BS: Victoriaaaaaar

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 04:10 PM

Over and out.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Gervase
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 08:34 AM

Chiz Swiney m8. SOK to spk like dis online? U hv no probs wiv vanakler talk an spelling an such like innit?
Me i prefer to write proper. U hav prbs wiv dat? Tuff shit blud!!!!!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 05:47 AM

<>

Many thanks!!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: GUEST,Suibhne (Astray) (cookieless)
Date: 09 Dec 09 - 02:46 AM

The hyphen was to break it down so you could understand it, Sweeney.

Ah, I see - in other words another slip of the finger in the fine Bozo tradition. You guys crack me up.

Funny how a dog can't resist returning to its own turd.

This thread is Bonzo's turd, Gervase - not mine. He has messed in his own yard and I only return to sweeten the stench with a light dusting of Vernacular Linguistic & Folkloric Pragmatism - which I honestly thought would be a concern to everyone on a forum like Mudcat. Ain't it odd how pedantry and folk music make such happy bedfellows?

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Pistachio
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 03:59 PM

Thanks for the entertainment.
I do like to hear clearly and correctly spoken language. Phrasing matters too. My Mother told me of her 'hotline' conversation with the BBC when she heard a radio announcer say "The Police are looking for a black cab driver". Mother wanted to be sure whether it was the driver of a 'black cab' or a black 'cab driver'... She was back on the telephone when there was 'a lecture by a teacher on drugs' Needless to say the next news bulletins were delivered to her satisfaction.

Pronunciation is so important. I corrected my nephew's delivery of my son's name from Faowip to Philip. I wonder how my nephew might have written it down?
Spelling matters too. My new insurance form arrived to Mrs Rickthing, adding two new consonants and omitting another one!
Am I bovverred?
Yes, you guessed it, I am!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Gervase
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 01:29 PM

Are there really people called Gervase?
Of course not, you clot! It's an old compositor's convention - whenever the word "Jesus Christ albloodymighty" occurs in a manuscript, the comp simply crosses himself and substitutes the word "Gervase".
Honestly. Didn't Google teach you anything?

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Gervase
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 01:23 PM

The hyphen was to break it down so you could understand it, Sweeney.
Time, I think, to exit this particular pedantic hell
Funny how a dog can't resist returning to its own turd.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 10:39 AM

The odd thing is, Bozo, I'm defending people who would tear you limb from limb if they were aware of but half of the savage crap you've written about them from the safety of your computer screen. I suggest you go and confront them with your petty linguistic grievances - you that's so tough.

So Tough - that's one of my favourite albums of all time, out now in a Special Edition I'm hoping to find in my stocking on the morning of the 25th. Altogether now: A cigarette, cup of tea, a bun...

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 07:29 AM

It's always interesting how tough some folks think they sound from behind a computer screen!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 06:20 AM

Which way do you face in your pram, Bozo?

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 08 Dec 09 - 05:33 AM

"I rather enjoy SO'P's colourful style myself, not that it's always easy to penetrate mind you! I read it rather more the opposite, as expressing a shameless pleasure in expression through language. It describes a kind of theatricality of communication, which is perhaps unsurprising seeing as the man is a Storyteller by trade.
Plus I loathe the meanness of 'plain English' petty tyrants. Not that I'm accusing anyone here of such Scroogery, it's just the ethos of the campaign reminds me of Orwell too much - and I personally appreciate individualism and flamboyance in others."

Jolly good, and do you think babies should face the mother or as they say in Croydon - "muvaaaaaaar" or should they face away in their prams?

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 10:36 AM

"your posts reveal a lot of the shame that often afflicts the auto-didact."

I rather enjoy SO'P's colourful style myself, not that it's always easy to penetrate mind you! I read it rather more the opposite, as expressing a shameless pleasure in expression through language. It describes a kind of theatricality of communication, which is perhaps unsurprising seeing as the man is a Storyteller by trade.
Plus I loathe the meanness of 'plain English' petty tyrants. Not that I'm accusing anyone here of such Scroogery, it's just the ethos of the campaign reminds me of Orwell too much - and I personally appreciate individualism and flamboyance in others.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 10:17 AM

your posts reveal a lot of the shame that often afflicts the auto-didact.

I wonder what that unnecessary hyphen reveals about you, Gervase?

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Smedley
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 10:09 AM

Are there really people called Gervase ?

