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Coronated

G

Gill

Nordic Pine
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I keep hearing media experts and even journalists talking about Andy Burnham being ‘coronated’ as PM if he wins the Makerfield by-election. Apparently it’s in the Oxford English Dictionary but I still think ‘crowned’ is the word they should be using. Am I alone in finding this incredibly irritating?
 
A quick search found the following

1. Royal Monarchs
In a literal sense, it describes the public act or ceremony of installing a new king or queen. [1, 2]
  • Example: "King Charles was coronated at Westminster Abbey."
  • Note: While widely used, traditional language experts and dictionaries prefer the verb "to crown," as "coronated" is a recent backward-formation from the noun "coronation". [1, 2]

2. Metaphorical Use
It is frequently used figuratively in politics or sports to describe someone who is chosen or designated as the undisputed leader or victor, often without a formal election or challenge. [1, 2]
  • Example: "After winning the first three primary races, the candidate was practically coronated as the party's nominee."
 
It's crowned, for goodness sake. We certainly have coronations, but monarchs are crowned. Obviously, it's the fault of the American destruction of our language! Phil's example shows that, as it refers to US primary elections. Carruthers has passed out on the floor, suffering from an apoplectic fit. Much as he'd like to, he can't flog every American with stinging nettles, no matter how much their behaviour demands it.
 
Poor Carruthers would be equally horrified to see what is happening to the english language here, where, for example, the plural of sandwich (le sandwich) becomes les sandwichs.
 
Mike G said:
Yep, that makes my point. That's an American dictionary......so it's full of makey-uppie words and mis-spellings. :)
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To be fair, 1623 was rather a long time before the first American dictionary was even written (1806 I think).

The OED agrees with the 1623 date & puts it as being from an Englishman:

https://www.oed.com/dictionary/coronate_v?tl=true
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cockeram

(I also hate the word but then I'm a grumpy so-and-so who also disliked @AndyP's "I do not disagree" as an alternative to "I agree" :) )
 
Long live Gower's "Complete plain words". Most excellent tome. Explicatory, concise, appropriate, grammatically correct.

That said, neologisms have long been acceptable; try Alice in Wonderland for example. But the grammatical travesties served up betimes? Yuk.
 
I’m happy to play along with semantics here. To me, who left school at 16 with a bare minimum of an O level in english, “I do not disagree” and “I agree” do not mean the same thing at all.
“I do not disagree” implies a qualification to the agreement.

It is probably just as well the english language is alive and fluid and based on common usage rather than strict rules or we would all be speaking the language of Austen or Shakespeare.

I can clearly remember a game of scrabble, Christmas 1991 (the first Christmas my soon to be wife spent with my family). My father refused to accepted the word GAYS plural of the noun GAY and he pulled out a 1930’s dictionary to prove it was only an adjective. Language evolves and we should embrace it.

Now it is time for me to boldly go and crawl back under my rock.
 
Gill said:
I keep hearing media experts and even journalists talking about Andy Burnham being ‘coronated’ as PM if he wins the Makerfield by-election. Apparently it’s in the Oxford English Dictionary but I still think ‘crowned’ is the word they should be using. Am I alone in finding this incredibly irritating?
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Only if applied to chicken
 
As an aside to this I spend a couple of hours a week trying to help some locals with their conversational english. Last night we started discussing the difference between To Hire and To Rent the usage and definitions of which depend entirely on which side of the Atlantic one reside in.
 
The ubiquitous Suzy Dent was on the radio yesterday saying that most of what old fuddy duddies like Carruthers moan about as Americanisation of the mother tongue, is in fact almost invariably derived from old english. I was only half listening as I prefer Rachel to Suzy, but one example given was "gotten" which many people appear to hate, blaming America for it. Apparently it's old / middle english derived from Norse "geta" and pops up in spokeshave and other dusty texts including Chaucer. Oddly we don't mind the sound of it in "forgotten".
 
Americans(such as my wife) also use "bring" when they mean "take". I gave up attempting to explain the difference years ago, but have since noticed that it's also a thing in Irish. Irish literature, at any rate.
 
I think Dr Geoff Lindsey has some interesting things to say on these subjects.

Here’s a bit discussing historical use of “gotten” in UK and US:

Suggests “gotten” fell out of favour on both sides of Atlantic until a late 19th C resurgence in the States and an internet age revival in the UK.


Link to channel:

Link to “start” of video:

Another interesting video to rile Carruthers:
 
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AJB Temple said:
The ubiquitous Suzy Dent was on the radio yesterday saying that most of what old fuddy duddies like Carruthers moan about as Americanisation of the mother tongue, is in fact almost invariably derived from old english. I was only half listening as I prefer Rachel to Suzy, but one example given was "gotten" which many people appear to hate, blaming America for it. Apparently it's old / middle english derived from Norse "geta" and pops up in spokeshave and other dusty texts including Chaucer. Oddly we don't mind the sound of it in "forgotten".
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People also rant endlessly about "ize," being an Americanism, when my 40 year old Collins English Dictionary has it as the preferred suffix in most cases. I blame Bill Gates.
 
Thankyou to Adrian and John for the above posts. The comments raised were going to be my next lines of defence, or defense.
 
