BS:threat to English language from Americanisms

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 26 Jul 11 - 06:21 PM

Nigel, you know you're just playing with words; or, in this case, symbols.

But that doesn't bother me, because I have no proof that you even exist. All I know is that I do.

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 26 Jul 11 - 03:02 PM

No apo-STROPHE? What a cata-STROPHE !

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: autolycus
Date: 26 Jul 11 - 02:55 PM

Anyway, the discussion, by lack of further examples, shows that there is little for which there's universal etc. and so, REGARDING APOSTROPHES, disagreement remains not a reason for abandoning them - my main point.

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 26 Jul 11 - 11:53 AM

Some day, perhaps, though it's hard to imagine how, 2 + 2 might not equal 4. But even if that were to happen, and you were to notice it, that would prove you still existed.
2+2 is 11 (in base 3)

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 25 Jul 11 - 05:11 PM

> There isn't universal agreement about the nature of that 'you', nor of whether 'you's are thinking.

That's beside the point. We can (what that means is "should if we want to be logical") agree that "if you're thinking, you're existing" in one form or another. Even if that "you" is only some kind of deluded colony mind just west of Antares. Some "you" exists, no matter what.

Of course, since there's always someone who doesn't want to be, or can't be, logical, not even that statement is something "we all agree on."

It's just something that's undeniably true by any sane standard.

Mathematical statements are only slightly less undeniably true (or false). Some day, perhaps, though it's hard to imagine how, 2 + 2 might not equal 4. But even if that were to happen, and you were to notice it, that would prove you still existed.

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: autolycus
Date: 25 Jul 11 - 04:28 PM

The fact that different groups have differing opinions of the point or value of apostrophes is simply no reason at all for giving up on them. Especially as each group seems to sometimes have some sort of point.



Meanwhile, I'll stick to my view that there's next to nothig for which there's universal agreement.


One sentence isn't an area. Nevertheless:-

I don't think there actually is universal agreement on spelling of those words. [Never mind that perhaps wasn't the first word of the sentence.]

There are still people who think the Sun goes round the Earth, as their senses prove to them. Plus what Q said.

There isn't universal agreement about the nature of that 'you', nor of whether 'you's are thinking. Both of those are the kinds of arguments Descartes used for dismissing other proofs of our existence.

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 25 Jul 11 - 03:48 PM

Can't e all agree on this? (I paraphrase Descartes): "If you're thinking, you're existing."

Of course, it may not be "you," as you think of yourself, that's existing; the mind that "you" think is thinking might actually be something else entirely, like an imitation mind in a computer program a zillion years from now.

Nevertheless, that unfamiliar "you" would still be thinking, and you'd exist, even though you might be terribly deluded about who "you" really are. And if you're an imitation mind in a computer program, something else would obviously exist too - the computer and the code that programs you.

But as long as you're thinking, you're existing. Regardless of anything else.

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 25 Jul 11 - 03:23 PM

"Each morning the sun arises......"
NO !

North of the Arctic Circle, the sun doesn't rise for much of the winter. During the summer, .....

In the Antarctic, the sun hides during part of their winter. In summer, .....

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: Penny S.
Date: 25 Jul 11 - 12:10 PM

Each morning an observer on the Earth can see the Sun appear to rise...

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 25 Jul 11 - 12:09 PM

"perhaps could someone name one single area where there is universal agreement. "

...the spelling of every word in that sentence, but not the smallcase "p" in "perhaps."

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 25 Jul 11 - 11:45 AM

perhaps could someone name one single area where there is universal agreement.

Each morning the sun arises somewhere in the northeast-to-southeast quadrant of the horizon, although sometimes the view of it is obscured by clouds.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: autolycus
Date: 25 Jul 11 - 06:21 AM

"Why bother with apostrophes at all? As far as I am concerned they are a waste of time. Why not just drop it all together? That is not being sloppy just practical if no-one can agree."


1. They cl;arify meaning when used correctly.

2. "No-one can agree" doesn't actually make sense.

However, I'd point out that it isn't that there is no agreement [which is what "no-one can agree" seems to imply]. It's that there is disagreement among two or more groups. Within those groups, they agree; it's the the groups that disagree.

That situation obtains pretty well in every field.

We don't usually decide to abandon standards, practices, theories simply because we cannot get universal agreement. At best, like here, we discuss it.

Otherwise, perhaps could someone name one single area where there is universal agreement.

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 22 Jul 11 - 04:26 PM

c'est vrai.

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 22 Jul 11 - 12:29 AM

Why bother with apostrophes at all?

They distinguish possessives and plurals.

They show where letters are missing.

They protect us from frightening foreign words, such as solo's and   potato's. (They don't teach us that in school, but it's true.)

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 21 Jul 11 - 01:48 PM

The list of Shakespeare's 'first' is also skewed because it includes some words previously known but in a different tense. All such lists tend to be overly inclusive.

