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Is there a word that pushes your buttons?

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Posts

  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    As @Nanny Beach says icky,  also yummy and any other words a two year old would use.
    On the news the other night,  the cliffs are retreating back,  can they retreat forward? 
    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • ErgatesErgates Posts: 2,953
    I have no idea what doubling down means, but it seems I’m not alone. 
  • BenCottoBenCotto Posts: 4,718
    Retreating back is from the same stable as pre-order and skyrocket.
    Rutland, England
  • punkdocpunkdoc Posts: 15,039
    Trying to flog us fake gemstones is a pet peeve of mine.
    How can you lie there and think of England
    When you don't even know who's in the team

    S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
  • ErgatesErgates Posts: 2,953
    The word ‘gotten’, especially when dropped into a novel supposedly set in England - don’t American writers think to get their work proof read by a native english speaker before it goes to publication? I enjoyed the book otherwise, but that really grated on me.
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    edited October 2023
    ‘Gotten’ is one of those words that the early settlers took with them from England to the Americas … as is ‘arksed’ … they both went out of fashion here, but stayed in common usage over here. 


    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • BenCottoBenCotto Posts: 4,718
    edited October 2023
    To add evidence to Dove’s post, in Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale 

    “… Yow loveres axe I now this questioun.”

    We retain gotten in forgotten. For completeness, Americans maintain got as well as gotten but with different meanings.

    For ownership or obligation they would say got
    I have got a cat
    I have got to weed

    For becoming, obtaining or entering the word is gotten
    I have gotten lazy in retirement
    I have gotten a new lawnmower
    Weevils have gotten into the compost



    Rutland, England
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    My understanding is that the American use of ‘z’ rather than ‘s’ in endings such as ‘theorize/se’ as is more usual in the UK also took the same route.

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • JennyJJennyJ Posts: 10,576
    BenCotto said:
    ...
    We retain gotten in forgotten ...

    And begotten, ill-gotten, probably a few others too.
    Doncaster, South Yorkshire. Soil type: sandy, well-drained
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