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It's been a while since we pedants shared our experiences of woeful English, gratuitous apostrophes and many other irritations. I thought a monthly slot would give us all the chance to share these with others. Two recent instances from me...

BBC Programme Listing Guide
A star-studded list of players are competing for....


Guardian Crossword Website
Since you're here... we have a small favour to ask.

I know 'since' meaning 'as' has become so commonly used it might well be regarded as the norm now. I've never liked it.

With all the tennis, football and cricket (there's always cricket) going on just now, I'm sure Forum/PU members will have examples of mixed metaphors, daft terminology and so on. Feel free to share.

Just read this, but won't embarrass the organisation that printed it ...

Due to the increasing new groups and established groups having to move venues, there is virtually NO free
venues to be had.

There was another singular/plural mismatch a few days ago. It's endless.

(And should be 'the increasing number of new groups ...')

Phil Neville has been criticized for saying his team went down to 10 men instead of women last nigh. It would have been all right if he had said 10 women but I understand why he said men, even though we are losing "man" in the sense of referring to people generally, as in mankind and human, so I don't think he was wrong. We talk about chessmen, even though there are two queens and maybe some of the bishops are female these days.

Orson

I agree with you. He was correct to say "10 men". The ladies cricket and hockey teams I play for use "man" and "men" e.g. "man of the match", "mark your men" "a man short", "we played against 10 men", batsman, "third man" etc. These are all terms used in the games and football is presumably the same, though I have never played it and hate watching it. To use "woman" or "player" would be ridiculous and I have never heard these words used when "man/men" could be.

Of course, we sometimes say "well played, girls" and so on, and here it would obviously be ridiculous to use "men". When I turn out for a "Men's cricket team", I expect to be included in the terms "lads" or "chaps" or whatever the men call themselves, and I always have been.

I suppose in chess, that rooks, being "birds" are also female!

Thanks, Steve, Orson and Grunger.


Although I'm ordinarily quite happy with the word 'man' in relation to mankind, humans and so on, I'd have thought Phil Neville's wording slightly odd if I'd heard him say it. He was talking specifically about his team, all women, so saying '10 men' sounds a little bit strange and a little bit wrong to me. I would make allowances though - all those years of saying 'we were down to 10 men' and 'things got tough when we lost a man' must be deeply etched into footballing people's brains. (I'm definitely not a footballing - playing or watching - person.)

A PS, Grunger, as I hadn't seen your second post.

I should stress that I'd have expected '10 women' as PN was speaking about such a specific happening. I don't find anything wrong with 'man of the match' , 'mark your men' etc in general. His '10 men' wouldn't have upset me, I'd have just thought it … slightly impolite really! (And maybe knowing nothing about football means that I know little about the terminology anyway.)

Thanks, grunger and malone for those respones. Women play cricket too, of course, and I wonder whether anyone fields at third woman when they do? I'm not trying to be facetious, I'm genuinely wondering. I know when boys play there's no third boy.

On another subject, I heard on Radio 4 today: "that could be awks", for awkward. Is that what they say in London these days? Or am I well behind the times in rural Shropshire?

Orson, I can't help with the cricket stuff … or football stuff … or rugby stuff.

Your 'awks' was interesting - dreadful, but interesting! I don't know if it's big city speak, teen- speak or what - but I expect it could be blamed on the increasing use of texts. There, abbreviations are the norm - and are usually awful. 'Laters', ' 'rents' (parents), 'simples' and so on. These could be obsolete by now, of course - I don't keep up with current trends.

Malone, Orson, Grunger & Steve,

I think football and cricket parlance is so entrenched that women playing either game would expect to hear `down to ten men` and ` Heather is fielding at third man` or `she`s twelfth man today`.

What annoys me more is when people ( nearly always men ) refer to women as `Guys`!

Tyke51, I too hate 'guys' - and it's not always 'guys' who say it! I was in a queue at an airport last month and a female employee yelled out, 'Right guys, we're forming two queues, would some of you move to the barrier at the left. Thanks, guys'. Grrrr!

It's much rarer - but was used on the Forum recently - but 'chaps' occasionally gets used too. I don't approve of that either.