More (un)grammatical annoyances
I saw this at the Ocean Terminal Tram Stop today. Since when did 'waiting times' become 'wait times', and why? This is far from an isolated example; I've also noticed over the past two or three years that shaving foam has become 'shave foam', swimming pools have become 'swim pools', surroundings have become 'surrounds', sailing boats have become 'sail boats' and waiters and waitresses have become 'wait staff'. No doubt walking sticks are already being renamed 'walk sticks' and shopping bags will now be 'shop bags'. Perhaps even the living rooms of houses are now to be known as live rooms! I admit there isn't an absolutely strict rule regarding this: paintbrushes have always been paintbrushes rather than painting brushes, for example; but it's the cultural homogenisation and imposition of unwanted change for no obvious reason that I object to. With regard to the tram information screen, it may have been the result of simple ignorance (I would also say that "thanks for your patience" should be a separate sentence with a full stop), but when products such as shaving foam become 'shave foam', there's clearly an agenda being imposed.
Similarly, the letter 'Z', which has always been pronounced 'zed' in the UK, has apparently become 'zee'. A few months ago when I was still working at the Oxfam bookshop, the manager (aged 40) asked me and the other two old codgers who were working there that day if we knew of a TV programme called 'Zee Cars'. We all looked at each other in bafflement as to what he was talking about, then it slowly dawned on us: he meant Z-Cars (i.e. 'Zed-Cars'), a prime-time UK police drama of the 1960s and '70s. I also saw someone on LiveJournal a couple of weeks ago complaining that a BBC continuity announcer had introduced a documentary programme as being about 'Generation Zee', so it appears that 'zed' has officially been subjected to ' abolishment'!
I could go on and on about this, but I'll just mention one further example for now: 'illegal' has suddenly and for no obvious reason transformed itself into 'unlawful'. In this case, I know when it happened: about three years ago. Until then, law-breaking acts were always illegal. Now, 'illegal' has vanished and what used to be illegal has become 'unlawful'. Why?