Words, usages, and phrases that annoy the shit out of you...

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i've never heard the doubt thing and i can't really get my head around it -- is it supposed to be like ironic/sarcastic? bc it seems to mean the opposite of what it is saying?

Mordy, Wednesday, 26 July 2017 16:09 (eight years ago)

herefordshire too (from the 19th century): http://www.melocki.org.uk/MelockiWords.html (scroll down to "doubt")

i'm p sure i remember my dad saying it was more widespread than just shropshire, but i don't now remember if he meant it spread beyond the agricultural west midlands

not sarcastic at all: straightforwardly used as per the example in the link

mark s, Wednesday, 26 July 2017 16:13 (eight years ago)

We're around Glasgow so it has to be quite widespread then.

Robert Adam Gilmour, Wednesday, 26 July 2017 16:20 (eight years ago)

do u think maybe it started as "i don't doubt" and the "don't" fell out?

Mordy, Wednesday, 26 July 2017 16:29 (eight years ago)

SOED says the verb "to doubt" had a secondary form meaning "to dread", "to fear", "to apprehend" or "to suspect", already poetic in the 19th century, now archaic (example: "They doubted some sinister motive", History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic, Volume 2, William Hickling Prescott)

the example in the herefordshire wordlist does actually suggest a negative tone: "there'll be more wet, i doubt" meaning "there'll be more wet, i fear" (though it translates it as neutral: "there'll be more wet, i think")

can't now think if the times i noted it (all from one person, a very rural old farmer who lived nearby) back that up, or if it really did just drift towards "i believe"

mark s, Wednesday, 26 July 2017 16:39 (eight years ago)

I've never heard this doubt thing before, weird

-_- (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 26 July 2017 16:44 (eight years ago)

Yeah, neither have I, sounds like a more rural usage than Glasgow, maybe Ayrshire?

weird echo of the falsies (Tom D.), Wednesday, 26 July 2017 16:47 (eight years ago)

Verbification is... a naturally occurring English language thing.

Yeah lots of people see an instance of new verbing and they're like HORRID CORPORATE NEOLOGISM THAT MUST BE STOPPED.

But even a casual look through OED at dates-of-entry for words you currently know and love will show that you use thousands of verbed nouns AND nouned verbs every day.

okapi paste (Ye Mad Puffin), Wednesday, 26 July 2017 16:56 (eight years ago)

Tom D- It's the rural areas around greater glasgow. My brother will like this, it's always drove both of us nuts.

Robert Adam Gilmour, Wednesday, 26 July 2017 16:59 (eight years ago)

Bordering glasgow

Robert Adam Gilmour, Wednesday, 26 July 2017 17:00 (eight years ago)

Yes, sounds like a rural Lowland Scots thing.

weird echo of the falsies (Tom D.), Wednesday, 26 July 2017 17:06 (eight years ago)

never heard this doubt thing either and my parents are from glasgow

Week of Wonders (Ross), Wednesday, 26 July 2017 17:08 (eight years ago)

I used to hear similar things in Paisley, a lingering Ayrshire/rural Renfrewshire influence before its disappearance into Glaswegian. (xp)

weird echo of the falsies (Tom D.), Wednesday, 26 July 2017 17:09 (eight years ago)

yer man scott (walter) is another of the examples the SOED gives: "i doubt, i doubt, i have been beguiled" from chap.7 of the antiquary (which is set near edinburgh in the late 18th century)

(the antiquary looks quite good, it is full of gothic ruins and has a german villain called douster-swivel)

mark s, Wednesday, 26 July 2017 17:11 (eight years ago)

Bordering Glasgow

I see what you did.

A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, 26 July 2017 17:11 (eight years ago)

I don't. Please tell me.

Robert Adam Gilmour, Wednesday, 26 July 2017 17:12 (eight years ago)

do u think maybe it started as "i don't doubt" and the "don't" fell out?

― Mordy, Wednesday, July 26, 2017 4:29 PM (forty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It def feels this way, "no doubt" with "no" having disappeared through the ages

Le Bateau Ivre, Wednesday, 26 July 2017 17:13 (eight years ago)

"border" is a noun that was verbified long ago and now feels natural and normal

A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, 26 July 2017 17:16 (eight years ago)

That I didn't know.

weird echo of the falsies (Tom D.), Wednesday, 26 July 2017 17:18 (eight years ago)

i realise no one is reading my boring SOED posts but they p much prove that this *isn't* caused by the "no" or the "don't" dropping out: a now-archaic usage of doubt to mean "fear" or "suspect" has survived in rural areas, possibly undergoing a slight drift towards the more neutral "believe" (but i suspect still with an undertone of anxiety)

mark s, Wednesday, 26 July 2017 17:21 (eight years ago)

I am reading them avidly and you're right.

weird echo of the falsies (Tom D.), Wednesday, 26 July 2017 17:24 (eight years ago)

Definitely a bit of fear in a lot of the usages I hear. I guess that's why I used rain and pipes as examples.

