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#46
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Speak a ommon spelling error list (hints on demand)
On 2017-08-30 9:39 AM, Mayayana wrote:
"NY" wrote | (**) In case anyone doesn't know, "fanny" refers to the female genitals in | British English and the buttocks in American English. And in these times the same is true of ass and bum, at least among Brits that I know. I haven't heard "fanny" in the US since childhood. If I had to guess I'd say it's popular usage was probably pre-WW2. Another one to remember when visiting the US is not to say, "Here, pussy, pussy, pussy." (See ass and fanny.) If you're addressing a cat, it's OK to say "Here, pussy" -- Cheryl |
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#47
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Speak a ommon spelling error list (hints on demand)
On 2017-08-30 13:41:22 +0200, Cheryl said:
On 2017-08-30 9:39 AM, Mayayana wrote: "NY" wrote | (**) In case anyone doesn't know, "fanny" refers to the female genitals in | British English and the buttocks in American English. And in these times the same is true of ass and bum, at least among Brits that I know. I haven't heard "fanny" in the US since childhood. If I had to guess I'd say it's popular usage was probably pre-WW2. Another one to remember when visiting the US is not to say, "Here, pussy, pussy, pussy." (See ass and fanny.) If you're addressing a cat, it's OK to say "Here, pussy" Agreed. No problem at all if you're addressing a cat. -- athel |
#48
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Speak a ommon spelling error list (hints on demand)
"Peter Moylan" wrote
| In many cases what has happened is that the pronunciation of a word has | changed over time, but we've kept the spelling that was logical for the | old pronunciation. | I wonder if there's really any general rule that applies. One example is US vs Brit versions of foreign words. In the US, garage is gar-AHZE. In Britain it's GAR-age. That kind of difference is common and reflects our different approaches to the language. In Britain, English is their heritage. In the US it's merely the language we speak. Thus, we respect the foreign pronunciation of foreign words (in this case French) while Brits try to fully anglicize foreign words. A highly educated British friend once invited me to go see the play "Don Joo-en". Don Joo-en? She meant Don Juan, but had phonetically anglicized the name! I wasn't interested in the play, but was tempted to go just so that I could see who said the name which way, and whether there might be class distinctions in how it was pronounced. Another case is "wear and tear". I once waited a long time for a train to Norridge when I was in Britain, before finally realizing that the trains to Norwich listed on the schedule board might possibly be what I wanted. I was familiar with the name. I've been to Norwich U in NH and the town of Norwich, VT. But I'd never heard the British pronunciation. We say NO(R)-witch. |
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Speak a common spelling error list (hints on demand)
"Wolf K" wrote in message
... It was spelt thus, actually, into the early 1900s, especially by New England writers. Its disappearance in current US spelling reminds me of the disappearance of "practise", a devil of a word, since it was supposedly a different word than "practice", and one was supposed to know when to use which spelling. In speech of course there's no difference at all, which shews you how silly it is to insist on some spelling variations. In British English, the different spellings of licence/license and practice/practise are used to distinguish between the noun and the verb (hence "driving licence" but "this taxi is licensed to carry 4 passengers"). "Practice/practise" is a really thorny one because it's another of those words like cleave which has two almost opposite senses - either to keep repeating something until you've perfected it ("practice makes perfect"), or else to carry out duties proficiently (especially in connection to doctors - "a doctor's practice"). It would be better if the different spellings in that case distinguished between those two meanings, rather than distinguishing between noun and verb. Better still, of course, to use two completely different words :-) They are really class-markers; most rules of "correct English" are about class, not grammar. I think you have hit the nail on the head the some rules are made as deliberate pitfalls to trip up the unwary, thereby establishing a sort of moral superiority. This is typified by all those rules about not ending a sentence/clause with a preposition ("this is the sort of behaviour that I will not put up with"), and only using "-er" and "-est" with adjectives and not adverbs ("he was the quickest runner" but not "he ran quicker than she did", which should be "he ran more quickly than she did"). One of those class/regional distinctions is the use of the word "dinner". In upper/middle class usage, especially in the south of England, it refers to the evening meal. But in working class, northern usage it often refers to the mid-day meal, with the evening meal being referred to as "tea". However even in the south, the mid-day meal in a school is always referred to as "dinner", as in "school dinners", "dinner money" (the money you take to school each week and give to the teacher to pay for that week's meals) and "dinner ladies" (the women, often parents of children at the school, who supervise the meals, making sure that everyone queues up and files into the dining room in an orderly fashion). Ah, I've just thought of another regional difference in meaning. The dreaded "Yorkshire while". "While" usually means "during" or "at the same time as", as in "don't talk while you're eating your dinner". But for some reason in the industrial part of west Yorkshire, around Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield where I grew up, it is also/instead used to mean "until" - as in "no, you can't have a biscuit - wait while tea-time". I can remember this was the standard incantation from my friend's mum when we got in from school, ready for something to eat. It is often said that the wording on the signs at level crossings, where cars must wait for trains to pass, was changed from "do not cross while red lights flash" to guard against the Yorkshire meaning, though this may well be an urban myth that has been repeated so many times that "it must be true". And another one, used further north in the rural Yorkshire Dales - "moderate". Normally tends to imply medium, average, neither too little nor too much. But in Dales-speak, when referring to someone's health, it takes on a different meaning. If you ask after someone's health and they say "I had to have the doctor out - I've been right moderate", it means "I've been very ill and not far from death's door" (with a certain amount of over-dramatisation). Regional accents still carry a little bit of stigma in some situations, though much less than used to be the case when if you didn't speak "the Queen's English" you had to lose your regional accent and acquire the so-called "received pronunciation". This was especially the case in broadcasting, and was probably something that Reith instilled into everyone in the early days of wireless when the BBC was founded. Somewhere we have a "transcription disc" - a recording on a shellac-on-aluminium 78 rpm record, as used by broadcasters before they used magnetic tape - of a question-and-answer programme that my grandpa broadcast, probably in the 1940s or 50s, about his pet subject, steam railways. He was a headmaster of a junior school near Dewsbury, just south of Leeds, and so he had a sort of cultured northern accent: perfectly understandable to anyone, though with a hint of short northern vowels. And like most people, after a few drinks or when he was carried away telling a story, his accent became stronger than when he was putting on his stern "headmaster's voice". But this evidently wasn't good enough for the BBC on their radio programme. He had been told that he needed to speak in a "proper" BBC accent. He tried. He tried so hard that it is painful to listen to. He uses an accent that it is so exaggerated that it has me in fits of laughter whenever I listen to it. He tries so hard to avoid bluff northern vowels that he overdoes it - knowing him, this was almost certainly deliberate and a reaction to being told that his accent wasn't good enough for them. And so at one point he refers to "smoke coming from the chimney like a bullet from a gun", except that in an attempt to avoid the short "u" sound being lengthened to "oo", he makes it into a very open "a" - "smoke is caming fram the chimney like a ballett fram a gan". No-one talks like that, except old BBC announcers, and you could tell that grandpa was paying lip service to it, whilst inwardly taking the ****. In the family, after that, whenever we talked about anything happening quickly, it was always "like a ballett fram a gan". |
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Speak a ommon spelling error list (hints on demand)
"Athel Cornish-Bowden" wrote