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 21 Jul 11 - 09:48 AM

You'll laugh. Years ago someone investigated the research of the Oxford English Dictionary in the nineteenth century and discovered that when the editors had to choose between a word in Shakespeare and the same word elsewhere from apparently the same year, they'd give priority to Shakespeare, presumably because he was smarter or classier.

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: MMario
Date: 21 Jul 11 - 09:25 AM

@songwriter

it would most likely be more accurate to say "Shakespeare is the first evidence we have of the use of these words" - that they are not found in any other WRITTEN material doesn't mean they were not in use prior to his writing them down.

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 21 Jul 11 - 09:10 AM

Our media now says something is "headed up" by someone instead of just "headed."
Why?
Indeed, why not just 'Led'?

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 21 Jul 11 - 03:29 AM

Our media now says something is "headed up" by someone instead of just "headed."
Why?

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 Jul 11 - 08:45 PM

Well, how 'bout that?

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: kendall
Date: 20 Jul 11 - 07:35 PM

How about people who start a sentence with: "Well"... Ronald Raygun did that.
How about those who start with: "I mean"...

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Jul 11 - 06:41 PM

,cough, rough, bough, though, through, thorough, thought ~~ don't look for logic in English spelling. Think of the famous foreigner who thought he knew English till he saw the poster which said "The Mousetrap, pronounced success": so he went away and shot himself,
MGM, That is hilarious

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 Jul 11 - 05:53 PM

Listened to Cameron and the question period last night. My dog wanted out at 4 AM.
Both Cameron and the gentleman who led the labo(u)r leader were good speakers, well versed in debating skills, with excellent command of the language. I was also impressed by the questions which were both barbed and brief.

I wish I could say the same of the peoples representatives in the Canadian Parliament and the American Congress, both act on me like a strong soporific.

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 Jul 11 - 02:32 PM

Some of the words amused me.
Everyone knows what is meant by two-timing gal, but double-timing gal would cause confusion.
Touch base probably is from baseball; players must touch base. I don't know what cricket players do.
Physicality appeared in print in 1593 (English writer). I don't recall hearing the word in speech.
Shopping cart- I always thought 'trolley' was something people ride on, as in the song, "clang, clang, clang, went the trolley."
Gotten, of course, is English, in print in 1340. Less used in UK, perhaps.

Most of the opinions seem based on personal preference, or failure to keep up with a changing language.

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: Will Fly
Date: 20 Jul 11 - 08:58 AM

Good one, Nigel - LOL! (That's Laughed Out Loud in internet English)




Or should I've said (Thats...)



Or should Ive said


(Get's c'oat)

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 20 Jul 11 - 08:28 AM

Drop apostrophes?
The religious cant!

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 20 Jul 11 - 08:13 AM

Why bother with apostrophes at all? As far as I am concerned they are a waste of time. Why not just drop it all together? That is not being sloppy just practical if no-one can agree.

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 20 Jul 11 - 08:03 AM

Doesn't Murdoch publish a lot of those papers these complaints appear in?

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: Dave MacKenzie
Date: 20 Jul 11 - 07:59 AM

Personally, I blame the English.

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: kendall
Date: 20 Jul 11 - 07:58 AM

I use shopping cart, and period. I also pronounce Z as zee.
Most of the others I agree with.Yes I ended a sentence with a preposition. So purge me.

You've got, or we've got drives me batty!
a half an hour also.

To the Brit living in NY, get used to it. As George Bush said, "When in Rome, do as Romanians do."

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 20 Jul 11 - 07:48 AM

That list from the BBC is fascinating for several reasons.

A lot of them don't seem to be Americanisms—they are never, or rarely, used over here. For example: "oftentimes." An American professor complained about that very word, but he thought it was a Britishism! (See my quote above.)

You British do have a tendency to blame America for everything that the British people do to their own language.

"Least worst option"? I've never heard it!

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: kendall
Date: 20 Jul 11 - 07:48 AM

When I was on the job we were expected to memorize the Miranda warning. Otherwise you look like a child trying to speak a piece in a school play. We also had to memorize the 4th amendment to graduate Treasury School of law enforcement and criminal investigation.

Spaw, maybe you already know this, but "allotment" in this country is used in the military. That is the part of your pay that goes to your family.

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 20 Jul 11 - 04:36 AM

I remember Slough when it was Bucks.
BBC has put up a list of 50 most hated Amercanisms.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14201796

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 19 Jul 11 - 04:33 PM

>That hardly means that one version is 'better' or 'more correct' than the other.

Not necessarily "better." But one could be.

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: artbrooks
Date: 19 Jul 11 - 02:55 PM

I think there are three - or is it four - threads currently going on essentially the same topic.

It all reminds me of two CDs I got a few years ago: Song Links v1 and v2. Mudcat was one of the production sponsors. These are collections of English songs and their Australian (v1) and American (v2) variants. Songs, and language, change over time. That hardly means that one version is 'better' or 'more correct' than the other.

