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    Wrong Word Choices in Lyrics

    Morrissey uses the word "destructors" in 'Ouija Board, Ouija Board' - shouldn't it be "destroyers"?

    Other examples? (Omit deliberate ones like "two foot small").

    #2
    Kate Bush singing 'worst' when she means 'worse' in Babooshka has always bugged me.

    Also Judas Priest with their Another Thing Coming is irritating, since the expression is 'another think coming' - and Halford even sings 'think' in the previous line. (See also: Led Zep with their 'all that glitters is gold' from Stairway to Heaven. Gold 'glisters', boys! ('Glitters' just makes it sound cheap and tatty.)

    And don't get me started on Must 'of' Got Lost by the J Geils Band...

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      #3
      "Exactly whom I'm supposed to be" (Should I Stay Or Should I Go?).

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        #4
        "Let's all get up and dance to a song
        That was a hit before your mother was born
        Though she was born a long long time ago
        Your mother should know?"


        The words "though", and "know". Surely the former should be "because", or "cos" to scan.

        Or maybe the mother's memory is being called into question. And "know" means she recalls the song?

        One I posted on another thread:

        "Finally made the plane into Paris,
        Honeymooning down by the Seine.
        Peter Brown called to say,
        You can make it OK,
        You can get married in Gibraltar near Spain."


        How could they have been honeymooning before actually tying the knot?

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          #5
          Tina Turner's Private Dancer - as written by Mark Knopfler:

          "All the men come in these places..."

          Doesn't sound very private to me.

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            #6
            Originally posted by Jah Womble View Post

            since the expression is 'another think coming'
            I've been told, by EFL teachers (or whatever the expression is) that this isn't necessarily so.

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              #7
              The "thing" version is very prevalent in the US

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                #8
                https://www.merriam-webster.com/word...r-thing-coming
                In summary: Another think coming is the older of the two, dating in use to the mid-19th century, and originated in British English. Another thing coming appears to have come about in American English several decades later, probably as a result of confusion regarding the original phrase. Another thing is the more recent turn of phrase and now is more common, though it is frequently criticized.

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                  #9
                  (By the likes of me, yes!)

                  Well, I know it's become one of those tiresome examples of 'everyone says it, so it's right', but 'if you think you're getting away with that, you've got another thing coming' is nonsensical, a complete non-sequitur. What is this 'thing' that has sprung from nowhere?

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                    #10
                    Originally posted by Jah Womble View Post
                    (By the likes of me, yes!)

                    Well, I know it's become one of those tiresome examples of 'everyone says it, so it's right', but 'if you think you're getting away with that, you've got another thing coming' is nonsensical, a complete non-sequitur. What is this 'thing' that has sprung from nowhere?
                    If you think that the English language is a good place to search for logical things, then you've got another think coming

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                      #11
                      A fair point, and well made.

                      But non-sequiturs are given that definition for a reason.

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                        #12
                        I love Siouxsie And The Banshees, but their lyrics aren't half shit at the best of times.

                        Paradise Place, "The chamaeleon magic is renowned to be tragic", is just wrong.

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                          #13
                          For some reason I've had it fixed in my mind that it was a Pulp song, but I now find it was by Space. Anyway, "the female of the species is more deadlier than the male" has always grated.

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                            #14
                            Stan Ridgway's Camouflage is also lyrically a bit suspect:

                            "You may be tellin' the truth boy,
                            But this here is Camouflage!
                            He's been here since he passed away last night -
                            In fact he's been here all week long!"


                            Well, which is it, doc?

                            Somebody's not for tellin' the truth, that's for sure...

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                              #15
                              Mind Over Money by Turin Brakes has the line, 'Internal combustion, can that really happen?' which I'm sure should have been 'spontaneous'. I mean, internal combustion clearly does happen many millions of times a day.

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                                #16
                                I will never be convinced otherwise that "Moves Like Jagger" was originally written as "Moves Like Jackson", until having to be hurriedly rewritten when it came out Michael might be a bit dodgy. "Jagger" used to 'move' like a baboon after someone had shoved a chilli pepper up its arse.

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                                  #17
                                  Originally posted by treibeis View Post
                                  I love Siouxsie And The Banshees, but their lyrics aren't half shit at the best of times.

                                  Paradise Place, "The chamaeleon magic is renowned to be tragic", is just wrong.
                                  That seems the smallest of crimes that can be levelled at the Banshees lyrics. Much more troublesome are those of Love In A Void, Hong Kong Garden & Arabian Knights to name three.

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                                    #18
                                    Originally posted by ale View Post

                                    That seems the smallest of crimes that can be levelled at the Banshees lyrics. Much more troublesome are those of Love In A Void, Hong Kong Garden & Arabian Knights to name three.
                                    Yes, I know. But there was a discussion about that not long ago, and I personally don't wish to reignite it on this thread.

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                                      #19
                                      Also off-topic because this thread is about grammatical choices not political.

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                                        #20
                                        Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View Post
                                        Morrissey uses the word "destructors" in 'Ouija Board, Ouija Board' - shouldn't it be "destroyers"?
                                        Maybe it's an opaque C++ reference.

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                                          #21
                                          I'm all for grooving to the smooth sounds of ABC, but this line from Look of Love has bugged me for decades ...

                                          "If you judge a book by the cover
                                          Then you judge the look by the lover"

                                          To get to the rhyme they threw logic overboard. It's the wrong way round.

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                                            #22
                                            "Looks of the lover" would have worked better.

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                                              #23
                                              Billy Joel and his "tonic and gin"

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                                                #24
                                                I always thought Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone" diplomat, who carried on his shoulder a Siamese cat, was a rare occasion when Bob could have done better.

                                                But there's a photo of Bob at Indian Neck Folk Festival in 1961, and in the background is a (banjo player apparently), who indeed has a Siamese cat on his shoulder. Truth in poetry.

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                                                  #25
                                                  When better than Eurovision day to recall Bardo's "I could have tooken one step further" (in the coda)?

                                                  Had they embraced the grammatical pedants' market, perhaps they could have gotten above Ebony and Ivory in the charts.

                                                  I discovered that the BBC requested corrections to bad grammar for previous UK Eurovision entries.

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