| If you're addressing a cat, it's OK to say "Here, pussy" | | Agreed. No problem at all if you're addressing a cat. | I'm familiar with that, of course, but my point is that calling a cat pussy has pretty much gone out of usage in the US. When I heard someone say it in England I understood. But I was also taken aback. If you come to the US and say "Here pussy" there may be people around you trying to hide chuckles. Interestingly, the British woman I heard referring to her pussy [cat] was a very snobbish and proper type, yet she went by the name Cherry. So Cherry was talking about her pussy.... you can't make this stuff up. That's another thing one doesn't generally see in the US: Social class being indicated by the silliness of one's nickname. |
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Speak a ommon spelling error list (hints on demand)
On 2017-08-30 11:30 AM, Mayayana wrote:
"Athel Cornish-Bowden" wrote | If you're addressing a cat, it's OK to say "Here, pussy" | | Agreed. No problem at all if you're addressing a cat. | I'm familiar with that, of course, but my point is that calling a cat pussy has pretty much gone out of usage in the US. When I heard someone say it in England I understood. But I was also taken aback. If you come to the US and say "Here pussy" there may be people around you trying to hide chuckles. Interestingly, the British woman I heard referring to her pussy [cat] was a very snobbish and proper type, yet she went by the name Cherry. So Cherry was talking about her pussy.... you can't make this stuff up. That's another thing one doesn't generally see in the US: Social class being indicated by the silliness of one's nickname. Cherry Ames was a character in US books, although admittedly not recent ones. "Cherry" is a very unusual name in North America, but not un-heard of. While I am not an American, I think I've heard comments leading me to believe that nicknames like "Billy Bob" indicate a certain social status down there. And I think there are certain nicknames that are associated with other classes - like "Trey" for John Richard Bigshot III. -- Cheryl |
#52
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Speak a ommon spelling error list (hints on demand)
On Wed, 30 Aug 2017 11:59:52 +0100, "NY" wrote:
"Robert Bannister" wrote in message ... Sadly, it seems that in this country at least, "waistcoat" has been replaced by "vest". It helps that we never called an undershirt a vest as they do in England. Exactly. When I went out to Boston to see my sister and her family who were living there for a few years because he husband had been seconded to Gillette's head office, I took the time to build up a list of the most obvious British/American differences (eg tap/faucet, flat/apartment, waistcoat/vest, vest/undershirt etc). And the different meanings of "momentarily" (*). And I knew not to look too horrified when an American referred to a woman's fanny (**) :-) The one word I missed from my "be careful how you use this word to avoid confusion" list was "fortnight". Someone asked me how long I was staying in Boston and I said "about a fortnight" which was met with blank incomprehension because I gather that this word (which refers to a period of fourteen days ie two weeks) is not used in the US as commonly. I'm familiar with the word "fortnight," but it's almost never used in the US. I'm always scrupulous about always quoting dates with the month as a word. 1/2/17 can be interpreted as 1st of February or January 2nd depending on whether you apply British or American convention, Yes. but "1st of February" is unambiguous, Yes. even if an American might have said it "February 2nd". Not me. I'd say "February first." g But a lot of Americans would say "Febuary first." Likewise for times in Germany: I'm wise to the fact that Germans use "half [an hour] *to* three" My German is extremely rusty and wasn't great to begin with (I studied it in college many years ago), but as I remember, it's not "half to three" but just "half three" (halb drei). It's strange to an English speaker, but it makes a lot of sense. where we would say "half *past* two". The problem comes when a German doesn't know that you've adjusted: I once had an amusing conversation with a German when I arranged to meet him at "halb drei" [half three] meaning half past two, Yes, as I said above and he didn't realise that I was aware of the different convention and thought I'd blindly translated "half" and "three", and so mentally adjusted this to what he would think of as "half [to] four". After that I said "half nach [past] drei", even though this isn't idiomatically correct, to avoid any misunderstanding. (*) In Britain, it means "*for* a moment" (ie transiently, briefly) rather than "*in* a moment" (ie soon), Thanks very much. I didn't know that. hence the hoary old joke about the American pilot who announced to his planeload of British passengers that they would be landing momentarily, to which the Brits thought "I hope he stays on the ground long enough for us to get off". Rather than use the word "wrongly" (by my standards) I tend to avoid it and rephrase it if I'm talking to Americans. (**) In case anyone doesn't know, "fanny" refers to the female genitals in British English and the buttocks in American English. Important that Americans coming to Britain don't use the wrong word :-) I didn't know that either. |
