Quick Question for Americans

[blamebrampton]

I have a usage question, fingers crossed there are a couple of people ambling by who can answer it.

I know that the use of 'I could care less' for 'I couldn't care less' is regional in the US (it's confusing to the rest of us, but once you know it exists and isn't an ironic turning of the phrase, it's easily understood, so no wuckers (as about 11 Australians still say).)

HOWEVER, I see an enormous amount of 'That's such a cliché ending,' but I don't know whether that's US standard, like aluminum*, or US regional like could care less.

Help!


* I'd say it was all Noah Webster's fault, which it pretty much is, but Humphry Davy started the whole palaver. I read an hilarious blog about ten years ago with a British scientist ranting about the fact that the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry's ruling in favour of aluminium was broadly ignored in the US. 'Fine!' he wrote. 'In that case, Sulphur! SULPHUR! Phuck you all!'

Comments

[azurelunatic]

My hobby is setting on fire the writing of people who use "cliché" where it should be "clichéd". I was also raised by a grammar fanatic, in Alaska. It may be regionally accepted, but that doesn't make it right.

[bryoneybrynn.livejournal.com]

Not much help as Canadian, but up here we say cliched (pretend there's an accent there). Although, it depends on the sentence structure. While I would say "That's such a cliched ending," I would also say, "That ending was so cliche." So I'm super not helpful! lol

Also, hi!

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Hello! I was just thinking of you due to comment answering ;-) Well, I was just limping around the market looking at all the stalls that weren't there because of the weather, but in general ... and thank you, helpful stuff!

[napchic.livejournal.com]

"I would also say, "That ending was so cliche."

Exactly this!
*makes vague pointy hand motion*

Also, by some miracle... because we U.S. southerners don't speak English as much as we speak something I like to call 'Merican...
Sorry, I digress.

By some miracle, most people I hear around these parts manage to say,
"I couldn't care less."

Although, more often you'll hear,
"I ownt givafuck. Now shut yer ass up."

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

And now I have to answer you like a much kookier person than I like to be, because I both agree totally and totally disagree.

The grammarian in me, who is driven by functional grammar and can tell you at great length why proscriptive rulings have often been historically mad, says, 'Oh, what's right is what's used and understood, and this one has such wide usage it has to go in the acceptable basket.'

But the rest of me is with you in the 'FFS, it's ONE extra letter and no extra syllables!' camp ;-)

It's probably not laziness, though – it looks like it's another holdover from French, which the US adheres to in loan words much more strongly than British English, especially in pronunciation. Aside from the occasional periods of Freedom Fries craziness, you've always had a strong Francophile bent in the US, language-wise at least. You wild sophisticates!

[azurelunatic]

My inner descriptivist and inner prescriptivist have monthly pitched battles. Heh.

And it's one keyboard standard letter! (é is a good friend of mine, but I am understanding when people find it difficult to express letters which are not on their region's default keyboards. However, when I met the large iron directional sign at work which read Cafe', there were words exchanged with the department responsible for arranging for expensive permanent signs without grammar checking.)

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I hear you! I find myself having to exchange brains depending on whether I am upholding style guide at work, beta-ing in fandom, or writing on words or grammar for mags, books or text books. No wonder I'm increasingly unable to find my sunglasses!

But there's no excuse for Cafe'. Unless they really wanted to give everyone a laugh ;-)

[inamac.livejournal.com]

Oh I dunno. Maybe they thought it was short for 'cafeteria' and shoved in an apostrophe to replace the missing word end?

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

It confused me SO MUCH the first time I heard it because I didn't know if it was
i. a mistake, like 'If you think that you've got another thing coming', which falls into common use because it sounds OK;
ii. a perfectly acceptable variant based on regional usage, or;
iii. a cheerfully ironic use of the phrase in the way people sometimes say 'cheap at half the price' meaning much too expensive rather than getting cheap at twice the price backwards.

And I am easily confused, due to having too many Englishes in my head at the best of times!

We've all got weird local things, though. Australians run words together in different ways than I'm used to, and I still have SE English constructions that make people look at me blankly. I told Mr B "You go through these lights and take the following left" and he not only missed it but ranted, '"What's a following left? Why would it be following me? If it's following, how can it be coming up?!" I should add that he is a giant bumhead sometimes.

[kath-ballantyne.livejournal.com]

*blinks* I know I also came from SE England but I don't think I know anyone here who wouldn't get the following left thing. No one I've given instructions has had any problem with that. They have had problems with me mixing up right and left etc but that's a different thing entirely.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

He is from Queensland and Newcastle ...

I thought it was fair enough that he was confused by it, but wasn't willing to grant that it was inherently hard. And he had lulled me into complacency by having the right next for next Saturday and so on!

[khalulu]

It took me a moment to see what your question was, which tells me cliché as an adjective (in place of clichéd) seems like a common or acceptable variant to me. Cliché originated as a French past participle, after all (from the verb clicher, to stereotype, Google Translate informs me), and could be considered to be borrowed as such for use as an adjective, similar to passé. So I guess it is common in the US but not universal nor universally accepted.

Here's an article that might be of interest, with an Ngram of "so cliché" vs "so clichéd" usage. http://throwgrammarfromthetrain.blogspot.com/2011/09/thats-so-cliched.html

Here's a post from someone who apparently writes a blog about grammar, which uses both forms apparently without noticing! (Compare 2nd and final paragraphs) http://www.grammarly.com/blog/2014/stay-away-from-these-5-cliche-endings/

ETA: I see you brought up the French part while I was composing my answer!

