Speak a ommon spelling error list (hints on demand)

On Wed, 30 Aug 2017 18:39:48 +0100, Janet wrote:

In article , am says...

That's another thing one doesn't generally see
in the US: Social class being indicated by the
silliness of one's nickname.

Do Americans use names like Earl, Prince, Princess,
Duke, to indicate their social class?

If so, which?

Such names often appear (and not only among Americans) from the
practice of using the mother's maiden name as a middle name.

--
Steve Hayes
http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
http://khanya.wordpress.com

On Wed, 30 Aug 2017 16:24:14 +1000, Peter Moylan
wrote:

On 29/08/17 18:46, Eric Stevens wrote:
On Tue, 29 Aug 2017 15:38:52 +1000, Peter Moylan
wrote:
On 29/08/17 14:08, Steve Hayes wrote:

If it was Windows doing it, then surely it would be checking this
message as I type, but no, my typos are unmarked.

I imagine that your Forte Agent doesn't including a spilling chukka. No
great loss if you're a good speller anyway.

Agent has had a spell checker for donkey's years.

Yet Steve says it doesn't work for him. Perhaps it's an option that he
hasn't turned on. Or perhaps there's a difference between the free and
the not-free version.

It doesn't work in the free version.


--
Steve Hayes
http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
http://khanya.wordpress.com

In article ,
Peter Moylan wrote:
On 30/08/17 20:59, NY wrote:

[momentarily]

(*) In Britain, it means "*for* a moment" (ie transiently, briefly)
rather than "*in* a moment" (ie soon), 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.

Is that "in a moment" meaning standard AmE? I thought it was purely
airline English.

It appears on the screen of SWMBO's printer when it is booting up.

--
from KT24 in Surrey, England

"Peter Moylan" wrote in message
news
In any case, we do now at least acknowledge that quick-oats was a very
poor attempt.

More like quick-sote.

In my ignorance I pronounced it this way when I first saw the name, and it
wasn't until I heard people talking about Donkey Hotee that I asked a few
questions and found that I've been saying it wrongly for years.

Spanish has some very counterintuitive pronunciations (to an English
speaker). I knew a Spanish woman at work who introduced herself as "Hemma".
It was only much later that I saw that it was spelled Gema - I never knew
till then that a G is sometimes pronounced as an throaty H sound in Spanish.

"Peter Moylan" wrote in message
news
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.

The 1970s British sitcom "Are You Being Served" has a long-running joke
about one of the characters repeatedly telling stories about "my pussy". The
dialogue usually made it clear eventually that she was referring to her cat,
but the intentional double-entendre was quite daring for the 1970s!

"Wolf K" wrote in message
...
A general observation: English school children are the worst-served when
ti comes to grammar. English school grammars, almost without exception,
describe a language that doesn't exist.

I agree. "Let the children express themselves as they like" was a bad move
in the 1960s.

When I was at university, a friend asked me to sanity-check the technical
information and explanations in a report that he was writing for his
coursework. It was very difficult to comment accurately on this, because I
first of all had to wade through horrendous English - lots of half-sentences
and sentences which I simply could not unravel to find the meaning.

I had to be very tactful and avoid the urge to rewrite some of the sentences
to say what I *think* he meant - so I just did that mentally as I was
reading!

It was quite an eye-opener to find that a native English speaker (ie it
wasn't his second language) who had got into university had such a problem
expressing himself in a report.

That report had the most corny title I've ever seen: "Huh! Interactive
Languages Are Really Yuk", which was a not-very-veiled reference to the fact
that his tutor (whom he fancied!) was called Hilary.

"Peter Moylan" wrote in message
news
On 30/08/17 20:59, NY wrote:

[momentarily]

(*) In Britain, it means "*for* a moment" (ie transiently, briefly)
rather than "*in* a moment" (ie soon), 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.

Is that "in a moment" meaning standard AmE? I thought it was purely
airline English.

I've heard it quite a bit in American films and from people I met when I was
on holiday in Boston, so I'd say that the "in a moment" meaning of
"momentarily" is fairly standard American English. It even crept into the
first Harry Potter film, when Prof McGonagall, a Scottish character played
by an English actress, Maggie Smith, utters the phrase "the Sorting Ceremony
will begin momentarily". Surprising that an actress of Maggie Smith's
standing didn't say "no British person would say that - how about changing
it to 'soon'".

In article ,
NY wrote:

I've heard it quite a bit in American films and from people I met when I was
on holiday in Boston, so I'd say that the "in a moment" meaning of
"momentarily" is fairly standard American English. It even crept into the
first Harry Potter film, when Prof McGonagall, a Scottish character played
by an English actress, Maggie Smith, utters the phrase "the Sorting Ceremony
will begin momentarily". Surprising that an actress of Maggie Smith's
standing didn't say "no British person would say that - how about changing
it to 'soon'".

I think I have heard that use more often in Scotland than in England.