#53
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Speak a ommon spelling error list (hints on demand)
On Wed, 30 Aug 2017 08:28:19 -0400, "Mayayana"
wrote: "Peter Moylan" wrote | In many cases what has happened is that the pronunciation of a word has | changed over time, but we've kept the spelling that was logical for the | old pronunciation. | I wonder if there's really any general rule that applies. One example is US vs Brit versions of foreign words. In the US, garage is gar-AHZE. In Britain it's GAR-age. It is also "garridge" in BrE. That kind of difference is common and reflects our different approaches to the language. In Britain, English is their heritage. In the US it's merely the language we speak. For some people in the US, English is their heritage. The language was taken to North America by English-speaking settlers. It also works the other way round. There are many people in Britain for whom English is not their heritage. There are people who came or whose ancestors came from outside Britain, and there are people whose native and ancestral language is not English but Welsh. And of course if we go far enough back, the languages/dialects from which English developed were imported to Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers. Thus, we respect the foreign pronunciation of foreign words (in this case French) while Brits try to fully anglicize foreign words. A highly educated British friend once invited me to go see the play "Don Joo-en". Don Joo-en? She meant Don Juan, but had phonetically anglicized the name! I wasn't interested in the play, but was tempted to go just so that I could see who said the name which way, and whether there might be class distinctions in how it was pronounced. Another case is "wear and tear". I once waited a long time for a train to Norridge when I was in Britain, before finally realizing that the trains to Norwich listed on the schedule board might possibly be what I wanted. I was familiar with the name. I've been to Norwich U in NH and the town of Norwich, VT. But I'd never heard the British pronunciation. We say NO(R)-witch. -- Peter Duncanson, UK (in alt.usage.english) |
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Speak a ommon spelling error list (hints on demand)
On Wed, 30 Aug 2017 09:41:22 -0230, Cheryl
wrote: On 2017-08-30 9:39 AM, Mayayana wrote: "NY" wrote | (**) In case anyone doesn't know, "fanny" refers to the female genitals in | British English and the buttocks in American English. And in these times the same is true of ass and bum, at least among Brits that I know. I haven't heard "fanny" in the US since childhood. If I had to guess I'd say it's popular usage was probably pre-WW2. Another one to remember when visiting the US is not to say, "Here, pussy, pussy, pussy." (See ass and fanny.) If you're addressing a cat, it's OK to say "Here, pussy" I'm going back a lot of years, but I remember when my dog went over to a strange woman to smell her. She said "He's smelling my pussy." |
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Speak a ommon spelling error list (hints on demand)
On 8/30/2017 9:58 AM, Ken Blake wrote:
On Wed, 30 Aug 2017 11:59:52 +0100, "NY" wrote: "Robert Bannister" wrote in message ... Sadly, it seems that in this country at least, "waistcoat" has been replaced by "vest". It helps that we never called an undershirt a vest as they do in England. Exactly. When I went out to Boston to see my sister and her family who were living there for a few years because he husband had been seconded to Gillette's head office, I took the time to build up a list of the most obvious British/American differences (eg tap/faucet, flat/apartment, waistcoat/vest, vest/undershirt etc). And the different meanings of "momentarily" (*). And I knew not to look too horrified when an American referred to a woman's fanny (**) :-) The one word I missed from my "be careful how you use this word to avoid confusion" list was "fortnight". Someone asked me how long I was staying in Boston and I said "about a fortnight" which was met with blank incomprehension because I gather that this word (which refers to a period of fourteen days ie two weeks) is not used in the US as commonly. I'm familiar with the word "fortnight," but it's almost never used in the US. I'm always scrupulous about always quoting dates with the month as a word. 1/2/17 can be interpreted as 1st of February or January 2nd depending on whether you apply British or American convention, Yes. but "1st of February" is