Discuss.
-----------------------------------------
I don't know if many of you have had the misfortune of surfing around with your SkyDigital remote late of an evening. If you have, you may have come across a channel called Game Network. In the day it shows boring programs about video games, but at night it shows a rather sinister program which goes by the name of BabeStation.
You might have seen the dodgy chat-cam websites, where a scantily-clad girl appears on cam, next to a chat room interface. Customers can type messages to the girl (usually "get ur top of") and she can reply. She will provide a teasing glimpse of breast now and again to tempt customers to pay for a private session.
Well BabeStation is a digital TV equivalent. Three cameras are pointed at girls on the left of the screen whilst the right hand side is a garish chat-room. But notice these messages are not just chate - they are text messages! There is a number to text and your message will appear on the TV - to be read out by one of the girls.
Most stick to the standard nudity requests - always read out, but rarely actioned. Sometimes insults are hurled at the girls, who do their best to defend themselves and each other. Their reading level is almost as low as the spelling and grammar of the texters. They struggle to read anything with more than a syllable, bless 'em.
So here's my idea...
Either using your mobile or one of the free SMS services such as Lycos, we stage a TMO invasion of BabeStation. We shall treat it as our own, discussing the issues of the day, debating and generally trying to inject a little high-brow humour into what is basically the lowest of the low. Someone could record the hilarity which would undoubtedly ensue and post them as an mpeg.
It's on every night from 11PM on Game Network (Sky Channel 223). SMS to 85148...
So who's up for it? You've always wanted to be on telly.
[ 30 April 2003: Message edited by: MiscellaneousFiles ]
Unfortunately I don't have Sky Digital, Mrs Keef does, but then she doesn't have internet - catch 22, or something like that.
quote:
Originally posted by Keef:
Unfortunately I don't have Sky Digital, Mrs Keef does, but then she doesn't have internet - catch 22, or something like that.
Does she have a mobile phone?
I'd just like to hear one of these dappy bints read something like this:
"SamuelNorton says:
'I am not masking anything. I have only stated that I am vehemently opposed to Islamic fundamentalism. If you don't reply to this, I'll just assume that you'll be hanging upside down by your scrotal sac.'
Whassat? Is he talkin' 'bout balls?
I would be tempted, but it would involve texting some faceless company who will charge you a quid per text, or something equally ridiculous.
Off topic, but closely related...
...has anyone tried watching the "Dating Channel" on Digital without ending up shielding your face in absolute terror?
There is also a scrolling "vidiprinter" stylee texting section at the bottom of the screen, where one can see the gormless fools say "how r u doin m8" or something equally inane at a quid a pop.
If it didn't cost so much, I'd probably bombard them with abusive texts. The morons.
quote:
Originally posted by vikram:
Lately I've found myself accidentally watching S4C - it's in Welsh!
I actually watched this channel for ten minutes and was transfixed. By the throaty garble ridiculously dotted with English words.
Chagogogch llywd chackakackckckckc hachachach cup of tea llandudno caerdyddgogogoch. Bye.
Or something like that.
quote:
Originally posted by Samuelnorton:
I actually watched this channel for ten minutes and was transfixed. By the throaty garble ridiculously dotted with English words.Chagogogch llywd chackakackckckckc hachachach cup of tea llandudno caerdyddgogogoch. Bye.
Or something like that.
This is exactly the same experience as watching programs in Gaelic, which BBC Scotland is forced to do a certain percentage of it's programs in.
"Mahoarsh mahoarsh dotaman albha uisge television coca-cola helicopter"
Personally I think that, if you have to include shitloads of foreign language words in your own language just so that you can have a normal conversation about modern life, it's time to just give up and admit that your language is pointless and shite.
[ 29 April 2003: Message edited by: Bamba ]
Just for the British guests, like.
quote:
Originally posted by Bamba:
Personally I think that, if you have to include shitloads of foreign language words in your own language just so that you can have a normal conversation about modern life, it's time to just give up and admit that your language is pointless and shite.
That's a little harsh. You'd be surprised how many languages adopt foreign terms for 'modern things'. English itself was 'guilty' of it for hundreds of years - at least half of its common words are from non-Anglo-Saxon stock (Dang's examples of straight lifts from French are indicative of English's tendency to borrow copiously). Other languages have done it too: in Armenian, apparently, only 23 per cent of the words are of native stock, and in Albanian the proportion is just 8 per cent. Japanese is said to have borrowed as many as 20,000 words from English (things like erebeta for elevator). So Welsh isn't so odd or 'crap' for using English words to express modern concepts, and in a way it's quite admirable that it simply allows the words to be used as is, without clumsy attempts to turn them into native versions.
And anyway it sounds funny, and that's got to be a bonus.
quote:
Originally posted by mart:
That's a little harsh. You'd be surprised how many languages adopt foreign terms for 'modern things'. English itself was 'guilty' of it for hundreds of years - at least half of its common words are from non-Anglo-Saxon stock (Dang's examples of straight lifts from French are indicative of English's tendency to borrow copiously). Other languages have done it too: in Armenian, apparently, only 23 per cent of the words are of native stock, and in Albanian the proportion is just 8 per cent. Japanese is said to have borrowed as many as 20,000 words from English (things like erebeta for elevator). So Welsh isn't so odd or 'crap' for using English words to express modern concepts, and in a way it's quite admirable that it simply allows the words to be used as is, without clumsy attempts to turn them into native versions.And anyway it sounds funny, and that's got to be a bonus.
C'mon dude, you must have known I was at least half-joking in that post. Mind you I was just waiting for someone to come along and say something similar. I would however draw a line between the English language's borrowing of terms and Gaelic's wholesale thievery. F'rinstance, Dang's example of 'quiche': quiche is an actual French food which we don't have a word for because the object itself is French and unique. Making up our own name for something which has already got a perfectly good name would be inuslting I feel. It would be like someone called 'Jacques' coming over here and us deciding to call him 'Fred' just for he sake of having Anglified it. However, things like television and helicopter aren't unique to any culture and the vast majority of laguages therefore have their own word for it. Nicking it straight from English and crowbarring it in an incredibly jarring fashion straight into your own language not only sounds stupid but is lazy and shows no effort whatsoever to keep up with the times. Other languages evolve and change through time (as you pointed out), what excuse have Welsh and Gaelic got?
Also, (and I'm a bit out of my depth here history-wise) wouldn't English's borrowing of words way back in the day again be because we were discovering foreign objects/conecpets which we knew nothing about so therefore had no way to discuss them without using their original names? Surely this defense again doesn't apply when we're talking about known universal concepts like the good old helicopter?
I'm aware that there's huge gaping holes in my logic and I'm prepared for someone to rip it to shreds if they can be arsed, but I'm sat here in the dark after having just watched Ring 2 so I'm not at my best.
Consider the English word helicopter. Here are some other languages:
Danish: helikopter
Spanish: helicóptero
French: hélicoptère
Italian: elicottero
Portuguese: helicóptero
Unfortunately I can't find it in Welsh, despite owning a (small) Welsh-English dictionary, but I'll wager it's "helicopter". What's so 'bad' about using the word from the neighbouring, dominant language, rather than 'inventing' a word of their own? For example, the English words macho, liberal, and guerrilla are all borrowed straight from Spanish. Admittedly, English has the 'advantage' of being more flexible than, say, Welsh, and normally we can Anglicise borrowed words (shampoo from India, ketchup from China, potato from Haiti, sofa from Arabia, slogan from Gaelic, and so on and on and on), but that doesn't mean that Welsh is a 'poorer' language than any other. After all, educated people speak it as a native tongue and get along perfectly well, achieving as much communication (the purpose of language) as they would in English, so I really don't see the problem.
Hehehe, that said, I know what you mean though. Fucking stupid language that can't come up with its own bloody words...
quote:
Originally posted by Bamba:
Also, (and I'm a bit out of my depth here history-wise) wouldn't English's borrowing of words way back in the day again be because we were discovering foreign objects/conecpets which we knew nothing about so therefore had no way to discuss them without using their original names?
No, it's chiefly because we were serially colonised by foreign wallahs such as Saxons, Romans and French. Being the highly efficient toadies that we were, we replaced our good ole celtic/saxon words with ones from the dominant culture.
Which I suppose is pretty similar to the reasons why so many languages adopt English (American) words?
Excepting Germany, of course. In German they stick german words together to make a new one, such as "Fernsehen" for television (translates as "See Far"). I suppose it's linguistically pure, but it doesn't half make it difficult to understand!
Er- unless you're German, of course.
quote:
I'm sat here in the dark after having just watched Ring 2 so I'm not at my best.
Well, at least you're not pedantic.
[crawls shamefacedly back into dusty, book-filled pedant's cave]
quote:
Originally posted by AgeingGrace:
No, it's chiefly because we were serially colonised by foreign wallahs such as Saxons, Romans and French.
Akchooully, despite being here for 367 years, and apart from places names, the Romans left very little behind in terms of vocabulary. In other countries their occupation resulted in entirely new languages, but in Britain they left barely five words, apparently. The same goes for Celtic.
I say apparently because I'm getting this all from a book. I have no idea myself. We have lots of words from Latin, of course, but that's entirely different.
quote:
Originally posted by mart:
Akchooully, despite being here for 367 years...
Lol, it would seem you can take the boy out of Britain, but you can't take Britain out of the boy.
quote:
Originally posted by AgeingGrace:
"Fernsehen" for television (translates as "See Far"). I suppose it's linguistically pure, but it doesn't half make it difficult to understand!
Isn't that pretty much what "television" translates as? Tele = far, visio = sight?
Summat like that.
quote:
Mart:the Romans left very little behind in terms of vocabulary ... We have lots of words from Latin, of course, but that's entirely different.
I'm sure Stefanos will disagree in great detail.
Idle rambling: Most towns/cities that have a "chester" or "cester" (Cirencester, Manchester etc.) in them are of Roman origin - I think it's Latin for Fort. I'm sure our resident Ancient will tell me if I'm wrong.
However, as you say, I'm sure Stefanos knows more about this. I'm playing a dangerous game of Vague Knowledge Death-Match here.
[ 30 April 2003: Message edited by: mart ]
quote:
Our public schools have turned away from the source of Truth, to teach our children that our sacred English language has descended from other languages. The poor impressionable youngsters are taught AS A FACT that English words have certain "root words", even though this is only a theory. The FACT is, God Almighty created all languages complete when he confused mankind's original language as punishment for our transgression at the tower of Babel. But the athiest/lingusts don't want this mentioned in public settings, because it goes against their FAITH, and forces them to face their own accountability. So they have BANNED the teaching of Babelism, because they are afraid that it might expose the weakness of their own linguistic ideas. Is this fair? I don't think so. It goes against all that America stands for.Therefore, join me in the campaign to have a balanced and fair treatment in public education. All english teachers should be required to include Babelism as a valid alternate theory to Linguisticism, whenever the origins of the English language is discussed.
Source: Babelism
"Those ignorant human fuckers, I'm sick of them worshipping false gods and coveting each other's asses! I know what I'll do, I'll make them all talk different, that'll teach them! Look, in the future these guys over here on this small island will say "helicopter" when talking about those bladed flying machines and these other guys on this bigger island over here will say "helicóptero". Ha! They'll rue the day they ever fucked with me! Not so bloody clever now are we?!?"
That's just sheer laziness really. If I was in charge it'd be "helicopter"/"schrtyhgjkdu" or such like. This whole God carry on, piece of piss I tell ya.
quote:
Originally posted by AgeingGrace:
Excepting Germany, of course. In German they stick german words together to make a new one, such as "Fernsehen" for television (translates as "See Far"). I suppose it's linguistically pure, but it doesn't half make it difficult to understand!
Er- unless you're German, of course.
Err, this is changing. Many German commercial channels - which means the majority of them - are starting to use the abbreviation "TV" - pronounced "teh-fau". Silly, when they have a perfectly good word in Fernsehen.
There is also "Wochenende" which has become "Weekend" and "Mannschaft", which has become "Team". Because it's "cool", or something. Christ, that's another one that has crept into the Lexikon.
Ugh.
quote:
Originally posted by Samuelnorton:
There is also "Wochenende" which has become "Weekend" and "Mannschaft", which has become "Team". Because it's "cool", or something. Christ, that's another one that has crept into the Lexikon.
The French language is also full of them, unfortunately. Few things are as cringeworthy as some French athlete talking about his forthcoming race being "un challenge" (instead of défi). "Le marketing" is another abomination. "Le weekend" I find acceptable though, as it just doesn't translate into French.
