Thread: English can be a funny language

What about 'upside the head'. What the hell is that? Alright, already!!

Yeah, no, upside the head is grammatically correct and makes sense

[quote=silentC;520090]I actually doubt mishit is a word. quote]

Macquarie Australia's national dictionary, third edition 1998,
I'm stunned. Mishit - To hit faultily

Is it in there? This is what I get from their online version:

Macquarie Dictionary Online
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We could not find "mishit".

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My wife went to bingo last night and she told me she nearly won the jackpot.
I asked her how she "nearly won" and she said I was waiting for just one number to be called out but it didn't get called but if it had been called I would have won.
Is that the same as a near miss?

No John, that's called bad luck

I found mis-hit, so I guess it must be a word:

The Macquarie Dictionary

mis-hit
// (say mis-'hit) verb, // (say 'mis-hit) noun Cricket, Golf, Tennis, etc.
--verb (t) 1. to hit (the ball) faultily, as when batting.
--verb (i) 2. to make a faulty stroke.
--noun 3. a faulty stroke.

Reminds me of the Blackadder episode Ink and Incapability.

Still stunned by this apparent usurption of proper english by the vernacular.
I offer mny most hearty contrafibularities.

Well, they don't call it the living language for nothing. My English teacher Mr Gilmour would turn in his grave. If he was dead. In fact I reckon if he saw that entry in Macquarie dictionary, he would say "Lord, take me now!". The he would turn in his grave...

I suppose if people use a word enough, it eventually passes into legitimate usage. And as long as we have people like Macquarie running around rewriting history (and let's face it, they have to sell dictionaries) then it will never end.

It should have stopped with Samuel Johnson:

When I took the first survey of my undertaking, I found our speech copious without order, and energetick without rules: wherever I turned my view, there was perplexity to be disentangled, and confusion to be regulated; choice was to be made out of boundless variety, without any established principle of selection; adulterations were to be detected, without a settled test of purity; and modes of expression to be rejected or received, without the suffrages of any writers of classical reputation or acknowledged authority.

Also in the Chambers dictionary. Sorry pic is not too clear

How old is your Chambers? It's not in my copy.

It's not in my copy of Websters either. So we know it wasn't in common use back in 1894

The edition I have was published in 1998

Originally Posted by silentC

So does the OED list mishit specifically?

Yes...(on-line version).

mishit, n.

Sport (orig. Cricket).

A faulty, mistimed, or misdirected stroke or shot. 1882 Australians in Eng. 25 He made two mishits which fell harmless. 1898 Westm. Gaz. I Jan. 5/1 Caught at mid-off by Hirst, off a mis-hit. 1928 Daily Tel. 11 May 18/1 Lyon has never played a better innings... I did not notice that he made even a mis-hit. 1963 Times 11 June 4/6 Bear's bold effort ended in a mishit to leg slip. 1991 Golf for Women Apr. 86/2 Designed with perimeter weighting to correct mis-hits, these clubs are available in right-hand or left-hand models.

mishit, v.

Sport (orig. Cricket).

trans. To hit or kick (a ball) in an unintentional manner or direction; (also) to strike a delivery from (a bowler, etc.) in this way; to misplay or mistime (a shot, stroke, etc.).

And, under "special uses" definition of "near":

"In the sense ‘situated nearby’, ‘within close proximity’"... near miss, (a) a shot that only just misses a target; also in extended use; (b) a situation in which a collision is narrowly avoided.

Originally Posted by silentC

It should have stopped with Samuel Johnson:

He must have written that while he was having his pendigestatory interludicule

I might have known. Just another example of journalists inventing a word. Show me a citation from a proper literary source, like Shakespeare, and I'll accept it.

Herbert Coleridge would be horrified! Sports commentators defining the language. What next?