unambiguous, Yes. even if an American might have said it "February 2nd". Not me. I'd say "February first." g But a lot of Americans would say "Febuary first." Likewise for times in Germany: I'm wise to the fact that Germans use "half [an hour] *to* three" My German is extremely rusty and wasn't great to begin with (I studied it in college many years ago), but as I remember, it's not "half to three" but just "half three" (halb drei). It's strange to an English speaker, but it makes a lot of sense. where we would say "half *past* two". The problem comes when a German doesn't know that you've adjusted: I once had an amusing conversation with a German when I arranged to meet him at "halb drei" [half three] meaning half past two, Yes, as I said above and he didn't realise that I was aware of the different convention and thought I'd blindly translated "half" and "three", and so mentally adjusted this to what he would think of as "half [to] four". After that I said "half nach [past] drei", even though this isn't idiomatically correct, to avoid any misunderstanding. (*) In Britain, it means "*for* a moment" (ie transiently, briefly) rather than "*in* a moment" (ie soon), Thanks very much. I didn't know that. hence the hoary old joke about the American pilot who announced to his planeload of British passengers that they would be landing momentarily, to which the Brits thought "I hope he stays on the ground long enough for us to get off". Rather than use the word "wrongly" (by my standards) I tend to avoid it and rephrase it if I'm talking to Americans. (**) In case anyone doesn't know, "fanny" refers to the female genitals in British English and the buttocks in American English. Important that Americans coming to Britain don't use the wrong word :-) I didn't know that either. Anyone here have trouble spelling I or A ? :-)) Rene |
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Speak a common spelling error list (hints on demand)
On Wed, 30 Aug 2017 13:34:43 +0100, "NY" wrote:
One of those class/regional distinctions is the use of the word "dinner". In upper/middle class usage, especially in the south of England, it refers to the evening meal. But in working class, northern usage it often refers to the mid-day meal, with the evening meal being referred to as "tea". However even in the south, the mid-day meal in a school is always referred to as "dinner", as in "school dinners", "dinner money" (the money you take to school each week and give to the teacher to pay for that week's meals) and "dinner ladies" (the women, often parents of children at the school, who supervise the meals, making sure that everyone queues up and files into the dining room in an orderly fashion). The same in the US. The word "dinner" is used differently in different parts of the US. To me, dinner is the evening meal; to some others it's what I call "lunch" (or better, "luncheon," but that word is fading fast), and the evening meal is called "supper." It's somewhat similar in Italian with the usage of "cenare" and "pranzare." |
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Speak a ommon spelling error list (hints on demand)
On Wed, 30 Aug 2017 08:00:41 -0700, Ken Blake
wrote: On Wed, 30 Aug 2017 09:41:22 -0230, Cheryl wrote: On 2017-08-30 9:39 AM, Mayayana wrote: "NY" wrote | (**) In case anyone doesn't know, "fanny" refers to the female genitals in | British English and the buttocks in American English. And in these times the same is true of ass and bum, at least among Brits that I know. I haven't heard "fanny" in the US since childhood. If I had to guess I'd say it's popular usage was probably pre-WW2. Another one to remember when visiting the US is not to say, "Here, pussy, pussy, pussy." (See ass and fanny.) If you're addressing a cat, it's OK to say "Here, pussy" I'm going back a lot of years, but I remember when my dog went over to a strange woman to smell her. She said "He's smelling my pussy." It became a standing joke on the old British sitcom "Are You Being Served?". Mrs Slocombe wrung that one dry. -- Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida |
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Speak a ommon spelling error list (hints on demand)
On 2017-08-30 16:58:38 +0200, "Peter Duncanson [BrE]"
said: [ ... ] It also works the other way round. There are many people in Britain for whom English is not their heritage. There are people who came or whose ancestors came from outside Britain, and there are people whose native and ancestral language is not English but Welsh. I suspect that a lot of people both in and out of the UK don't realize 1. that Welsh is completely different from English -- far more than French or German are; 2. that Welsh is a living language, spoken daily in their homes by many people. I won't say it's thriving and in no danger of going extinct, but it thrives a lot more than Irish or Scottish Gaelic, or, its relative Breton in France. -- athel |
