Cop, spot, score, hop and bash

Right I've got to say something about this because I've been listening to the Australians using these words for the whole seven months of my incarceration in this penal colony (and what was my crime? Sloping off work to paint my front door hardly counts and anyway, it was years ago), and in changing the way we use them they are bastardising our mother tongue, just like those nasty Yanks, which is a bit of cheek from a bunch of bloody colonials who ought really to be practising the Queen's English in every mirror they pass.

First up, there's cop and it's not that they're using it wrongly, just using it so frequently that it's taking the place of other words and sentences that would be more correct, such as "Sydney's copping more rain" spoken by a television newsreader who ought to know better.

Secondly there's spot, which they are using in place of space, place, appointment and slot. So it's a parking spot and a spot in the diary and the most annoying thing of all is that I've started using it myself.

Thirdly there's score and now we're in the territory of blatant mis-use because the Aussies don't buy a new car, they score a new car, just like they score a sandwich at Subway, which irritates Darren beyond belief.

Next there's hop; another one I'm guilty of. The Aussies hop up onto the stepper at the gym and they hop onto a plane and hop off a train but the most annoying of the lot is when they say "I hopped up this morning at about half seven" (though perhaps I'm just jealous because I have to hop up an hour earlier).

The last one is bash and this one is just comical because they don't say someone got beaten up or attacked or set upon by a group of youths, they say they got a bashing or got bashed and it's used all the time by the newsreaders, who once again ought to know better.

Anyway, I feel better after that but I'll still be drafting a report to the Queen's representative down under (who I suspect might be Barry Humphries in drag) with all of my findings sometime before now and the end of January.

A Word of Note

This post is at least partly tongue in cheek. As a linguist, I realise that language is an ever-changing and evolving medium and that to stifle it's creativity is to prevent it's divergence, which is akin to promoting a stalinist regime (like, for example, those misguided academics at the Academie Francaise who sit at big shiny tables thinking up ways to prevent the divergence of French).

So, no, I am not a communist (though I do wish I was a columnist, a spot currently filled by much more important people like India Knight).