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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: The Pond Gap
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Eirenist
Shipmate
# 13343
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Posted
This is really a spin-off from the 'What makes you furious' thread, which seems to have dwindled into two separate scraps about cycling and swearing.
What do other shipmates (from both sides of the pond) think about the use (often misuse) by Britishers of American idioms (usually sport-related) when there are perfectly good British-English expressions for the same concept? I'm thinking of things like 'step up to the plate' 'take the stand' (for 'give evidence'), 'out of left field' (unexpected), 'take a rain check', 'hand down' ('pass', as in judgment or sentence). Do others find this irritating? It's not cricket, IMO!
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'I think I think, therefore I think I am'
Posts: 486 | From: Darkest Metroland | Registered: Jan 2008
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
Linguae mutantur.
(languages change)
[ 29. July 2013, 13:44: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Well, it's the way in which languages and dialects have always interacted, and they always will. The French Academy tries to stop it, by banning Franglais, or words like 'Walkman', but I don't think it works. Language is a dynamic and rude business.
I was married to an American, so I can never remember which is which now.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
Back to t'other scrap, about two peoples divided by a common language.
Misuse of US expressions by Brits? Haven't seen many. Misuse of Brit expressions by Merkans? Maybe I do this, and don't know; otherwise haven't seen it much here.
The one thing that does irk me is the apparently different rules in Brit English and US English for punctuating quotes. Brit shipmates seem consistently to put end punctuation outside the quote marks; this Merkan was taught to put end punctuation inside the quote marks.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
The examples cited don't bother me at all. But 'touch base' does (is it a baseball phrase?). I think anyone in Britain who uses 'touch base' in a non-ironic way should be taken out and shot. We'd probably lose large swathes of Britain's business community, with the consequential economic decline, but I reckon it'd be a price worth paying.
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
I'm much more bothered by shite like "by close of play", "blue sky thinking", "leveraging core competencies", "harnessing key synergies", "providing world-class customer focused solutions" and so on and so ![[Projectile]](graemlins/puke2.gif)
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Another interesting aspect of this, which I used to be interested in when I taught linguistics, is the vocabulary which is now American, but was English. For example, words like 'bub' and 'trash' and 'fall' (autumn) seem to exist in English English until about 1800, or so.
So you have a strange export/import business, where a word presumably was carried across the Atlantic, and then returns back to the UK, where it has died out in the meantime.
I think 'I guess that ...' is found in Shakespeare, but can't remember the ref. Oh, here it is.
'Not all together; better far, I guess,
That we do make our entrance several ways.' Henry VI.
[ 29. July 2013, 13:57: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Yes, terms like 'I guess' and 'I got me' and 'gotten' used to be standard English at one time - there are examples in Shakespeare and Chaucer and indeed, still some echoes in certain regional accents and dialects.
The basic rule of thumb is that the further north and west you go - ie. the West of Scotland and Ulster, the English West Country (Dorset down to Devon and Cornwall) the more likely you are to find similarities with English as it was spoken on both sides of the Atlantic in the 17th and 18th centuries.
I've often wondered how long it would have taken the Colonists to develop a distinctive accent (or accents). My guess would be that there wasn't that much difference by the time of the American Revolution, but I might be wrong.
Accents can develop very quickly.
Certainly in New Zealand, linguists have concluded through computer modelling that it took no more than 70 years for a distinctive accent to develop among the progeny of the first settlers - but that was a process speeded up by the remoteness of the country as well as the remoteness of individual settlements.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
And the short vowels in NZ are shifting even faster than the long vowels did in the GVS in English. I gather that over there one cooks food in a pen, writes with a pin and holds things together with a pun.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
The famous NZ 'fush and chups'...
To the expressions in your earlier posting, Karl, may I add 'going forward'? It usually means absolutely nothing and I am amazed that any person with any sense of the absurd could use it with a straight face. Then again, it is usually IME used by people in HR, corporate planning, and so on, who could not do their jobs if they had any sense of the absurd, however vestigial.
[ 29. July 2013, 14:44: Message edited by: Albertus ]
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
Americanisms. Definately a cause of much irritation. One I dislike in particular: "How are you?" "I'm good." Apart from being an Americanism it's just poor English.
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
The linguistic sins at home are greater than the imports. But, easier to fix the neighbor than ourselves, I suppose.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Although in some English dialects, 'I'm not feeling too good' still exists, but it's a negative form. I'm not sure if they would say 'I'm feeling good now'. Also, 'I'm not feeling too clever', meaning ill.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Bugger me, AO, I knew there must be something we would agree on, and this is it. I want to scream every time I hear it. Let us put aside our differences and form the League for the Prevention of the Replacement of Adverbs by Adjectives.