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Speak a ommon spelling error list (hints on demand)
On Wed, 30 Aug 2017 11:13:39 -0400, Tony Cooper
wrote: On Wed, 30 Aug 2017 08:00:41 -0700, Ken Blake wrote: On Wed, 30 Aug 2017 09:41:22 -0230, Cheryl wrote: On 2017-08-30 9:39 AM, Mayayana wrote: "NY" wrote | (**) In case anyone doesn't know, "fanny" refers to the female genitals in | British English and the buttocks in American English. And in these times the same is true of ass and bum, at least among Brits that I know. I haven't heard "fanny" in the US since childhood. If I had to guess I'd say it's popular usage was probably pre-WW2. Another one to remember when visiting the US is not to say, "Here, pussy, pussy, pussy." (See ass and fanny.) If you're addressing a cat, it's OK to say "Here, pussy" I'm going back a lot of years, but I remember when my dog went over to a strange woman to smell her. She said "He's smelling my pussy." It became a standing joke on the old British sitcom "Are You Being Served?". Mrs Slocombe wrung that one dry. OK. I know nothing about sitcoms, neither British nor American. |
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Speak a ommon spelling error list (hints on demand)
On Wed, 30 Aug 2017 10:03:29 -0500, Rene Lamontagne
wrote: On 8/30/2017 9:58 AM, Ken Blake wrote: On Wed, 30 Aug 2017 11:59:52 +0100, "NY" wrote: "Robert Bannister" wrote in message ... Sadly, it seems that in this country at least, "waistcoat" has been replaced by "vest". It helps that we never called an undershirt a vest as they do in England. Exactly. When I went out to Boston to see my sister and her family who were living there for a few years because he husband had been seconded to Gillette's head office, I took the time to build up a list of the most obvious British/American differences (eg tap/faucet, flat/apartment, waistcoat/vest, vest/undershirt etc). And the different meanings of "momentarily" (*). And I knew not to look too horrified when an American referred to a woman's fanny (**) :-) The one word I missed from my "be careful how you use this word to avoid confusion" list was "fortnight". Someone asked me how long I was staying in Boston and I said "about a fortnight" which was met with blank incomprehension because I gather that this word (which refers to a period of fourteen days ie two weeks) is not used in the US as commonly. I'm familiar with the word "fortnight," but it's almost never used in the US. I'm always scrupulous about always quoting dates with the month as a word. 1/2/17 can be interpreted as 1st of February or January 2nd depending on whether you apply British or American convention, Yes. but "1st of February" is unambiguous, Yes. even if an American might have said it "February 2nd". Not me. I'd say "February first." g But a lot of Americans would say "Febuary first." Likewise for times in Germany: I'm wise to the fact that Germans use "half [an hour] *to* three" My German is extremely rusty and wasn't great to begin with (I studied it in college many years ago), but as I remember, it's not "half to three" but just "half three" (halb drei). It's strange to an English speaker, but it makes a lot of sense. where we would say "half *past* two". The problem comes when a German doesn't know that you've adjusted: I once had an amusing conversation with a German when I arranged to meet him at "halb drei" [half three] meaning half past two, Yes, as I said above and he didn't realise that I was aware of the different convention and thought I'd blindly translated "half" and "three", and so mentally adjusted this to what he would think of as "half [to] four". After that I said "half nach [past] drei", even though this isn't idiomatically correct, to avoid any misunderstanding. (*) In Britain, it means "*for* a moment" (ie transiently, briefly) rather than "*in* a moment" (ie soon), Thanks very much. I didn't know that. hence the hoary old joke about the American pilot who announced to his planeload of British passengers that they would be landing momentarily, to which the Brits thought "I hope he stays on the ground long enough for us to get off". Rather than use the word "wrongly" (by my standards) I tend to avoid it and rephrase it if I'm talking to Americans. (**) In case anyone doesn't know, "fanny" refers to the female genitals in British English and the buttocks in American English. Important that Americans coming to Britain don't use the wrong word :-) I didn't know that either. Anyone here have trouble spelling I or A ? :-)) I'm very good at spelling. Eye and eh. g |
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