Meet the newest pet peeve

[hummingwolf]

It concerns me that there are people who use "concerning" as an adjective.

"Son, it is concerning to me that you won't put the candy back on the shelf when I ask you to."

"The bank tells me that the account does not exist even though you told me on Monday that it did. I find this concerning. Very concerning."


::shudder::

As my eleventh-grade English teacher used to ask: "Is this what drugs does to you?"


Edit: gurdonark tells me that this is part of southern (US) regional dialect. A Google search for the phrase "very concerning" turns up a bunch of sites in the UK as well. I don't recall hearing "concerning" used this way before, but it's possible that I did and thought at the time that it was merely an anomaly. The verb "concern" just doesn't work that way for me. The phrase "very concerning" sounds as wrong to me as "very running," which in my dialect is very, very wrong.

Comments

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

It's just southern regional dialect,and, as such, appealing to me.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

It is? I don't believe I've ever heard "concerning" used this way before this year, and the people who use these constructions don't sound particularly southern. Interesting.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

Correction: It's entirely possible that I have heard "concerning" used as an adjective before, but if so, it must have seemed like an anomaly at the time. Now it seems to be common enough to catch my attention, and it sounds very strange to my ears.

[nalidoll.livejournal.com]

Well, should you ever happen to venture into the south and overhear someone talk about - oh, say... a really exciting football play, you may hear something that will really push your buttons... "runningest". As in - "He was the runningest boy I ever did see."

It's the South. It happens.
The best thing to do is file it in your brain as a variation on English, much like the Lowlands Scot dialect.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

"He was the runningest boy" actually sounds far less wrong to me than "He was very running."

Yeah, I don't get it either.