Also 'can I get' as in (from customer in bakery) 'Can I get one of those cakes, please?': if I hear this I'm willing the assistant to say 'No, but I will get one for you'.
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
Bugger me, AO, I knew there must be something we would agree on, and this is it. I want to scream every time I hear it. Let us put aside our differences and form the League for the Prevention of the Replacement of Adverbs by Adjectives.
No, let's not. It's a nice flexible feature of the English language.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The linguistic sins at home are greater than the imports. But, easier to fix the neighbor than ourselves, I suppose.
The narcissism of small differences? (Freud).
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
I grew up with fall and sidewalk as Dorset dialect words, and bub is familiar too. Not totally surprising with the Mayflower leaving from Plymouth.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
I grew up with fall and sidewalk as Dorset dialect words, and bub is familiar too. Not totally surprising with the Mayflower leaving from Plymouth.
Oh, brilliant. Words like this are always cited in historical linguistics as export/import words, but it's fantastic to find evidence of them still being used in England. My Yorkshire grandparents still used 'thou' and 'thee', and I treasure that memory.
It's amazing how many Americanisms, which are now disapproved of, were English - 'gotten' of course, as in ill-gotten. But in Yorks, I think 'getten' survived. 'Tha's getten 'ead-wark?' (Have you got a head-ache?).
[ 29. July 2013, 15:06: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
Bugger me, AO, I knew there must be something we would agree on, and this is it. I want to scream every time I hear it. Let us put aside our differences and form the League for the Prevention of the Replacement of Adverbs by Adjectives.
Also 'can I get' as in (from customer in bakery) 'Can I get one of those cakes, please?': if I hear this I'm willing the assistant to say 'No, but I will get one for you'.
The end is surely nigh now that we agree on something. Yes, we an alliance.
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
There are Americanisms I like. This will upset some but I'm happy with "I'm conflicted" and others which give a shorter, pithier form to sentences.
We've got enough problems in the UK or our own making. Not long ago I heard a BBC reporter say "It's literally raining cats and dogs" and now find 'literally' appears as a synonym for 'figuratively' in the OED (as well, presumably, as an antonym).
But I really hate 'at all' in the sense of "Are you paying with a card at all". I want to say, "Well, maybe a bit".
And where did the now common use of 'so' at the start of sentences come from?
Grumble, grumble.
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
Posts: 794 | From: here or there | Registered: Jun 2012
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
Bugger me, AO, I knew there must be something we would agree on, and this is it. I want to scream every time I hear it. Let us put aside our differences and form the League for the Prevention of the Replacement of Adverbs by Adjectives.
Also 'can I get' as in (from customer in bakery) 'Can I get one of those cakes, please?': if I hear this I'm willing the assistant to say 'No, but I will get one for you'.
The end is surely nigh now that we agree on something. Yes, we an alliance.
You're on. And I will not be rude to you about anything else again.
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
We've got enough problems in the UK or our own making. Not long ago I heard a BBC reporter say "It's literally raining cats and dogs" and now find 'literally' appears as a synonym for 'figuratively' in the OED (as well, presumably, as an antonym).
BBC English has definately changed over the years. An example would be the use of "an" in front of certain nouns or adjectives beginning with "h", such as "hotel" (pronounced "otel") or "historical". "An" would always be used when I was a child nut it's use has now been dropped.
[ 29. July 2013, 15:15: Message edited by: Ad Orientem ]
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Wow, language changes, shock, horror! Wow, different languages and dialects interact and influence each other, double shock horror!
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Gramps49
Shipmate
# 16378
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Posted
Speaking as an American, I do find it somewhat irritating when I have to pause to figure out what a British expression means. I also find it disconcerting to read your spelling. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
Posts: 2193 | From: Pullman WA | Registered: Apr 2011
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
There are Americanisms I like. This will upset some but I'm happy with "I'm conflicted" and others which give a shorter, pithier form to sentences.
We've got enough problems in the UK or our own making. Not long ago I heard a BBC reporter say "It's literally raining cats and dogs" and now find 'literally' appears as a synonym for 'figuratively' in the OED (as well, presumably, as an antonym).
But I really hate 'at all' in the sense of "Are you paying with a card at all". I want to say, "Well, maybe a bit".
And where did the now common use of 'so' at the start of sentences come from?
Grumble, grumble.
Yes, I take that point. I suppose I grumble about people who grumble about language change. When I studied linguistics, prescriptivism was the absolute no-no, since the fact that languages are changing all the time, and not mainly under our control, was a central idea. Of course, we are influenced by American English, just as we have been influenced by French, German, Italian, Indian languages, Latin, Greek, and so on.