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: autolycus
Date: 19 Jul 11 - 12:38 PM

"The only threat to the English or any other language is to stifle its growth."

That's from one end of the spectrum.

The threat from the other is to fail to maintain standards of comprehensibility in the dash for growth; and to fail to maintain a knowledge and sense of our language's history. To do that is to help make it coherent and understandable.

The other danger of letting language grow unchecked is worsening meaning, so that, like Alice in Wonderland, words mean whatever the speaker wants them to mean; not much use to listeners/readers.

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: Stu
Date: 19 Jul 11 - 12:26 PM

LH - yer Toby Jugs, earhole.

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Jul 11 - 12:21 PM

Whit d' ye mean when ye sae "lughole"?

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: GUEST,Stringsinger
Date: 19 Jul 11 - 10:43 AM

As to the economy of expression (which may be a red-herring) in Anglicized language, I use Dave Barry's opening reaction paraphrasing
an assent often used by Americans, "You bet your ass!" to be "I rather jolly well quite should say!" Both are equally expressive and reflect national differences.
    Language is fluid and the French have railed in vain against "Franglais". Slang often cuts to the chase when formalized convention is mired in muddy verbiage. Language, a form of music, is never limited, and to force an analogy here, one kind of music doesn't preclude the value of another. Does jazz or rock vitiate classical music?
   The only threat to the English or any other language is to stifle its growth. I have a vague concern that this perceived "threat" to the English language may have something to do with the agenda of the BNP.

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: Stu
Date: 19 Jul 11 - 03:27 AM

"Cockney, being the language of the working folks these days"

What!!! Only in the East me old china. Tell the working folks of Brum or Manchester that cockney's the language of the working folks and you'd get a right load of verbal down yer lug 'ole.

Aye lad, up north there's nowt clever about talkin' chuffin' cockney which is what them poncey southerners speak to look reet workin' class wiout actually bein' workin' class if thee catches that. Mithersome lot them are.

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Jul 11 - 02:37 AM

When we go to the town of Slough, Berkshire, it rhymes with "now". The muddy patch is pronounced the same as that over here, rather than 'sloo'.

~M~

cough, rough, bough, though, through, thorough, thought ~~ don't look for logic in English spelling. Think of the famous foreigner who thought he knew English till he saw the poster which said "The Mousetrap, pronounced success": so he went away and shot himself...

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: artbrooks
Date: 19 Jul 11 - 01:03 AM

That's a whole slew of stuff, there.

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: Ebbie
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 11:19 PM

A snake periodically sloughs (sluffs) its skin. I go down to the slough (sloo) when I want to see mud.

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: John P
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 09:10 PM

The differences between English English and American English is one of the enduring pleasures of my life. Why should anyone want to do anything about it? If Americanisms are creeping into English speech, it just means they are becoming part of English English.

I think advertisements and CorporateSpeak are a bigger threat. "Lite" is widely used and always painful. Any word with a capital letter in the middle of it is stupid. Texting language is useful for texting, I suppose, but really bad for any other form of written communication.

I have to admit to getting thoroughly tired of the "ough" words, though. I mean, enough is enough. If "enough" is pronounced "enuf", why isn't "though" pronounced "thuf"? Keeping track of this stuff is really tough. Keeping track of this stough is really tuff! And what is the REAL pronunciation of "slough"?

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 07:31 PM

Here's an article by an American professor of English who deplores (among other things) "a boom in Britishisms" amongst among his students:

...not only the weirdly popular "amongst," but also "amidst," "whilst"—I actually have gotten that more than once in assignments—and "oftentimes." (In a parallel move, the stretched-out and unpleasant "off-ten" has become a vogue pronunciation among youth, as has "eye-ther.") In spelling, "grey" has taken over from the previously standard "gray." I haven't seen "labour" yet, but the day is young....

You might also enjoy the responses at the bottom of the column.

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 06:26 PM

"standard caution"- nothing said about that.
My comment referred solely to ".... standard, recogni(s)ed English English spelling."; which is gobbledygook.
Not worth further comment.

[Is this expression also known in UK?- not worth the dew off my dong]

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 05:57 PM

NO,if anyone listened to the programme[not program],they would have heard his punchline,use the British 2 fingers

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: GUEST,ripov
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 05:33 PM

Nowt wrong with ayyup. Nor nesh nor mardy (except if you're the person being described). But does anyone know where the apostrophe(s?) goes in costna?

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: olddude
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 05:22 PM

OK but the big question is, when I drive on the highway, I get a lot of people who give me the middle finger. Does that mean the same in the various dialects? That is, have a nice day LOL

Subject: RE: BS:threat to English language from Americanisms
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Jul 11 - 05:06 PM

Is the expression "Ayyyyy-yup!" counted among these threats? And what about "Yo!"?