DOWNPLAYED!

It is just common usage now and we must get used to change and move on.

I think that 'the queen played down the significance' is better. if they are talking about the queen they should at least use 'Queen's English'

Do we still want to be sitthee and thee and thou?? We need to keep up with the times.

I may be thick, but what's wrong with 'downplayed'?

Using!!

Not muchAna pedants rule. Ok?

Well, I'm a notorious pedant, but in this case...

I am a bit confused by this , Phoenix, will you explain? note that I don't say 'can' you explain.

Oh, hang on a min, yes of course, it should be played down!

Perhaps I'm old fashioned, but I thought it should have been "played down" mutter mutter... Radio 4.... humph....

I wonder if we could get Susie Dent (Countdown) to do a web chat so that we could bring all our usage queries to her. HQ please note!

It didn't immediately hit me that the words had been changed around, I had to re -read it, but of course it is played down, in fact I haven't heard of downplay used as a word , mabe it was the presenter making a mistake?

"Downplayed" certainly grates with me.

Mind you, I'm still trying to get used to "It's down to him/her/you/me".

We only ever had "It's up to...." , but I quite like the slightly different meaning implied by "down to".

We had a girl at school who used the word "lookaftered" (for when we were being supervised by another teacher). We used to giggle about it and ask her to say it again! That is on a par with "Downplayed" in my book!

At least you can't split the infinitive if it's joined together at the hip!

I can't cope with the imagery this evokes-"Downplayed" sounds a bit like "Downloaded" I now have a picture of the Queen standing with her decks, spinning disks. I know it is nothing to do with the word but now I am stuck with it.

I expect people moaned about Shakespeare when he invented all those new words and new word usages...