River Cottage

Talking about the S word Potty, the Shetland slang for fire sparks is sp**k . So when my friend was telling me about her chimney fire it was " I had a room full of firemen and lots of sp**k flying up her lum" ( chimney).  It is also funny to hear the French tourists shouting at the seals as French for seal is phuc!.

 I  dont like babbies instead of babies , that makes me cringe.

The use of the word kid when referring to a child really annoys my eldest. 'I AM NOT A GOAT' he usually replies with utter disgust in his voice!

I also find it hard talking to Bristolians without cringing. (This sadly includes most of my inlaws) as when they say anything that ends in the letter a they add an l onto the end. For example, it's impossible for a Bristolian to buy a new  Ford Fiesta, they would buy a Ford Fiestal. Thankfully the inlaws are from the edge of Bristol, so they don't have full blown accents. My husband stood and laughed at me the first time I met some of his mates because I just couldn't understand a word they were saying, I just stood there smiling looking desperately at OH hoping he would translate this strange West country language. His mates all accuse him of talking 'posh' these days!!   

One problem is that words change their meaning. A maiden aunt type teacher we had at school said to one boy in class " The trouble with you is you have no spunk". Most of the boys started sniggering, but afraid it passed me by.

Something that has come into the language lately is the avoidance of the word railway, as in train station. What is wrong with railway station?

My pet hate is the word Ms. I am quite willing to be addressed as Mrs., incorrectly as Miss, or even if someone has never met or spoken to me as Mr., but not Ms. Both Mrs. and Miss. come from the word Mistress, which was a term of respect. Why can't it still be? I know you will all be sniggering over your keyboards, and expect at least one friend to PM me to explain modern life to me btw.  

Screw is a word in that class - my dad once said to me that a male friend was on a good screw. I nearly choked in my cordial as I did not think my father would ever discuss someone's sex life with me (I was, after all, only 15). Turns out he meant the person was on a good income ... how times change ...

Flibbertygibbet

Portmanteau

cwtch

plinth

fenestration

oojamaflip

I could go on and on and on...

and one of my favourite phrases I like to hear - "I will purchase that large rolled loin, please".

How about the awkward person that asks for the loin on the bone HH?

I hate corporate jargon of any kind, totally unnecessary and shows such a lack of imagination.  Anyone that want to touch base, use acronyms instead of words, refers to their bandwidth or wants to bring it to the table (and it's not their lunch) needs a serious talking to in my view!

Bringing something to the table, or tabling a motion is quite an old term, but I agree with you about all the rest. I would love to be in a position where I could listen to the silly children speaking corperate and then with authority ask them to speak English. Might shut them up a bit.

Mr. A once had to do a review of his work for BT, and they were into such terms as 'customer delight' etc. We rearranged all the words used in his reviews by his bosses for the previous couple of years so they read as if they made sense. They didn't really, but saying he was a competent engineer who knew all the types of equipment he was expected to work on, could fault find and change components down to chip level wasn't enough. 

Nuclear is a word I have trouble saying.. I often say Nucular... lol

 A friend always said "pedestranians" instead of pedestrians - sort of catching.

We used to play Bulls*** bingo in meetings - go in armed with such words as "blue sky thinking", "outside the box", "integrated" "hymn sheet" etc.  Passed the time...