Amusingly enough, describing a black person by saying "il est black" is cooler than saying "il est noir"... God knows why.
quote:
mart:
Japanese is said to have borrowed as many as 20,000 words from English (things like erebeta for elevator).
I am puzzled as to why the Japanese for boyfriend is boyfriend though. Didn't the concept exist in Japan before they started learning English? Poor Japanese teenagers...
quote:
Originally posted by nightowl:
"Le weekend" I find acceptable though, as it just doesn't translate into French.
Then why does it translate into, for instance, German (as Wochenende)? What subtle meaning of "weekend" would "fin de semaine" fail to grasp?
I don't see that "weekend" is like Schadenfreude or l'esprit d'escalier, ie. a term whose elusiveness seems to have been pinned down elegantly by one language and whose precise meaning would need too many English words to convey ("pleasure in others' misfortune"/ "the sense of coming up with what you should have said after you've left the conversation".)
"chillen Sie out mit ein grillparty"
quote:
Originally posted by Bandy:
My all-time favourite anglo-germanism was included in an invite my company did to prospective clients:"chillen Sie out mit ein grillparty"
"Ich chille gern out."
"Mein Hobbys sind Tennis spielen und outchillen."
Gotta love the krauts...
quote:
Originally posted by mart:
places like France, Spain and Portugal their presence led directly to the Romance languages we know today. This quite clearly didn't happen in Britain.However, as you say, I'm sure Stefanos knows more about this. I'm playing a dangerous game of Vague Knowledge Death-Match here.
[ 30 April 2003: Message edited by: mart ]
No - you are on the money here. The post-R***n era in Britain different from most of the rest of Europe. The Franks, Burgundians and some Saxons rolled into Gaul, replaced the ruling R***n classes, collected the taxes, took over the large estates and lost their Germanic identity because they integrated with the culture with little resistance. Gaul was conquered in about fifty years. Spain was similar - the Goths (another Germanic race) were also `Latinised' very rapidly.
In comparision, Britain saw its last battle between the original settlers and invading Germanic types 350 years after the end of R***n occupation. The resistance encountered by the invaders was so severe that there is evidence that migration back to the continent actually occurred (tentative evidence for the legendary battle of Badon and King Arthur).
Effectively this led to Germanic enclaves in Britain where next to no cultural mixing took place - the R****o-British culture was replaced wholesale, including the language.
As for R***n town names:
Lincoln...was Lindum.
Bath...(supposedly) was Badon.
Manchester...was Mancetter (a R***n fortress).
London...Londinium (of course)
just off the top of my head.
Latin didn't contribute much to British (i.e. Welsh) - although pont (bridge) and iluric (lorica - Latin for armour) are two of the better known ones.
Most of the Latin in modern English is derived from Norman French, not directly from the R***ns. If it wasn't for the Norman invasion by William the Bastard, we'd all be speaking something very similar to Scots English (which is much closer to Middle English than Standard English) and Dutch...
Mrs Stefanos will no doubt rip this to shreds if she ever reads this, being a Classics graduate. 
[ 30 April 2003: Message edited by: Stefanos ]
quote:
Originally posted by kovacs:
l'esprit d'escalier... "the sense of coming up with what you should have said after you've left the conversation".)
Thank you. I've always wondered what that meant. My morning is complete.
I wonder when I can decently start dropping it into conversation? I'll have to work on my pronunciation first.
That made me want to do a little cry, Harly.
quote:
Nightowl:
The French language is also full of them, unfortunately. Few things are as cringeworthy as some French athlete talking about his forthcoming race being "un challenge" (instead of défi). "Le marketing" is another abomination. "Le weekend" I find acceptable though, as it just doesn't translate into French.
The French language is fabulous not just because it sounds so pretty but because it changes and adapts so much... the whole point of a 'modern language' is that it's 'alive' as opposed to 'dead' and like a living thing, it changes, grows and develops. This is what makes it interesting. And probably the main reason I found latin so dull.
quote:
Amusingly enough, describing a black person by saying "il est black" is cooler than saying "il est noir"... God knows why.
It's now "renoir". Get with the programme, chérie.
quote:
Originally posted by Harlequin:
Language has changed in recent years too. For example stupid phrases such as "get a life" never used to be used ten years ago and use of the word "sad" to describe someone who does something others think is strange! In short modern culture is crap!
Harly, it has always been like that. Even Latin had slang and fashions...you get late R***n writers saying that no one speaks proper Latin like they did in the days of Cicero...
quote:
Originally posted by Vogon Poetess:
Is it true that "computer" is "ordinateur" in French because "pute" is slang for arse? Most other languages just say "computer" in a funny accent.
Pute = whore
cul = ass
dunno if that's the reasoning tho...
[ 30 April 2003: Message edited by: Lyra ]
I love the way language changes, but it makes me a little bit realising that in the past few years (at least in the European languages I know) the changes that are occurring usually involve borrowing from English, rather than the constant interchange of vocabulary items between all languages that stabilised the languages into what we speak now. Why am I busting my ass trying to learn a language that is creeping ever closer to one I already speak fluently?
All the students I teach here pepper their language with Englishisms (new word?). Everything is "supercool", a party is no longer a fete (fucking circumflex), and "fuck you", "fuck the goverment", "fuck Bush" and "fuck the world" is scrawled over wall after wall in La Rochelle. Eminem has a lot to answer for, although they haven't figured it all out yet. In a discussion about the war the other day I said without thinking, "Tony Blair sucks". The whole class looked at me blankly before one of them raised their hand and ventured, "Tony Blair...est une chausette?" I laughed my ass off.
One of the kids also asked me the other day how you say the verb kidnapper in English, which I thought was quite odd, as it hadn't struck me as a recent enough word to necessitate the inevitable borrowing from English.
Oooh European language change. Could spout incoherent bollocks about this all day. But won't, as I'm boring myself.
quote:
Originally posted by Vogon Poetess:
Is it true that "computer" is "ordinateur" in French because "pute" is slang for arse? Most other languages just say "computer" in a funny accent.
They do use computer as well though.
It's like them putting in an "l" between "que" and "on" because "con" means "fucking stupid".
You have to say, Qu'est-ce que l'on va faire instead of Qu'est-ce qu'on va faire.
So prudish. You gotta love it.
Yeah, everyone knows the history of at least one word I reckon...
Port and starboard. I read somewhere that this comes from the fact that one side of old ships had a steering rudder hanging off it - the steer board in fact - and the other side (the left as you look towards the front of the boat from the back) was moored up against the port.
This is irrelevent to the development of language, but je m'en fous.
quote:
Originally posted by scrawny:
Everything is "supercool
Bloody hell, French kids were saying this in 1988. Hasn't it gone out of fashion yet? Chill, les mecs!
The `Y' is actually the letter `þ' (or Ð) or thorn. Which is pronounced `th' as in `the'.
The only reason people started writing `Ye' was because the way thorn was written was gradually written more and more like the letter `Y'.
And then thorn fell out of use and everyone assumed it was the letter `y'...
I wonder how long British English is going to last; Japanese and Koreans all learn American English, and the influence of American films and music is growing all the time. The Polish word for mobile phone is "komorka", literally translating as "cell" as in the American cell phone.
quote:
Originally posted by Vogon Poetess:
I also completely failed to explain custard, as it appears to exist only in this country.
Creme anglais. Vanilla sauce. Which is cold, thin and not as nice as real, thick hot custard...
[ 30 April 2003: Message edited by: Stefanos ]
quote:
Originally posted by Vogon Poetess:
I also completely failed to explain custard, as it appears to exist only in this country.
what about that custardy stuff in quiche?
and creme brulee? no not the league of gentlemen.....
and english english?
there was a thing in NZ about a year and a half ago. the schools wanted to know which way they should go, should they start teaching american-english or stay with englsih.
nothing was really resolved.
[ 30 April 2003: Message edited by: d666 ]
The thick, sweet, bright yellow sludge I used to eat with rhubarb crumble and bananas is nothing like the stuff in quiches.
I think I said something like "you add hot milk to this yellow powder and it goes thick and creamy" and they looked at me with their special brand of Polish contempt.
quote:I thought con meant ****?
Originally posted by scrawny:
It's like them putting in an "l" between "que" and "on" because "con" means "fucking stupid".
There was a great thing on a little while ago about language, with the premise that having more words that mean something only slightly different, means you can actually think with more subtlety (that's a bugger of a word to spell after a couple of goes) - i.e. you can't think unless you've got the words. So when the French brought all their words over (a lot of which presumably came from the R***n) we used theirs and kept our own as well - like English "room" and French "chamber". The line of argument about needing the words to have the thought, and English having more words than any other language, leads indirectly to the complexity of our legal system and the power of the courts, because even with the most careful drafting words are subject to the most nitpicky interpretation. The subtlety of our language leads to subtlety of thought, which leads to fat lawyers.
[ 30 April 2003: Message edited by: Octavia ]
quote:
Originally posted by Vogon Poetess:
What kind of quiches have you been eating damo?
have you ever made a custard? with eggs? and milk? no me neither but watching delia smith make custard and quiche(and (for shame) reading the description on the back of a quich packet, which is really the truth. why would I watch delia. i can't cook and won't cook. i live on pasta and takeaways. oh god i'm baring my soul now) it says "savoury custard in pastry".
granted i wouldn't want to make a quiche using birds or ambrosia. but i guess milk, eggs and whatever is the basics innit?
look science
phew got out of that one.
quote:
Originally posted by d666:
have you ever made a custard? .....watching delia smith
This is in one of those funny forren languages we're talking about, isn't it?
quote:
Originally posted by Vogon Poetess:
Swiss Roll
Known in Spain as brazo de gitano or gypsy's arm.
quote:
Originally posted by Vogon Poetess:
This is in one of those funny forren languages we're talking about, isn't it?
yeah as spoken by people who have "settled down" and "have kids" and "a proper job" and "a mortgage" and who "don't spend all their money on druqs beer and prostitutes".
quote:
Originally posted by Octavia:
Quiche is custard made without the sugar, with cream instead of milk, and usually with cheese.
Let's all kill ourselves now.
quote:
Originally posted by Vogon Poetess:
From hottsexxytvchixx to culinary details in 3 pages.Let's all kill ourselves now.
quote:
Originally posted by d666:
you started it you spakking munter.
see if it weren't for evolution of the language we wouldn't have such qualiddy insults, and life would be the poorer for it.
quote:
Originally posted by Vogon Poetess:
hottsexxytvchixx
Actually they mang, but nevermind...
And I still haven't had that lemon thing, that Damo goes on about. What is it again?
quote:
Originally posted by mart:
Isn't custard/crème anglaise made with just the yolk, whereas in a quiche you use the whole egg?
I can't believe I just googled for a custard recipe
quote:
Originally posted by MiscellaneousFiles:
Actually they mang,
As in they did ming??
edit: Ubb Mongfest
[ 30 April 2003: Message edited by: Teflon ]
quote:
Originally posted by Octavia:
You should try Delia's website, she've very reliable, you know.
[the shame]Iknow, I have two of her books and they're fantastic [/the shame].
quote:
Originally posted by Teflon:
As in they did ming??
They were minging = They mang
quote:
Originally posted by Octavia:
What if you like cooking, though?
You're sick and wrong and will be punished accordingly come the revolution.
Or you could come and cook me something.
quote:
Originally posted by d666:
i find chicken kebabs from camel one to be the greatest source of nutrition ever. fact. no need to cook ever again.
Saajan shits on Camel One from height.
Saajan shits on all kebab shop from height.
Saajan shits on Gordon Ramsey from height.
quote:Are you a vegetable? I don't do vegetables.
Originally posted by Vogon Poetess:
You're sick and wrong and will be punished accordingly come the revolution.Or you could come and cook me something.
Is acceptable English usage going to change to incorporate the "bad spelling" that now seems so prevalent, esp. online, and is this an OK thing?
I noticed "it's" on my Nivea nourishing nite cream today: "it's" as in "it's firming properties" or something. I was far less outraged than I would have been a couple of years ago -- my reaction was more like resignation than shock, and I found myself thinking, well maybe it's almost becoming an acceptable alternative, if we see "it's" for the possessive on a multinational's packaging.