How you could look at a tiny baby & inflict that on him, I'll never know. It's like calling a little girl Enid.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Gervase
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 10:05 AM

Although unashamedly an ill-educated working-class lout myself...
I dunno, Sweeney. In their florid pedantry, excessive ornamentation and studied flamboyance, your posts reveal a lot of the shame that often afflicts the auto-didact. Unless, of course, English isn't your mother tongue; in which case, well done!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 08:34 AM

I have the teensiest, sneakiest of feelings, that Bonzo might be telling porky pies about 'slipped fingers' there!

Damn right he is! Bozo the Pedant messed up big time & was hoisted by his own rancid petard, thus endearing him to we pragmatists the world o'er, though I doubt he'll be getting much off Gervase under the mistletoe this year.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 08:00 AM

"I take it you mean 'pronUnciation'? ··· though why it should be so is admittedly one of those mysteries..."

I have the teensiest, sneakiest of feelings, that Bonzo might be telling porky pies about 'slipped fingers' there!
I've heard people speak it that way too - no doubt as an unthinking extension of pronOUnce.
Come clean Bonzo, you say 'pronOUnciation' the common oik way too, doncha? ;->

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 07:23 AM

"I take it you mean 'pronUnciation'?"

I certainly do, finger slipped on keyboard!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 07 Dec 09 - 02:53 AM

I do not doubt it, Gervase; I do not doubt it!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Gervase
Date: 06 Dec 09 - 05:08 PM

I prefer the vernacular dog's cock.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: GUEST,Suibhne (Astray)
Date: 06 Dec 09 - 03:09 PM

Touched a nerve have we SO?

Not all, Bozo - just you nearly made me throw up a very early breakfast yesterday morning with your ill-informed noxious class bigotry.

Pronounciation

Nice one, Bozo. It would seem that even you are prone to moments of genuinely touching pragmatism. I had a tear in my eye when I read that, though no doubt you'll be getting a thorough thrashing off your laugh-a-minute syncophantic sick-kick for that one!*

*Although unashamedly an ill-educated working-class lout myself, I know that the exclamation point derives from shorthand for the Latin Io - a word which is particularly apt in this most festive of seasons. Ordinary frowned upon, I will be making a particular point of using as many of these as seems reasonable in my Mudcat posts between now and Epiphany. But two will suffice for now. Io to you all!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 06 Dec 09 - 09:03 AM

I take it you mean 'pronUnciation'? ··· though why it should be so is admittedly one of those mysteries...

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 06 Dec 09 - 08:22 AM

It's interesting that most immigrants in Croydon have far better pronounciation of English than many English folks!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Gervase
Date: 05 Dec 09 - 09:11 AM

Shh! Sweeney has well-chipped shoulders.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 05 Dec 09 - 07:53 AM

Touched a nerve have we SO?

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 05 Dec 09 - 03:57 AM

What does that make you, Bonzo? You fuckwit.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 04 Dec 09 - 01:43 PM

Or worse - track suit bottoms class!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 04 Dec 09 - 11:51 AM

"the upper class twit of the year"

Well we have many working class twits of the year now, do we not??

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Acorn4
Date: 03 Dec 09 - 04:07 AM

Please?

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 02:12 PM

How about the other word?

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Acorn4
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 01:26 PM

Oh..."and if we think we're going to get promoted playing like this we're looking at the world through rose scented glasses!"

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Acorn4
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 11:28 AM

Football commentators English has a comedy value all of its own:-

"We're one nil up but can we stand this entourage they're throwing at us?"

"The ref's stopped the game so he can see what indiscrepancies have been committed!"

"The referee booked him after he scored - he just got a bit over exuberated!"

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: HuwG
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 10:02 AM

In my book, "dominant" = "fifth chord". However, that is by the by ...

The estuarine accent was common in English football (="soccer") circles about twenty years ago ("That was a beautifuw baw he passed, Michael"). I am convinced it was not an accent, but an affectation; it arrived from nowhere and for some time rivalled even the Bill Shankly growl punctuated by throat-clearings, which previously dominated managers', trainers' and pundits' speech patterns.

I found it to be quite as annoying as other affectations such as the upper class twit of the year's "I say, old chap", the industrial relations use of the word "situation" in every sentence and the emergency services' overuse of "male" and "female" instead of "man" and "woman". The use of this last baffles me. I can accept a stilted, formal style of speech where absolute clarity is required over a squelchy radio channel, but it is quite as easy to confuse "male" with "female" through heavy static as it is to mix up "man" and "woman".

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Smedley
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 08:07 AM

"Worreewi'erorworreewi'issenn ?"

North Nottinghamshire for "Was he with her or was he by himself ?".