Robert Adam Gilmour, Wednesday, 26 July 2017 17:26 (eight years ago)

This tops my instigation of the "brick shithouse" discussion (or at least I think I started that one).

Robert Adam Gilmour, Wednesday, 26 July 2017 17:31 (eight years ago)

some people use "I doubt" in that sense in Donegal

Number None, Wednesday, 26 July 2017 19:04 (eight years ago)

"doubt" as drift of older meaning makes total sense to me, tho i don't think i've heard it used in the wild. pretty sure a similar thing happened with "prove" where there was an older meaning that meant "to test out", roughly, and this is the origin of the phrase "proof of the pudding" - it originally meant "the test of the pudding", not "proof" in the current evidential sense

put your hands on the car and get ready to die (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 26 July 2017 19:12 (eight years ago)

https://www.603copywriting.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/calvin-and-hobbes.jpg

koogs, Wednesday, 26 July 2017 19:34 (eight years ago)

calvin is correct, hobbes is wrong

mark s, Wednesday, 26 July 2017 19:49 (eight years ago)

sounds like a more rural usage than Glasgow, maybe Ayrshire

Nope.

everything, Wednesday, 26 July 2017 20:35 (eight years ago)

some people use "I doubt" in that sense in Donegal

That would make sense.

weird echo of the falsies (Tom D.), Wednesday, 26 July 2017 23:33 (eight years ago)

can someone put this doubt thing in a sentence

assawoman bay (harbl), Wednesday, 26 July 2017 23:47 (eight years ago)

"I doubt it's going to rain," which in this bizarro Scotland area means "It's probably going to rain"

jmm, Wednesday, 26 July 2017 23:52 (eight years ago)

also donegal and old-days rural shropshire and herefordshire

(interesting that it's all borderish-type territories, i wonder if that's relevant) (tho donegal only really borderish a bit too recently maybe)

mark s, Wednesday, 26 July 2017 23:57 (eight years ago)

Donegal full of Scots obv

jk rowling obituary thread (darraghmac), Thursday, 27 July 2017 00:03 (eight years ago)

oh yeah, my grandmother does things like that, say stuff that means the opposite of what it sounds like. from ireland not donegal though

assawoman bay (harbl), Thursday, 27 July 2017 00:07 (eight years ago)

there is a comma missing i know donegal is in ireland

assawoman bay (harbl), Thursday, 27 July 2017 00:08 (eight years ago)

shropshire and herefordshire don't have so many scots but substitute the welsh maybe

(william hickling prescott mentioned above was from salem in massachussetts, so in his case maybe substitute witches idk)

mark s, Thursday, 27 July 2017 00:10 (eight years ago)

Donegal full of Scots obv

Scoti I think you mean.

weird echo of the falsies (Tom D.), Thursday, 27 July 2017 00:13 (eight years ago)

I doubt I dont

jk rowling obituary thread (darraghmac), Thursday, 27 July 2017 00:17 (eight years ago)

"beast mode"

Hideous Lump, Saturday, 29 July 2017 19:20 (eight years ago)

"nerd boner"

Neanderthal, Saturday, 29 July 2017 19:48 (eight years ago)

i've only ever heard beast mode in the context of marshawn lynch

Mordy, Saturday, 29 July 2017 23:18 (eight years ago)

I see a lot of it in You Tube video titles, mostly involving any sport, body building or video games, but also these:

Those 7 Times Neil deGrasse Tyson Went Beast Mode
Best Hard Trap Music Mix 2015 [Beast Mode On]
Malcolm X Goes BEAST MODE On White Liberal!
Activate BEAST MODE on Samsung Galaxy S7 & S7 Edge
Beast Mode Vodka - How to Make Skittles Vodka

Hideous Lump, Sunday, 30 July 2017 00:17 (eight years ago)

hang on, that last one

El Tomboto, Sunday, 30 July 2017 00:41 (eight years ago)

christ

https://mixthatdrink.com/skittles-vodka-tutorial/

I'm definitely an accelerationist now

El Tomboto, Sunday, 30 July 2017 00:42 (eight years ago)

fandango

estela, Sunday, 30 July 2017 07:07 (eight years ago)

"nerd boner"

Anything boner. "ladyboner" is especially gross.

Stoop Crone (Trayce), Monday, 31 July 2017 00:49 (eight years ago)

Ugh otm

Neanderthal, Monday, 31 July 2017 01:01 (eight years ago)

I've made skittles vodka a few times, it's not a bad use of cheap shit vodka. Admittedly I haven't done it for about 16 years. I've made chili vodka a few times since then though.

Colonel Poo, Monday, 31 July 2017 11:24 (eight years ago)

"folx" instead of "folks" is kind of annoying

marcos, Wednesday, 2 August 2017 19:05 (eight years ago)

"Nosh"

sounds like someone just discovered food blogs and now they're some sorta jet-setting restaurant critic

p.j.b. (pj), Wednesday, 2 August 2017 19:51 (eight years ago)


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