“Progress” is not a fucking verb!
Francis Sedgemore, Monday 12 January 2009
Despite what may be taught in management schools, “progress” (as ˈprəʊgrɛs, with the stress on the first syllable) is not a verb. It therefore grates on me to read letters from clueless officials that include such execrable prose as “I am writing to confirm that we are unable to progress an application from you at this time.”
The Leeds County Council adoption services manager reported today by the BBC to have penned this offending sentence could do with a lengthy spell in a reorientation camp for the educated but still functionally illiterate. And not just because of his most heinous crime against the grammar.
Feed the writer! 
Tuesday 13 January 2009 at 06:33 GMT
“Congress” could be a fucking verb though Francis ;-)
Tuesday 13 January 2009 at 07:49 GMT
No, it’s another fucking noun!
Wednesday 14 January 2009 at 01:19 GMT
Fucking is a verb. Sigh, grow up guys.
Wednesday 14 January 2009 at 01:56 GMT
What the fuck are you doing in fucking Ontario, outskirts of pedantry? They be a bit odd there (apart from Jim, that is!). In Ontarioland ’tis all car porn, waterfalls and stuff.
Wednesday 14 January 2009 at 02:10 GMT
Well then. I beg your pardon. I thought this whole post was on pedantry :P Okay, how about this, then:
http://www.stephenfry.com/media/audio/109/series-2-episode-3–language/
Wednesday 14 January 2009 at 02:22 GMT
My dear outskirts, if Master Fry were to suffer some tiresome minor local government official referring to an inability to “progress an application”, he would no doubt sit on him. Either that or talk bollocks until the miscreant could tolerate the erudite torture no more.
p.s., the log says you are scribbling from the Toronto burb of Brampton, famous for its winter lights.
Wednesday 14 January 2009 at 02:24 GMT
p.p.s. this here web lodge is all about linguistic rectitude.
Wednesday 14 January 2009 at 02:26 GMT
Granted. Yeah, I’d happily listen to Fry read the telephone book aloud. That podcast on Language is a pure delight….
ps. Still in YYC, but I commented using my phone on a 3G network.
Wednesday 14 January 2009 at 02:34 GMT
Stephen is such a darling!
p.s. was it a Wodgers iThingy on a Fwee-Gee network?
Wednesday 14 January 2009 at 17:03 GMT
Neither is critique. But try telling an academic.
Wednesday 14 January 2009 at 18:04 GMT
I’m afraid it is, Mike. Critique is listed in the Oxford dictionary as both a noun and a verb. I wish it wasn’t, as in verb form the word is quite ugly.
Thursday 15 January 2009 at 07:43 GMT
Well it bloody well shouldn’t be. I’m fed up with people telling me they are going to “critique” something when they mean they are going to criticise it. When did it get put into the Oxford dictionary as a verb? Around the same time as Ipod and stuff like that?