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Acorn4
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 07:59 AM

Having lived in Leicester for the past 30 years or so, I've come to realise that the local lingo is probably the most economical anywhere in the English speaking world:-

"Ey up, mi duck, yergorrabirrabobonyershoe":-

trans:- I say, you appear to have acquired some canine excrement on your foot wear!

"Ey up, gerroffwiya, ah int gorroat!"

trans:- Kindly desist from touching my person, I do not possess what you are seeking!

"Aw ya, ah wonarf frit."

trans:- Really, I was extremely terrified!

Whilst doing a Victorian themed Christmas play at a school I worked at, the leading boy had to pick up a broken picture from the floor and say ;_

"It's a picture of a woman and a little girl!" (13 syllables) -

His first attempt at the line went:-

"Spishwumlilgal" (4 syllables)

We spent the next three weeks trying to restore the missing syllables:-

EAT YOUR HEART OUT, ESSEX!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 06:33 AM

That's rich coming from the man who wrote the OP!

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 02 Dec 09 - 06:18 AM

Dominant culture in the USA - rubbish, stinks of Hitler.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Smedley
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 05:45 PM

Dominant as in more powerful, not dominant as in superior.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 05:41 PM

I knew someone over there would question that.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 05:18 PM

"the dominant culture"

Is that really the right word?

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Gervase
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 03:59 PM

Newspapers follow the Associated Press Stylebook.
Not in Europe they don't!
The thread has been concerned with shibboleths in English rather than American English, so Strunk & White, although excellent, isn't relevant.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 03:26 PM

Fowler not much used in the dominant culture, the United States.
Fowler used in UK, Canada, don't know about Australia.

The Chicago Manual of Style is used for most non-journalistic writing in the United States. The most used style guide for the general public is Strunk and White, The Elements of Style.

Newspapers follow the Associated Press Stylebook.

Guides have been developed for specific fields of endeavor; these include grammar and language usage as well, e. g. Grant, Geoscience Reporting Guidelines.

Quoting from Wikipedia on style guides, "Fowler's Modern English Usage" ...report how language is practiced in a given area....

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 03:14 PM

And makes extremely interesting reading too.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Gervase
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 02:49 PM

Fowler pretty much sums up Standard English.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 01:51 PM

What is "Standard English"?
There are no rules.
English does not have a governance body such as the Spanish Real Academia Española or the French equivalent.
We are "taught." The teaching, however varies.

Is The Oxford English Dictionary followed in "Standard English"?

Certainly most people, even university educated, vary in usage. People who trumpet "Standard English" never make clear what they have in mind.

Grammar, perhaps, is the only common denominator, although there are a few variants here as well.

Words are not standardized. Most people in the UK write recognise rather than the OED recognize, vary in the use of napkin, use plural verbs with collectives, etc.
Pants in US and Canada means trousers; to most in the UK this means an undergarment. Vest, knickers and other words for personal attire have different meanings in the English-speaking sphere.

The dominant culture, American, has its own "lingua franca" and Australia, New Zealand, Canada, England, Scotland etc., have their own.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 12:58 PM

Gervase has summed it up very well in his penultimate post, I think.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Gervase
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 12:44 PM

Don't let the door hit your arse on the way out.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 11:26 AM

and these "people" are university students.

Time, I think, to exit this particular pedantic hell.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Gervase
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 11:25 AM

Consensus is all, and language can only ever evolve with respect of the collective, the culture of which is always evolving in and off itself, regardless of whatever absolutes & shibboleths we might set up along the way. These will pass away, as all things must in due course.
Very true, but you're not going to get a consensus when it comes to solecisms like 'should of', 'aks', 'pacifically'. We may be a social animal, but our societies are stratified. The demotic may spread (witness the Queen's English shifting from strict RP to estuarine since her accession) but it is hard to shift the basic building blocks which ar laid down and passed on by the 'ruling classes' for want of a better phrase.
So pronunciation changes are common - apart from Her Maj, there's the adoption of the rising terminal by British youngsters; whether from Aussie soaps or not I don't know - but changes in syntax and grammar are less common/
Writing and, more importantly, printing, have served to set 50,000 years of mutable, orally-transmitted language into a more rigid form. We are taught to write a certain way and, however laissez-faire the education system, that way is Standard English. Thus SE becomes the lingua franca, and those who don't speak and, more importantly, write SE, appear ignorant.

Subject: RE: BS: Victoriaaaaaar
From: Gervase
Date: 01 Dec 09 - 11:13 AM

You might think it's a pile of crap, but at least you can understand what I'm saying. That's the thing about Standard English - it helps to avoid misunderstanding.