Saw this sentence with both the Irish English "give out" and a standardized-English "give out":

"The banks often give out¹ that the rules are too tight and they can’t give out² the money people need."

¹ complain
² issue, distribute

Source and commentary: https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2013/09/07/giving-out-irish-style/

#language #dialect #idioms #IrishEnglish #EnglishUsage #phrases

Today someone called a layer of snow "shallow."

I don't think I've ever heard that used to describe snow. It feels wrong; even though (in the US at least) we say "deep" snow all the time. Shallow is for water, or people. Not for snow. Snow can be light or thin, but not shallow.

Do other people use this phrase? I know English is weird, but it startled me that I'd never noticed this quirk before.

#englishusage #copyediting #askmastodon #englishishard #americanenglish #BritishEnglish #irishenglish

The collective noun suggester is suggesting that the collective noun for misheard words is: a quiver of errors.

#CollectiveNoun #EnglishUsage

Words¹ misspelled² so often, even in edited text, that my copy-editor's heart does a little happy dance when I see them spelled appropriately:

ad nauseam, complement, its, just deserts, led, minuscule, principle, supersede

¹ In a broad sense, to include phrases.
² The descriptivist in me protests the implicit judgement, but "spelled in a nonstandardized way" is on the wordy side for a throwaway Mastodon post.

#language #spelling #words #EnglishUsage #editing #copyediting #proofreading

It seems like a small thing, but I tend to notice what pronouns people use when they refer to animals. Here's a new blog post about it:
https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2025/12/15/a-list-of-animals-who/

#language #grammar #animals #pronouns #EnglishUsage #books #writing

"Having been to London, I was hosted by a very nice British."

Is it just me or is this sentence off? I parse it as "since I had already been to London before, I was hosted by a very nice British."

#English #englishusage

Fun example of semantic drift, but is it restricted to one person? Let me know if you've encountered this reading of "take it offline", from Gen Z or elsewhere
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/amandabrummitt_i-spend-a-lot-of-time-talking-about-communication-activity-7402116821522567168-T5vD

#language #idioms #phrases #jargon #EnglishUsage