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

HEE! But it's a terrific answer, thank you for it. Good articles, too. It's so hard getting your head around an English you don't use regularly. I have read any number of people on LJ saying 'We say cliche ending' and Ben Yagoda saying the same thing in a more scholarly way, but then it occurred to me that it was likely that it wasn't universal, because even in Britglish there were years of debate of whether to hold the French or Anglicised form as accurate.

Luckily for me, I have lots of clever friends!

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

Yes butt...the French, I mean the real liff people peopling the country presently run (by bicycle) on that name and so on will say things like c'est pas terrible' which is a wild form of negation because it's gone all the way from first negating what it was meaning (terrible as in terrible) to becoming it's opposite as in marblellous and then, now as I sit here, I will use it to explain how something really isn't that great meaning not terrible either but closing in only to land in a big heap of bodies, bicycles (that did not keep Inside their proper lane I here refer to your very own Eurovision reporting and the Tour de France at the same time) and energy drinks for douchebags because I felt this urgent, irritating need to say. As if I ever would. Anyway I love sports on TV what with my sportswomanship attitude not that surprising even if pas terrible at those I indulge in like 'walking, walking' as in that song by Flash&the Pun, you know. I can't decide on suitable icon but think I'll go with this one, now!

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

HEE! TDF and Eurovision would make THE BEST CROSSOVER EVER!

Superb icon, and let us not speak of French: I recently downloaded an app to go over basic grammar, only to learn that I remember none. Alas!

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

It's an idea. On le 14 Juillet! Just do it, Aussy...

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Joyeux Quatorze Juillet!

I was searching desperately for a moi aussi joke, but it is far too late here.

[khalulu]

ETA again - I'm not sure that among American speakers it breaks along regional lines. It may be some other sociolinguistic variable, including time/age. For what it's worth, I was raised in the northeast and have lived in the northwest for a long time.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

That's looking increasingly likely, may well be age/exposure to internet. I find rational punctuation is slowly wending its way into the hearts of many young Americans on the net, through the net's common use of it as a style. Cliché/d may well be working similarly, with the d coming in from people who have more focus on British, Aussie or Kiwi texts.

[josephinestone.livejournal.com]

I have never heard or seen clichéd in my life. Only cliché. I had no idea you could put the d on the end. If its regional: mid-west and Texas.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

It's true!

I had the same thing with furor without an E; I knew the American pronunciation, but assumed it was still spelled like the Australian (same pron, spelled furore) because I had only ever heard it spoken. I remember looking at the word fur-or in print and drawing a complete blank, until about two pages later, my brain went 'DER!'

[karinmollberg.livejournal.com]

Much as I love that last sentence, may I recommend to put this Q. up at linguaphiles where you have thousands of speakers of the most various local forms of Engrish on whose advice you may choose to rely or not, though some will deny the very existence of such easy readymade distinctions as 'British English' and 'American English', insisting there is only one Real English namely their own but there is most often such an amount of input to Q.s that you could pick and choose your very own dialect such as I do with Mollberg Speak for instance (the best there is to day ) and by introducing it to the world, the latter has improved so much, notwithstandingly, I mean.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

But I will get SENSIBLE answers there with impassioned arguments! I like flippant answers with funny anecdotes ;-) (Thank you for the link, though, it looks tremendous.)

Molberg Speak is one of my favourites!

[divertazsc.livejournal.com]

Southerners hardly ever used cliched, we always say "that's such a cliche". But we don't really speak like anyone else in the country. Correct grammar is an anomaly in the deep south.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

But you have such attractive accents that perfect grammar would be wasted, and would only ruin the languid cadences.

[ozdobe.livejournal.com]

How about toilets? Mens and Womens. There is a lot of money invested in those signs.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I have a friend, who has taken more steps down the subeditorial path of madness than I, who carries a pen to insert apostrophes in exactly those signs.

(I confess I carry a similar pen, but I use it to draw business suits on women who are patially clad in poster adverts for no reason.)

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

Second-generation Californian here, and I had to click through to the comments to figure out what you thought was odd about "That's such a cliché ending."

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't say odd, but I would say divergent usage ;-)

Funnily enough, I seem to recall that Britglish orginally used the French form, too and there was debate in the UK when it was Anglicised. I shoudl probably look that up, but it requires free time.

[incandescent.livejournal.com]

Here on the East Coast, it's "I couldn't care less".

"That's so cliche" or "That's such a cliche ending" is not as frequently used. The former more in my area than the latter. It does tend to have a snobby, West Coast kind of vibe to it. So if you say it, prepare to pile on the disdain. :)

[incandescent.livejournal.com]

Oh man, see above. Pffft. (Not that it's actually snobby, but that's the impression that is generally received over here.)

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Hee! And yeah, I know lots of Americans who say "I couldn't care less", so I felt confident saying that one wasn't universal.

My ideas of snobby West Coast have been entirely formed by one of my Mum's exes from Marin (is it Marin County? It's been too long ...) who judged everyone she met by income and interior decorator. I have never met anyone who owned so much taupe ;-)

[auntpurl.livejournal.com]

In Philadelphia, it's cliché - never clichéd that I've seen/heard. And I had to make an adjustment when I moved to London because the American pronunciation follows the French - with the accent at the end of the word. The Brits saying CLEE-shay really confused me. :)

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

We do it to annoy Americans, French and Italians, you know ;-)

[auntpurl.livejournal.com]

I KNEW IT!

[noeon.livejournal.com]

This post is very fun to witness. *smiles and waves like a lexicographic loon*