Mute Points

Has anyone else heard people say "It's a mute point"? Is it an East Anglian thing (hypercorrection?) or is it more general?

Between he, for we - pooh!

I'm a big fan of Stewart Lee and enjoy his contributions in The Observer when he takes over David Mitchell's column. This week he was being satirical and ironic about the Olympics and the Rings. Partly because of the toilet humour of much of it I wondered if his use of "we" was also a joke in "to we satirists". I don't think so, as he has written it before in this column: I suppose it is an established phrase. On the Media Show last week a Guardian columnist said "to we licence-payers". Is it a media thing or general, perhaps a sub-/conscious feeling that "me", "us" and even "him" are somehow second-class or suspect pronouns? Is it only sports commentators who say things like "between he and X"?

Yes. No. Absolutely. 2012

I asked some of my younger friends a year or so ago if they'd noticed people saying "Yes. No." to agree with something. They weren't aware of it, although I thought they, like most people under fifty (45?), did it themselves. I'm glad to see that the excellent BBC TV Olympic satire "2012" often has people say it, along with all sorts of current media and PR speak, "We gotta move up a level, guys", "It's all good", "You so have" etc. Of course people in the US have already written books about this sort of thing. There's even one called, I hear, "Yeh. No. Totally." Anyone remember the old "Yes / No Interlude"? "Are you ready?" "Yes." BONG!

Humbled of Erith

I'm following another excellent tweeter @LoisMcEwan. She points out that "humbled" is now consistently used to mean its opposite, "proud", as in "I feel humbled to be nominated for this prize" etc. This is despite Rupert Murdoch's use of "humble" at the Leveson enquiry with more of the usual (?) dictionary meaning, though nearer to the related "humiliating". Lois also mentions the new cable car between Royal Docks and Greenwich but quite reasonably suggests that other areas of London need a crossing more. How about a Barking-Erith crossing, she asks. I'm reminded of Erithian comedian Linda Smith and her wonderful joke that Erith hasn't got a twin town "but just has a suicide pact with Dagenham." I'm allowed to say that as I was brought up there too.

Also...too...as well

A tweeter I follow @editunited (see, I could be young, Twitter Generation, for all you know, not the old pedant you thought) tells us of "America's Next Top Redundancy". I've asked her if she's noticed a few examples common here. I once heard a terrifying Oz fast bowler say "Yes, he also does that too as well." A record at the time, I thought, but common now. Oh dear, hope Jeff doesn't read this.

Split Infinitive Correction Syndrome

One danger of going on about things like "double is" is that people who don't really follow closely might over-react and start correcting perfectly grammatical (dare I say? Why not, it's my blog) examples like "What it is [,] is a matter of grammar", or similar. On the net and in the press you can read lots of complaints by self-appointed prescriptivists about split infinitives. As you will agree, dear reader, this is a foolish cause as English infinitives have been split by many of the best writers: sometimes it's more elegant not to split, sometimes better to boldly go for it. Not only this but sometimes these deluded souls mistake phrasal verbs for infinitives and berate even distinguished linguists for splitting them up (splitting up them?). It's a dangerous thing to write about language at all. Think I'll go and lie down again.

Isis review

Writing about the rise of "double is", I invented a spoof journal and called it "International Isis Review"' editor Dr Nawat Amin. Trouble was / is that it was / is in danger of being taken seriously. In fact it is quite possibly already in preparation, under different editorship.