Worst Use of English?

[moritheil]

What is the worst use of English you have seen, to date? I'm not really interested in Engrish.com or other such examples of writing by people who don't really claim to know English. I'm interested in people who, for all intents and purposes, should be shining, literary paragons, and completely dropped the ball.

It's the disparity between what you expect and what you get that makes it interesting, I think.

 

[tjoneslo]

The one con I attend every year has a panel called the "Nth Annual Kirk Poland Memorial Bad Prose Competition". It is a screamingly funny... er.. educational experience in badly written published prose by professional writers.
http://www.istop.com/~ggrant/readercon/readercon15.KirkPoland1.html


These people hold a bad prose competition every year. You should be able to find ooddles of it.
http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/

 

[Saeviomagy]

It's the disparity between what you expect and what you get that makes it interesting, I think.

Watch the average newscast or read the average paper.

I mean really - if writing is your job, you should have a good grasp of the grammar involved.

 

[Desdichado]

How about some of the Japanese games that are marketed in the U.S. by an American division of the company? You'd think someone would proofread stuff here and there. I'm thinking of stuff like Capcom vs. SNK which starts out with the neat little introduction of,
"Everybody rumored....
Nobody beleived.....
But you see,
It's TRUE!
Now it's time to prove real truth...
Who is the STRONGEST?"

Or Samurai Shodown (itself mispelled, but that could be a stylistic choice) where when you win your combat, you get treated to a screen that flashes the word "VICTOLY!!!" in bright orange letters?

Yes, both Capcom and SNK have U.S. offices that handle, at least, all the distribution of the games here. Both have also had some input in the game development, but clearly nobody thought proofreading was important...

 

[Pielorinho]

Hmm. I could go on one of my rants about linguistics and the inability of a native language speaker to speak a grammatically incorrect sentence.

Or I could just move the thread to the Off-Topic forum and advise anyone who wants that rant to pick up The Language Instinct and read it in my voice, and let everyone else have their fun!

Daniel

 

[FireLance]

People who use "loose" to mean "lose". I don't know if it's the worst use of English, but it certainly is both prevalent and annoying.

 

[Bront]

One of my favorite books is Anguished English. All sorts of butchering.

"Sir Francis Drake circumsized the world on a 100 foot clipper"

"...invented the John Deer Raper, which did the work of 100 men."

"Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin he built with his own two hands."

"After infancy, we pass into adolecence, and eventualy into adultry."

 

[Humanophile]

Hmm. I could go on one of my rants about linguistics and the inability of a native language speaker to speak a grammatically incorrect sentence.

Daniel

How I wish this were true. But even ignoring the classic whipping boys of slang and people who don't know exactly what a given word means, you still have grammatical gaffes aplenty where the meaning is either ambigious, or else actually contrary to what the speaker intends. Many headlines and circa-2000 Bushisms are classic examples of such things.

And then there's just plain unpleasant writing. A dedicated linguist could probably make sense of it, but that doesn't stop it from making my eyes want to whimper in a corner when I stumble across it.

 

[moritheil]

http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/SF-Archives/Misc/eyeargon.html

 

[genshou]

One of my favorite books is Anguished English. All sorts of butchering.

"Sir Francis Drake circumsized the world on a 100 foot clipper"

"...invented the John Deer Raper, which did the work of 100 men."

"Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin he built with his own two hands."

"After infancy, we pass into adolecence, and eventualy into adultry."

I laughed so hard I was crying–in public. Thanks a bunch, Bront! Adding Anguished English to the list of books I HAVE to buy someday.