As an article in the excellent IoS supplement Talk of the Town pointed out last week, every day millions (I wrote "mullions", which actually seemed quite a good word) of people are mangling the English language, many of them in my presence as I spend most of my waking hours on chatrooms.
quote:
hi
hellolol howz u
what's how's u? do you mean how am Ilol
wat u bin up 2
do I know youu a snob or wat
by
And yet gradually even I have found myself using "u" for you -- sometimes going to extremes like "b4", which I would have scorned in the past as some kind of sub-Prince-lyric kiddytalk (2gether 4ever 4 years 2 come) but which does come in useful when you have six windows up at once.
We all know that lang. has changed since Shakespeare's day, when they had a score of different ways to write simple words -- even Austen wrote "shewed" for "showed", and Carroll used "wo'n't" for "won't".
Will "wat", "b4", "2", "neva", "dat" (ugh! I still can't stand the pikey, chimplike slur of the last one) become accepted as legitimate informal alternatives for what, before, to/too, never, that, just as "don't" has become acceptable in all but the most formal writing?
quote:
Originally posted by kovacs:
(I wrote "mullions", which actually seemed quite a good word)
It is a word, something to do with a glass effect I think, the only usage I know is mullioned windows (= leaded with swirly glass?)
ahah
mullioned adjective
(of windows) having vertical sections, usually made of stone, between the glass parts
[ 30 April 2003: Message edited by: Hippychick ]
The misused apostrophe on the Nivea jar though, that's just disgusting. Christ! Hire a fucking copywriter! Better to dispense with punctuation altogether than abuse it till it breaks.
[ 30 April 2003: Message edited by: Londie ]
quote:
Originally posted by kovacs:
I noticed "it's" on my Nivea nourishing nite cream today: "it's" as in "it's firming properties" or something. I was far less outraged than I would have been a couple of years ago -- my reaction was more like resignation than shock, and I found myself thinking, well maybe it's almost becoming an acceptable alternative, if we see "it's" for the possessive on a multinational's packaging.
But if they're using it as the possesive pronoun, there should be no apostrophe, non? You only get an "apostrophe s" when it's the possesive pronoun for someone, not something.
I know this because I type this a lot:
Virgin Money only markets its own products.
And I was told off for adding the apostrophe a couple of years ago when I was new.
Edit to realise that was Ko's point all along.
[ 30 April 2003: Message edited by: Keef ]
Zorst = Exhaust
Breaks = Brakes (every bloody time)
Tires = Tyres
Lites = Lights
This is in addition to the usual usage of wot, dat, 4, U, etc. It hurts my eyes and it annoys me to the core.
Most annoying to me is the confusion over possessives (for example it's and its). I can just about accept it when used by proles in chate rooms and message boards, and even on market stalls (Apple's - 30p), but when you see it slipping into the packaging of reputable companies (as Kovacs menitoned), you have to worry.
A long time ago, I used to work in the kitchens of Deep Pan Pizza. That company produced a highly polished and smartly designed advertising poster which contained the phrase 'Eat as much pizza and pasta as you like accept create your own'
quote:
Originally posted by squirrelandgman:
Saajan shits on Camel One from height.
Saajan shits on all kebab shop from height.
Saajan shits on Gordon Ramsey from height.
you know nuttin' bwoi.
let me tell you. saajan. yeah it rocks. it beats haji and abduls down and stomps them into the dirt.
camel one and saajan rock. but camel one does it for me.
theres one in trafford that all da taxi drivers go to and thats mint. but i can't remember its name.
furthermore, spices of kashmir (burnage, broughton and trafford) are up there too.
talking to mr kebabalot.
As for errors such as the one on the Nivea tin, as shocking as it is, the authorities themselves often make mistakes; I have a list in front of me of glaring bloopers made by expert grammarians. Some examples:
quote:
'His system of citing examples of the best authorities, of indicating etymology, and pronunciation, are still followed by lexicographers' (Philip Howard, The State of the Language).
quote:
'Each of the variants indicated in boldface type count as an entry' (William and Mary Morris, The Harper Dictionary of Contemporary Usage).
quote:
'Prestige is one of the few words that has had an experience opposite to that described in "Worsened Words"' (H.W. Fowler, A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, second ed.).
Interesting, no?
At university, there were loads of signs up about the nuns opposite the Guild complaining about the noise at the end of the night, ending with the threat "we could loose our licence". As they were too tight to reprint, someone had scribbled out the offending "o"s with a marker. At a fucking university.
quote:
Originally posted by mart:
Interestingly, if you think about it, an apostrophe to denote the genitive (the possessive form) makes sense: it's what we use to say, for example, "Mart's threads are shit". Of course, accepted usage is to drop the apostrophe for "its", so the above is all irrelevant, but then I only ever claimed it to be "interesting".
Eh. 'Its' is genitive, though. The apostrophe is used to denote the missing 'e' of the genitive, as in Martes threads are shit. There's no 'e' being dropped in 'its', so it's not a case that the apostrophe has been dropped, either. There never was one, and there never should have been one.
quote:
Originally posted by Vogon Poetess:
The Polish word for mobile phone is "komorka", literally translating as "cell" as in the American cell phone.
We found this funny. Even funnier though is the German word for mobile phone - "das Handy". Come to think of it, it's not funny. It's crap.
quote:
Originally posted by Amy:
Ebonics?
Have you seen Snoop's MTV show Fizzle Televizzle?
ANYWAY: This theory becomes flawed, as most theories do, when you look at more extreme examples, like Ebonics. I never managed to get my head round the idea that Ebonics should be recognised in its own right to the extent that students raised in Ebonics-speaking households should have the right to be taught in it, to take exams in it, and to use it at all times. Despite all sorts of flag-waving about oppression of minorities, I couldn't help feeling that the by elevating this ethnic minority associated language to official status all you are actually doing is destroying any possibility of integration in the future. It's unfortunate that the dominant language has to be representative of the white middle classes, obviously, but what would be gained by setting up an officially sanctioned linguistic/etnic divide that can only be vaulted by exceptions like Marshall Mathers? Hmmm.
How did I get onto this? Oh yeah, spelling and punctuation. What I was trying to say is that playing with language makes me very happy (the first time I found out that "to stretch" in Italian is "to iron yourself" is a pretty good example. Or the day somebody translated the Hogwart's sorting hat as "Le Choixpeau".) However, in one aspect of language I am an absolute traditionalist and that is spelling. I refuse to see txtspk as an evolution of our language, and refuse to accept that Nokia is an important enough factor in my life not only to chnage the way I communicate, but to change what I'm communicating. I find it embarrassing, when I'm running out of space at the end of a text message and the only thing that I can fit in is "C U L8R". I'd rather just end the message abruptly than write that.
Did text speak start as a necessity thing, or has it always been the preserve of the teeny boppers and "ironics" texting each other from under their Hoxton fins in wanky London bars? I'd hate to think that the 14-year-olds might actually be starting a trend, rather than just nicking off with it and castrating it totally, as is usually the case.
quote:
Originally posted by scrawny:
Did text speak start as a necessity thing, or has it always been the preserve of the teeny boppers and "ironics" texting each other from under their Hoxton fins in wanky London bars? I'd hate to think that the 14-year-olds might actually be starting a trend, rather than just nicking off with it and castrating it totally, as is usually the case.
I would assume that it began, if not as a neccessity, at least something to make life easier. If you send a lot of texts (and we're talking pre-predictive text messaging here) then it would save a helluva lot of time and space to shorten everything at the expense of readability. That said, people use it just out of habit (given predicitve text messagin technology) now and it's an aspect of the general 'dumbing down' in modern culture that gets right on my tits. It's use on the internet is prety much unacceptable given that you can take as much time as you want (within reason) to type something. It's done now simply because teenagers think it's cool which goes along with the general dumbing down thing.
Oh, jeez.
Culture and laguage are fluid. So the rules or grammar get broken. So what? Things change, as they must. Let the kids speak how they like, write how they like. Society always finds the median.
quote:
Originally posted by kovacs:
...maybe it's almost becoming an acceptable alternative, if we see "it's" for the possessive on a multinational's packaging.
I've always had a hard time on this one.
I still find myself irked by the use of "greengrocer's apostrophe's" - the inability to distinguish possession from plural (and singular possession from group possession), but I don't see any good reason for not having one in the example you cited above.
I've always been curious as to where some of these very specific exceptions to rules come from - they seem to have the air of an actual decision made by some self-appointed expert in the language rather than being the result of any kind of natural evolution.
I note that the word "ass" is used widely on TMO instead of "arse", and wonder why this is so. Are you just using it to add a little variety in your posts, is it done consciously, playfully, or is it becoming an 'accepted' UK replacement for "arse", and you have taken it on board as such? In speech, would you say "arse" or "ass"?
That's a serious question.
The ebonics thing made me uncomfortable as well, Scrawny. I really don't know what to think about it, to the extent that I just wrote:
"My gut reaction as someone who knows a little bit (a very little bit) about dialects and creoles is that although it could be accepted as a creole (and thus though to a 'language'),..."
and then didn't know how to finish the sentence. Hmmm...
quote:This is supported by anecdotal evidence, quoted in All Must Have Prizes by Melanie Phillips. The first time that she realised her liberal sentiments might have some holes was when she was approached by a black councillor who berated her for believing that children should be taught in their own languages and within their own culture as far as possible. For exactly those reasons, that it effectively ghettoised the children and handicapped them when it came to jobs etc.
Originally posted by scrawny:
I never managed to get my head round the idea that Ebonics should be recognised in its own right to the extent that students raised in Ebonics-speaking households should have the right to be taught in it, to take exams in it, and to use it at all times. Despite all sorts of flag-waving about oppression of minorities, I couldn't help feeling that the by elevating this ethnic minority associated language to official status all you are actually doing is destroying any possibility of integration in the future.
quote:
Originally posted by Bamba:
It's use on the internet
From somewhere in the mists of time I remember being taught that the possessive apostrophe had its roots in something like;
"Mart his threads are shit becoming "Mart's threads are shit". Thus the apostrophe denoted the contraction. I could never work out why females would have a possessive apostrophe. Given that we do allow them this, why not the same for an it?
Long hand phrase = 39.
In an emergency, this may be crucial.
As soon as I figure out what it is you're trying to say...
quote:
Originally posted by mart:
"ass"
I don't like the use of the word ass in place of arse. Arse has a good, round, west-country sound to it which makes it fit what it describes. Ass doesn't. It's a donkey.
I heard an MTV presenter the other week referring to "Jackarse" instead of Jackass. This is just silly.
quote:She used to be liberal - read the book. You'll end up thinking education went to shite in 1967 as well. Actually it's more like 1867.
Originally posted by vikram:
Is Melanie Phillips that horrid moraliser that writes in the Sunday Times? She's not a liberal! she's one of those deluded idiots that think everything went wrong in 1967.
I don't think education is liberal enough. Too much testing, not enough play. I'd take freestyler creativity over learning by rote anyday.
quote:
Originally posted by vikram:
She's not a liberal! she's one of those deluded idiots that think everything went wrong in 1967.
With Magical Mystery Tour you mean? But they got back on track with the White Album surely?
quote:Especially as in this case it really does mean donkey.
Originally posted by MiscellaneousFiles:
I heard an MTV presenter the other week referring to "Jackarse" instead of Jackass. This is just silly.
quote:
Originally posted by mart:
I note that the word "ass" is used widely on TMO instead of "arse", and wonder why this is so. Are you just using it to add a little variety in your posts, is it done consciously, playfully, or is it becoming an 'accepted' UK replacement for "arse", and you have taken it on board as such? In speech, would you say "arse" or "ass"?
Personally, I alsways use 'arse' wherever possible. The 'r' sound can be strung out for a slightly softer, more comedic approach or truncated for a shortsharpshock. The only time I use ass is when I don't reckon I'd get away with arse as it's a slightly more polite alternative I feel. I'm sure they use it in things like Friends which makes it an acceptable word when in conversation with you mother, arse is not.
Arse works much better as an insult. Staring contemptuously, sneering "You arse" is never going to work the other way, is it.
quote:
Originally posted by scrawny:
I say Arse as well, although it bothers me that it has a southern style "ah" in it, and I try to avoid those whenever possible.
Oh come on... It's not like grass - arse actually does have an r in it. There's no other way to pronounce it surely?
quote:This is going to be incredibly incoherent, as I'm a) impassioned about this and b) at work in the middle of trying to pretend that I'm writing a report due in by close of play.
Originally posted by vikram:
Why not tell me how things went wrong?I don't think education is liberal enough. Too much testing, not enough play. I'd take freestyler creativity over learning by rote anyday.
