I usually don't like hearing Brits use American slang like "Cool" or "Take a chill pill, man," mostly 'cause they sound stupid when they attempt to emulate us.
So I was interested in the editor of a London paper, the Times, getting into trouble because she wrote "You do the math." (British people say 'maths', not 'math' but it wouldn't have been the right expression if she wrote 'do the maths.' Cliches have to stay intact!)
She says:
"A little voice in my head said: 'No! Don't do it! Put the 's' on math or you'll set them all off again about Americanisms!'
...sure enough, in poured the howls of outrage.
Times readers want to keep that paper pure, and not have it filled with Americanisms. It's too late for the Times anyway as it's a Murdoch paper now so standards have slipped.
3 comments:
Agreed re the Murdochisation of the Ragformerlyknownasthetimes, but 'math' - no thank you very much indeed. Sod the integrity of the cliche. I'm still furious about the almost-extinct diphthong in fœtal, and the probable loss after that of fæces, gynæcology and pædiatrics. Or indeed of the diphthong altogether.
Ha ha, Martin, thanks for my laugh of the morning. x
huh?
Correct English would be "you do the sums" or "you add it up".
"Do the math" doesn't come under popular cliche, but under quote. It's like Yogi Berra, all over your picnic basket again.
It is simply incorrect grammar to use a definite article with a specifically indefinite noun.
However, usage of deliberate mistakes create a disjunctive aural impact which makes an excellent vulgar declamation suited to lyric forms of sociolect by implying a delimited form of relationship between the two people, or possibly also as an imperative form (though that would depend upon additional emphasis being placed on the verb).
Nonetheless, not a phrase for a professional situation and definitely not a one-way context.
Love to know who the line is attributable to though.
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