Irritating Idioms

Decades ago, the word ‘situation’ crept insidiously into vogue. The wretched invader was gratuitously added to many a sentence. Although it has lost much of its potency, this pathetic pretension persists. ‘A fight situation’; ‘a relationship situation’. Annoying or what?

There’ve been dozens of other irritating idioms since the dismal dawn of the situation situation. Latterly the ‘road map’ situation vis-à-vis the Middle East peace (?) process has been much upsetting me. Road map!!!??? There’s a single word one could use to condemn this mini-minded invention that’s almost bullocks….oh you change the second letter.

But there’s currently a deeper irritation which perhaps comes from my ignorance. Why in the names of the gods of literature do people write/say the word ‘may’ when they are referring to facts?

‘England may have reached the semi-finals of the rugby world cup but…’ Excuse me, the team has reached the semi-finals. So what’s wrong with saying, ‘England have reached etc..?’ Ok, they didn’t perform all that well but there’s no gainsaying who’s going to face the fearsome French.

What’s the point of this indeterminacy concerning matters of fact? The dictionary definition of ‘may’ is all about doubt.

Example No 1: ‘The Titanic may have sunk in the Atlantic but…’

Sorry! It did bloody well sink! If only the poor drowned people could speak. ‘Listen, mate, there’s no doubt about it.’

Example No. 2: ‘There may be life on other planets but....’

Fine! Perhaps there is, perhaps there isn’t.

Example No. 3: ‘There may be several moons of Jupiter…’ ?

No! Jupiter has several moons. (Oh lawdy-lawd, I hope I got that right!)

Are the perpetrators of this particular irritating idiom all sceptics? Do they doubt the very basis of existence? If so, they should stop writing now before they undermine our entire metaphysical structure. Let the remaining, reasonable, writers save their ‘mays’ for circumstances where there is very clear doubt (or even, to be nobly generous, dubious doubt).

Do have a look/listen. You’ll soon discover, if you haven’t already noticed, that May-fever is epidemic. Sports reporters are amongst the worst offenders. ‘Arsenal may be top of the Premiership but….’ The club is, alas, currently king of that particular mercenary pile; there’s no doubt about it. Please, you crypto-sceptics, just come out with the hard truth. We can take it (well, maybe not the Arsenal thing, so just don’t mention that unpalatable fact at all. OK? If Bradford City ever get there, different matter! You could write what you like, then).

End of rant – but do feel free to enlighten me as to the semantic mysteries/provenance of what I take to be this abuse of ‘may’ business. Maybe I’m wrong. Is it an example of counterfactual-subjunctive-conditional-past-historicalatiouness or some such? If so, I will humbly sit corrected. (I went to a very misleadingly categorised ‘grammar’ school and was taught little about these technical matters except when learning French. After five years, I could barely speak the language but I knew about the pluperfect. Sadly all that hard-won knowledge has slipped into the unconscious depths of my brain).

Do feel free to use this forum strand to rant about any idiotic idioms which irritate your goodselves. (oops, maybe I’ve just perpetrated one such!) Expressing rage really does help to ease the pressure. Indeed, I may feel much better.

No, dammit, I do feel better.

Richard.

Know what I hate, Richard?
PAN-FRY. A couple of years ago I used to watch cooking programmes in the hope that some... well, no, let's not dwell on that. Life's too short. But they kept saying, 'I'm going to pan-fry blah blah'
How else can something be fried except in a pan? On a rock in the mid-day sun? Not an option at this time of year - at least, not in Halifax. Is it me?
Dee.

At the end of the day, Richard, people may be at the cutting edge of irritating idioms, but I can only they think that's where it's at!

Hilary.

Sorry, last line should say," I can only assume it's where they think it's at."

Been a long day!

Hilary.

Pardon?

Len

Too subtle for some, obviously.

Hilary.

I myself personally think that we may or may not see Chelsea win The Premiership . But at this moment in time it looks as if somebody else could be top then.

this site may be of interest to you all

http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/errors/errors.html#errors

Example No. 3: ‘There may be several moons of Jupiter…’ ?

Perhaps in the hazy red mists of your rage you failed to include the word "but", but that part-sentence, as it is, is perfectly acceptable. Especially if the next word is "that".

And yes, Jupiter has many "satellites", some of which 'may' contain some primitive forms of life.

As for your point in general, people have never used the english language as per the Oxford English Dictionary, and they never will.

Someone suggested to me that the 'may...but' formulation, when used with matters of fact, is a form of emphasis, with the meaning of 'even though'. An example: 'You may be rich but you're not happy.' which, might be expressed otherwise as; 'Even though you're rich, you are not happy.' For this explanation of the 'may....but' expression to work, though, the second bit must follow from the first; eg it must be generally believed that being rich makes people happy. There are, I think, many examples of the usage where this link is very thin or missing altogether. But does the use of 'may'in fact add emphasis? Is not, 'you're rich but you're not happy' just as potent?
Incidentally, Insane Bartender, it hadn't entirely escaped my notice that English usage varies widely! I'm just interested in the underlying logic of it all and the way that usage changes. I thought that others might be too. And, you'll be glad to hear, I'm not really in a rage. My little rant was meant to be light-hearted.
All the best,
Richard.

I find 'almost unique' a minor irritation. In my view something is either unique or it isn't. And 'decimate' means to kill one in ten, but is widely misunderstood to mean exactly the opposite! Still, language evolves constantly - I wonder if there'll ever come a day when the Babel Tower will fall and there'll be one common language. Maybe it'll be Welsh.

Ne'er cast a clout till May be out!

Hur-hur!

M

<Added>


Seriously though (ish), the answer may lie in my 1878 Chambers's Dictionary, which gives, as the fifth of its definions of this wondefully ticklish little word (may/might): 'to be by chance'........

Welcome back Mike - knew you wouldn't be able to stay away for long! (Hope you got lots of work done.)

Ta, Nell;
I thought a week was pretty impressive!
Apropos.......'kind of', 'like' and 'sort of' should be napalmed from the language as punctuation phrases.
AND, 'enervate' is increasingly being used to mean energize, its complete opposite!
Am currently inviting people to sign up for my new campaign - SAVE THE ANTONYMS!!

M

One of the other problems with English and I suspect it is something that has been imported from the USA is the use of ten words when one or two will do.

I think it is done in an attempt to either try and build emphasis on the comment or to try and make the speaker look more expert or intelligent than they are.