I may watch too much television

[slemslempike]

[Poll #1084483]

I think the main thing that would make teaching immeasurably better is if the students didn't. to a woman, have much better skin than me. I demand a return to spotty eighteen year olds!

When I was younger and watching Fist of Fun on TV, I thought Stewart Lee was the most beautiful man who ever lived. Then a few years later, watching This Morning With Richard Not Judy, I still liked him (obviously) but decided that it must have been a childish infatuation and he was perfectly normal looking. In the last few weeks I watched the FoF live video, and I wasn't wrong, I wasn't. He was heavenly.

Comments

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

Is confronting so wrong? Damn, I never know which words I should be getting annoyed by.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to imply that it was wrong! It's just that I'd only ever come across it on Australian television (until wonderlanded said it quite recently), and wondered if it had passed me by entirely and it was used in other versions of English as well, or if it was in fact a very Australian construction. And so far it seems that it is very Australian. Interesting!

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, really? That is very interesting indeed! I love discovering funny little linguistic quirks of which I was previously unaware.

[wonderlanded.livejournal.com]

I was unaware, too! I can't think of a real synonym for it in that sense, either. Useful word, really.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

whatho's asked in the poll about "confrontational" and whether it's the same function. As I have only recently become aware of the word, I don't know. It feels slightly different, that confrontational might be about describing an encounter with another person, but confronting is maybe about how it makes you address things? I'm babbling now, but it's all very interesting.

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

And also, I can accept that it is bad and wrong, but have people really not heard it? I thought it was fairly standard fare for arts review type programmes.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I will admit to not watching very many review type programmes, so I don't know if it is in fact staple fare on Newsnight Review and the like. I think I first heard it on The Glass House, and a few times on Rove, which aren't shown here. When it starts being used on Neighbours we shall see a change!

[lsugaralmond.livejournal.com]

I can verify that I have never, until slemslempike put it in her poll, heard of 'confronting' being used in this manner.

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

Good lord! My mind is officially blown.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

The first time I heard it I thought it might be a mistake on the part of the speaker, but then it kept cropping up so I realised not. I quite like it, I think, though I don't think I'd use it myself.

I suppose you might not be able to answer this, as you didn't know it wasn't widespread until your MIND was BLOWN, but does it have any particular connotations? Are there situations that you'd use it for but not others?

[tabouli.livejournal.com]

(joins yiskah in the Blown Mind Brigade)

As a user (of Australian English), I too am astonished to hear that we really do have some words of our very own which are in everyday, non-slang usage. How, er, confronting. Heh.

I agree with commenters here that "challenging", "unsettling" and "outside one's comfort zone" are roughly what "confronting" means, but I don't the connotations have to be negative. Sure, "confronting" *can* be used as a euphemism for "shocking" or "immoral" or "unpleasant", but it needn't be. Often it's a way of implying that the status quo is limited and insular and the "confronting" thing or artwork or whatever is is providing a necessary catalyst for broading people's minds and shocking them out of complacency.

[webofevil.livejournal.com]

> I can verify that I have never, until slemslempike put it in her poll, heard of 'confronting' being used in this manner.

Me neither.

[badbadbookworm.livejournal.com]

Option five: Kill it with fire. I'm clawing my own eyes out here.

[wonderlanded.livejournal.com]

Whereas it took me at least two years of living here not to have the same reaction to the British pronunciation of "forehead", "yoghurt" and "vitamin".

[cellardor.livejournal.com]

Please describe to me how you would pronounce those. How can forehead be pronounced any other way? Am intrigued. :)

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Forr-ed?

[cellardor.livejournal.com]

But that's how I would pronounce it. Only posh people say for-head...don't they?

[wonderlanded.livejournal.com]

Forehead is really the weird one for me. For Australians, it basically rhymes with "horrid" if the word was spelt "horred". Think it was an earlier pronunciation from some parts of the UK that changed here but not in Australia.

Yoghurt is YO (the first half of yo-yo)-ghurt.

And vitamin is VIE-ta-min.

Autre pays, etc...

[cellardor.livejournal.com]

That's closer to the way I would say it if I was in Yorkshire I suppose (the forehead one).

The yogurt and vitamin sound like the American way I think.

[badbadbookworm.livejournal.com]

But we INVENTED foreheads, yoghurt and vitamins. (Ok, we didn't, but you know what I mean).

[wonderlanded.livejournal.com]

And we invented a very useful usage of "confronting". So, there we go.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Option five to what? The question's about whether or not you've heard the word used before, not people's reactions to it!

I quite like it myself though. As wonderlanded's helpfully pointed out above, it doesn't fulfill the same function as confrontational, and when I've heard it used it's not in a situation where I can easily think of a synonym. And I'm all for increasing vocabulary - though as a descriptive grammarian rather than prescriptive (...most of the time...) I would say that.

[badbadbookworm.livejournal.com]

Nyeah...I TRY to be descriptive not proscriptive, and I'm forever lecturing my dad about assimilation being the greatest strength of the English language, but certain neologisms make me want to go and have a little lie down.

Sorry to invade your LJ, by the way, I just thought this looked like an interesting thread.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

Not at all - all welcome! And it's nice to have all views.

Yes, a more accurate description of my stance is "trying" as well - I do have my blind spots of rage. But I think because I see confronting as filling a gap that no other word adequately covers, and not taking away from anything, I'm okay with it.

[sangerin.livejournal.com]

I find it interesting (although not conclusive of anything) that there is a direct correlation between "perfectly normal term" and "have lived in Australia".