Meow

We moan about creeping Americanisms, but it seems language is also going the other way and some of them don't like it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19670686

Beakersful

Weird, Nunberg is a linguist yet a precriptivist? Can't be held in much esteem by his colleagues then.

Alexa

There is always somebody who is not happy...one way or the other...:P

I think it's great, it shows that people mix and take from each other what they find useful or like. Nothing wrong with that, IMHO.

Except of course, if somebody tells me to "do the needful"..

seven seas

auzdafluff

Anybody else feel the need to do this when they hear that?

Theseus

Puny god

Alexa

I shall revert to you.....

Autonomy

once you have reverted, please be so kind as to confirm where I can also avail of this.

Alexa

Alexa shaking head in confirmation.

Miss Anne Thrope

No, no: saying "avail of this" could be acceptable. What actually invariably gets said including - especially - in advertisements is "avail this".

The Dean

"Go missing"??? Is that particularly British? I hear 'disappeared' as often as anything else.

Meow

That drives me crazy. I end up shouting 'of' at the radio and billboards.

I quite like 'do the needful' as it's shorter 'do what needs to be done'.

Pet hate is the particularly American habit, although it's happening in the UK too now, of using nouns as verbs. To golf is not a verb.

Bahtatboy

My moron of an HR manager has started using headline-style punctuation: a comma instead of an ampersand or "and". One of his recent communiques was titled "Ramadan Timings in Abu Dhabi, Oman". Allegedly he has two masters degrees...

OleJanx

It's possible that there are two Master's out there wondering where their degrees are...