None the less, I take your point about grumbling. We all need to have something to grumble about, and being conservative about something is probably a good thing.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
I don't think there is a British English expression which quite matches 'step up to the plate'. I'm happy using Americanisms: I use 'I guess' a lot. I blame the Ship. I'm something of a linguistic chameleon - I think, it's sort-of the tail-end of a family talent for language learning which I haven't otherwise inherited.
As for being irritated - well, tastes differ. I find made-in-Chelsea-isms far more irritating, but I don't regard my irritation as an indication of anything other than grumpy-old-womanness. It's not a sign of superiority in taste IMHO.
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I guess that 'I say, my dear old thing' is quite English, isn't it? If you listen to cricket on the radio, it will be very familiar. Also phrases like 'old bean', but they are used often ironically today.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
BBC English has definately changed over the years. An example would be the use of "an" in front of certain nouns or adjectives beginning with "h", such as "hotel" (pronounced "otel") or "historical". "An" would always be used when I was a child nut it's use has now been dropped.
Definately, as you say, but in the opposite direction. An historical was a great rarity years ago, because very few people have ever pronounced hotel as 'otel' or history as 'istory'. Those that did so pronounce them (in fact the only person I remember doing this was the supercilious and self-regarding Malcolm Muggeridge, with his lazy upper class Oxford drawl) of course used an, just I use it in front of hour or honour.
But these days you hear and read an historical, an heritage, an herbalist all over the place, and it's from people who pronounce the h. It's an huge upset.
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I think Churchill used to say 'an 'otel', and it was very posh. Died out, now, I would think, for posh people, but of course, very common in regional accents, which drop the /h/. Some dialects seem to almost drop the 'a' altogether - 'Ya goin' to 'otel?' is found in London/estuary English, and probably elsewhere.
[ 29. July 2013, 17:10: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Americanisms. Definately a cause of much irritation. One I dislike in particular: "How are you?" "I'm good." Apart from being an Americanism it's just poor English.
Guilty as charged. But a comeback could be "You're good at what exactly?" ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Americanisms. Definately a cause of much irritation. One I dislike in particular: "How are you?" "I'm good." Apart from being an Americanism it's just poor English.
Guilty as charged. But a comeback could be "You're good at what exactly?"
Aye, I've often thought of doing that. Anither could be "Oh, you're a good boy/girl are you?"
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
@Gramps -
Speaking as Briton, I do find it somewhat irritating when I have to pause to figure out what an American expression means. I also find it disconcerting to read your spelling.
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
BBC English has definately changed over the years. ...
Definately, as you say, but in the opposite direction.
No, it has definitely changed.
And not for the better. I was appalled to read "he was sat there" in a BBC news article recently. And there have been other grammatical solecisms like "me and my wife have..." or listing a couple of nouns, then using a singular verb after them.
The older I get the less tolerance I find I have for this sort of thing.
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
I'd better not read this thread. The spectacle of so many Luddites will give me apoplexy.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
And not for the better. I was appalled to read "he was sat there" in a BBC news article recently. And there have been other grammatical solecisms like "me and my wife have..." or listing a couple of nouns, then using a singular verb after them.
Those are all part of normal spoken English for millions of people (including me). And anyway, minor differences in usage cause no trouble to anyone. We all understand what the speaker means, so what's the problem? Not worth worrying about.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
It's snobbery, isn't it?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Ad Orientem
Shipmate
# 17574
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
And not for the better. I was appalled to read "he was sat there" in a BBC news article recently. And there have been other grammatical solecisms like "me and my wife have..." or listing a couple of nouns, then using a singular verb after them.
Those are all part of normal spoken English for millions of people (including me). And anyway, minor differences in usage cause no trouble to anyone. We all understand what the speaker means, so what's the problem? Not worth worrying about.
Not in everyday speech, perhaps. One would expect a BBC reporter to get it right though. You know, someone who writes or speaks for a living.
Posts: 2606 | From: Finland | Registered: Feb 2013
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
Re "he was sat there": presumably the implication is that the person should have said "he was sitting there", but there are circumstances when the former might be acceptable. Consider this, for example: quote:
I tell you, I saw him clear as day. He was sat right there - on that seat there - and then he just ... vanished.
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Yes, 'he was sat right there' sounds OK to me.
But snobbery intervenes at this point, and the idea of 'correctness'.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
BBC English has definately changed over the years. An example would be the use of "an" in front of certain nouns or adjectives beginning with "h", such as "hotel" (pronounced "otel") or "historical". "An" would always be used when I was a child nut it's use has now been dropped.
Pronunciation changes as one travels through any one,city, why should your predilection have precedence?
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
It's amazing how many Americanisms, which are now disapproved of, were English
True of some spellings as well.
quote:
Originally posted by que sais-je:
We've got enough problems in the UK or our own making. Not long ago I heard a BBC reporter say "It's literally raining cats and dogs" and now find 'literally' appears as a synonym for 'figuratively' in the OED (as well, presumably, as an antonym).