It's not about creative vs rote-learning:
It's about the liberal ideal of self-esteem. Children now are taught on the basis of a praise culture - they're not told they're wrong, because it might damage their self-esteem. So they're praised whatever they do - kids are very quick to spot when they're being lied to, and paradoxically this approach undermines a) their self-esteem and b) their trust in their teachers. Children need structure and rules in order to be confident of their own place in life - they also love to get things right. To be told that there is no right answer (for example in relation to German grammar, which is clearly bollocks) disheartens them and discourages them from learning, as well as actually not teaching them in the first place.
It's also about the shift of responsibility from teacher to child - instead of the teacher being responsible for teaching, the child is responsible for learning. It places enormous pressure on kids, but again there is paradoxical damage to self-esteem - again best explained anecdotally. A child in Phillips' book got to the age of 11 without knowing that she couldn't read. Her primary school teachers all subscribed to the "immersion" theory of reading, whereby children are allowed to play about with books in the library until some of it goes in (presumably by osmosis). They are not (and I cannot stress this highly enough) [i]taught to read[/]. So her parents were told that she was very "literate" and really enjoyed reading time, and the girl herself was assured that she was doing very well. But she couldn't read. And even when confronted with this blunt fact by her belatedly frantic parents, her teachers continued to insist that she was very "literate" and that there wasn't a problem. The girl was gutted of course.
That's what is meant by liberal theories of education. I could go on practically ad infinitum. I had to give the book away because it made me so angry.
quote:
Originally posted by MiscellaneousFiles:
Oh come on... It's not like grass - arse actually does have an r in it. There's no other way to pronounce it surely?
Grass actually does have an r in it too, but I know what you mean so I'll stop being picky.
I know. This is how I pronounce it. Arse. Like a southerner in larger trousers.
quote:
Originally posted by Bandy:
Hehe. You sound like a savvaner.
Unless I'm mistaken, Scrawny doesn't sound particularly northern...
Bandy does though.
quote:
Originally posted by mart:
"arse"
I make a point of saying arse instead of ass...it sounds pretty crap when people with British accents say `ass', including myself.
Arse!
[ 30 April 2003: Message edited by: Stefanos ]
quote:
Originally posted by Stefanos:
I make a point of saying arse instead of ass
But why do you need to make a point of it? Are other people using "ass"?
Grass, glass, bath, and graph should all have the same 'a' sound as arse.
FACT!
kisses
MF, I've been hangin round with southerners too fucking long. Years of Northern upbringing royally screwed in two semesters with the London Jew Crew.
quote:
Originally posted by mart:
But why do you need to make a point of it? Are other people using "ass"?
Yes they are. Ass seems to be used by da kidz in certain contexts. I wouldn't expect to hear "Oh yeah, my ass!" but phrases like "I'll kick your ass" seem to work better with ass than arse, perhaps because of their US origins.
quote:
Originally posted by scrawny:
royally screwed in two semesters with the London Jew Crew.
too much info.
but it is nice to know you are all getting on well.
quote:
Originally posted by mart:
But why do you need to make a point of it? Are other people using "ass"?
A lot of people I am in contact with...
[cowed]Besides, Mrs Stefanos is a ruddy devil when it comes to people using unnecessary Americanisms....[/cowed]
quote:
Originally posted by Pink:Grass, glass, bath, and graph should all have the same 'a' sound as arse.
FACT!
only if it incest runs in your family and you own half the country.....
quote:
Originally posted by Octavia:
It's about the liberal ideal of self-esteem. Children now are taught on the basis of a praise culture - they're not told they're wrong, because it might damage their self-esteem. So they're praised whatever they do.
People who do this now are either stuck in the 60's or else completely ignorant of how positive praise should be used. Praise is used to reinforce positive achievement and behaviour. That's all. Children are regularly told when they get things wrong, it's just done with a little sensitivity!
quote:
Originally posted by Pink:
Grass, glass, bath, and graph should all have the same 'a' sound as arse.
Seconded!
quote:
Originally posted by d666:
only if it incest runs in your family and you own half the country.....
Grrr. This reeelly gets on my tits. Half the country, the part south of the Tees, pronounces grass grarse, path parth, et-bleedin-cetera. A long 'a' does not denote poshness - cf Jade Gooding/Posh Spice. Nor does a short 'a' denote some sort of salt-of-the-earth un-pretentiousness - cf posh Cheshire twats.
I was once pointed and laughed at, at a party in London, for my use of the pronounciation barthroom. I was in London, speaking in a London manner. The taunter was from Ireland. Why is the southern accent fair game for piss-taking, but any other accent not? Well apart from centuries of class war, oppression against the Irish, blah blah whinging bastards.
quote:Sorry if I offended you Stevie, but I believe that's exactly where a good number of teachers really are stuck. Certainly based on Phillips's book, anyway.
Originally posted by StevieX:
People who do this now are either stuck in the 60's or else completely ignorant of how positive praise should be used. Praise is used to reinforce positive achievement and behaviour. That's all. Children are regularly told when they get things wrong, it's just done with a little sensitivity!
quote:
Originally posted by herbs:
Half the country, the part south of the Tees, pronounces grass grarse, path parth, et-bleedin-cetera.
Personally I think you have to admire the accents from the West-Country and parts of East Angular which really take the grarrrrse thing to extremes.
"Murder?"
Tell me Northern accents don't get the piss ripped out of them.
I've been in London all weekend laughing at the aforementioned London "ironics". Just wanted to say I can't wait till an accent like Ben's becomes the ultimate wanky Southern fashion accessory.
Gotta run, goodnight all...
quote:
Originally posted by Octavia:
Sorry if I offended you Stevie, but I believe that's exactly where a good number of teachers really are stuck. Certainly based on Phillips's book, anyway.
Very nicely put, Octavia. And you got all your spellings right too I notice. Straight to the top of the class!
quote:
Originally posted by scrawny:
"Murder?"
"I never!"
all accents are ripe for having the rip pissed out of them....
I don't know. Somebody like, say, Johnny Vegas, will use some beautiful language, and then put some swearing on the end, but in a way that doesn't seem forced. It's as if we have adopted post-modern speech patterns to cope with the constant re-invention, atomisation, and the way in which we are now expected to 'interact' with our media environment through the constant use of irony, sarcasm, spoof, and targeted cultural references. By post-modern speech pattern, I mean a way of talking that mocks any culturally specific language by using it in an historically inappropriate context. Obviously every generation will have their own terms and patterns, and this will be diverse across class, geography etc., but what I'm talking about it is a more deliberately self-conscious change in speech, like the way that the Tarantino characters speak.
By using words like "ass", it could be a way of both celebrating and engaging with the breakdown in linear cultural development, and protecting our core identity by giving up at least part of our exterior communication to the world around us. It's recognising the way in which the US media is dominating many areas of life; not just the obvious ones like TV, film, books etc, but, for example, urban spaces are being filled with it, shops are using it to sell things, and our workplaces are becoming US style jargon-filled pressurised environments.
Something like "ass" is a knowingly alien term in our historical culture, but not in the increasingly commercially dominated post-modern culture. We live within a warped historical interpretation, and a society driven by sales culture, and perhaps we need to interact differently with both, in order to understand them, and to try and silence the brain alarm bell that rings with every freaky twist that our cultural environment seems to take.
*ahem* I'm not making any sense, and I'm probably wrong in many ways (I don't just mean subjectively), so if that makes no sense, then it's because it's the deluded ramblings of a man who is practically hallucinating from ingesting half a kilo of mechanically recovered pork in a cut price pork pie.
[ 30 April 2003: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
quote:
Originally posted by Octavia:
Sorry if I offended you Stevie, but I believe that's exactly where a good number of teachers really are stuck. Certainly based on Phillips's book, anyway.
You didn't offend me at all - I know that the misplaced side of liberal eduactional values exists in the practice of some of our, er, less capable teachers.
The rest of us do what we can to avoid children identifying themselves as failures. It's one of those unfortunate things that the arses who don't do it properly give the whole notion and ideal a bad name. 'Twas ever thus, I guess!
quote:
Originally posted by scrawny:
One word for you."Murder?"
Tell me Northern accents don't get the piss ripped out of them.
But you wouldn't go to a Glasgow party and say: 'Murrrderrr. Ha ha ha! Have you heard the way you talk? You sound lika fuckwit'. Whereas bleedin' northerners and the like feel free to do this darn sarth. As if we were free game.
quote:
Originally posted by herbs:
Whereas bleedin' northerners and the like feel free to do this darn sarth. As if we were free game.
<stereotypical angry northerner>its cos you came up to the north with your money, built some factories, enslaved us, sent us to die for you and then tret us like shite for the remainder of the time.</stereotypical angry northerner>
when in reality we're just embarrased that we can't talk proper, use an umbrella, inside lavs, and electricity......
:theresabigtoungeinmycheekatthemoment:
quote:
Originally posted by Dr. Benway:
Very interesting stuff
So, just let me get this clear. I know Misc has already said it is so, as has Stefanos, but I'll ask again: is "ass" creeping into the speech patterns of young people in the UK? Isolated as I am from interacting with UK speakers of English, I have no idea whether this is so or not. I'm not doubting Misc and Stef, I'd just like some more opinions, maybe from around the country, from different social settings, etc. I find it most interesting.
Also, what's all this about "murder"? I'm lost there.
quote:
Originally posted by herbs:
But you wouldn't go to a Glasgow party and say: 'Murrrderrr. Ha ha ha! Have you heard the way you talk? You sound lika fuckwit'. Whereas bleedin' northerners and the like feel free to do this darn sarth. As if we were free game.
Exactly. Personally I love hearing different accents. Even as someone with an Estuary English accent, I am horrified by signs that it is spreading across the country....
*THONK!*
It's not like I'm saying 'ass' 24 hours a day, but I do use it more than "arse". I'd only use the word "arse" in the context of "I can't be arsed", although granted, I do say that quite a lot. Personally, nothing gives me greater pleasure than creating nonsense words, by taking words like "****", "fuck", "cock", or "tit", and then bolting them onto words like "rag", "stick", or "sniffer". Every now and again it's possible to happen across a real winner.
[ 30 April 2003: Message edited by: Dr. Benway ]
quote:
Originally posted by mart:
Also, what's all this about "murder"? I'm lost there.
I think it stems from Jimmy Corkhill's famous line in Brookside: Mehhrdehr? Ah nevehhhr!
Scrawny likes to pretend she's a scouser and, hence, feign annoyance at the use of the above phrase.
kisses
Another one that Thorn uses too much is "panties". I fucking hate this word, it sounds so coy and babyish. "Knickers" and "pants" are so much more strident and effective.
Edit to add about bath/barth; being born and brought up on the south coast with parents from the Midlands doesn't help much.
[ 30 April 2003: Message edited by: Vogon Poetess ]
quote:
Originally posted by Vogon Poetess:
Another one that Thorn uses too much is "panties".
Inexplicably, this totally does my head in. It makes me think of bad American porn for some reason.
Sorry, as you were.
quote:
Originally posted by Pink:
Beware calling people born in Birkenhead scouse bad things can happen...kisses
What, like Murder? Guffaw.
Ahem. On consideration I probably should have written 'Plastic Scouser'.
quote:
Originally posted by Bamba:
Inexplicably, this totally does my head in. It makes me think of bad American porn for some reason..
Pronounced "pannies", obviously...
I too thought Scrawny was medium-posh southern. Though I suppose I've mainly conversed pissed over 120dB pub music.
quote:
Originally posted by Bandy:
I think it stems from Jimmy Corkhill's famous line in Brookside: Mehhrdehr? Ah nevehhhr!
I was thinking more along the lines of Taggart. But fair point, nonetheless.
quote:
Originally posted by Vogon Poetess:
Out of interest, where do I register on your poshometer, Herbs?
Pretty high - somewhere in between Zoe Ball and Victoria Hervey.
quote:
Originally posted by herbs:
Pretty high - somewhere in between Zoe Ball and Victoria Hervey.
it's yer posh name wot done it....
Let there be no doubt:
Arse is pronounced "Arrrse". The longer the "r" sound, the better. Especially when you are talking down to the imbecile who has just forgotten to give you your fries with your burger. (Don't do this if you are waiting for your burger though, as they'll more than likely ask their spotty mate around the back to spit in it).
Grass is pronounced "Grarrrse". And bath is pronounced "Barrrth". Those who shorten these words should be made to chew on a twig.
End. Of.
