News events (least what people THINK are news worthy) that end in Gate, as in nipple-gate, deflate-gate ect...
The English language is going to be vastly improved when we throw all these words into Room 101. We have made the world (or a chunk of it) a better place.
"Problematic". I'm just sick of that word, especially in "This is problematic because..." "Offline" was already mentioned, and it makes me cringe, too. "Let's discuss this offline." Oh, you mean after this meeting? Why didn't you just say so?
Having just gone through an MA degree, god yes to this. 'Problematic' is such a weasel-word for 'I don't think you've thought that through well enough'. Why not just say that, instead of pretending like you have an objective opinion.
It would be very problematic if the person using the word 'problematic' was coming from a problematic position.
This will all be off-topic, but apology time - sorry it's late. If this was prompted by my 'off of' comment, oops. I did debate about posting that, so sorry to anyone made uncomfortable. It was intended as 'I don't understand this particular foreign concept, so it bugs me', rather than a statement that 'off of' is wrong, but perhaps the rhetoric was unintentionally inflammatory. Spoiler: @Steerpike & Wreybies You're right that my parallel was bad - I didn't give it enough thought (so shouldn't have made it). I still don't understand the grammatical sense in 'off of' though, and now I'm curious (after some failed Internetting) - may I message whoever has time? (Not looking to argue, just understand. Also one or two other questions this has raised.) I'll now desist derailing and return my culturally-insensitive red face to the shadows from whence it came [Edit: fixed tags]
To be fair, I love British slang. Bollocks. But another word/phrase I wish to see banned? "Woah."/"Wow." I don't know why, I just don't like it.
We do have some weird ones though, gav'na. I don't know why but I've always been generally annoyed by statements of patriotism or statements that hold one country over another. Especially when it comes to WW2 for some reason, that war seems to symbolize national pride, forgetting the RAF and USAF bombed innocent people too. Not saying the Allies in the end were not in the right, but they certainly committed war crimes that surely has to dampen enthusiasm slightly, but no - it doesn't seem to at all. One of my friends is particularly bad for this: 'We beat the Germans', 'We stormed Normandy', or 'We fraught the bosh bombers off with grit and steely resolve'. Oh, did WE do that? Me and you? I must have forgot when we went back in time and won the second world war - why don't the history books record that the battle of Britain was won by two out-of-shape British guys in a Spitfire? All the more amazing that one was a college teacher the other was a car mechanic. Nationalism does nothing but make you hate people you've never met, and take pride in accomplishments you were never a part of.
I'm a stout atheist as well, but I think when you're referring to the Christian god, it's properly capped up. Why? Because that's what he's called. That's his name. (Unless you know of another one.) God. If his name was Fred, you wouldn't call him fred, would you? However, the one I struggle to think about doing is capping up "he" or "him" when referring to God. Why?
God, or Jahova at any case. I agree. Either Odin or Zeus I would refer to as god, the god of the bible is God.
God, that was a nightmare. I remember being trapped in that small French village, German soldiers firing at me left, right and center all while screaming obscenities at me. Then you swooped in, said, "C'mere you daft, half-blind American bastard!" and hauled me to the safety of the British lines. Come to think of it, I never really answered the British commander why I was there at all considering the Americans weren't at war with Germany (yet, anyway.) But seriously, joking aside, I agree. Nationalism does nothing but make you look like an arrogant asshole and make the non-arrogant asshole members of your nation look bad. I can be proud that the US helped in the war, but it'd be arrogant of me to assume we won the whole damned thing ourselves, or that I won it somehow. 'Cause I didn't. 'Cause I wasn't even born. @jannert - I'm kind of a grammar...nut, so I capitalize proper nouns. Including names of deities, even if I don't follow them personally.
Exactly! The car mechanic was the commander who asked me, the lone American defending a helpless French hamlet WTF I was doing there.
Oh, it might not be. I have no idea. But don't most other religions (Muslim, Buddhist, etc) have other names for their god? Allah. Buddha. Etc. The thing is, they would not refer to other gods as allahs. Or buddhas. As in Thor, the allah of lightning. So the uncapped word never gets used. In English, however, 'god' small g is a word that gets used for many other things, other than the Christian's God.
Allah is the word for god. When you're referring to Allah as "god" in the English language, it should be capitalized if you're capitalizing the name of the Christian god. There is no god but god: (sorry, almost any thread will make me think of a song or book )
@jannert with respect to Allah, as I said above the word just means "god." EDIT: I believe Arab Christians use the same word for the Christian god in their language.
So a Muslim would refer to the pantheon of Greek gods as allahs? Well, I won't argue, because I don't know. And because it doesn't really change the original point if other religions do it as well?
