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Post by Dave Miller on Dec 12, 2020 17:16:44 GMT
Well, I don’t think we can take the idea of catching a meteor too seriously, LJH! We’d have, somehow, to be high in the atmosphere, and quick enough to grab it, as it came in at some phenomenal speed! I’m sure the writer meant catch SIGHT of a meteor ...
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Post by Verbivore on Dec 12, 2020 22:19:06 GMT
Bored of? I’m sure we’ve discussed this previously; now here it is in a BBC headline. I can be bored by someone, or bored with something, but bored of? Have I been living under a rock all my life, or is bored of a phenomenon only of recent years?
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Post by Dave Miller on Dec 13, 2020 6:01:38 GMT
Bored of?
It’s something I hear quite often, though I don’t know how recent it is.
It doesn’t bother me, as there’s no semantic or grammatical objection: we can happily be “tired of” something (though would certainly not be “tired with” it). “Bored of” seems also to have a meaning closer to “bored by” than does “bored with”? I’m finding a VERY subtle difference, there, of course - something about the mental shape of the circumstance, whereby “bored of” suggests that the boredom results from the something, whereas “bored with” has hints of the something being alongside me, also in a state of boredom!
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Post by Verbivore on Dec 13, 2020 9:44:49 GMT
I'd never encountered bored of in Oz until it was introduced (IIRC) by imported shows and antisocial media, perhaps a decade ago at most.
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Post by Twoddle on Dec 13, 2020 11:11:51 GMT
The first time I encountered "bored of" was in the 1980s when I saw a computer game for sale called "Bored of the Rings", a title which I took to be a play on words. Since then the incidence of "bored of" seems to have increased significantly, even to the extent where, as Verbivore points out, the BBC's adopted it. It sounds incorrect to me, though I can't say why, and I definitely won't be using it.
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Post by Verbivore on Dec 13, 2020 11:59:25 GMT
[…] It sounds incorrect to me, though I can't say why, and I definitely won't be using it. Ditto, Twod.
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Post by Dave Miller on Dec 13, 2020 12:51:26 GMT
The choice of preposition seems to be just an idiomatic pattern:
Tired OF Bored WITH Exhausted BY
No logic to it - just “recognised pairings”?
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Dec 14, 2020 1:35:05 GMT
Bored of?
I’m sure we’ve discussed this previously; now here it is in a BBC headline.
I can be bored by someone, or bored with something, but bored of? Have I been living under a rock all my life, or is bored of a phenomenon only of recent years? I fear we will have to put up with this. I hear it from young people probably more than by or with but, in fairness to the BBC, I think they were quoting Professor Parkinson although I have always deprecated the use of “prof” instead of the full professor.
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Post by Twoddle on Dec 14, 2020 11:42:59 GMT
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Dec 14, 2020 12:29:01 GMT
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Post by Verbivore on Dec 14, 2020 22:19:29 GMT
Interesting, LJH. Thanks. According to that Ngram my year of birth, 1949, was close to the 20th century’s nadir for bored of (in British English). There appears to be no Australian corpus referenced. ![](//storage.proboards.com/1914611/thumbnailer/BbACTzY0iIOkWWHMgUDq.png) Searching for bored * (wildcard) brings up no reference to bored of in either British or American English. Is that weird or is it merely indicative of my unfamiliarity with using the Google Ngram feature? (I never use anything Google unless I get there through a VPN, because I do not trust Google / Alphabet with security matters. Consequently I occasionally miss out on something interesting or useful, but I can live with that – at least until Google reverts to its earlier motto of Don't be evil.) As the matter appears to be generational, I shall stay true to my Baby Boomer generation and eschew bored of. Here are the results for bored * (Brit Eng). Note absence of bored of. ![](//storage.proboards.com/1914611/thumbnailer/oLMixCShDgGzMngJ0mje.png)
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Post by Little Jack Horner on Dec 14, 2020 22:46:26 GMT
Board of directors ‼️
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Post by Dave Miller on Dec 14, 2020 22:57:49 GMT
I’m wondering quite why I’m so comfortable with the use of “bored of”. To me, bored “of”, “by” and “with” are all meaningful, but - against the patterns others are revealing here - I’d actually put them in that order, with “of” the most normal and “with” the oddest-sounding of the combinations. As with any idiomatic formation, what you hear most often is what you come to regard as standard. But how and why have I absorbed my pattern of preference? Yes, I worked for 25 years in a University, but had little conversational contact with the (typically much younger) students. My main sources of conversational English are books, radio/TV and the very occasional film.
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Post by Verbivore on Dec 14, 2020 23:15:49 GMT
LOL I've sat on a few boards of directors and been bored by them.
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Post by Verbivore on Dec 15, 2020 10:09:47 GMT
The importance of clear enunciation was demonstrated in a recent video I watched (I've lost the URL). The presenter was referring to his "bonus show" but it came out as "boner show" – to much merriment, mischief, and inevitable commentary by viewers. I'm surprised that YouTube didn't demonetise or delete the video, given how weird and random their disapprovals appear to be. A "boner show" would perhaps be more appropriate on Porn Hub (whatever that is – I wouldn't know, of course).
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