Assume v. Presume

[MikeSh]

Me myself I ... loved that song in the day

 

[Black Hole]

That's a pretty good ego you have there.

 

[Black Hole]

McDonald's UK TV advert: "Can I get..."

Aarrrggghhhhh!!!!!!

 

[MikeSh]

"Can I get..."

Did we not give that one an airing a few months ago?

 

[Black Hole]

Yes. But you would have thought they had learned something from our discussion.

 

[EEPhil]

Yes. But you would have thought they had learned something from our discussion.

That's a pretty good ego you have there.

You really expect (or is it anticipate) that McD or their advertising agency read this discussion? Assuming (or presuming) they can read, would they be humble enough to learn anything from us?

 

[Black Hole]

I'm not sure I blame McD ( or their advertising agency). The problem is the British public so willing to adopt US expressions. I do blame McD for propagating it though.

Ye Gods! I had no idea smilies could be written backwards. Thus:

(: =

 

[Trev]

Just plain sloppy. But is that people's use of English or McD's food? (Both?)

 

[antipodean]

Obviously wrong in that instance, but "commence with" isn't universally inappropriate, whereas "mitigate against" always is. Your example is what I describe as overly grandiose - "begin" would have been sufficient, but people like to sound important by using more syllables than is necessary.

I don't altogether agree with you. You mitigate against a flat tyre on your car by carrying a spare tyre, but that is not a mitigation if you run out of fuel.

You can mitigate against specific things happening, and not mitigate against other things happening.

Agree about 'commence with' ...

 

[Black Hole]

I don't altogether agree with you. You mitigate against a flat tyre on your car by carrying a spare tyre, but that is not a mitigation if you run out of fuel.

No no - that's not what mitigate means. One mitigates the undesirable consequences of a flat tyre by carrying a spare wheel. The mistake you are making is why "mitigate against" has become common.

 

[prpr]

This is the same argument as "revert back". Some (ignorant) people claim (wrongly) that you can revert forward.

 

[Black Hole]

Somebody actually used mitigate correctly on the radio today!

What's the opposite: Aggravate? Militate?

 

[raydon]

exacerbate ?

 

[BMAX]

Back in the day when I had to work for a living, I used to prepare what I thought of as Compliance Statements, as the engineering response to customer's Requirement Specifications. Our marketing department called them Compliancy Statements. I never did determine who was right!

 

[Trev]

I would have thought that compliance was a black and white thing. Either it does or it doesn't comply, whilst compliancy indicates a degree of compliance, i.e. which bits comply and which bits don't.
As you were writing something that said whether it complies or not, I would have used 'compliance', but if you were indicating that some aspects complied and some didn't, then it would be a compliancy statement. Perhaps that's why others called it 'compliancy' to cover all bases.
But what do I know?

 

[Black Hole]

Try it out the other way around: Statement of Compliance/Compliancy

 

[Trev]

Yeah, I did that. Now what?

 

[Black Hole]

Seems obvious to me: Statement of Compliancy doesn't make sense.

 

[Black Hole]

Come to think of it, in my place we referred to "conformity".

 

[BMAX]

Seems obvious to me: Statement of Compliancy doesn't make sense.

My thoughts exactly.