--------------
As for the modern education system, it's a load of, yes, arse. It doesn't help matters when the only voices you tend to hear on the Fernsehen these days are northerners. And when you see a sign saying something along the lines of Video's for sale. Like what has Video got for sale? At least they can bloody well tell us, eh?
--------------
I also hate the word "panties". I endured an episode of Columbo once where the clue lay in the putting on of the "panties" ('tis true, I kid you not) and it made me cringe.
Ugh!
that is all me got to say at present, seen
me gettin drunk now
Yes. Bridget Jones: bumgirl.
But...
quote:
Originally posted by Bamba:
This is exactly the same experience as watching programs in Gaelic, which BBC Scotland is forced to do a certain percentage of it's programs in."Mahoarsh mahoarsh dotaman albha uisge television coca-cola helicopter"
Personally I think that, if you have to include shitloads of foreign language words in your own language just so that you can have a normal conversation about modern life, it's time to just give up and admit that your language is pointless and shite.
[ 29 April 2003: Message edited by: Bamba ]
1. the gaelic word for television is telebhisean which might seem like a poor man's attempt at a translation, but at least it fits with the rules of grammar and spelling.
The problem with a language like gaelic is two-fold. Firstly, it is traditionally an aural language, and it is only relatively recently that attempts have been made to forumulate written rules. This has been exacerbated by the number of dialects that exist, despite the relatively small number of speakers. So, there are differences in opinion regarding the spelling/pronounciation of some words and phrases. The second difficulty is that, given the traditional speakers of the language - older people living in the north and west of Scotland, Gaelic has not evolved in terms of "modern life" (although there is a word for the internet - eadar-lìon - literally "between-net") and so you get things like telebhisean which sounds almost the same as the English word.
However, there is a value in the language. Although the last census showed a decline in the number of Gaelic speakers, it failed to take into account the numbers of new learners (including myself, in case you didnt see where this impassioned post came from!) For example, there is a primary school in Glasgow whose first language is Gaelic. The children learn English as a second language from the age of 7/8 (and have shown to have language skills on par with their English education peers in other schools.) The vast majority of these children come from monolingual English households, and with an intake of 200+ pupils, that is a lot of extra speakers!
I think part of the point/problem with Gaelic is making it useful in an everyday context. How/whether this will happen, I don't know.
[ 01 May 2003: Message edited by: Bamba ]
Quick divert to "Prop" Misc for turning a gradual hijack into a whole new thread.
<Going gushy: must calm down & drink cocoa>
There's no chance whatsoever of my having time to join in tomorrow's continuation [did you notice my perfect grammar? Did you?? I did it especially for you!] so I thought I'd chuck in a few sequiturs, just in case anyone should feel like following them up.sequiturs: notice? Only five latin words? Was that on your list, eh? .. OK, I could have said a few points - but it doesn't mean the same thing, exactly.[pedant] [/pedant]
In our (UK) Bronze Age, the people of England spoke an indo-european language. This indicates that we were already heavily involved in trade with cultures that originated from -er, Iraq, or thereabouts, and were already such a "nation of shopkeepers" that we had established close relations with overseas trading partners, and that we had readily adapted our culture to assimilate our more advanced partners.
During subsequent, more violent invasions, the Brits seem to have stuck with their pragmatic policy of adapting to what was necessary - and adopting what would be fruitful. Our word "salary" comes from the Romans' habit of paying soldiers in salt. [pah!]Five words[/pah!]
The language of Chaucer was a fabulous mixture of ancient english, Gaelic, Latin, German and French. Yet it was written during one of the few periods in this island's history that was not enormously influenced by another culture.
My home country (the west Midlands) is one of the oldest documented areas of Britain, yet, even by the time the Domesday Book was written, the place names had already been bastardised from their Viking origins ("Wodensboro" to Wednesbury; "Wolf hamlet" to Wolverhampton and so on).
Our language is - so far - one of the most vibrant, flexible, expressive communication systems in the world. Anyone who's taught English will have easily concluded that, whatever it lacks in certain areas - compared to many Asian languages, for example, it lacks spiritual expression; compared to Latin languages it lacks words for complex emotion - English is supremely flexible. We readily build words like "karma" and "weltschmerz" into our vocabulary. OK, they're not English words. But you wouldn't think worse of me for using them, would you?
I think 'American' english is taking over the world - as an international language. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing: it's not a million miles from the "International English" that was proposed when esperanto failed to take off, in that it has simple structures and a small vocabulary. It's not going to become the world language .... but it may well become the world's common language.
Why not? How long have we been needing a common language?
Blimey. Can't believe I've been ranting for so long (wrong board! sorry.)
Please pick up ... if enthused.
I'll be looking forward to catching up tomorrow night.
Cheers, and thanks for keeping this interested .... so very late!
[ 01 May 2003: Message edited by: AgeingGrace ]
Can I just thank you people for finally putting up a thread that has both entertained and educated me for the first time in about 2 years. Cheerz dudZ.
Swearing is s'posed to be offensive, right? At least some of the time, like when you're shouting at the idiot who just drove past you unnecessarily fast and splashed you head to toe in manky puddle (even tho he can't hear you).
Right. Try saying (v loud) "You fucking bastard!!!!" with long vowels. Now try it with short vowels. Are you with me? Try "You bloody ****!" Try some of your favourite phrases for to assault the ears of uncoscionable gits. Try it on your friends if you don't believe me.
Northern vowels make for more offensive swearing don't they? Swearing, as offensivly as possible, is good, right? Therefore northern vowels are best. Fact.
[ 01 May 2003: Message edited by: Gail ]
[ 01 May 2003: Message edited by: AgeingGrace ]
quote:
Originally posted by AgeingGrace:
Our word "salary" comes from the Romans' habit of paying soldiers in salt.
Almost, but not quite. The word salary comes from the Roman soldiers' ironic term for what their wages would buy them (i.e. nothing but salt). And I think it came to us through Latin, not through the actual presence of Romans in Britain, so the "five words" thing that I read about may still stand. So, er, there.
How much vodka have you drunk? I have drunk this much: lots.
I am listening to Tatu covering The Smiths, and getting abuse for doing so.
One fag is poetry. Do you ever think about one fag, then suicide?
Hey; is it true that you still get black tobacco in Spain?
Yeah, I can dig that.
Über and her new boyfriend are having a big argument about music as I type. Let's hope they sort it out, huh? 
I am wanting to be into Spain right now, but unfortunately I am listening to Placebo/Rammstein, so my allegiance is mismatched to my self-imposed cultural psyche.
Pisslicks! This has ascended into chate, and I love this thread and would hate to kill it! Hey, non-ex-pats/prostitutes: cary on talking about language when you read this, si?
quote:
Originally posted by mart:
And I think it came to us through Latin, not through the actual presence of Romans in Britain, so the "five words" thing that I read about may still stand. So, er, there.
Yup - as I said earlier, most English words with Latin roots come via the Normans.
By the 6th Century, `Vulgar Latin' was spoken in R**e and was already diverging in places like Hispania and Gaul; at some point in the 8th Century (I think) early French first appeared. The Normans, who had settled in NW France were basically Vikings and assimilated pretty quickly within a century; the Channel Islands version of French is the direct descendent of their language.
I am told that the closest modern language to classical Latin is Portuguese in terms of pronunciation.
quote:
Originally posted by Harlequin:
By the way all our modern swear words didn't start off as swear words their meaning gradually changed over the centuries until their meaning meant something offensive
Shakespeare uses "prick" with its modern meaning.
Its a shame that this quickly fell out of popular use as I think its really rather quaint.
There are a couple of pages in Down and Our in Paris and London where Orwell examines swear word usage at the beginning of the 20th Century vis-a-vis the words 'bloody' and 'fuck'. Its interesting how modern swearing compares to his predictions.
quote:
Originally posted by kovacs:
l'esprit d'escalier
It only occurred to me last night what l'esprit d'escalier must actually refer to. As you're walking away from a conversation, going up to bed or out of the office on the way home for example, the Spirit of the Stairs possesses you and tells you what you should've said in your conversation. I suppose everyone else knew that all along, but I'm a bit slow me.
quote:
Originally posted by Octavia:
Dazzlerman, please could this threde be archived?
Phew! Just as well I edited out my gushingly embarrasing and stupid reply to Modge then. Which I notice you've all been gracious enough not to mention. Thanks for that as I was mortified when I stumbled across it this morning.
*I'm willing to be wrong about this, I think I read it somewhere once.
quote:
Originally posted by Octavia:
Lol. We all read it though. And we all remember it. And may or may not bring it in as evidence.
I doubt you're all short on evidence of my general fuckwittedness. Last night's effort simply added to the already creaking and swaying tower of proof that I'm a fucking idiot who shouldn't be allowed to do anything when drunk, much less post on here. The fact that no one mentioned it actually terrified me as I thought this meant I'd crossed a line into saying something so bad that you were all afraid to even take the piss out of me for it. Fuck it though, who cares really.
quote:
Originally posted by Bamba:
I thought this meant I'd crossed a line into saying something so bad that you were all afraid to even take the piss out of me for it. Fuck it though, who cares really.
Kovacs does. He was really angry about it.
I think it'd be a shame if Bambi stopped posting when drunk. I think it's great.
quote:
Originally posted by Thorn Davis:
Bambi.
quote:
Originally posted by d666:
i love your drunken master wu-tang-sword style postings, if you were to stop i'd have to consider going on "I'm using uppercase and not ranting at the screen until Bamba posts drunk again" strike or something.
But then DD would have to carry "Lower Case Posterz" flag all on her lonesome. Burdened with the stress, the public ridicule and the social ostracism yet bravely struggling on without anyone to share her misery. Could you do that to her Damo? Could you really?
Apparently the Japanese, Malayans, most Polynesians and American Indians have no native swear words. And the Finns, it would seem, shout ‘in the restaurant’ when they do something like hit their thumb with a hammer. Mental.
quote:
Originally posted by mart:
And the Finns, it would seem, shout ‘in the restaurant’ when they do something like hit their thumb with a hammer. Mental.
This page paints a much less polite and restrained picture of the Finnish language. Containing such gems as how to say "smell cock" and "rip your ass open". There's also a version of "fuck you" which translates as "ski into a ****" although "a whining weed fucked by the wind" is a rather bizarre phrase. I think I'd be more confused than insulted by it.
Edit:sorted.
[ 01 May 2003: Message edited by: Bamba ]
quote:
Originally posted by Bamba:
Could you do that to her Damo? Could you really?
no.
bastard.
you've got me with the moral backbone thing again.
quote:
Originally posted by d666:
no.
bastard.
you've got me with the moral backbone thing again.
coming from someone who just last week compared me to ben elton and joe pasquale in the space of 5 minutes i find this newfound moral fiber hard to give credence to.
a special present to anyone who knows/can guess what or whom the essay was about.
quote:
Originally posted by mart:
Ah, swearing. C.unt was certainly once relatively harmless, with Chaucer dropping it “casually and severally” into The Canterbury Tales, spelling it queynte, queinte and even Kent.
Well, I disagree a little here, and by extension with Harley's notion that our swearwords weren't offensive in their use centuries ago.
I don't know the Chaucer examples you refer to here -- I was trying to think of one in The Wife of Bath, which I think is quoniam or something -- but you can't argue that he was using the words neutrally. Surely they were meant to raise a dirty laugh; which is different from using them as a deeply offensive insult, but it still implies they had a taboo power.
quote:
Prick may have been used by Shakespeare, but it seems not to have been “rude” until the eighteenth century.
Again I disagree. In Romeo and Juliet the word is used as what the commentaries in my skoolbooks used to call "a bawdy quibble" -- the line is something like "the bawdy hand of time stands at the prick of noon" -- and it occurs in the context of Mercutio making fun of and semi-flirting with the Nurse. It might not be the same as "you prick", but you can't say it's not being used for "rudeness" value.
See also Henry V -- Henry's French queen to be (too hungover to get book down from nearby shelf, but still I think I am doing quite well considering -- see my post yesterday in "patois" for how drunk I was by 5pm) is practicing English, and getting it all wrong, viz. "les fingres, le nick", and finally "le count", which is clearly meant to be a joke on "the c*nt" and which surprised me when I saw it intact in the Laurence Olivier version.
Cnut
[ 01 May 2003: Message edited by: Frank ]
quote:
Originally posted by kovacs:
Thorn is right.
Say it ain't so.
