Use and abuse. Oh, and prejudice

The trouble is that ‘pan out’ has another, perfectly legitimate, meaning and people get confused, particularly if language isn’t their first language.

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I have never heard anyone wonder how a situation is going to pan in.

Yet.

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Another word that’s being abused is “under”.

Under my watch instead of on my watch.
Under oath instead of on oath.

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BBC News headline: ‘Where are we at with covid?’

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That’s related to the Bristolian I heard in a thick fog asking her friend “Where’s us to now then?”

(The answer was “Dingles”.) (When I first encountered it that department store was called “Jolly’s”. It’s just another House of Fraser now.)

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Woman seeing a Berenese Mountain dog 5 month old puppy
What a beautiful wee puppy!
The pre pubescent child teaching the puppy manners was disgusted

I had a furfle a lick and a sit and a paw

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What has that to do with English usage? I think you meant it to be in the cellar.

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Meanwhile, the BBC is a happy (?) hunting ground. I have been told today that although people are now allowed to go to America for holidays, “wearing a mask all the way across the Atlantic can be a bit overbearing.”

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I thought the use of ‘wee’ for a puppy that is probably the size of a Shetland pony (although also much nicer than a Shetland pony) was being highlighted.

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i’m still pondering the ‘drive-through’ movies (soz) at Lower Loxley. What Ambridge needs, imo, is a few drive-in shootings.

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As Gus said describing a BMD as WEE is a bit wrong

This pup came up to my hips and was correctly long and well made to match its height so decidedly not wee or small or diminutive in any way

I wanted to dognap it but the well mannered child was too attached to it

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I see.

I dislike “wee” regardless, whatever it is applied to, if I am honest. It’s the child’s-word for urination.

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Fair enough - but it is very common here to describe anything small

You would hate the calling of a child “a pure wee dote”
And as for “a small wee biteen” of something the less said the better

Irish English has many foibles

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Any child with spirit would at that point produce a small wee bite.

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Oh dear. I don’t do it on purpose to annoy. Honest.

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I wince but say nothing…

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< shrivel, shrivel >

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I’ve lost half of my identity.
So x

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The latter usage is but a presumptuous upstart - 1930s, according to Chambers. As “small” it derives from Anglo-Saxon waeg, “weight”

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And anyway, children should be taught to say ‘piss’, when that is what is meant. Mealy-mouthedness serves no one, and upsetting the genteel is a bonus and a public good.

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