My guess it is a slight typo. Either that, or your friend is a Harry Potter fan (which is why he had "idge" in his mind).would it be a kind of local saying???
'Take umbrage' is not a local saying: if anything it is rather literary, so I don't think it has any local variants.Manwell said:
This colleague is native of Shropshire, would it be a kind of local saying???
I agree with this in every particular-- perhaps I should revise my pet topic of the mock-formal tone, and deemphasize the idea that it is quintessentially American. Clearly it's a part of our heritage, with roots going all the way back to "Anglo-Saxon irony"-- another of my pet topics.MrPedantic said:"Umbrage" usually has a humorous connotation, these days.
If "I" say I have "taken umbrage at X", it has an air of self-deprecation or self-mockery: the offence is rarely to be taken seriously.
If "I" say that MrQ has "taken umbrage at X", on the other hand, it implies that although MrQ may have taken X seriously, I probably have a rather humorous attitude towards the situation: perhaps I think that MrQ was a little silly to take offence.
MrP
If I may add to the sage words of MrP.MrPedantic said:"Umbrage" usually has a humorous connotation, these days.
If "I" say I have "taken umbrage at X", it has an air of self-deprecation or self-mockery: the offence is rarely to be taken seriously.
If "I" say that MrQ has "taken umbrage at X", on the other hand, it implies that although MrQ may have taken X seriously, I probably have a rather humorous attitude towards the situation: perhaps I think that MrQ was a little silly to take offence.
MrP
Tick from the Celtic Fringe as well.foxfirebrand said:I agree with this in every particular-- perhaps I should revise my pet topic of the mock-formal tone, and deemphasize the idea that it is quintessentially American. Clearly it's a part of our heritage, with roots going all the way back to "Anglo-Saxon irony"-- another of my pet topics.
.
Is it possibly a mocking of the elite. The peasants poking fun at the rulers by affecting a cumbersome way of talking to point out that the rulers take umbrage at the peasants far too often.panjandrum said:Tick from the Celtic Fringe as well.
I suspect that the mock-formal tone is alive and well in many places.
I have no idea, but the suggestion that it may be quintessentially American prompts the thought that it is perhaps quintessentially colonial and provincial - a mechanism developed by those of us sufficiently distant from the pomposity of empire to recognise it.
"Umbridge" is just a mis-spelling in my opinion.
I would imagine that "umbridge" will someday be "correct".
I take umbridge (sic) at the quoted author diluting the wonderful expression "to take umbrage" by adding "slight" to it. Completely ruins the sound and feel of it, though it's easy to see that the motivation was to avoid risking the person reading it taking umbrage themselves...