AJB Temple said:
The ubiquitous Suzy Dent was on the radio yesterday saying that most of what old fuddy duddies like Carruthers moan about as Americanisation of the mother tongue, is in fact almost invariably derived from old english.....
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That was from the days before printing, when any spelling would do. Shakespeare spelt his own name how many different ways? Since then, we became civilised and educated, and rules are rules, dammit. :)
 
Mike G said:
That was from the days before printing, when any spelling would do. Shakespeare spelt his own name how many different ways? Since then, we became civilised and educated, and rules are rules, dammit. :)
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That's the problem though Mike, the rules were/are arbitrarily determined by some random at some point nobody can remember and aren't documented, as is proved by the many different sources, Dictionaries etc., of truth...

Suzy is the preeminent source on this subject so Carruthers may dislike it, but until he can produce credentials that surpass Suzy's to enable him to be coronated over her then he just needs to suck it up! I bet he hates that phrase too! 😉🤣

PS Yes I used coronated just to irk Carruthers.
 
I think there is scope for language to evolve. Some neologisms are needed development, some enrich, some may be just a resurgence of an old alternative. But some are ugly and unnecessary; "leveraging" - can't we just use or exploit something anymore ? I've heard something like "de-planeing" on some US airlines for "leaving the plane". Some are just plain uneducated mistakes ("Could of", "Should of") which should never become acceptable. I also think we need to defend "arse". It's not my ass. I don't own a donkey. Nor can you "not be asked", you can always be asked, but maybe you just can't be arsed to respond.
 
when I look at the scientific name for a donkey it is not hard to see ( or should I say easy ) where the reference to one's rear end comes from;
equus africanus asinus.
 
I'm a staunch defender of the English language and correct grammar, but I have been challenged and prepared to change my mind on the odd occasion.

One thing I will never change my stance on is punctuation! I discuss this with my kids regularly when they ask me why I insist on typing my messages in the family WhatsApp chat in proper long form, with capitals and punctuation. For them (16 & 17 years old respectively) they see my use of capital letters in their correct place, and even more so FULL STOPS, as being overly aggressive! A full stop, aggressive!

They can't explain to me why, but their generation sees finishing with a full stop as a micro aggression, which I find ludicrous, and will not stop telling them so. They both have excellent grades in both English Language and Literature, and are far better than I at knowing the technical names for language terms (such as knowing their past participle from their conjunctions and adjectives) but actively choose that a full stop, to delineate sentences, is aggressive! They KNOW this stuff, use it correctly in school/college and 'official' written communications, but are actively choosing to bastardise it socially, Madness!

They'd rather send two separate messages with no full stop, than use a full stop in between sentences!

Where I have been surprised and potentially changed my view is on things like the phrase "You've got another thing coming!" My experience of that phrase is from youth and if I'd done something wrong then I'd get "...and if you think you're still staying out later after that behaviour then you've got another thing coming!".

A few years ago I saw people on social media using what I considered to be the wrong phrasing of "...another think coming!". I challenged it but the response I got back was that in their world it meant "...and if you 'think' you're still staying out later after that behaviour then you've got another 'think' coming!", so essentially saying "think again!".

When I heard that explanation I changed my view that it was outlandish and thought, well I still like my version but I understand the other version, and I don't know which is right, so I won't get annoyed by either, then I looked into it and a lot of sources say that 'think' is the original usage and 'thing' came later, so turns out I was probably wrong...
 
My father would you use that phase using think rather than thing so I agree with Tony. This would have been in my formative/errant years during the late 70s.
 
AndyP said:
you would love our family chats then Mark where one sentence can contain words in two languages normally using which word is quickest to type.
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If anyone complains in the future about "Chiglish" instructions on a power tool, I'm going to recommend them to you for help Andy!

On a wider note, it is reassuring and satisfying to see a debate on 'Henglish as hit is used' go almost full circle. I was a teacher for 37 years and precision, of the appropriate term first, then spelt correctly*, then contextually and gramatically correct, formed part of every marking scheme of every Education Authority exam I prepared schoolboys for.

*Most misspelt word in national science exams, as recorded by The Journal of Biology in over a decade of "howler" collections: "organism"...think about it.

I am also open to neologisms, as opposed to truncations and bastardisations of existing language; to wit, "textspeak". M8, C U L8r etc. Abominations wrought by the then limitations of the chips in communication hardware. P.C. chips used to limit file names to 8 symbols, but only certain symbols, you may remember?

Susie Dent? Most excellent and well-read person. Wickedly funny too; outshines - with consummate ease - that idiot Carr with whom she has often (unfortunately) been paired. Coronate Suzy!!
 
TrimTheKing said:
Yep agreed, but I don't know if regional interpretations come into play because everyone I've ever asked from around where I was brought up (Manchester) all agreed 'thing' was what they used.
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Yeah, it was "thing" where I grew up (Reading area, but my parents, who were probably my main source of hearing it, were from Hertfordshire/Dorset & Kent). My other half (from the Midlands) was used to "think", but in her family they call roundabouts "islands" so I discount most of her opinions on word choice (he says, ducking behind the sofa)
 
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