Wee gripes: speakering

Written By: - Date published: 2:00 pm, September 9th, 2009 - 7 comments
Categories: Deep stuff - Tags:

John when you say ‘overtly’ you mean ‘overly’. Like on Monday when you told Paul Henry “I’m not overtly stressed..”. Sometimes, you say something like ‘we’re not overtly planning X’ when you just mean ‘we’re not planning X’.

Here’s a little hypothetical test. What’s wrong with this sentence?

“I’m not overtly concerned by scuttlebug from various allegators about textses from the Afghanistanians to the Taliban giving away SAS positions”

Correct – you wouldn’t even bother to talk about that.

7 comments on “Wee gripes: speakering ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. randal 1
    9 September 2009 at 2:11 pm

    I guess overly is what happens after you have gone upward?

  2. ConorJoe 2
    9 September 2009 at 3:59 pm

    Zet, surely you meant ‘texas’ – that is where the allegators are innit?

  3. Scott 3
    9 September 2009 at 4:33 pm

    Brilliant. Our very own Dubya. Maybe its time to emigrate…

  4. Draco T Bastard 4
    9 September 2009 at 5:51 pm

    you say something like ‘we’re not overtly planning X’ when you just mean ‘we’re not planning X’.

    Now, Now Zetitic, you shouldn’t go round putting words in Johns mouth. What he means when he says we’re not overtly planning X is obviously we’re covertly planning X

  5. Ron 5
    9 September 2009 at 5:57 pm

    You can’t really blame him too much. I’m not a pedant about usage but I do think that the right word or expression is important – especially when speaking publicly. Very few of our journalists speak English now. As I hear the same misuse of cliches, expressions and words over and over it appears that subs, producers and editors can’t speak the language either.
    So we’ll have to get used to the idea that we don’t really speak English in this country any more.

    • Scott Yorke 5.1
      9 September 2009 at 8:18 pm

      There’s a difference between the language someone uses in casual conversation and the language one uses in public, though. The difference is that someone in the public eye should be expected to think about what they’re going to say before they open their mouth.

      The fact that Key regularly murders the English language suggests that far too often he’s not thinking in advance about what to say. Which in turn perhaps suggests he’s not thinking too deeply about some of the issues he’s meant to be on top of.

      I can forgive the odd slipup. It’s the frequency of them that surprises me.

  6. Ron 6
    9 September 2009 at 6:15 pm

    TV1 – right now. reporter uses the words a fluent in relation to cow poo.This context tells us she means effluent. She says the A so strongly she MUST believe its spelled that way. It’s not a mispronunciation – it’s simply the wrong word (or non-word, as the case may be).
    God – I should stop watching the news it just makes me ennoid.