[ 01 May 2003: Message edited by: vikram ]
quote:
Originally posted by discodamage:
coming from someone who just last week compared me to ben elton and joe pasquale in the space of 5 minutes i find this newfound moral fiber hard to give credence to.
yeah but you know. you loved it. the thought of being compared to the comic genius of that squeaky voiced "i've got a song that'll get on your nerves" spunkgobbet really rocked your world.
i have written that living will you know.
quote:
And the Finns, it would seem, shout ‘in the restaurant’ when they do something like hit their thumb with a hammer.
I might have to start saying this. It makes me giggle.
quote:
Originally posted by Amy:
I might have to start saying this. It makes me giggle.
The Finnish word is ravintolassa. I'm not sure which is better, that or the English translation.
And Kovacs and Thorn are no doubt right; I really have no idea, and am also so hungover that I can't be bothered to look into it. So much for my working bank holiday.
quote:
Originally posted by discodamage:
- the first was in the essay from which i took my new tag.
Christopher Marlowe?
Do I get a present (a nice one please)?
[ 01 May 2003: Message edited by: ziggy ]
quote:
Originally posted by discodamage:
this is the second time i have read the word 'coneycatcher' today- the first was in the essay from which i took my new tag.
Guess I] Davey Crockett.
Guess II]Kovacs
what's the prize, what's the prize???!!!
quote:
Originally posted by Stefanos:
I am told that the closest modern language to classical Latin is Portuguese in terms of pronunciation.
Forgot to pick up on this earlier.
According to Mario Pei, if you want to hear what ancient Latin sounded like you should listen to Lugudorese, an Italic dialect spoken in central Sardinia, which he says in many aspects is broadly unchanged from the Latin of 1,500 years ago.
quote:
Originally posted by mart:
A much more interesting swearer than Shakespeare is Ben Johnson, who came up with choice phrases ‘Whoreson base fellow’, whoreson coney-catching rascal’, ‘by my fackins faith’ and (my favourite) ‘I am the rankest cow that ever pissed’.
Toppe poste, whoreson Mart! Astounding it is, indeede, that ye haffe so wel learned the colourfulle argotes of te passt.
OK, late-middle english isn't one of my best languages. Insults are great, though, aren't they?
I've always been fond of those old (well, 50 years old) French colloquialisms: "Vas t'enculer de mouches" and "Con de fils de putain des chiens!", which is still very cathartic in a traffic jam. In Marseilles.
I love those websites (which I can't be bothered to look up - I'm tired; sorry) that list insults from around the world. The Chinese (supposedly) one: "May you live an interesting life" seems to be a curse visited upon me & everyone I know ... but I'm sure you can come up with some far more interesting ones! Doesn't Arabic lend itself to some cracking curses?? .......
Conversely, the word coño (cnut) isn't really a swear at all, and most informal conversations in Spanish are dotted with the word. Which is nice. Though of course, these things are always relative, and if I looked you in the eye and said, calmly, tu coño (for, er, whatever reason), then I would indeed be referring to your netherparts in the rudeliest rudie way there is.
examples of specific Tales using such language are The Merchant's Tale and The Miller's Tale, the latter a bawdy story from beginning to end.
There was no taboo power in the words themselves, but possibly in the actions involving the use of such words - at the time there simply were no other words to describe sex or sexual organs.
Direct reference to sexual organs would certainly not be found in the 'courtly love' stories typical of the era, but in medieval times it was common to name dark or narrow streets, or streets where prostitutes congregated, after sexual organs - 'Queynte Street' was a frequently occurring place name until the 17th Century when changing sensibilities caused them to be renamed.
this practice would suggest that there was no taboo about such words in Chaucer's time.
Shorteyes.
Monkey.
Carpet.
Double-carpet.
Hydromatic.
quote:
Originally posted by mart:
Conversely, the word coño (cnut) isn't really a swear at all, and most informal conversations in Spanish are dotted with the word. Which is nice. Though of course, these things are always relative, and if I looked you in the eye and said, calmly, tu coño (for, er, whatever reason), then I would indeed be referring to your netherparts in the rudeliest rudie way there is.
I think I've mentioned this before, but I always found it really interesting that most swearwords associated with the female body in Italian can be used in highly complementary ways. Figa, or gnoccha (Bolognese equivalent - I think the Romans use patata which is pretty cute) means pussy (roughly translated), and when directed at a woman is a completely acceptable way of saying something along the lines of "What a honey". Even though what they're actually saying is "what a great piece of pussy". Che figa is also a way of saying "Nice one", or "how lucky". It amazed me that a gender-divided language enveloped in a culture traditionally considered molto maschilista could prescribe such positive significance to "female" swearing, whereas English seems to be fairly well-balanced. Cock, dickhead, and pussy are all fairly negative, but **** remains arguably the most offensive.
With regard to Bamba's point about the word **** being hated by all women, I don't hate it, I just hate the connotations attached to it. The word itself is not a porblem, it just bothers me that if somebody really wanted to offend me, they'd use a word that describes a thing that I don't consider sufficiently negative. Call me a cock on the other hand, I'd be riled. 
(Afterthought - the best swearword in Italian is without a doubt spaccamarrone, which means nutcracker - as in, "you're twisting my melons, man". Particularly when said with the Bolognese "s" which is more of a "ssshh" sound. Try it, it's unbelievably satisfying, and rememnber all double consonants in Italian have to be really leaned into. Ssshpaccamarrone. God I love the Italians.)
quote:
Originally posted by mart:
Forgot to pick up on this earlier.According to Mario Pei, if you want to hear what ancient Latin sounded like you should listen to Lugudorese, an Italic dialect spoken in central Sardinia, which he says in many aspects is broadly unchanged from the Latin of 1,500 years ago.
Ooo! I'll have to let Mrs Stefanos in on this - she'll be very interested in that. Saying that, she is good at cursing me in (ancient Gothic).
Forgot the spelling but say `Gebrineth in hailja'! It means burn in hell and is about as insulting as you can get.
That'll be because the major source for Gothic is a translation in the Bible...
quote:
Originally posted by AgeingGrace:
The Chinese (supposedly) one: "May you live an interesting life" seems to be a curse visited upon me & everyone I know ...
I like that one too, though I think it's the even more subtle, "May you live in interesting times" that I've heard before.
Going back to apostrophes if I may for a moment, the local paper here had an article about the elections where it consistently refered to the Tory Party as "the Tory's", as in "can the Tory's win any seats tomorrow?"
They didn't do this to the Liberal Democrats, or even the Lib Dems which could, I suppose justify an apostrophe. Is "Tory" short for something, like "photo" so that you write "photo's"? Or have they made some dreadful cock-up.
quote:Yes. Quite apart from the fact that the plural of Tory is Tories. Write and tell them. The Times's proofreading is getting seriously bad too. Grizzly for grisly and other errors.
Originally posted by dang65:
Or have they made some dreadful cock-up.
[ 02 May 2003: Message edited by: Octavia ]
quote:
Originally posted by kovacs:
The Times has also stopped using the apostrophe before "'bus", which is pretty lax.
I know. And they use the word `phone'.
When it of course should be `electric telephone'....
quote:
Originally posted by Octavia:
Quite apart from the fact that the plural of Tory is Tories.
Yes, I'd always assumed that. It's just that
the mistake was consistent throughout the article, so I wondered if it was some clever-clever editor who knew that "Tory's" was correct and was showing off. I've googled and can't seem to find the origin of the name Tory anywhere, or Whig for that matter. Seems pretty old though - being referred to in 1558 or something.
As for "photo's" and "photos", I think this is one of those cases where the abbrieviation has, as Kovacs implies, become so commonplace that the apostrophe is basically redundant, but both options seem perfectly acceptable to me in that particular case.
Same with "bus" with or without the leading apostrophe. And who ever calls a Taxi a "taximeter motor charabanc"? Apart from my Mad Uncle Dave.
quote:
Originally posted by dang65:
As for "photo's" and "photos", I think this is one of those cases where the abbrieviation has, as Kovacs implies, become so commonplace that the apostrophe is basically redundant, but both options seem perfectly acceptable to me in that particular case.
I wasn't implying this, really -- I was saying that as nobody uses (or has ever used, in my experience) photo' for photograph, to use photo's for the plural is just plain wrong. I suspect this is one of those cases where someone thought "photos" looked too much like it should be pronounced "photoss", like Lesbos, and so fumblingly decided it needed an apostrophe.
I just don't understand why people can't grasp these simple concepts
quote:
Originally posted by Hippychick:
photo's = belongs to the photo
photos = more than one photoI just don't understand why people can't grasp these simple concepts
But people say "photograph" all the time. It's not antiquated or redundant, like "discoteque" for example, so "photo" is still a genuine abbrieviation isn't it? What I mean is that both "photo's" and "photos" are acceptable and neither are technically incorrect. IMHO, although I really don't lose sleep on this.
quote:
[Prob. f. Ir. toraidhe a pursued person, a highwayman...
and then goes on to explain that historically it was
quote:
Any of the Irish people dispossessed by English settlers who became outlaws in 17th-cent. Ireland.
After that it jumps to meaning the opposite of a Whig in British parliamentary goings-on*.
So, not much help then.
*Does this need a hyphen?
1) Abbreviation
examples - Robert's going to the pub
shortening Robert is going
and - 'bus, 'phone
shortening omnibus and telephone respectively
2) Possession
example - John's PC was playing up
shortening John his PC
only applies to proper nouns, thus 'yours' 'its' do not include an apostrophe.
Strange rules apply for proper nouns ending in an 's' e.g. St Thomas - possession should properly be demonstrated by a second 's' i.e. St Thomas's, however I think I have seen usage where both rules 1 & 2 apply (abbreviation & possession) in which case you would get St Thomas'. However this may just be laziness on the part of signwriters.
Possessive plurals - apostrophe is at the end of the word:
The posters' brains were becoming scrambled
I think there is an exception where the plural is itself a collective noun, but I may be wrong:
The girl was late, and followed the school's regulations by reporting to the office
Clear? If any of the above is wrong please can one of the English teachers (StevieX?) correct it.
[ 02 May 2003: Message edited by: Hippychick ]
quote:
Originally posted by Hippychick:
and - 'bus, 'phoneshortening omnibus and telephone respectively
Yes, and this was the argument -- which I don't subscribe to, but which I find interesting -- about "photograph". If it's abbreviated to photo, there should perhaps be an apostrophe after the "o", for the singular. (Which would excuse "photo's" for plural, if you accepted the argument).
But surely nobody does this.
quote:
example - John's PC was playing upshortening John his PC
Thorn suggested this wasn't a shortening of "John his PC" but "Johnes PC", I assume arguing that English used to work like the German genitive.
quote:
Originally posted by Hippychick:
photo's = belongs to the photo
photos = more than one photoI just don't understand why people can't grasp these simple concepts
Because the education system in this country is bollocks. Teaching children the basics of punctuation and "grammer" (the continual misspelling of which is unbelievable in itself) is no longer fashionable. It is far better, as far as those with the power to decide these things are concerned, to have young people writing "creatively", with no regard to how it actually looks to the critical eye.
Not long ago I read an article by one such educationalista, who suggested that it was perfectly reasonable for children to eschew formal rules of grammar, as long as they were able to express themselves phonetically.
The perfect way to create a nation of monkeys, IMO. Which would suit the current government down to the ground, natch.
quote:
Originally posted by Samuelnorton:
Because the education system in this country is bollocks.
True, it can also be the way lot of people have been brung up. Perhaps a little pikey influence along the way.
So it aint not just a brittish fing.
quote:
Originally posted by Colenski:
True, it can also be the way lot of people have been brung up. Perhaps a little pikey influence along the way.
Ahem. I'm not going to talk about pikeys.
quote:
Originally posted by mart:So it aint not just a brittish fing.
The same happens with the Dutch, Theres a more educated newspaper called the NRC, but only 30% of the population seem to be able to read it. The amusing thing is here everybody seems to have their own opinion about a grammatical rule but it constantly changes and is managed by the Belgians. Plus, they speak completely differently to how they write.
There have been complaints about poor education being to blame for ‘bad’ English for centuries, most especially since the Early Modern English period when prescriptivism really got going. Invented spellings which obeyed some rule of supposedly ‘good’ grammar based upon Latin or Greek words; invented rules of grammar and all of that sort of thing. Now we laud people’s ability to adhere to many of those invented rules. It is normal to make value judgements based upon things like the use of language; on the other hand, language doesn’t stay still so how can we expect ‘correct’ English all the time? We would all be speaking or writing some previous form of English otherwise.