For this, I will join your grumbling. It is an ignorant misuse. Yes, languages evolve and meanings can be reversed, but I do not have to like it. sooo.. GET. OFF. MY. LAWN!
Back to serious for a moment, How should I speak? As does my mother? Or my father? Where I was born? Where I live now? Or perhaps the localities in which I have had any significant time of residence? As we travel, so does our language. This can be beautiful and it can be ugly. But it is reality either way.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ad Orientem:
Not in everyday speech, perhaps. One would expect a BBC reporter to get it right though. You know, someone who writes or speaks for a living.
Quite. Anyone who writes, edits or speaks English for a living ought to get this sort of thing right.
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
Re "he was sat there": presumably the implication is that the person should have said "he was sitting there", but there are circumstances when the former might be acceptable. Consider this, for example: quote:
I tell you, I saw him clear as day. He was sat right there - on that seat there - and then he just ... vanished.
It just sounds wrong, and it jars, in any situation. It's a relatively modern usage I think? I never heard it before the late 80s.
Besides, "he was laid there" is clearly passive tense, but it's the same construction as "he was sat there".
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
I grew up with fall and sidewalk as Dorset dialect words, and bub is familiar too. Not totally surprising with the Mayflower leaving from Plymouth.
Yes but the Pilgrim Fathers were from Scrooby Lincolnshire!
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
que sais-je: quote:
Not long ago I heard a BBC reporter say "It's literally raining cats and dogs" and now find 'literally' appears as a synonym for 'figuratively' in the OED (as well, presumably, as an antonym).
I've never figured out why people use "literally" when referring to something clearly figurative anyway- especially a common folk metaphor. The metaphor itself is there to amplify "rain". It don't need no stinkin' "literally".
Dorks. ![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
quote:
Originally posted by QLib:
Re "he was sat there": presumably the implication is that the person should have said "he was sitting there", but there are circumstances when the former might be acceptable. ...
It just sounds wrong, and it jars, in any situation. It's a relatively modern usage I think? I never heard it before the late 80s.
Besides, "he was laid there" is clearly passive tense, but it's the same construction as "he was sat there".
It may sound wrong to you, but it doesn't always sound wrong to me and our opinions count for naught anyway, though I agree that somebody being 'sat' usually implies a passive, as in: "She sat him down and fed him tea and cake.'
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Only 40% of the travellers on the Mayflower, 56% of the family groupings, came from Scrooby. There were several pick up points, London (Rotherhithe has a church and pub with strong links - timbers from the ship and the captain was local) Harwich, Southampton and Plymouth.
I had to dig, because I knew there were links from the West Country. Other than through the ships leaving Bristol and Plymouth trading (slave trading, lots of slavery money in Bristol too, and the area around), there was also Judge Jeffreys and his sentences of transportation, particularly after the Bloody Assizes.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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SvitlanaV2
Shipmate
# 16967
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Posted
There's an example of internet jargon that I find a bit ugly. If someone posts a message and someone agrees with it, they'll respond with: 'This'. I've seen it on this website. When did it first appear?
Another new one I don't like too much: 'My bad'.
Posts: 6668 | From: UK | Registered: Feb 2012
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Good grief, Svitlana, you have chastened me by finding two examples which arouse my ire, and here I am complaining about people complaining about language.
Yes, 'This.' irritates me. It sounds very complacent and pompous. I am after all, a language snob. Mea culpa.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Svitlana,,
My bad is not exactly new.
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Good grief, Svitlana, you have chastened me by finding two examples which arouse my ire, and here I am complaining about people complaining about language.
Yes, 'This.' irritates me. It sounds very complacent and pompous. I am after all, a language snob. Mea culpa.
Very funny that.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
My great-grandfather, who kept a pub in Lamberhurst (pronouced Lambrurst in Sussex) referred to himself as "an 'otelier". Not posh. My grandmother said that her MinL, his daughter, used to pour tea as if she were trying to get a head on it. ie, starting with the pot close to the cup, then lifting it up and lowering again. Not posh.
Re: spelling - we didn't change ours just to be different, so I think it is not for the adherents of he who did to comment adversely about it. I'm not bothered about converting - my brain does assume that spellings like sulfur are scientific, and gets confused when the subject isn't, but no probs. I do think it's a bit bad when children's books by British writers are published with American spelling and terminology. (Diana Wynne Jones' "Archer's Goon" original edition had sidewalk, trunk, tire, fender and something instead of tarmac, not to mention the magic disappearing "u"s and doubled letters, but I think they changed it after the TV version. Not helpful when I wanted to put the book in the classroom.)
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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