I`m sure these have been mentioned before ...

When talking about meals with my 14 year old grandson he was highly amused when I said we have a joint most Sundays.

Cabbie21, I wish there was a Like button! grin

Did that wrong, I am rubbish with computers!

Over the years the English and probably other languages have always changed. We would not understand someone from say the seventieth century nor they us.
My 1990s Oxford Dictionary is definitely out of date. As long as we can make ourselves understood why worry.

Bijou - but it's worrying that the English language is being simplified so much now. With the use of text-speak amongst youngsters I wonder if they will even be able to read 20th century books in the future. Victorian literature is fast becoming too complex to understand. And yet schoolchildren were expected to read such books in the past, which means their understanding of language must have been far superior to the children of today.

Old censuses have schoolchildren down as scholars: what about that?

Thank you BlueBell:

'Language is always changing thankfully or else we would still be speaking in Shakespeare’s tongue or worse still Chaucer'

Agreed!

Passengers are now called customers which does not seem quite right.

Language is totally moveable... it has to be. I have a CD of Middle English language ( I.e Chaucer)... and believe me most of us wouldn’t understand 2words in 5. It’s inevitable ... don’t fight it.

4allweknow, my DGC go to a school which has XX Public School carved into the stone along the front of the building, and it's not the only one.

Greenfinch, I do agree with you about passengers now being called customers. When I travel by bus or by train (certainly from a railway station) I am definitely a passenger.

Medsin instead of Medicine! Heard often, especially on news reports. Since when did the ‘i’ become silent?

It drove me mad when I worked for HMRC & we had to call Taxpayers "Customers", a customer has a choice a taxpayer doesn't.

Railway Station is the correct term as the rails are always in the station but the train is transient.

There are lots of things that annoy me but I do accept that language evolves

`Clients` always makes me think of a brothel!

That's funny Cabbie21

The 'myself' thing is really annoying. Usually people trying to sound important.

The word. "Gifted" as in giving or receiving a present , Ie. It was gifted to me, Where has that come from ?

I was laying in bed when I heard a knock at the door.
are you a hen?
This use of laying seems ubiquitous, maybe due to the general decline in knowledge of our language.
However, I disagree that, I was stood, etc is incorrect. It is an older form and still used esp in Derbyshire northwards. It is not incorrect, it is a perfectly acceptable variant; one with which you are unfamiliar.

Concur with pretty much all of the above. May I add a couple that are currently REALLY annoying me? (1) The use of 'small little' to describe something (2) friends who call themselves 'Glamma'. Rant over, feel much better now.

4allweknow Lots of the village schools around here have the name of the village and Public School carved on the front door .My husbands best friend was interviewed for a high level job with a huge UK firm ,they were quite impressed by his school name and remarked on it being a Public School .Little did they know it was in a small village and had around 100 pupils .

I hate it when people don't know the difference between a train and an engine. I see teachers pick up an engine and call it a train. I remark, ' Have you heard of the children's cartoon called Thomas the Tank train!'

has anyone around here seen the ground? when was the last time? where has the ground disappeared to?
now the floor extends out of buildings into the street, and beyond to cover the whole world.
can we oldies inform the youngers that the floor used to know its place, ie firmly and exclusively inside a building.
let's put it back where it belongs.

I've always said train station and I'm in my 60s. I just think language changes over time as long as people know what is meant I can't see the problem. But I have to admit I hate it when people say the movies and I refuse to say it! It's always a film to me.

I hate 'he is meeting with Mr Bloggs' - it is either 'he is meeting Mr B' or 'he has a meeting with Mr B' - I even heard it on the news last night. It makes me cringe.

Also, 'I have a problem/issue around dentists or whatever' - it should be 'I have a problem with dentists' or the like. I think this is an import from Australia.

GillT57 I find that irritating too, the irrelevant information in news reports, the 68 year old ‘grandmother’ rather than ‘woman’. And it’s not just the media who do it - I’ve just come across one of our own members on another thread referring to an ‘83 year old grandmother’, where the word ‘grandmother’ was entirely unnecessary; ‘woman’ would have been perfectly fine.

I think why I find it so annoying as well is because I seriously doubt the person’s status is always checked. It’s more than likely an assumption that if a woman is over a certain age she is bound to be a grandmother.

One word I cannot accept is the use of 'they' by Sam Smith to describe his gender neutral status instead of 'he' or 'she'. You cannot use a plural term for a single person! No no no. You cannot say 'They went for a walk' for one person. It is nonsense and is totally confusing.

I know what you mean, Chestnut; but it is very important to some people that they are addressed as gender-neutral, and, as yet, the alternatives to 'they', such as 'ze' or 'xe' are relatively unknown, so would involve an explanation every time they were used. It's not one that really bothers me, as I think it is just good manners to address people as they choose, and it requires zero effort, really. (does 'zero effort offend anyone?

I agree that 'meet with' is an atrocity, though. I have a friend who uses it all the time, and I have to try hard not to wince. It's interesting how little things like this can be so (mildly) irritating, isn't it?

Others that irritate are 'hysterical' for 'hilarious' - 'She found the joke hysterical', and 'Three items or less' at a supermarket. Countable nouns take 'fewer', not 'less'. Shame on you, Marks and Spencer