The Metropolis

Five most annoying bits of bad English on the tube network

Mike Pollitt | Wednesday 22 June, 2011 10:37

A while back we ranted about annoying passenger habits. Now it’s the turn of bad language habits. Stop saying these things!

Non-stopping at
“This train will be non-stopping at x.” No! The train won’t be “non-stopping”, the train “will not stop”. It’s shorter, it’s easier to say, it doesn’t have a hideous hyphen…why on earth would you say non-stopping in the first place?

Let people off of the train first
There’s something about hearing the words “off of” at 0730 on a rainy Monday morning which brings a man close to the edge.

Your next station stop
This is, bizarrely, more common on the Overground. I’ve never understood why, but then I’ve never understood anything about this redundant gabble of words, half of which could be excised immediately without altering the meaning one jot.

Passenger incident
Either tell me something horrible has happened, or don’t tell me. I’m a prurient voyeur, so if you’re going to censor information for the sake of public decency, please censor it all. Don’t taunt me with nods and winks.

Adverse weather
Don’t say “due to adverse weather”. It just sounds…adverse.

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