There seems to be something intrinsically difficult about the apostrophe s which means that in spite of education, the young and some adults simply cannot grasp it. It has been hanging on a long time now, in spite of that. Mart explaining how similar errors happen with Spanish would suggest these sorts of rules are hard to follow before a certain level of ability, rather than education.
The daftest use of the apostrophe I ever saw was a handwritten sign which read: Buy your Xma’s cards here.
quote:
Originally posted by Samuelnorton:
Because the education system in this country is bollocks. Teaching children the basics of punctuation and "grammer" (the continual misspelling of which is unbelievable in itself) is no longer fashionable.
This fits your slightly warped, Littlejohnian view of the world, but I don't believe it entirely holds water. For a start, I doubt you have any direct experience of the current education system. I also doubt that primary schools are full, as you seem to imply, of young men wearing one earring and capri pants deciding the syllabus according to this season's whimsical style, and black earth mothers encouraging kids to write in Ebonics to express their inner voice.
I obviously went to primary school before you, quite a few decades ago, and I wasn't taught grammatical rules in English. I don't know when your golden age of grammatical teaching was, before the fashionable trendies got into our comprehensive schools and stopped educating kids the old way, but you would have to date it back to the 1950s or 60s at the latest to match with my experience.
quote:
Originally posted by ziggy:
language doesn’t stay still so how can we expect ‘correct’ English all the time? We would all be speaking or writing some previous form of English otherwise.
Language doesn't stay still, but its change is pretty slow. At any one time, there is still a currently acceptable form of English. Just because it might have evolved by 2103 doesn't mean you can ignore the rules that currently govern it. That would be like saying "we no longer punish people for spitting on the Bible by branding their hands, so the law changes, so the law is fluid, so I can make up my own laws and I'll steal a hi-fi from this shop because in a century's time it might not even be illegal to do so."
quote:
Originally posted by kovacs:
Language doesn't stay still, but its change is pretty slow. At any one time, there is still a currently acceptable form of English. Just because it might have evolved by 2103 doesn't mean you can ignore the rules that currently govern it. That would be like saying "we no longer punish people for spitting on the Bible by branding their hands, so the law changes, so the law is fluid, so I can make up my own laws and I'll steal a hi-fi from this shop because in a century's time it might not even be illegal to do so."
I don't know that I think the analogy between language and a legal system is that apt. I know what you mean and there has always been a common stock so that some basic words for domestic life would be almost recognisable to an Old English speaker, so to an extent I agree, but you seem to be talking of rules when I would talk of conventions.
Also the pace at which language changes varies depending on its context so that whilst some aspects ot usage stay pretty similar and some words barely change in a thousand years, some changes take a couple of hundred, other aspects move relatively fast, in a matter of decades. When the twentieth century's technological advances took off, so did the language to meet the changes in society. For instance the space race and modern war fare. Throughout history there are periods where the pace of change has speeded up such as after the Norman invasion; the Renaissance et al. I think the pace of change is very rapid at the moment. Even now that trend continues both colloquially such as perhaps in text messaging and the adoption of Americanism through the media and in the wider social sphere through continued technological advances.
quote:
Originally posted by ziggy:
you seem to be talking of rules when I would talk of conventions.
I think that using "its" for the possessive and "it's" for it is, is as much a rule as these things ever are. Which is to say that all language "rules" are arbitrary "conventions". Of course there is no inherent link between signifier and signified. There is no reason why I shouldn't write "dat" for "that". I could write "yub" for "that" if I wanted, and it would be just as meaningful on an absolute level -- there's no reason why the collection of marks t-h-a-t should be linked to any concept. But just as I wouldn't be understood in the second case, so in the first case my choice has certain cultural connotations. It implies that I don't know, or reject, the dominant (really, the only) accepted convention for the spelling of "that" in English. OK, spelling "that" correctly, or using "its" correctly, or "Xmas" correctly (maybe the word itself is dubious anyway) isn't a rule in the same way as it's a rule that an object will fall to earth and the earth will rotate. But as a convention, it's on the same level as our convention that adults wear clothes outdoors. You can go out wearing nothing below the waist and there's nothing inherently wrong with it, and clothing conventions change over time, and we show a lot more flesh than we would have done 100 years ago, but you will give a certain sense of yourself as either deliberately unorthodox or as socially ignorant.
quote:
Even now that trend continues both colloquially such as perhaps in text messaging and the adoption of Americanism through the media and in the wider social sphere through continued technological advances.
Text messaging has changed colloquial written language, but I don't think this is a case where conventions of "correct" language have changed. It isn't correct to write "u" for "you".
quote:
Originally posted by kovacs:
Text messaging has changed colloquial written language, but I don't think this is a case where conventions of "correct" language have changed. It isn't correct to write "u" for "you".
Now I would argue it is 'correct' within that context.
Isn't the suggestion perhaps that the Standard English written form is the 'correct' version and other versions or usages are not?
Correctness has to be measured in some way though and I suggest approriatemness is the best way of measuring language. Since the Standard written English form is not always the most appropriate form in all circumstances, it cannot be deemed to be the 'correct' form per se. In other words, I argue that it is correct to spell <you> as <u> sometimes.
I agree though that some conventions make more sense than others and cut across different contexts. The apostrophe s in written language seems to have survived because it actually does stop confusion. It surely would have gone the way of many other inflections otherwise, which makes it more than just a social marker of some sort.
Great thread.
[ 03 May 2003: Message edited by: ziggy ]
quote:
Originally posted by kovacs:
This fits your slightly warped, Littlejohnian view of the world, but I don't believe it entirely holds water.
Littlejohnian. Hah.
quote:
For a start, I doubt you have any direct experience of the current education system.
Being the unscrupulous, thoroughgoing individual that I am, I do try and keep up to speed with developments. Direct experience, no. But then to do so I would have to be either have to be a pupil (illogical) or a teacher (no thanks). I have friends who are teachers, however, which is a good direct source of information as any.
quote:
I also doubt that primary schools are full, as you seem to imply, of young men wearing one earring and capri pants deciding the syllabus according to this season's whimsical style, and black earth mothers encouraging kids to write in Ebonics to express their inner voice.
I never said primary schools were "full" of these people. I merely suggested that the powers that be are getting increasing enthusiastic in their leaning towards new, more "fashionable" methods rather than the straightforward rules of punctuation and grammar. I don't know if it was mentioned here on these forums, but there was even a case of a girl who had managed to get through years of schooling, even being called a success, without being able to read properly. This is intolerable, IMO.
Its not only about "black earth mothers" writing in Ebonics.
quote:
I obviously went to primary school before you, quite a few decades ago, and I wasn't taught grammatical rules in English. I don't know when your golden age of grammatical teaching was, before the fashionable trendies got into our comprehensive schools and stopped educating kids the old way, but you would have to date it back to the 1950s or 60s at the latest to match with my experience.
It was never really a "golden age" per se, more a golden age for individual schools, and the pupils who were lucky enough to have gone there. In the days before all of these silly regulations and crackpot schemes like the National Curriculum. Of course, the right-on educationalistas were there, but were for the most part plying their trade in the inner cities.
OK, so you were never taught grammatical rules in English. I was - in a state school in Uxbridge. St. Andrews, a C of E school across the road from the RAF base. At the age of five, I knew what a comma was. I knew where to place an apostrophe. We were taught cursive script techniques in the first year at infant school. This was in the mid 1970s, which instantly blows your theory out of the water.
Didn't you ever watch Words and Pictures at school, or Look and Read, with that silly orange thing called Wordy, who would sing little ditties about the exclamation mark?
Wordy is with good grace described in the article above as a "slightly arrogant puppet" - which is probably the reason why he was removed from our screens in 1992. Too harsh for children today, who according to those people who know better should be brought up on a diet of inane rubbish like the Teletubbies.
[ 03 May 2003: Message edited by: Samuelnorton ]
It took some finding because it’s a Government site, but here are the National Curriculum strategies’ Literacy scheme objectives in English for pupils in term 3 of year 5, which is aged 10, I think:
Sentence level work:
Grammar and punctuation Pupils should be taught:
Grammatical awareness
1 to secure the basic conventions of standard English:
• agreement between nouns and verbs;
• consistency of tense and subject;
• avoidance of double negatives;
• avoidance of non-standard dialect words;
2 to understand how writing can be adapted for different audiences and purposes, e.g. by changing vocabulary and sentence structures;
3 to search for, identify and classify a range of prepositions: back, up, down, across, through, on, etc.; experiment with substituting different prepositions and their effect on meaning.
Understand and use the term preposition;
Sentence construction and punctuation
4 to use punctuation marks accurately in complex sentences;
5 to revise use of apostrophes for possession (from Y4 term 1);
6 to investigate clauses through:
• identifying the main clause in a long sentence;
• investigating sentences which contain more than one clause;
• understanding how clauses are connected (e.g. by combining three short sentences into one);
7 to use connectives to link clauses within sentences and to link sentences in longer texts.
So statements like this are not all that accurate:
[Q]Teaching children the basics of punctuation and "grammer" (the continual misspelling of which is unbelievable in itself) is no longer fashionable.[/Q]
Teaching the ‘basics’ is actually a legal requirement.
quote:
Originally posted by ziggy:
Teaching the ‘basics’ is actually a legal requirement.
What is a legal requirement and what is actually taught are, in many cases, two distinct things.
I am sure your sister is doing a top job. Many teachers, including those friends of mine who are in the profession, are also doing a top job.
But the fact remains that more and more children are being churned out of our schools with poor reading and writing skills. For crying out loud, we have some university applicants writing that they had taken their A-levels at a "collage".*
*This was in 1992, when I worked for a local authority, and had the distinct pleasure of reading through the thousands of grant application forms. Back in the days when there was a grant, ahem.
Good post though Ziggy - why should anyone flame you?
Oops. Edited because someone said something else whilst I was panicking. I thank you for your kind words.
I am sure though that people were complaining about the lack of education among modern 'yooth' back in the age of Shakespeare. I expect he was one of the ones they complained about seeing as he coined, or stole, so many new words. Wasn't Ben Johnson particularly scathing about him?
[ 03 May 2003: Message edited by: ziggy ]
quote:
Originally posted by Samuelnorton:
Of course, the right-on educationalistas were there, but were for the most part plying their trade in the inner cities.
Again, I think you weaken your argument through this obvious caricature. Not only is "educationalistas" an unbelievably awkward and clumsy coinage -- so unfortunate when you're trying to argue for elegant language -- but I don't see what basis it has in truth -- also unfortunate when you're arguing for accuracy in language. This really does sound like Littlejohn's novel, which I believe is called Hell in a Handbasket (I shan't look it up as I don't want to dirty my browser) and is apparently equally fuelled by these absurd, frankly paranoid ideas about liberals spreading their agenda as if they were a network of undercover spies dedicated to the fall of Britain as we know it.
I find it quite ludicrous that you, a historian of sorts, are prepared to daub these cartoonish versions of the past as if they were fact. The idea that "educationalistas" were skulking about the inner cities (by which you surely mean working-class areas populated largely by ethnic minorities, which no doubt has its own connotations for you) "plying their trade" -- doing what, exactly, giving out little red books? inviting kids to secret meetings? -- cannot be offered blithely as an accurate portrait of the teaching situation in the 1970s.
quote:
At the age of five, I knew what a comma was. I knew where to place an apostrophe.
I wasn't counting this as grammar. I was taught such things as where to place a comma, but I wasn't taught anything like the accusative case until I did German at age 14 or so.
quote:We were taught cursive script techniques in the first year at infant school.
Please explain how this has anything whatsoever to do with grammar.
quote:
This was in the mid 1970s, which instantly blows your theory out of the water.
Of course it doesn't -- any more than my anecdotal evidence actually blew yours out of the water. You sunk my battleship! what it does suggest is that your school, and other schools of a similar type, did teach grammar. If that's what you mean, of course, because you are being very unclear by claiming you learned grammar and then boasting about cursive writing and what a comma is. I'm sure commas are technically grammar, but I meant actually seeing tables of verb declensions (I hope I've got that word right; I am being lazy with looking things up), knowing the rules for the subjunctive, knowing what the vocative meant. Being an intelligent child with a poor but educated farver and muvver, I learned such things from reading a lot of books and being helped at home. If I'm not mistaken, I learned about the vocative from Alice in Wonderland -- "O mouse!" And again, I hope that actually is the vocative, for the sake of my example. I probably did pick up some stuff from Words and Pictures and Sesame Street.
)Going back to the idea of grammatical language as a class distinctor, which was touched on a few pages back, strikes me as a little more interesting than where the apostrophe should go.
