Sunday 29 July 2012

Words and Phrases and Olympics Inspired Excrescences

I'd managed to forget 'medalled', such a loathsome usage, but, having just seen it on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's site, I'm shuddering all over again.

'We've medalled plenty of times in this blue-riband event ...' the ABC tells us, (something to do with rowing, in this instance, I think).

Blistering barnacles, to quote Captain Haddock - 'medalled'? Eeeergh, ugh, gneaeuu, yuk, triple yuk.

I don't know if this usage is confined to Australian commentators - if it is, I hope it does not escape our shores. Unfortunately though, our usages - eg 'uni' - have a disturbing habit of spreading. So, if 'medalling' heads your way, please, please, please, just stamp it firmly out.

5 comments:

  1. I'm too busy fuming at the use of 'Team GB' - almost as ugly as 'Brits'.

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    1. I was told as a kid that if a car had a numberplate prefaced by GB it meant "Getting Better".

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    2. Steerforth - completely agree on both counts. Awful sort of manufactured matiness about each of them.
      Denis - In Hungary the diplomatic numberplates began DT, which the German ambassador reckoned meant 'Darf trinken'

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  2. "Phelps Fails to Medal" appears in a sub-headline on the first sports page of today's Washington Post.

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    Replies
    1. Ugh - it begins to look as if it was you rather than us who invented it.

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