediately.
 

• The construction 'just because... doesn't mean...'. eg. 'Just because the Queen asked if I'd come far didn't mean she gave a tinkers' cuss whether I had or not.' This completely fails to be a sentence, since the verb, 'did', has no subject. You must put in 'it' -  'Just because the Queen asked if I'd come far it didn't mean she gave a tinkers' cuss.' Even so, the form remains ugly. A happier phrasing would be 'Her Majesty cared not a rap whether I'd travelled an inch or a thousand miles, yet still she asked me how far I had come.'  
 

• The term 'wellies'. Often applied to what are properly Gumboots. Should only be used when conversing with persons of 6 months' age or younger, but is ill-advised even then. The child will behave better if treated like an adult from an early age.
 

• Saying 'like' instead of 'as if'. eg. 'Julia felt like she was being speared with a thousand arrows.' No: Julia felt as if she were being speared with 1000 arrows. She felt like St Sebastian.
 

• 'Out the window'. eg. 'They  threw Julia out the window.' This is incorrect. It should be: 'They threw Julia out of the window.'   The Latin e, ex (out) takes the ablative case and one must say 'out FROM, or (in English more usually) out OF, the window'. To do otherwise betrays ignorance, and scorn for one's hearers' sensibilities.

 

Another thing that annoys me to high heaven is the gratuitous alteration of Prayer Book language in the fatuous name of making it more accessible to the oikery. eg. 'Unto whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid' is apparently easier to understand if rendered 'to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hidden'. Really, if you're as thick as that you aren't going to have much chance of comprehending the mysteries of the catechism anyway. When I was a baby I thought 'Hallowed be thy name' was a posh way of saying hello to God because God was too exalted to be said hello to like an ordinary mortal, but once the proper meaning was explained to me I could see the logic perfectly well and was quite unharmed by the experience. It's not difficult, and there is considerable value in using words which you know have been used by your forefathers for centuries. It lends a reassuring constancy.
DO NOT MANGLE THE CRANMER.