-- Richard

"Richard Tobin" wrote in message
news
In article ,
NY wrote:

I've heard it quite a bit in American films and from people I met when I
was
on holiday in Boston, so I'd say that the "in a moment" meaning of
"momentarily" is fairly standard American English. It even crept into the
first Harry Potter film, when Prof McGonagall, a Scottish character played
by an English actress, Maggie Smith, utters the phrase "the Sorting
Ceremony
will begin momentarily". Surprising that an actress of Maggie Smith's
standing didn't say "no British person would say that - how about changing
it to 'soon'".

I think I have heard that use more often in Scotland than in England.

Hmmm. I wonder if that might be the case - so maybe its use by a Scottish
character wasn't so much of a mistake as I thought.

Scottish English has some unusual meanings of words - they one that springs
to mind is "messages", as in "I've got to go out for my messages". In this
context "messages" doesn't have it's normal meaning of a piece of
information or instruction, as a note on a piece of paper, an email or a
recording on your answerphone; instead it is a synonym for "shopping" or
"errands".

"NY" wrote in message
o.uk...
Scottish English has some unusual meanings of words - they one that
springs to mind is "messages", as in "I've got to go out for my messages".
In this context "messages" doesn't have it's normal meaning of a piece of
information or instruction, as a note on a piece of paper, an email or a
recording on your answerphone; instead it is a synonym for "shopping" or
"errands".

Whoops! In the second sentence I did, of course, mean "its" (possessive) not
"it's" (it is) :-) Since we're being pedantic in this thread.

In article ,
says...

"Peter Moylan" wrote in message
news
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.

The 1970s British sitcom "Are You Being Served" has a long-running joke
about one of the characters repeatedly telling stories about "my pussy". The
dialogue usually made it clear eventually that she was referring to her cat,
but the intentional double-entendre was quite daring for the 1970s!

Double-entendre humour has a long history in British humour, from
seaside postcards to the Carry On films and The Navy Lark.

Janet.

On 2017-08-30 9:34 PM, Janet wrote:
In article , am says...

"Janet" wrote

| Do Americans use names like Earl, Prince, Princess,
| Duke, to indicate their social class?
|
| If so, which?
|

Prince and princess. They refer to someone who's
irredeemably spoiled.

I asked about people whose NAME is Prince, or Princess.


But seriously, I'm not aware of any formal titles used
by Americans.

I'm not referring to titles.


One of the notable differences is that
while Brits are very class-conscious, Americans don't
believe in class.

Then why do Americans have names like Prince, Earl, Duke etc.

Generally, I expect, because someone in the family line thought it was a
good idea - different, maybe or stylish - and it got passed on. Or it
started as a nickname. That is, much as other words get picked up and
used as names. It may have become much more common recently, but I think
that the desire to choose something a little unusual and exotic and
therefore most suitable for the most special baby in the world goes back
a long way.

"Prince" and "Duke" still seem to be more often nicknames than actual
names, notwithstanding the efforts of some celebrities, but I'd say
"Earl" has changed from a special unique name to a quite ordinary one,
given with no thought to the fact that in some other country it's a title.

Modern parents who want unique names for their children often come up
with ones not based on aristocracy at all, like Neveah (Heaven spelled
backwards) although I've heard of a few Princesses. People often do seem
to be a bit more adventurous with girls' names.


--
Cheryl

"Steve Hayes" wrote

| An online acquaintance of mine has just published a book called
| "Cherry Bomb"

A type of fireworks in the US. It's round,
red, and not much bigger than a cherry.

In article , am says...

"Steve Hayes" wrote

| An online acquaintance of mine has just published a book called
| "Cherry Bomb"

A type of fireworks in the US. It's round,
red, and not much bigger than a cherry.

In Br E, Cherry is a slightly dated but completely unremarkable, no
innuendo girls name.

Janet

"Cheryl" wrote

| "Earl" has changed from a special unique name to a quite ordinary one,
| given with no thought to the fact that in some other country it's a title.
|

According to this site, it was a British first name
before The Colonies picked it up:

https://themeaningofthename.com/earl/

"People having the name Earl are in general originating from
Ireland, United Kingdom, United States of America."

But I think you also touch on a good point: In a
country without monarchy, monarchic titles are
the stuff of childrens' books. For a Brit it might seem
offensive or pretentious to give such a name to
a child. For Americans it's whimsical, or at worst
daffy.

Maybe it's not really so different these days in
Britain? When dukes and earls have to put on a
show for tourists in order to pay the heating bills,
that's really only a facade of monarchy.

We have a documentary playing on public TV
currently about the Earl (house?) of Spencer. It's
partly to commemorate Diana and partly because
US public TV gets English public TV for cheap or
free. But such a documentary -- like the dreadful
Downton Abbey soap opera we've been saddled
with for many years here in the US -- is really just
an adult version of a childrens' book about a magical
kingdom where power and glory flow freely.
So maybe both sides of the pond practice a kind
of sneaky ambivalence about the trappings of monarchy.