When I lived in Brazil - which was, admittedly, ten years ago - I was amazed to discover that people of high social/political status used the language in a very different way from ornery folks.
Brazilian Portuguese has a lot of widely differing dialects anyway. It's a vast country, with complex ethnic influences. (I agree with what somebody said about it being one of the purer Latin languages, btw. And incredibly expressive.) In a plane full of ministers going to Brazilia (for example), though, the language would change all over again - to become extremely formal, using some archaic words & structures and very much more flowery.
I don't know whether other languages & cultures use this kind of elitism, too, but I'm confident that English doesn't.
Was there a time in English when the ruling classes did actually use a different form of the language, does anyone know? (I'm not talking about a posh accent, because that is only an accent. I mean a variant form of the language?
quote:
Originally posted by AgeingGrace:Going back to the idea of grammatical language as a class distinctor, which was touched on a few pages back, strikes me as a little more interesting than where the apostrophe should go.
Surely correct or incorrect placement of an apostrophe is some indication of class and education. I don't think anyone here was debating anything so basic as where the apostrophe goes -- it was more like whether grammar is, was or should be taught as a subject, whether incorrect grammar is acceptable given the changing nature of language and what the apostrophe in "kovacs's" actually replaces.
quote:
Originally posted by kovacs:
Again, I think you weaken your argument through this obvious caricature. Not only is "educationalistas" an unbelievably awkward and clumsy coinage -- so unfortunate when you're trying to argue for elegant language -- but I don't see what basis it has in truth -- also unfortunate when you're arguing for accuracy in language. This really does sound like Littlejohn's novel, which I believe is called Hell in a Handbasket (I shan't look it up as I don't want to dirty my browser) and is apparently equally fuelled by these absurd, frankly paranoid ideas about liberals spreading their agenda as if they were a network of undercover spies dedicated to the fall of Britain as we know it.
You cannot deny that these people exist, and that they have a large degree of influence, particularly with local councils where fellow travellers may be present.
You seem to have some morbid obsession with Richard Littlejohn - simply accusing me of being a clone is both insulting and inaccurate. I use the term "educationalista" because it provided information on the political background of these individuals; I cannot believe that you have sunk to the point where you would pick me up on my usage of this term.
quote:
I find it quite ludicrous that you, a historian of sorts, are prepared to daub these cartoonish versions of the past as if they were fact.
Cartoonish? lol. Where have I offered such fare, save my honest recollections from my own days at school?
quote:
The idea that "educationalistas" were skulking about the inner cities (by which you surely mean working-class areas populated largely by ethnic minorities, which no doubt has its own connotations for you) "plying their trade" -- doing what, exactly, giving out little red books? inviting kids to secret meetings? -- cannot be offered blithely as an accurate portrait of the teaching situation in the 1970s.
This assumption was made when looking at what I was taught at school, and making the observation that it seemed to be light years away from the image you are trying to paint. As for handing out red books and the crack about ethnic minorites - silly. And cheap, to boot. I wouldn't expect you of all people to pull out the old bugbears to bolster your argument.
quote:
I wasn't counting this as grammar. I was taught such things as where to place a comma, but I wasn't taught anything like the accusative case until I did German at age 14 or so.
"I wasn't counting this as grammar..." Don't try and wriggle out of this one. I was placing emphasis on these elements, simply because the fact remains that even this is not being taught properly. I challenge you to take ten state-educated teenagers from your average inner-city establishment and ask them to put the commas, full stops and apostrophes in the right places in a sentence. Better still, give them a sentence in the present tense and have them put it in past tense. I can offer a cast-iron guarantee that the results would not be encouraging.
It would indeed be fantastic if your average teenager was able to inform us about the finer points of grammar. But today we have a situation where a significant number cannot even read and write properly.
quote:
Please explain how this has anything whatsoever to do with grammar.
Cheap shot. Of course it doesn't have anything to do with grammar. It has, however, plenty to do with the finer points of writing. I'd be interested to know, for example, what percentage of thirteen year olds are able to use cursive script. Just an aside, if you would be so kind as to allow it.
quote:
Of course it doesn't -- any more than my anecdotal evidence actually blew yours out of the water. You sunk my battleship!
Foolish, especially when you not so long ago had enough confidence in your own argument to offer this little gem:
quote:
...you would have to date it back to the 1950s or 60s at the latest to match with my experience.
What the hell are you trying to say? First it was, then it wasn't?
quote:
I'm sure commas are technically grammar, but I meant actually seeing tables of verb declensions (I hope I've got that word right; I am being lazy with looking things up), knowing the rules for the subjunctive, knowing what the vocative meant.
Now you are being pissy. I can see from where you are coming, but there is no way anyone can learn the finer points of the English language without first being aware of the fundamentals. Spelling, punctuation. This was my point in the first place - that increasing numbers of children are being churned out of British schools with little or no grasp of the fundamentals.
quote:
Being an intelligent child with a poor but educated farver and muvver, I learned such things from reading a lot of books and being helped at home. If I'm not mistaken, I learned about the vocative from Alice in Wonderland -- "O mouse!" And again, I hope that actually is the vocative, for the sake of my example. I probably did pick up some stuff from Words and Pictures and Sesame Street.
Well bully for you.
[ 03 May 2003: Message edited by: Samuelnorton ]
quote:
Originally posted by kovacs:
Surely correct or incorrect placement of an apostrophe is some indication of class and education. I don't think anyone here was debating anything so basic as where the apostrophe goes -- it was more like whether grammar is, was or should be taught as a subject, whether incorrect grammar is acceptable given the changing nature of language and what the apostrophe in "kovacs's" actually replaces.
Yes, but it does keep getting bogged down in debates about the correct way to do it.
Maybe everyone's just trying to prove their social superiority and I missed that point?
IMO, it can't really be an indicator of class & education any more. "Mis"uses of punctuation, as well as common spellos and word confusions such as "Discreet" for "Discrete", appear in Governmnent documents, the Economist, the Times, Telegraph and FT (I'm leaving out the Grauniad, for obvious reasons!), poster advertisements and all sorts of authoritative written matter.
Although that wasn't what my last post was about ...
Looking at that last sentence, I think I'm quite happy with the grammatical deterioration of English. It's so much easier! 
quote:
Originally posted by AgeingGrace:
Was there a time in English when the ruling classes did actually use a different form of the language, does anyone know? (I'm not talking about a posh accent, because that is only an accent. I mean a variant form of the language?
This is a really interesting question. To an extent the 'ruling classes' do use a slightly different variety of English even now. More latinate expressions and more classical references. (Public school and all that.) What is funny is that once their version of English was closer to the working class's version with features such as slang and dropped aspirants, whereas the middle-classes are vulnerable to hyper-correction and over-compensation in their use of the language. Supposedly because their social position is less secure and they fight for what they perceive to be prestige.
There was a very clear period where the ruling classes used an entirely different language; the period following the Norman invasion when, until the connection with the continent was severed, Norman French was spoken by the ruling classes and Latin was the written language of State, Church and Law. This resulted in Old English as it was, largely dying out. When the English Normans were cut off from the continent, the high prestige form was the language they spoke and so the serfs' Old English was largely lost, or at least became a secondary feature of what was to become the new English, so to speak.
At least that is how I understood it from that superb programme by Melvin Bragg. I am willing to stand corrected.
Edited to say I don't mean to sound pompous if I do. I really do find this interesting. This social status and using language to indicate it is not a new thing and you may be right about it being a feature of part of this discussion, including from me. Oops.
[ 03 May 2003: Message edited by: ziggy ]
quote:
Originally posted by ziggy:
This is a really interesting question. To an extent the 'ruling classes' do use a slightly different variety of English even now. More latinate expressions and more classical references. (Public school and all that.) What is funny is that once their version of English was closer to the working class's version with features such as slang and dropped aspirants, whereas the middle-classes are vulnerable to hyper-correction and over-compensation in their use of the language. Supposedly because their social position is less secure and they fight for what they perceive to be prestige.
Thank you, Ziggy!
That's a good point, and it kind of applies to social mores governing humour & rowdy behaviour, too, doesn't it? You're more likely to find an "upper" and a "lower" class person laughing at the same dodgy jokes, and showing the same lack of inhibition at a party, than either of those with a middle-class bod.
Your comments made me think of Hyacinth Bucket - now I can't get her out of my mind (aarrgghh!).
I'd forgotten about the ruling classes speaking French. I guess more educated brits do still use more French and Latin terms than the less educated.
As a (fairly) well educated Brit of humble origins, though, I don't see that as an indicator of class: only of knowledge.
Hmmm ....?
quote:
Originally posted by AgeingGrace:
As a (fairly) well educated Brit of humble origins, though, I don't see that as an indicator of class: only of knowledge.Hmmm ....?
We probably come from the same sort of place then. I find the whole class thing confusing in our society anyway because we also have the intelligentsia which has high prestige and can be the working class but well educated person. To be honest, after a while my brain just gives up and goes to sleep on this issue. I like to keep it to specifics like the apostrophe because then I can hide my real lack of understanding of the whole British class system!
quote:
Originally posted by ziggy:
More latinate expressions and more classical references. (Public school and all that.)
Exactly. Compare the Germanic `Hearty welcome' with a Anglo-Norman `Cordial greeting'.
(Tangent: The problem also with the English/Germanic side of things is the association with all things Nazi. Himmler in particular misappropriated large amounts of the culture shared by the Germanic countries of Europe).
Incidentally, there have been calls for a `purifying' of the English language, to rid it of Latinate terms and leave it without normal influence. This was particularly popular in the eighteenth century and whole new words were invented to replace Latin-derived ones. Some are actually used - birdlore as opposed to ornithology. Others though, inwit (consciousness) being one which failed to grab popular opinion.
quote:
Originally posted by AgeingGrace:
Yes, but it does keep getting bogged down in debates about the correct way to do it.
Maybe everyone's just trying to prove their social superiority and I missed that point?
Not at all. I think you missed the point if you think the discussion above has been about people trying to prove their superiority through showing they know where an apostrophe goes.
quote:
IMO, it can't really be an indicator of class & education any more. "Mis"uses of punctuation, as well as common spellos and word confusions such as "Discreet" for "Discrete", appear in Governmnent documents, the Economist, the Times, Telegraph and FT (I'm leaving out the Grauniad, for obvious reasons!), poster advertisements and all sorts of authoritative written matter.
I would still say they would be more likely to be used by someone with less education in English. As a broad example, I would think you'd find more spelling and grammatical mistakes in an article by, say, a market trader who had left school at 15 with a C in English, than you would in any of the sources you mention above. And I also, by the way, think it's a canard that the Guardian has a lot of spelling mistakes. Maybe up until the 1980s.
quote:
You're more likely to find an "upper" and a "lower" class person laughing at the same dodgy jokes, and showing the same lack of inhibition at a party, than either of those with a middle-class bod.
I admit that I've just used a made-up example above, but I don't see how you'd support this theory and I find it baffling. It seems to be pulled entirely out of the air and based on stereotype.
[ 03 May 2003: Message edited by: kovacs ]
quote:
Originally posted by Stefanos:
Others though, inwit (consciousness) being one which failed to grab popular opinion.
You can see why though.
"Da-arling! You are so inwitful!"
Would work for me.
Post wise like, this here thread is gettin' a bit bleedin' long.
Now, meself I'm lovin' every last wordy bit of it, but as it 'appens the forum software don't like it up 'em and at plus two 'undred posts it's a bastard that could soon be lost..
You want to start a part deux ? Then I can see if the new and bleedin' improved software will let me archive it sharp like..
D'ya follow ?
quote:
Originally posted by kovacs:
Surely correct or incorrect placement of an apostrophe is some indication of class and education. I don't think anyone here was debating anything so basic as where the apostrophe goes -- it was more like whether grammar is, was or should be taught as a subject, whether incorrect grammar is acceptable
quote:
Originally posted by kovacs:
Not at all. I think you missed the point if you think the discussion above has been about people trying to prove their superiority through showing they know where an apostrophe goes. [QUOTE][b]Which point did I miss?
[QUOTE]Originally posted by kovacs:
[QB]I don't see how you'd support this theory and I find it baffling. It seems to be pulled entirely out of the air and based on stereotype.
It does occur to me that we might be discussing different things. I was more interested in class in traditional terms of social status, heritage and so forth.
Are you, perhaps, coming from the point of view that intellectual superiority is an indicator of class?
If so, that would explain why we don't seem to be hearing each other.
Cheers.